Remodelers are far more likely than home builders and architects to look at online videos when researching construction techniques and new products, but their general use of newer technology lags behind the others, results from a newly released survey find.
Just over 25% of the remodelers and replacement contractors surveyed by The Farnsworth Group said they used online videos. That’s markedly higher than the 16% of architects and 19.3% of home builders who did so.
In contrast, remodelers were eight percentage points less likely than home builders to own a smart phone and 15 points less likely to use a tablet computer. Just over one-fifth said they still use a traditional cell phone.
These results were shared for the first time in Chicago on Oct. 22 at Hanley Wood’s annual Foundations Conference for building product markets. Just under 300 builders, 281 architects, and 665 remodelers and replacement contractors took part in the poll, conducted in March.
Here are the numbers showing the technologies that the construction groups said they used when doing research:
| Total | Architects | MF Builders | Home Builders | Remodelers | |
| Search engines | 76.1% | 88.3% | 80.5% | 75.3% | 77.7% |
| Industry email newsletters | 43.6% | 40.6% | 48.3% | 48.6% | 43.0% |
| Industry print publications | 39.7% | 47.0% | 46.0% | 41.2% | 39.4% |
| Manufacturer websites | 37.3% | 59.4% | 33.3% | 35.0% | 37.1% |
| Industry media websites | 35.8% | 45.2% | 37.9% | 33.7% | 34.7% |
| Manufacturer sales materials/spec sheets | 31.8% | 50.9% | 26.4% | 27.2% | 30.8% |
| Information direct from dealers/distributors | 25.8% | 28.1% | 28.7% | 22.6% | 26.2% |
| Industry peers | 24.7% | 23.1% | 33.3% | 25.9% | 20.8% |
| 21.8% | 21.7% | 19.5% | 22.6% | 22.4% | |
| Email offers from manufacturers | 21.0% | 19.2% | 19.5% | 21.0% | 24.2% |
| Mobile delivered content | 20.3% | 17.8% | 26.4% | 21.0% | 20.5% |
| Online video | 19.5% | 16.0% | 16.1% | 19.3% | 25.1% |
And here are the numbers on the communications devices used regularly:
| Total | Architects | MF Builders | Home Builders | Remodelers | |
| Smartphone (e.g., iPhone, Android, Blackberry) | 78.8% | 69.4% | 89.7% | 83.1% | 75.6% |
| Desktop computer | 73.8% | 83.6% | 60.9% | 71.6% | 70.5% |
| Laptop computer | 73.2% | 69.4% | 86.2% | 76.1% | 68.6% |
| iPad | 36.5% | 31.7% | 34.5% | 45.3% | 30.7% |
| Traditional cell phone (not PDA/smartphone) | 17.7% | 17.4% | 9.2% | 13.2% | 21.5% |
| Other tablet device | 17.1% | 16.0% | 18.4% | 17.7% | 17.3% |
| None of the above | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.5% |
Click here to download the results of The Farnsworth Group survey.