The time has come for new siding on our house, building in 1968 and under constant attack from New England weather, carpenter bees, etc. The architect said that one option was wood with a natural finish: “looks beautiful but it needs to be refinished every three years of so.” What does that cost? He estimated $4000. I replied “With the new minimum wage law and Obamacare health insurance cost increases for employers, that will be $8000 soon enough. What’s the alternative?” He suggested fiber cement siding, which looks like wood but the color is built in and it will probably never need to be touched again. Decision: HardiePanel Vertical Siding in the Select Cedarmill texture (not sure on color yet). Supposedly it costs slightly more to install because the material is hard to cut, but it will save perhaps $130,000 in maintenance over the next 50 years.
Readers: In what other unexpected ways can labor be cut from the U.S. economy in response to these new laws and regulations? (unexpected = not robots or touch-screen tablets for ordering at restaurants)
Example 1: Buy a new imported $130 bike instead of paying $60 for a repair that used to cost $45.
Example 2: Gutters with covers to keep out leaves instead of paying people to come once/year and clean out the gutters. (Suggesting the iRobot Looj
Example 3: More cruise holidays on ships of international registry with international crews rather than holidays in the U.S. in hotels staffed with Americans and under U.S. labor regulations.
Related:
I suggest Boothbay Blue.
Or Countrylane Red, if you need to lean on that side of the color wheel.
Of course, for the building trades, this is a continuing evolution of loss of skills (or labor being priced out of reach) and the subsequent development of alternative building technologies. Wallboard (sheetrock, gypsum board, whatever you want to call it) was a way to eliminate the need for skilled plastering labor. Asphalt shingles are cheaper than slate, but more importantly they can be installed by an idiot and still keep out the rain.
We can’t seem to get rid of plumbers, which is too bad. It feels like it should be possible, but it never happens.
A lot more labor moving to the grey or black side of the market. This is already the case with childcare/daycare, but it’s going to get even worse and uglier if the $15/hr wage hits the childcare industry because so many women rely on grey or black alternatives already. And as for the striving middle class and upper middle class women who do pay full freight, it could still force their hands too, as fancy childcare goes from 1500/month to 2500/month per child, no discounts for having a second.
Another side effect there might be Swedenification of American female labor, in which all the immigrants working center-based daycare in disproportionate numbers get kicked out in favor of hiring native-born American women with degrees to watch each other’s kids instead for the new higher legal wages.
Regarding Hardie board, this really is a durable material. There are a lot of older houses around with the previous version of this stuff which is known as “asbestos siding” – the fibers used to be asbestos instead of whatever they use now (glass?) and it lasts essentially forever. It’s waterproof, fireproof, bug proof, etc. – after the nuclear war all that will be left will be cockroaches and Hardie board. The fibers act as reinforcement because otherwise a thin plank of cement would be too brittle and would crack.
It’s one weakness is that it is still brittle so that if there is an impact (ladder falling, workman trying to drill a hole for wires, etc. the stuff tends to chip and years later it is hard to repair the damaged section. Every older house that I have seen has either chips which makes the building look as if it has chipped teeth, or else sections have been replaced and they don’t quite match. At a minimum, make sure you keep some extra in case it is needed for future repairs – it will be impossible to match years later when they change the fake grain pattern or thickness, etc.
My objection to the stuff is that it is a “faux” material – cement pretending to be wood. If I was going to cover my house in cement I would just go whole hog and stucco the house (even though this is not the New England style). In fact my house was originally a wood shingle house that was stuccoed over (by the prior owners). Stucco is cement not pretending to be something other than cement so it is an honest material. I am referring here to real 3-coat cement stucco, not “synthetic stucco” or “dryvit” which is another Frankenstein material.
Labor substitution – a lot has been done already. TV, radio and small appliance repair are lost arts – these items are all considered disposable. If you look at Consumer Report’s “repair or replace” recommendations for large appliances, these are surprisingly short. Personally I try to keep these things going myself – if you have to replace a $50 part that you buy online instead of paying a $200 service call that changes the economics.
