3D Printer That Can Build A House In 24 Hours

[timebandit]

The interesting team behind the build & structure are Cal Earth I confess I love the Eco-Domes designs and the materials they are using at this stage.

Superadobe (sandbag and barbed wire) technology is a large, long adobe. It is a simple adobe, an instant and flexible line generator. It uses the materials of war for peaceful ends, integrating traditional earth architecture with contemporary global safety requirements. Long or short sandbags are filled with on-site earth and arranged in layers or long coils (compression) with strands of barbed wire placed between them to act as both mortar and reinforcement (tension). Stabilizers such as cement, lime, or asphalt emulsion may be added.

A prototype 3-Vaulted house has been tested and approved for California's severe earthquake codes and natural elements, in the harsh climate of the Mojave desert (over 100 degree F summer temperatures, freezing winters, flash floods, high speed wind, and the highest US earthquake zone 4). The universality of the material and design has caused these houses to be considered for the moon and Mars by NASA scientists interested in in-situ utilization of planetary resources

Edited December 13, 2013 by timebandit

[DementedTuna]

I don't know anything about the process to which you're referring, but with the concept that's being described here, it's not only the shell structure that can be built. Ultimately plumbing, electrical wiring, and even certain internal fittings and wall colour can be fabricated during the 'printing' process.

There was a discussion of this on the forum last year: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=182784

DementedTuna (the OP) gave a memorable quote: "To hell with printing money, it's time to start printing houses!"

Awesome, glad you remembered that.

Only thing that has changed from my second post in that thread is its now clear that the UK is going to make feck all from graphene, China will get there first.

What's interesting is how far the tech has come in such a short space of time.. the stuff I posted was a very basic concrete laying affair mainly intended for rough single-storey third world country usage, this one looks much more involved and complete, capable of easily making a western home with all the luxuries.

I fully believe that technology will eventually be the thing that causes the HPC, not the free market, which will absolutely never ever ever ever be allowed to run its course by politicians... they were willing to kill our economy and deliberately start a 5+ year depression all for the sake of making sure not that house prices fell, but to keep them rising. They are insane and will do anything to stop HPC.. they'd even start a war for the sake of stopping it if it wasn't counterintuitive (massive casualties lowers demand). I sometimes wonder if mass immigration is to keep house prices rising.

However, if a truck can print a house shell for £5k, and lots of these start to fall into private ownership and houses can appear in a week... well, kiss goodbye to planning permission standing a chance in hell of ever being enforced. Even if the bulldozers move in you can just go ahead and print another on whatever piece of dirt you feel like.

Picture a traveller family getting their hands on a bit of this kit.. suddenly it won't be "oh, a caravan park just appeared", it'll be "oh, a housing estate just appeared".

China is already using construction technology that is even more impressive, skyscrapers in a matter of days.

Interesting that NASA is in on this, I can see the potential for robots building habitable structures on the moon or mars.

Edited December 13, 2013 by DementedTuna

[(Blizzard)]

This just encourages the idea that houses are expensive. They aren't. We dont need technology to buikd cheaper houses, expensive housing is a political choice.

[Dorkins]

This just encourages the idea that houses are expensive. They aren't. We dont need technology to buikd cheaper houses, expensive housing is a political choice.

Even if the land was free, what's the build cost for a 3 bed semi? It must be somewhere in the region of 2-4 years' take home pay for the median full time worker, more if you're on minimum wage. That's expensive.

[(Blizzard)]

Even if the land was free, what's the build cost for a 3 bed semi? It must be somewhere in the region of 2-4 years' take home pay for the median full time worker, more if you're on minimum wage. That's expensive.

Even assuming £100,000 for each house, houses last around 100 years, so that's ~£1000/year. Average UK rent is ~£800/month.

The government currently spends 23bn on housing benefit, enough to build 230,000 homes at 100k each, more than the entire amount built by government and the private sector in any year since the 90s.

