Top all-time · #875
Brian Potter
Personal blog · constructionphysics.substack.comeconomicsbusiness
Brian Potter writes Construction Physics, a personal blog at constructionphysics.substack.com about economics and business. Since 2020, 77 different Hacker News readers have linked it 137 times, most often “Another Day in Katerradise”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Essays about buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. Click to read Construction Physics, by Brian Potter, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Another Day in Katerradise5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-06-09
- Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-06-09
- /4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-11-18
- Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-07-01
- Why are there so few economies of scale in construction? Part I4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-08-26
- How the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Works3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-08-19
- Is there a housing shortage or not?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-05-12
- The ups and downs of automated code checking software3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-05-28
- Where are the robotic bricklayers?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-08-03
- The Rise and Fall of the Manufactured Home – Part I3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-07-15
What Hacker News says?
Construction has to be something like one the most common and universal of human occupations, you can surely find heaps of documentation. That being said, the actual techniques used tend to be localized and adapted to specific local conditions, available materials, geography and climate, labor cost etc. There isn't one standard way of going about it, you always learn the local Community of practice [1]. If you are l…
Comment linking /p/building-complexity-and-the-construction
on “Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment”Submitted How to design a house to last 1000 years as a story · 594 points
HN discussionTransportation costs seem high: > It’s difficult to ship lumber overseas cost effectively: lumber is (or was) one of the least expensive materials on the planet. At $300 per 1000 board feet (the average price over the last 25 years), a 20 foot shipping container holds just $4500 worth of material. The cost of transporting a container across the ocean is $1700 dollars or more. https://constructionphysics.substack.com…
Comment linking /p/lumber-price-faq
on “Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater”Submitted Where are the robotic bricklayers? as a story · 452 points
HN discussionHere’s an interesting analysis of shortage: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/is-there-a-housin... I like the comment: “I think one of the problems in this discussion is that the word ‘shortage’ doesn't have a clear meaning. If gas is $6 a gallon, should we say there is a shortage of gas? If I get stuck in traffic on the way to work, can I say there is a shortage of roads? If I have to park 4 blocks away fr…
Comment linking /p/is-there-a-housing-shortage-or-not
on “How This Ends”Submitted Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? as a story · 352 points
HN discussionThis sub stack has some great coverage of those questions: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-its-hard-to-i...
Comment linking /p/why-its-hard-to-innovate-in-construction
on “How This Ends”Submitted Why wood has gotten so dang expensive as a story · 281 points
HN discussionA somewhat less meandering explanation for the modern dominance of balloon framing, which also draws parallels to software development: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/balloon-framing-i...
Comment linking /p/balloon-framing-is-worse-is-better
on “So you want to build a house more efficiently”Submitted How much do construction costs matter to the price of housing? as a story · 197 points
HN discussionThis article suggests nuclear costs will go down as long as regulations are not changed mid-construction, or if grandfathering is allowed. https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-nuclear-p...
Comment linking /p/why-are-nuclear-power-construction
on “Saskatchewan, Ontario to roll out mini-nuclear reactors”Submitted Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy as a story · 172 points
HN discussionThe substack Construction Physics has an excellent overview of the now 100 year failed promise of modular building and the eternal cycles of the exact same value props being pitched in ambitious efforts to reform construction and why conventional construction has refused to be disrupted. Some great posts are: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/building-componen... https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/o…
Comment linking /p/broad-group-part-ii
on “Modular Homes for Under $50k”Submitted The Rise and Fall of the Manufactured Home – Part I as a story · 158 points
HN discussionhttps://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/folding-at-home Good recent summary on state of foldable construction.
Comment linking /p/folding-at-home
on “Modular Homes for Under $50k”Submitted Is there a housing shortage or not? as a story · 107 points
HN discussionMight be nitpicking here: Referring to the pie charts under this section[1], I can't help but think images like this are intentionally meant to mislead: [1] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-nuclear-p... I understand author picked it from some other source, Dawson 2017 or whatever. These pie charts are not like for like, when it includes the renewables -- maybe the coal/gas/nuclear fine. So why put…
Comment linking /p/why-are-nuclear-power-construction?s=r
on “Why are nuclear power construction costs so high?”Submitted Why are there so few economies of scale in construction? Part I as a story · 95 points
HN discussionThe Construction Physics substack is a great source of knowledge for both historic and current experiments in construction methods. https://constructionphysics.substack.com/archive
Comment linking /archive
on “Ask HN: What hyper-focused industry newsletters do you enjoy?”Submitted An overview of concrete forming technology as a story · 89 points
HN discussion>Using US houses as an example is quite laughable, the energy consumptions of US households is much higher than German ones. It's an extremely heterogeneous dataset, but a cursory analysis does not agree: Germany: 136 kWh/m^2 https://bpie.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/iBROAD_CountryFac... US: 47000 Btu/ft^2 — because we like dumb units — 148 kWh/m^2 https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/looking-at-energy... Tha…
Comment linking /p/looking-at-energy-use-in-us-residential?s=r
on “Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open”Submitted Facit Homes, Wikihouse, and the Plywood Frame as a story · 87 points
HN discussionAutomating house renovation or even house building is a challenge which will take a few decades more. Some trouble of bricklayer automation described in today's HN: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/where-are-the-rob...
Comment linking /p/where-are-the-robotic-bricklayers
on “GitHub Copilot is ‘unacceptable and unjust,’ says Free Software Foundation”Submitted Lessons from shipbuilding productivity as a story · 85 points
HN discussion> Fixing up homes is very inefficient and usually done by mom and pops. This doesn't ipso-facto make it inefficient. There's evidence that construction does not become meaningfully more efficient with scale [1]. At GIGANTIC scales, you're looking at maybe 10% savings. And these scales are quite rare in the US & the EU - mostly only happening in Asia. True, on the largest investment of most people's lives - 10% is so…
Comment linking /p/why-are-there-so-few-economies-of
on “Redfin cuts 13% of staff, shuts down home-flipping business”Submitted Where do economies of scale come from? Part II as a story · 66 points
HN discussionPossibly of interest: How NEPA Works https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/how-nepa-works As I understand it (and all I know is what I read there), completing an environmental impact statement means that environmental impacts have been considered and documented in a way that is hopefully secure against lawsuits claiming that an environmental impact review hasn't been done. (But you never know what people will s…
Comment linking /p/how-nepa-works
on “High-speed rail board completes environmental clearance in northern California”Submitted The Evolution of Indoor Climate as a story · 63 points
HN discussion>the technology available for building them have improved since then Broadly, construction is the singular industry where productivity hasn't improved with modern technology. https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/sketch-of-a-theor...
Comment linking /p/sketch-of-a-theory-of-construction
on “Why are nuclear power construction costs so high? Part III – the nuclear navy”Submitted Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant? as a story · 60 points
HN discussion
