Habitat for Humanity Just Delivered Its First 3D Printed Home in the US (cnn.com) 93
The nonprofit Habitat for Humanity uses volunteer labor to build homes with affordable mortgages for families in need (who also invest hundreds of hours of their own labor) — or to renovate or repair/improve existing homes.
But this week saw them delivering something new: a 3D-printed home, built with giant 3D printers from a company called Alquist).
CNN reports: The 1,200-square-foot home has three bedrooms, two full baths and was built from concrete. The technology allowed the home to be built in just 12 hours, which saves about four weeks of construction time for a typical home....
The concrete used in the house's 3D construction has many long-term benefits, such as the ability to retain temperature [reducing heating and cooling costs] and withstand natural disasters, like tornadoes and hurricanes. [It also reduced building costs by an estimated 15% per square foot.] Stringfield's home also includes a personal 3D printer that will allow her to reprint anything she may need, "everything from electrical outlet to trim to cabinet knobs," Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, told CNN.
While this is the first 3D home for Habitat for Humanity in the U.S., it certainly won't be the last. Green told CNN it hopes to continue partnering and developing the technology used with the printing. "We would love to build more with this technology, especially because it's got that long-term savings for the homeowners," Green said.
The house will also have "smart building" applications that track data on the indoor environment through a proprietary Virginia Tech system that uses a Raspberry Pi, according to a statement from Habitat for Humanity.
And the house will be outfitted with solar panels, "for even more cost savings after the family moves in."
But this week saw them delivering something new: a 3D-printed home, built with giant 3D printers from a company called Alquist).
CNN reports: The 1,200-square-foot home has three bedrooms, two full baths and was built from concrete. The technology allowed the home to be built in just 12 hours, which saves about four weeks of construction time for a typical home....
The concrete used in the house's 3D construction has many long-term benefits, such as the ability to retain temperature [reducing heating and cooling costs] and withstand natural disasters, like tornadoes and hurricanes. [It also reduced building costs by an estimated 15% per square foot.] Stringfield's home also includes a personal 3D printer that will allow her to reprint anything she may need, "everything from electrical outlet to trim to cabinet knobs," Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, told CNN.
While this is the first 3D home for Habitat for Humanity in the U.S., it certainly won't be the last. Green told CNN it hopes to continue partnering and developing the technology used with the printing. "We would love to build more with this technology, especially because it's got that long-term savings for the homeowners," Green said.
The house will also have "smart building" applications that track data on the indoor environment through a proprietary Virginia Tech system that uses a Raspberry Pi, according to a statement from Habitat for Humanity.
And the house will be outfitted with solar panels, "for even more cost savings after the family moves in."
Re:Copy and paste? (Score:5, Informative)
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You can try plagiarizing the dictionary to learn to spell...
This is great news (Score:3)
I do wonder how this construction method will fare in the long run.
Once we see how these houses perform in 5-15 years, I think this might (barring any major failures and of course with some refinement) be the default.
For more complicated projects, this might provide for faster construction of certain parts of the house.
Time is expensive.
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Once we see how these houses perform in 5-15 years
It is concrete. Concrete has been used since Roman times.
But it looks like no rebar is used. So this might not be a good idea in an earthquake zone. I live near the San Andreas Fault, and all the houses here are wood-frame with seismic reinforcement such as Hardy Frames [hardyframe.com].
No rebar? (Score:2)
But it looks like no rebar is used.
I was thinking the same. From the photo's I can't make out if, or (more interesting) how it's done. But in the FAQ [alquist3d.com] on the company's site, it reads:
What kind of reinforcement do you use in the concrete?
When printing two walls and a cavity in between, we use a horizontal masonry "ladder" reinforcement that connects the walls. For any loadbearing or structural parts of the walls, we use common reinforcement bars that can be set vertically or horizontally during the printing process.
So either it is reinforced, or it can be produced as such. Just not obvious how it's done. Would be nice to have a video showing how rebar is integrated during the 3D print process.
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I think they just have pauses where humans place the rebar.
