>you don't have large firms that can exploit economies of scale.
There are also diseconomies of scale in residential construction, partly for reasons described in the original post. Having many layers of management is inefficient when you're dealing with work that involves a lot of customization and homeowner input.
>Despite being around for decades, most contractors still use copper.
No, they don't. Pex is ubiquitous in single-family and smaller multifamily construction now. Copper is used in larger and nonresidential projects where the plumbing codes require it. The idea that professional plumbers and homebuilders haven't heard the news yet that Pex is cheaper is silly.
I was thinking the same thing, I live in a booming part of the US with dozens of home builders putting up tract housing everywhere you turn, and I’d be astounded if a single one of them used copper plumbing. Everything is Pex around here, even on custom 1M+ builds.
Maybe for someone who never sees the inside of the walls it's easy to be fooled. Where I live, the typical construction uses pex everywhere up to the point where it goes through the drywall, at which point it switches to copper. So if you only ever see the house with all the drywall up, you could be fooled into thinking the pipes are all copper, instead of just the nubs where the valves are installed.
There are also diseconomies of scale in residential construction, partly for reasons described in the original post. Having many layers of management is inefficient when you're dealing with work that involves a lot of customization and homeowner input.
>Despite being around for decades, most contractors still use copper.
No, they don't. Pex is ubiquitous in single-family and smaller multifamily construction now. Copper is used in larger and nonresidential projects where the plumbing codes require it. The idea that professional plumbers and homebuilders haven't heard the news yet that Pex is cheaper is silly.