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3D-Printed House Constructed On-Site In One Day (treehugger.com)
Heffenfeffer writes: Russian company Apis Cor has manufactured a 3D printed concrete house on-site in 24 hours in Stupino Town, Russia. Using a tower crane-shaped concrete extruder that can rotate 360 degrees, the 38 square meter (408.88 square foot) rotor-shaped home walls were constructed in one day. Voids left in the manufacturing process were filled by hand, installing windows, doors, and adding polyurethane and fiber insulation to the hollow concrete walls. The roof was also constructed by hand using polymer membranes, welded together using hot air and special equipment. Total construction costs were $10,134 (USD), approximately $266.66 per square meter ($24.78 per square foot). They also constructed a temporary protective heated tent to surround the house as they constructed the house during winter. Though the printer can be used at temperatures down to -35C, concrete has to be at least +5C to cure. Further reading: Designboom Magazine
A proper constructions needs at least the following: Foundations, sewer lines, water, and electricity.
You cannot 3d print those nor get them done in a day
Yes, it's cool to have a concrete printer. But there's no house built in one day.
I think I'll buy land and have a house 3D printed.
The just the skin of the walls were printed, all the rest was done by meat robots using normal tools and materials.
When the plumbing, wiring and paint is laid down by the printer (it's a robot; an extruder robot right now) I'll start listening to the possibility of 'printed in a day'. I don't think it's that far off, honestly.
That wood flooring was 3D printed?! Cool!
How did they 3D extrude the wiring and meet code? I'd love to hear more!
Concrete is a good insulator for russian winters, right? Amazing! How good was the R-value? How was the rebar extruded?
Love how the paint was 3D printed too!
I could go on. The frame of most houses is NOT where the majority of the expense is. I hate seeing these wild claims about 3D printing, which wile cool are disingenuous and skip over so many important details that turn out to be real buzz kills.
If the construction costs cited are true, even given the small size of the demonstration house, this seems a very viable approach. One would imagine most of the human labor could ultimately be replaced by robots, and (although 24 hour completion is impressive) taking a whole week would not alter the economics significantly. (I guess that might not be true if the capital cost of the printer makes the investment uneconomic at, say, 20 to 30 houses a year, but I doubt that is the case.)
I remember an inventor doing this with a different 3d concrete printer in an article for Beyond 2000. I don't remember exactly when that aired, but it was before the year 2000, and it wasn't in russia.
But I wouldn't call that a house, unless 'weird lifestyle' has been what you have become.
Its a nice step towards 3d printed homes, but details on all of the finishing work required for house are a little sparse. Video from the printing process suggests that the walls were quite a bit more rough that displayed in the final product. There is also little on set times how it was wired, roofed, etc.
How do you run wires and pipes through the walls? How do you tie the building to the foundation?
This is neat, because you no longer need to setup a cheap double-wide for living while you build your own home by hand. If your willing to deal with a flimsy plastic roof while your doing the rest of the stuff by hand, by yourself, in your spare time, you can get your home on with less money, less material, and less hassles. Here's hoping this survives the coming regulation hassles.
The big bonus is (hopefully) the awesome new opensource nature of 3D printed designs, and all the good shit that goes along with that.
I've build nearly a dozen 3D printers at this point. I've had a build going constantly for the past 5 years or so, each bigger, and more capable than the last. I suppose this is just the natural progression of those with more time than I.
It's Awesome to read good news, and I hope this becomes more and more accessible, the same way consumer 3D printing has moved in the past 5 years.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
I remember seeing this concept in Popular Mechanics in the 70's.
2 metal plates, squirt concrete slurry, wait for it to harden just a teeny bit, move to the next panel.
Total construction costs were $10,134 (USD)
"Total construction costs" does not mean "it cost this much to build a complete house," in this case. You could not realistically wire that house for the stated $242 and have it be legal here, and surely the other finishing work would cost more than the supposed $1178 if you weren't in Russia. So maybe it is $10k when built in Russia, with Russian labor and to Russian standards, but I bet you'd be looking at double that to build it to code in the US, with questionable profitability for the builder. I didn't see any mention of whether it was heated or connected to a sewer system or not, and what sort of foundation it is on - looks like it's just on a concrete slab.
This is an impressive tech demonstration, but we're a long way from complete $10k western homes. Plus, the square footage is about a third of the current US minimum for new single-family homes. So for this to be competitive with what an American would consider a house, you'd be looking at more like $30k if you did some work yourself and bribed the local inspectors, and that's without land. This may have a future, but you aren't going to be buying one of these any time soon, so keep saving your old bottles and tires and build an Earthship instead!
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
... Constructed On-Site In One Day ...
Going from finished foundations to medium-size house in one summery day has been possible for 30-something years. It about logistics and quick-set cement, which no-one uses. A small wooden house with pre-fab frames can be done in a day also. The real problem is that there's no way to pre-fab brick, the most popular building material for houses.
The construction industry has embraced pre-fab frames and walls poured on-site but not pre-fab walls. There was an episode of 'Grand designs' where the 2-story house was constructed from prefabricated walls and floors, complete with plumbing, wiring and paint. If the dream of 'The Jetsons' is to be realized, with high-rise apartment buildings completed in a week, this will be the way forward.
But can I really build a home for $10,000? Aside from the sewer and electric and what not and the fact that it's kind of small. And of course the land.
I didn't read this article, but I read another one which bragged that they could do this in other shapes and sizes.
I don't need a big home but I didn't see what the bathroom looks like in this place and that kitchen looks horrible.
I've got more home than I need right now, but sometimes it's really nice to have that much room.
It looks like a good size printer to rent for DIY projects. I'd like to see a printer like this using cellular lightweight concrete to print in place insulating concrete forms. Then, it would be very easy to make ICF walls that are any shape at all. Seeing so many houses with square corners just looks depressing to me.
There are plenty of novel and exciting uses for 3D printing. This is not one of them. Why? We've had concrete tilt-up construction for a long time now. So they do it with a 3D printer instead of molds, it's still concrete. It will still have problems in seismically active areas.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
3D house prints YOU!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Wonder how they did the parts that spanned air gaps (doorways, windows, etc)? I assume un-cured concrete isn't really going to stay in place midair. Support material even seems like it would be tricky with concrete.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that yet. People want to live in good-looking homes, not some rounded slab of concrete with openings for doors and windows. In America, that would sell for about as much as trailer home.