So yeah, cheap.

Edited December 13, 2013 by (Blizzard)

[happy_renting]

They even talk of high rise buildings.

But 3 D printing doesn't always go to plan. Imagine this happening with a skyscraper...

[Dorkins]

houses last around 100 years

It's not really a good thing that we are still using so much old housing in the UK. There is a great deal of making do e.g. cold and leaky extensions, high fuel bills due to poor insulation, narrow roads blocked with parked cars, highly compromised conversion of two storey houses into flats etc. With no other manufactured good do we take the approach of bodging by with what our grandparents had when we could easily do better with modern technology.

If construction was an order of magnitude cheaper then maybe the culture would eventually change so that (just like every other manufactured good) houses would start to fit the people who live in them rather than the other way around.

[Dorkins]

Even assuming £100,000 for each house, houses last around 100 years, so that's ~£1000/year. Average UK rent is ~£800/month.

UK private rents are extortionate, so that is a terrible benchmark.

If we assume that a person will live as an adult for about 60 years, that'll be £60k by your method of calculation, so around 3 years' median full time take home pay (6 if you are on minimum wage). Add in the cost of finance (few people would be able to stump up £60k-£100k in cash) and repairs over 60 years and maybe we are up to 5 years' take home pay (10 if you are on minimum wage). That is expensive.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Dorkins

[(Blizzard)]

It's not really a good thing that we are still using so much old housing in the UK. There is a great deal of making do e.g. cold and leaky extensions, high fuel bills due to poor insulation, narrow roads blocked with parked cars, highly compromised conversion of two storey houses into flats etc. With no other manufactured good do we take the approach of bodging by with what our grandparents had when we could easily do better with modern technology.

If construction was an order of magnitude cheaper then maybe the culture would eventually change so that (just like every other manufactured good) houses would start to fit the people who live in them rather than the other way around.

All true¹ . I'm not opposed to the use of technology, I think it's a good thing. It's just that the problems with housing - including the use of older, inefficient houses, are essentially political.

There is a widespread belief that houses are expensive for economic reasons, such as the cost of the buildings themselves.

Consider the occasional proposals for homes made from old orange boxes, or coffins, or whatever. I think at one stage John Prescott - the deputy prime-minister - was pushing this sort of nonsense.

UK private rents are extortionate, so that is a terrible benchmark.

What? That's what people have to pay, are paying, to live in houses. I can't think of a better benchmark. Current mortgage rates are similar.

If we assume that a person will live as an adult for about 60 years, that'll be £60k by your method of calculation, so around 3 years' median full time take home pay (6 if you are on minimum wage). Add in the cost of finance (few people would be able to stump up £60k-£100k in cash) and repairs over 60 years and maybe we are up to 5 years' take home pay (10 if you are on minimum wage). That is expensive.

Although, less than we would typically spend on transport or recreation. If you had to compound yearly spending into a lump-sum, lots of necessities would look expensive, but £1000/year is, what, 10% of a single minimum wage salary.

And no, I didn't add in the costs of finance, because the financing of homes is a part of the political problem.

Anyway these are just order of magnitude calculations - I don't believe the 100k, 100 years is just a rough estimate, and people don't live alone - but they illustrate the massive discrepancy between the real cost and the cost we are all made to pay.

Cheap is a relative term. Cheap compared to a packet of cornflakes, no. Cheap compared to their utility, yes. Compared to the costs we pay now, hell yes.

EDIT:

¹ *******ing listed building status. What kind of madness is that? Boasting that a house can't be fixed without political interference? Can't be improved, ever. Some people are just irredeemably thick.

Edited December 14, 2013 by (Blizzard)

[Dorkins]

£1000/year is, what, 10% of a single minimum wage salary.

