Archive:000/Housing/footprint

How many resources does it take for people to have housing?

This is a page for some estimates.

Single-detached home

Note: This is the footprint of only the construction of the house. (...)( will later include heating, electricity, and maintenance renovations )

• For other footprints of living in the suburbs (i.e. car driving and its infrastructure), see suburbs/footprint.
• For utilities infrastructure, see water/footprint, electricity/footprint, and internet/footprint.

Labor

We could estimate labor by looking at some costs:

• labor costs, obviously
• material costs, because these generally reflect the labor that goes into producing the materials

We don't want to count other costs:

• zoning permits and other bureaucracy - maybe these exist in our current society but they don't have to exist fundamentally - there are probably much more efficient & fair ways to make decisions about housing (or at least, the process could do without bullshit jobs) - so we leave this out.
• land value - this depends on the location and it isn't a reflection of labor requirements. Also we will calculate land in another section anyway. So here we leave this out too.

Housing costs have gone up recently, but this is more a function of demand rather than any inherent increase in the amount of labor needed to build a house.

Quick estimate: How many labor hours go into a house:

house.typical_price_before_covid

400000 $

typical_wages_before_covid

18 $/hour

Average wage of workers in construction, materials production, and other relevant trades

what_fraction_of_costs_reflect_labor

70%

The percentage of costs that fit into the categories we care about (mentioned above)

house.typical_price_before_covid * what_fraction_of_costs_reflect_labor / typical_wages_before_covid hours house.rq_labor (calculation loading)

How about labor over time:

family.size

4 people

house.lifespan

80 years

house.rq_labor / house.lifespan / family.size hours/week per capita (calculation loading)

Shockingly low. Did I get something wrong?

Land

For one, there's the land that the house sits on: Quick estimate:

house.lot_size

7200 square(feet)

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-size-of-a-lot-in-suburbia-If-you-dont-know-the-average-what-is-the-size-of-a-lot-where-you-lived-or-live-in-a-suburban-setting

house.size

2600 square(feet)

house.lot_size (calculation loading)

But also the land that it takes to grow the wood for the house:

board_foot

(1/12) ft^3

Weird unit but ok.

house.wood_volume

16380 board_foot

Amount of wood in a typical house

wood.density

0.8 g/cm^3

For converting between wood mass and wood volume

tree_farm.productivity

10 tons/hectare/year

Wood yield of a typical "tree farm" forest

Agroforestry Carbon Sequestrationhttps://www.sustainably.run/co2-verification
tree plantations of pine and eucalyptus can sequester an average of 10 tons of carbon per hectare per year.

If we assume that half of this carbon is in the tree wood (the other half being in leaves and roots), and if we assume that 50% of the mass of wood is carbon atoms, then: This means 10 tons of wood per hectare per year.

house.wood_volume * wood.density / house.lifespan / tree_farm.productivity (calculation loading)

If you have some idea how to estimate the land footprint of other materials, please start the 💬 discussion discussion. For now, let's hopefully assume it's small enough to ignore.

General

The following calculations are based on US home energy stats that don't distinguish between the type of dwelling but distinguish between the type of energy use:

usa.population

336997624

Using stat from 2021

usa.home_electricity

1519 billion kilowatt hours / year

Electricity used in all USA homes

How is electricity used in U.S. homes?
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=96&t=3
Stats from 2021.

"Total consumption"

usa.misc_residential_electricity

901 billion kilowatt hours / year

Electricity not used for heating nor cooling

How is electricity used in U.S. homes?
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=96&t=3
Stats from 2021.

"Total consumption" minus "space cooling", "space heating", and "water heating".

usa.home_air_cooling_electricity

235 billion kilowatt hours / year

Electricity used for cooling the air in homes (i.e. air conditioning)

How is electricity used in U.S. homes?
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=96&t=3
Stats from 2021.

"space cooling"

usa.home_air_heating_electricity

207 billion kilowatt hours / year

Electricity used for heating the air in homes

How is electricity used in U.S. homes?
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=96&t=3
Stats from 2021.

"space heating"

usa.home_water_heating_electricity

176 billion kilowatt hours / year

Electricity used for making hot water (in pipes) in homes

How is electricity used in U.S. homes?
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=96&t=3
Stats from 2021.

"water heating"

usa.misc_residential_electricity / usa.population watts per capita (calculation loading) The USA is known to be an energy-hungry country with a big carbon footprint. But when looking at only home electricity use, not including for heating and cooling, the energy demand is actually quite modest.