Why people thought steel houses were a good idea

It was supposed to be the future of housing. What went wrong?

Why aren’t homes made of steel? In the late 1940s, one company posed that question. Lustron was a prefabricated home that was supposed to be the future of housing. So why did it fail?

For just a few years — 1947 to 1950 — the Columbus, Ohio-based Lustron represented the future of housing. Using a steel frame and porcelain enamel-covered steel panels, Lustron made homes in a factory and shipped them around the country.

Vox’s Phil Edwards visited a Lustron home just outside Dayton, Ohio, to experience the unusual features, like magnetic walls, for himself. This home’s quirks weren’t relegated to the materials. Through a combination of government funding sources, an attempt to reinvent the production cycle for home, and a unique distribution plan, the Lustron home helps explain how housing does — and doesn’t — work in America.

Further reading:

Tom Fetters’s book, The Lustron Home, is packed full of charts, graphs, original letters, and a clear and concise history of the company’s successes and failures.

Suburban Steel, Douglas Knerr’s look at Lustron, covers similar ground, but with more of an eye toward government drama and the complexities of public funding for a private business.

Located in Columbus, the Ohio History Connection has a reconstructed Lustron as an exhibit. They also have online resources including the linked instruction manual.

The Whitehall Historical society writes here about their reconstruction of a Lustron home.

If you want to stay in a Lustron, you can. These are just a few of the Lustrons available on vacation sites like Airbnb and VRBO (including Barbara Rose’s home in West Alexandria).

[PracticalEngineeringChannel]

Oh man. Those cuts from Phil standing in different spots in the house to the same perspective in the ad images are so good! It helps show how difficult these homes were to modify.

[anthonykidd]

I have worked on one of these homes before as an electrician. Makes you wish every house came with a manual like the Lustron homes.

[amlukewarm]

Steel houses in the U.S. may be forgotten and failed, However it’s still amazingly interesting how much different infrastructure veers from all around the globe and how houses and buildings all have a unique feeling too them depending on the place.

[vawest]

My brother bought a steel shed for farm equipment and made it a tiny house, they still make steel structures, they're just not sold as homes. You can live in them, cell phones still work, you can insulated them like a regular house and everything, the outside is exposed steel so he coated it with rust proofing, you can get stainless steel but it's more expensive. It's easy to cut steel for electrical outlets, he painted it like a normal house, it sounds so good on rainy days, terrible when it hails.
I'm in West Virginia and people turning steel sheds into homes isn't unusual, we don't have a lot rules about about houseing. I know a guy who bought a steel grain silo and made it his "vacation" home.

[rezkyputra]

The Fallout 4 vibe is strong with these houses

[KevinFromTheOffice]

Literally every house in Fallout games

[curtismarean]

Oddly enough, I would not mind living in one of these. There's something about that retro look that I love. Mid-century houses have a distinct feel about them.

[Jules-wnhl]

Love seeing Phil out in the world in his recent videos. Makes me feel like a proud father

[good_deed]

There’s a bunch of Lustron homes around where I live. I love telling people about them as we drive by.

[fschk-to]

You took off your shoes before entering, I can see you're a man of culture.

[KingStix]

primary draw back is steel conductivity leading to lower energy efficiency =higher electricity cost for heating/cooling

[wizzzer]

I can't imagine living in a steel house in either winter or summer if the air conditioning or heating fails... 🥶🥵

[kreepykrawlyman]

Watching this reminds me of the houses in sanctuary in fallout 4

[nickbutton]

I’ve seen tons of these across my home state of Indiana and always noticed they were different and quirky but never understood why. This video gives me a whole new appreciation for homes that I never knew were so special!

[JustForgottenGames]

Sad i can't use Galvanized Square Steel to help John inside his 0.01 inch house.
Maybe Lustron didn't use Wood Veneers

[jacobbwalters]

I would love a video on the life and architecture of Alden B. Dow. He trained under Frank Lloyd Wright and was an heir to the Dow fortune. I lived in Midland, Michigan for a while and was always impressed by buildings he built there.

[CHIIIEEEEEEEEFFFFSSS]

There are 3 of these houses around the corner from my house and I'd always wondered about them. Thanks!

[stevenlitvintchouk]

In my younger days, I put up a modular home. It was made of wood like any other home, but assembled in a factory and transported in two parts on big trucks, then mounted on the foundation at the site. It was extremely well made and rigid, so much so that it didn't even need supporting columns. The big problem with modular method homes is that our antiquated zoning and mortgage laws make it hard to do. I went thru real nightmares, not with the construction, but with the laws and the financing.

[acidemperor]

Interestingly a similar house construction techniques is the predominate type used today in Northern australia, but using zinc galvanised and rolled steel. It provides the cyclone/hurricane rating required. The internals though are thankfully now plasterboard with wood laminate kitchens/bathroom cupboards which does allow for internal modifications. Yes the steel means you dont have to worry about your neighbours stealing your wifi much.

[Vendredi_Sur_Mer]

My neighbor has one of these Lustron steel homes. It’s pretty cool!