There is a big difference between 10% of minimum wage and 10% of £50k pa. Somebody on minimum wage is struggling to scrape together enough to cover the real basics like council tax, utilities, transport to work, food and clothing. 10% is a huge chunk of your budget when you are living so close to the edge. Somebody on £50k pa will find it much easier to juggle his spending in order to free up 10% of it.

Even if you handwave away finance and maintenance costs, for most people in this country £60k is a lot of money that would take many years of hard work and serious financial discipline to accumulate. I think you have been desensitised by too many years of bubble prices. Construction costs are not as ridiculous as land costs but they are still high relative to wages. Something that you have to sweat for years for is expensive.

[Dorkins]

Cheap is a relative term. Cheap compared to a packet of cornflakes, no. Cheap compared to their utility, yes. Compared to the costs we pay now, hell yes.

For the vast majority of people in this country, cheap is measured relative to wages. Something that costs 3+ years of take-home pay in construction costs alone is not cheap.

[(Blizzard)]

There is a big difference between 10% of minimum wage and 10% of £50k pa. Somebody on minimum wage is struggling to scrape together enough to cover the real basics like council tax, utilities, transport to work, food and clothing. 10% is a huge chunk of your budget when you are living so close to the edge. Somebody on £50k pa will find it much easier to juggle his spending in order to free up 10% of it.

Even if you handwave away finance and maintenance costs, for most people in this country £60k is a lot of money that would take many years of hard work and serious financial discipline to accumulate. I think you have been desensitised by too many years of bubble prices. Construction costs are not as ridiculous as land costs but they are still high relative to wages. Something that you have to sweat for years for is expensive.

It's not that I handwave it away, it's that we are talking about different things.

Fundamentally, the cost of housing to society is cheap and therefore the provision of housing shouldn't be an issue. I'm not claiming that people on minimum wage could save enough to build a house. People on minimum wage couldn't save enough to build roads, or hospitals, or any high capital cost goods, we don't expect them to.

We choose to finance and allocate housing in such a way that allows multiple third parties to take a cut. It's funding those people that costs money.

One possible solution, just to illustrate the point rather than to advocate a specific policy, is just to build council houses. The government buys and builds council houses, and recovers the cost through a 10% rent. The government is already financing the housing costs of the poor through £20bn of housing benefit, but very little of that money is actually used to build housing.

And, as I said, cheap is relative. 10% of your yearly wage means 3 or 4 years of work, which sounds a lot. However, you work for years just to afford food, or electricity, or transport.

It's not so long since houses were available on the open market for far less than £60k, which proves the principle.

EDIT: For comparison I just discovered that the average British adult spends an estimated £770/year on alcohol. The average wage is £26.5k, so over a 40 year working life you spend over one year working just to pay for alcohol.

EDIT2: This links suggests the lifetime spend on alcohol is ~60k, a coincidence too good to ignore!

Edited December 14, 2013 by (Blizzard)

[Dorkins]

EDIT: For comparison I just discovered that the average British adult spends an estimated £770/year on alcohol. The average wage is £26.5k, so over a 40 year working life you spend over one year working just to pay for alcohol.

Most of the cost of alcohol is tax. Supermarket beer and wine would be 10-20p a pint/50-100p a bottle if the state got out of the way.

What I'm saying is that if we casually dismiss all these expenses as "oh, you only spend three years of full time work in a lifetime to pay for housing construction, you only spend one year working for alcohol, you only spend four years working to pay council tax etc etc" then suddenly you find yourself in a situation where you need to work like a dog for 45 years for a pretty basic lifestyle. Personally I find it crazy the way you seem happy to throw years of income around as if they were nothing. A year of full time work is a lot of work!

[MarkG]

One possible solution, just to illustrate the point rather than to advocate a specific policy, is just to build council houses.

Then housing becomes just another mechanism for politicians to buy votes, as they give subsidized council houses to their friends.

Why not just tell the government to piss off, and stop preventing people from building the houses they want, where they want?

A crazy plan, I know, but it might just work.