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I was curious about how they handle bridging over the tops of door and window spaces. From this KJZZ story [kjzz.org] it looks like they place aluminium extrusions to support the concrete and continue printing:
https://media.kjzz.org/s3fs-public/styles/juicebox_large/public/3d-printed-house-front-window-20210609.jpg?itok=OBb5wVvL [kjzz.org]
4 weeks? (Score:1)
I donâ(TM)t understand why the article says that homes are usually built in four weeks. I have never seen that. What are they talking about?
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I donâ(TM)t understand why the article says that homes are usually built in four weeks.
That is not what TFA says. It says that this reduces the time required by four weeks.
But that is nonsense. This only replaces framing, which typically takes just a few days.
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Well, the video sounded like a PR sales pitch to me with almost no technical details given and very few shots of the actual building process.
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What's really cool is that it reduces the cost by 15% per square foot.
So this 1200 square foot house will cost 2*10^-83 percent less than traditional construction (.85^1200).
Even cooler, the larger the house the larger the percentage of saving.
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>This only replaces framing, which typically takes just a few days.
Unless your house is built out of block instead, which will take much longer. Even more if the interior walls are also block. Which would seem to be the equivalent of a concrete printed house...
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From a materials perspective, why not compare 3D printed concrete with ummm, I dont know, perhaps, concrete?
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Around here, homes are built in months by contractors who are rarely at the site, and office buildings under 4 stories are built in about 10 days.
The new 7-Eleven in my neighborhood was open for business a week after they started construction. Steel, concrete, and a lot of glass. But the people tearing down the old house that used to be on the lot spent a few months fiddling with it.
Things are built however fast or slow people want these days. The time term is not a relevant data point. The work hours saved
Re: 4 weeks? (Score:2)
As for this company's "3D printing" tech, I think it looks like absolute trash. I'd be interested to see how these hold up compared to homes that are built using slab/frame which is pre-assembled off site.
Hard to imagine it scaling (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to think this type of technology offered huge opportunities for increasing affordable housing stock and allowing innovation in design. Not as much today. I’ve seen pros frame, sheath, and set walls for a 1,200 square foot home in two days, and I have seen a SIP home assembled on site in a day. Then you are faced with the weeks and months of interior fit-out, which is the real cost.
A system that will scale needs to be self-finishing, integrate plumbing and electric, and elegantly address the roof with the same set of skills.
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The lack of housing is more political than practical. City governments tend to not want overly-affordable housing. It attracts the wrong type of resident: The low-income.
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Luckily there are areas in the world where the income of residents in a city is irrelevant for the city. As long as they have enough to pay their rent.
No idea how that is in the US, though.
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Why you ignore the simple things is beyond me.
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And what is beyond me is: what have property taxes to do with my comment?
Did you answer to the wrong comment?
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fuckface
affordable housing
you fuckface
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Housing does not attract residents to cities. People move for jobs, or because they have a lot of money. That's it. Poor people don't move unless they got a job in a new place.
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Housing does not attract residents to cities. People move for jobs, or because they have a lot of money. That's it. Poor people don't move unless they got a job in a new place.
Yet somehow when anyone tries to build affordable housing, neighbors will complain about how the wrong kind of people will ruin their vibe
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Living around poor people sucks. It's as simple as that. Nobody wants to stay poor and nobody wants to live surrounded by the poor. There's plenty of perfectly understandable reasons why this is so but crime tends to increase and that alone is enough for me. Keep your "affordable housing" in your own neighborhood if you like it so much. I don't want it anywhere near mine.
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The other thing to consider is seismic. This looks like grout poured upon grout to do the printing. That's not going to survive an earthquake of even moderate magnitude.
Comes with compromisable security and free spyware (Score:1)
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If it's running on a Raspberry pi and you're unhappy with the security you can just slip in a new SD card with your code of choice.
If they build their own custom MPU board with secure boot and signed firmware on a soldered in flash chip, then you'd be a little more stuck.
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Savings (Score:5, Funny)
“The method reduces the building costs with 15% per square foot.”
That’s a lot of reduction with a 1200 square foot home!
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“The method reduces the building costs with 15% per square foot.”
That’s a lot of reduction with a 1200 square foot home!
The house pays for itself many times over! They should have made it bigger...
