In the U.S. this is a little different. Due to the popularity of timber frame houses, air nailers have significantly streamlined many aspects of house building here. However, increased sizes and increased equipmemt have eaten much of the savings from efficiency.
Framing is the easy part. Some 5-story apartments by me got framed in a month but took 8 months to be ready for move-in. I can’t think of an air nailer equivalent for wiring, drywall, insulation, sprinklers, flooring, trim, and so on. Painting has gotten easier with sprayers but that’s about it. And there is one startup with a drywall robot for commercial installations.
Wiring: NM-B (Romex, etc) is somewhat faster than metallic conduit.
Drywall: Roto Zip or similar tools. DeWalt makes a tool that installs collated drywall screws, but I’ve never seen one in use.
Insulation: older houses generally have extremely poor insulation, so a labor comparison is a bit odd. But there are several spray-applied insulation products on the market. In a moderate climate, a whole house can be insulated in a day or two. (Spray foam is very expensive, so mineral wool or fiberglass can be less expensive despite potentially higher labor costs.). In cold climates, exterior insulation may be needed, which is a whole different process.
Sprinklers: PEX fire sprinklers are a thing. I’m not sure they are widely used.
This conversation has reminded me of Larry Huan’s “efficient carpenter”. There’s a comment on one of these videos along the lines of “before carpenters had nail guns slowing them down” that made me chuckle. Watching these guys setting and driving nails in 2 hits is a pretty humbling experience.
I'm old enough to remember when nail guns got cheap enough for the average carpenter to afford one. I remember my friend telling me that it wasn't much faster than a hammer, but at least he wouldn't blow out his elbow by the time he was 40.
Timber framing is a totally different animal than stick framing, in the US, which the comment was explicitly about. Stick framed buildings use 2x lumber joined together with nails, while timber framed buildings use heavy timbers joined together with bolts and other complex joinery. Japanese house construction (at least what I've seen on YouTube) can accurately be described as timber framing, because it uses timbers set in place by crane and connected with bolts and a lot of mortise-and-tenon joints.
Not to be a dick, bu that's just confusing, like referring to an American city's soccer match as a football game when there was an actual football game going on too. Of course you are correct though.
