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Timber is the popular kid. It’s still the most widely-used framing method in U.S. residential housing.

But its days as a building material are coming to an end. Here are six reasons why and what will likely replace it.

Concrete is a pour substitute.

For home foundations, that is.

Concrete slabs can crack, slide, break, and leach.

Plus, concrete has a gnarly carbon footprint. 

And working with concrete is messy. Have you ever tried to get dried concrete off work pants?

We have enough.

Energy.gov says the amount of sunlight that strikes our big blue planet’s surface in 90 minutes could handle the entire world’s energy consumption for a whole year.

Harnessing that power is another matter. But we’re getting there.

With solar power costs dropping and federal incentives rising, now’s a good time for sunnier thoughts, like saying yes to residential solar power.

“We’re getting worse at construction.”

That’s the opening line of a recent New York Times op-ed.

They point out that a construction worker in 2020 was less productive than her 1970 counterpart. They then contrast that fact with the labor productivity of the overall economy, which grew by 290 percent in the last forty years.

Residents in Far North Queensland are no strangers to cyclones. The big storms roll in from the Coral Sea all the time.

But Cyclone Monica, which barrelled across the Cape York Peninsula in 2006 was different.

Let’s cut to the chase: traditional homebuilding is broken.

Like stick-built construction debris, the evidence has been piling up for years.

In homebuilding, you know that it’s possible to screw up the foundation. But did you know you could screw in the foundation, too?

Homebuilders have a few options for foundations. Concrete may be the most common type in U.S. residential housing, but it’s got some serious issues.

Like any industry, homebuilding is full of terms that can confuse newcomers (“balusters,” anyone?). We want to untangle it all for first-time buyers (and everyone else, too).

After all, in terms of importance, a home is way up near the top of the list of lifetime buys. It should be a fun choice to make, not a mystery to solve.

In the old-school approach to building, one single-family home requires the work of many different hands. 

Forty-four of them, to be exact.

As any homebuilder can attest, big numbers can sometimes lead to big headaches.

We’d like to tell you that a Momo home will arrive at your jobsite fully built. 

That all you have to do is roll the home into place, tighten a few screws, and buff the front-door handle. 

But we’d be lying.