3. The Problem With Traditional Construction

The problem with traditional construction

Traditional building systems look clean on drawings, but on real projects they create avoidable risk, cost, and performance failures. The core issue is not technology. It is the delivery process.

Electrical installations follow the same flawed logic. When electrics are designed late and assembled manually on site, they become tightly coupled to improvised layouts, congested ceilings and shifting interfaces. This makes electrical work a recurring source of rework, coordination errors and performance risk rather than a predictable system.

Most projects are still designed late, assembled manually, and coordinated by multiple subcontractors on crowded sites. The result is unpredictable performance, rising energy use, and buildings that cost far more to operate than expected.

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3. The Problem with Traditional Construction pdf

Late design decisions create chaos on site

In most projects, installations are treated as something to fit in after layouts are approved. By the time engineers join, bathrooms may be scattered, risers misplaced, and ceilings too full to carry all the services.
This forces teams into constant rerouting, cutting, patching, and improvisation.

The consequences are clear

Delays caused by out of sequence work
Cost overruns through rework and change orders
Disputes because responsibility is unclear
Weaker inspection quality and hidden defects
Higher risk because skilled installers are scarce

Once this happens, no amount of site management can fully recover the design intent.

Centralised architecture concentrates failure and risk

Central systems appear tidy on paper. One plant room. A few risers. One heart for the whole building.
In practice, this creates a single point of failure.

One issue becomes everyone’s problem

A pump fault can affect an entire riser
• A leaking pipe can spread moisture across multiple floors
• A blocked valve creates hot and cold spots across apartments
• Investigations regularly cost fifty to one hundred thousand kronor

Commissioning becomes a balancing act where small errors ripple through the whole building, and tenants experience fragile, inconsistent comfort from day one.

Energy waste is baked into circulation systems

In centralised hot water systems, water must circulate constantly to stay warm.
This means energy is lost every hour of every day, even when nobody is using hot water.

The hidden losses

• Twenty to thirty percent of hot water energy lost in circulation
• Higher supply temperatures required to reach the last apartment
• Pumps running continuously
• Insulation that slows losses but cannot eliminate them

These losses grow more expensive every year as energy prices rise, turning circulation into a permanent financial penalty.

Fragmented contracting drives claims, delays and margin stacking

Typical projects split installations into several contracts.

Electrical work is particularly affected by this fragmentation. Without standardised interfaces and plug and play connections, electricians are forced to adapt continuously to late changes made by other trades. This turns connection into troubleshooting and increases both time pressure and error rates on site.On site, these boundaries blur. Plumbers, electricians, and ventilation teams work in the same tight zones.
Responsibility disputes multiply.

The results

• Delays as trades wait for each other
• Rework as systems clash in ceilings and shafts
• Claims because nobody wants to own problems
• Costs inflated by multiple layers of subcontractor margins
• Site managers forced to firefight instead of leading

Prefab bathrooms help logistics, but they do not fix the underlying system complexity.

Small installation errors can cripple performance

Centralised systems are unforgiving. A single misconnected coil or poorly balanced valve can undermine the entire building’s heating, ventilation, or hot water delivery.

Electrical misconnections and late interface errors often remain hidden until commissioning or occupancy, making them costly to correct and difficult to trace once the building is in use.

Typical outcomes

• Cold apartments at the ends of loops
• Long waits for hot water
• Hot and cold temperature swings
• Moisture issues hidden in shafts
• Investigations costing fifty to one hundred thousand kronor

By the time tenants complain, the building is already occupied, making repairs slow, expensive, and reputation damaging.

Operations become a long term burden

Centralised systems require constant balancing, servicing, and investigation.
Every issue affects multiple homes.
Every repair risks a building wide shutdown.
Every fault tracing event becomes invasive and expensive.

Owners inherit decades of unpredictable operating costs and technical anxiety.
Tenants lose trust when comfort is inconsistent.

Centralisation wastes space and restricts architecture

Large shafts. Oversized plant rooms. Dropped ceilings.
Centralised systems eat valuable floor area and force repetitive layouts.

The result

• Lost sellable area
• Lower ceiling heights
• More rigid floorplans
• Less design flexibility
• Lower project value

Even prefabricated bathrooms cannot solve this. The system topology stays the same.

The market often believes decentralisation is too new for Sweden

In reality, decentralised apartment level systems are already mainstream across Europe.
Over eighty percent of new apartments in the Netherlands use them.
Germany is rapidly moving the same way.

What feels new in Sweden is not unproven. It is simply under adopted.
The risk is not in the technology. The real risk is staying with outdated methods.

What it means

Traditional construction concentrates risk, multiplies cost, and locks buildings into decades of inefficiency.
The industry needs early clarity, distributed resilience, stable lifecycle costs, and predictable performance.

That requires a new model and this is exactly what Ekonod delivers.