You could replace your lawn with astro-turf.
Look for more prefabricated types of construction.
If Starbucks latte is $10 due to high wages, you could buy your own superauto machine instead of having the highly paid drones at *$ push the button on the superauto in the shop.
A lot of restaurants will switch to “takeout shop” type format instead of sit down operation.
Disposable clothing – not. Maybe disposable underwear.
Lowest maintenance color is white. Other colors will sun fade to different shades and replaced sections will be very noticeable.
I have been encouraging the young folks I come across to look seriously at robotics and automation. Figure out what job today you can replace with a robot. Train a robotic arm to make sandwiches or pizzas or take care of plants at big box store. $15/hour minimum wage guarantees job opportunities in many areas.
OK that last suggestion violated your rule, sorry just caught that. Cutting hair is a pretty simple ordeal at least for a man. Easy enough to cut your own hair but perhaps better if we go back to the days when someone in the family or neighborhood did it. Uber will likely begin to hit upon some of these areas.
I’d look to Norway to see how an economy with extremely high labour costs functions (or not, e.g. a typical men’s haircut is about $60-80).
James Hardie is still in business? I thought they’d gone bankrupt with all the asbestos compensation.
We installed HardiePlank (green) in ~2005. Same thinking – low maintenance, won’t have to paint it. As I look at how it has worn over the years, it is clear that we’ll have to paint it in the next year or so. Could be we were early adopters, or had a bad batch, I suppose.
Any job that does not require creativity and some basic decision making skills, is not worth more than $10 an hour in today’s market. Sadly, or by means of economical structure, there are a lot of such jobs and no robot will replace them because people are cheaper to do those jobs (look outside the US).
When the US, UK, Spain, and other nations had slavery [1] they “imported” man power to do the none creative work. Today, we simply “export” the work thanks to trade laws, super size tankers, Suez canal, and Panama canal to name some.
Back to your home siding question: I have vineyard grove siding on my home (completely re-done 7 years ago). If they are properly installed, they will last for a very long time before needing any repairs. On my investment proper, I have what @Izzie described and it is now over 80 years old and it still looks like new and solid (but I had to patch several areas after buying the property because the previous owner didn’t look after it). Get a lighter color for the reason that @Dom gave.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery
The bike analogy doesn’t match the siding case… Choosing a bike that will need less maintenance over the next 50 years would be more along the same lines. In that case, the older bike would make more sense since the Huffy will not last.
philg, have you ever SEEN this bike? It is even uglier than the picture. I have a 40 yr old 5-speed Schwinn with one of the first derailleurs sold in the US, still pedaling 4 to 10 miles every morning and has required almost zero maintenance, tho it cost $275 in 1975. I’m suggesting buying a bit upscale; you’ll still be ahead.
Other disruptions: online optical sites, zip cars, ryanair in europe, your beloved Robinson helo (saw one flying sightseers on the beach yesterday, probably five takeoffs/landings per hour, a real pounding), blow-molded kayaks (dirt cheap and absolutely lethal fishing platforms), electric training aircraft – eventually cross country too
The chances are pretty good that you will have to paint Hardie board eventually, esp. the darker colors. But they take paint very well and a properly done paint job should last a long time. Much longer than on wood. Paint failures are often caused by moisture in the substrate. Since the Hardie board doesn’t absorb water it won’t cause the paint to fail.
Every company that (formerly) made asbestos products faced huge claims as a result and most went bankrupt. I think Hardie avoided bankruptcy by some sort of clever restructuring (the fact that they were not US based helped) but still had to pay out a lot in claims.
I think the mine has just about run dry as most of the people who are going to get mesothelioma from asbestos already have, but at one time “mesothelioma settlement” was the most expensive Google Adword (something like $140/click). This is a disease that has sickened and killed many, but has provided untold riches to the legal community.