Also, aren't these walls significantly more CO2 unfriendly than lumber, and more difficult to renovate? What if I need to get a builder in to do repairs, is there a concrete wall guy who knows how to repair them?
Can it print multi family housing?
It takes four weeks to print, which seems long to frame a single story three bedroom house. If the home buyer isn't feeling savings, what's the draw here.
3D printing homes is currently a terrible option, but the result is visually distinct which should help sell the homes. It doesn’t need to be good to make someone money.
The benefit of 3D printing is making unique things. If you make the same thing over and over there's way better options.
The quality of timber framed houses can vary considerably depending on who built them.
I would also imagine that a home with a concrete exterior (with appropriate roofing) would be more likely to survive a wildfire, in areas susceptible to those.
Early attempts always look gimmicki.
Putting a camera in a phone, crazy, who needs it, just a gimmick. I use my phone to dial numbers and make calls.
This looks like it has a lot of room to grow and adapt. Materials change.
Just look at how 3d printers have changed in 10 years.
In other words, there is little economic incentive to recommend this construction method. Not much in the way of aesthetics either --- unless you want a ranch box.
Superstructure is about the easiest and fastest part of residential construction. Sitework, finishes, and MEP systems are harder, tend to take longer, and cost more.
Anyway, market rate housing sells at market rates no matter how it is built.
I'm perpetually confused on that front - interior, especially drywall, is stupid labor and time intensive (have to wait for taped joints to dry). There should be huge econmomies of scale for prefab walls with electric and ducting built in, yet all we see is this sort of 3d printing stuff.
This is a demonstration project.
If there were any economic advantage, I would expect them to be eager to demonstrate it.
But such does not appear to be the case. $450-600K for a simple, single story ranch 30 miles outside of Austin is not exactly awe inspiring.
So not only are you framing differently but you can skip the drywall and insulation steps of construction as well. This is the type of finish work you are talking about I think.
This is true. Do you see any opportunity for efficiencies in rebuilds?
https://www.lennar.com/new-homes/texas/austin-central-texas/...
Just as a random example, this is a comparable house (bigger in fact) and selling for $365k.
https://www.redfin.com/TX/Georgetown/346-White-River-Dr-7862...
I think this is a really cool technology but it’s not competitive yet.
Look at the results in Florida where the only houses left standing after hurricanes are the ones which are built with ICF (insulated concrete forms)
So for the same money I would argue you are getting a better product. That’s also saying nothing about a more consistent build quality. Timber framed houses vary a lot in quality depending on the crew who built them and the quality of the materials used. Framing with a robot means that there is far less variation in quality, vs framing with crews of humans who are often paid a little as possible and told to work as quickly as possible.
With concrete, you have to wait for it to set before you can print on top of it. D
The most inherently sensible home would be protected from wind (derecho, hurricane, and the uncommon tornado), fire, flooding, and severe heat and cold (and associated climate control costs) by building mostly underground on flat, stable, high ground.
Anyway the modification of them is addressed in some of the videos in the show house. Essentially you use a circular saw with masonry teeth to cut new holes, they provide shade-matching grout to fill in an old hole. It's less flexible than sheetrock but about what modifying a cinder block wall would be. Unlike most cinder block commercial buildings, the wiring is inside the wall and not in an exposed conduit, there might have been one exception in a bathroom or something.
Over all, to my non-professional opinion, it seemed more expensive than traditional "stick built" but also higher quality, probably worth it if you wanted a high quality structure.
I have also visited their site in South Austin on St. Elmo, and the small "tiny houses" they built in the Community First village for the ex-homeless, but I wasn't able to go inside those.
My overall impression is that it's a great technology that will be used for more and more structures. Thus far I think they have been too traditional in their floor plans, they have been focusing on showing that they can build real up-to-code houses that banks will accept as collateral. Hopefully with their new cheaper printer, maybe in some area outside of HOAs and zoning, they can starting making some more interesting houses -- like round towers Victorian style, for example.
OTOH, imagine a home that's not prone to termite damage. That would be awesome. Makes me want to build any sort of house, underground or not, with any material that's not wood.
PS: I left ATX last year for the rest of the triangle by hill country and right around the 100th meridian west that's much less expensive and less prone to storms.
If I had the luxury of time and money that's the kind of home I'd build out, probably with a few Maginot line type turrets peeking out from the "roof".
I kind of like the idea of the conjoined egg-shaped rooms, but not the practicality of cylindrically- or compound-rounded walls.
Okay, I name compound curves. Can I do that with drywall?
They have videos discussing how you would add a light switch or remove one -- basically a mansonry hole saw, and matching grout to fill in.
It seemed slightly more trouble to do modifications than a cinder block wall, but the quality and strength was much higher. I went with low expectations but I was impressed.
I didn't see any walls at the stage of construction where I could see what the insulation was, whether is was expanding foam or fiberglass.
So the electricians and plumbers would all come in after the wall was printed, and saw through it all? Sawing, adding and then filling it back in sounds like lots of work to me. With stick-frame, wiring and plumbing are still a significant cost, but the actual hole-making part would be a small proportion of it.
> requires fewer workers
what TFA didn't say, and which I'm sure is also true, is that the workers can also be less skilled.
I found it fascinating that interior walls are also concrete, and wifi signals are blocked. I betcha cellular doesn't fare too well either, and not easily fixed with multiple access points.
Unless the houses can sell for half of traditional housing costs their main market will be building houses on the moon.
I can't believe I find myself saying this, but it would have been much nicer to just build nice condos in the middle, and use the rest as shared greenspace.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Lennar+at+Wolf+Ranch/wolf+ra...
Relevant to central Texas in the summmer: 115° bike rides do not sound fun.