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That’s a lot of reduction with a 1200 square foot home!
Yes - 15%
Re:Savings (Score:5, Informative)
The original comment was pointing out that the badly written summary claims the cost is reduced by 15% per square foot. For a 1200 square foot home, that would be a total 18,000% reduction in cost.
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Nope, it is still just 15%.
Does not matter how many square feed.
The summary is simply wrong, or misleading or both.
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Yes, that's why I said "the badly written summary". Instead of saying that costs per square foot were reduced 15%, it paraphrased the savings in a misleading way.
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Nope I'm not but you might be bad at percentages ... look it up, might help you in your future "non liberal hellscape".
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No matter how simple sarcasm is, somebody will whoosh on the internet reading it, and the major culprit is that sarcasm in your head is pronounced in a certain voice, non of which is translated to the print.
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Question for americans (Score:3)
How much of a house cost is the actual land and building rights?
Where I live (Italy), that can easily reach 50% of the final cost, in lots close to cities or major transport interchange points.
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What about government provided housing where land cost isn't as relevant as the ability to quickly build dwellings? Europe is facing a housing crisis right now, not because people can't afford land, but because we can't build houses fast enough in the places they are needed.
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Also because people don't want to live in the places houses can be built. The work is in major cities, where land is expensive.
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Oh, You gut it crosswise: people can NOT afford land, especially not where they want to build or where it is allowed to build.
Land cost is more than 50% of the building, that is why many new buildings are many family buildings: simply because no one could afford to buy a flat otherwise.
Well "no one" obviously is exagerating, but I for my part do not plan to pay 4 years income for a house, or flat.
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No I don't. There's a "housing" shortage, not "houses everywhere people can't afford" and "land people can't afford". Cost has nothing to do with it. Unless you live in Hamburg and want a house in the city then sure.
On top of that you seem to have completely missed my point about government owned land. The land cost becomes irrelevant when "providing" housing (as opposed to say "selling" housing).
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Land cost is more than 50% of the building
Land is cheap most places, where most places isnt anything like the liberal hellscape you are currently boiling within.
Several acres in most of the U.S. will run you between $10K and $20K. Sure its not going to be on some majestic lake, but its also not in that sewer you call a city. Its going to be an undeveloped woodland property with no existing or past structures. You are building a house... there is no reason to pay a lot for land unless you just have to live in a very spe
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there is no reason to pay a lot for land unless you just have to live in a very specific area for whatever rational or irrational reason you have for that.
Most people have to live within a reasonable proximity to their employer. Granted, it is possible to go off the grid and live off the land (if you have enough of it), but sooner or later you'll need money for health expenses, a new vehicle, etc. The catch is though, anyone who is willing to put in the amount of labor it takes to live off the land out in BFE, could instead work just as hard somewhere closer to civilization and earn a decent enough living.
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There are no liberal hellscapes.
Land is cheap most places,
Nope it is not.
where most places isnt anything like the liberal hellscape you are currently boiling within.
No idea what this "hellscpae" nonsense is supposed to mean.
Several acres in most of the U.S. will run you between $10K and $20K
In your country 90% of the land is owned by the state, and he may sell it to you or not, for what ever cheap price.
In the rest of the world: the land is owned by an capitalist helldemon who want
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In smaller cities and towns it can be as low as 20% for the land, 80% for the construction. In the end, it all comes down to how many people want to live there.
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Your percentage for land value may be on the high side. I live in Houston, the 4th largest city in the US. My lot value is only about 16% of the value "with improvements." I'd imagine that in smaller cities, the land would be an even smaller portion of the total value.
Radon (Score:2)
I wonder if the concrete has been sealed against Radon penetration. There's also the humidity retention problem if the concrete hasn't been sealed properly.
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I wonder if the concrete has been sealed against Radon penetration.
Radon risk varies geographically, and the most populated areas of Virginia don't have much.
The best solution to radon is ventilation with a heat exchanger.
A HEPA filter also helps. The radon itself is nearly harmless. The risk is the decay products that cling to dust and cigarette smoke particles.
A one year warranty... (Score:2)
Great. Now, 3D print land (Score:1)
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Freed blue collars ? (Score:2)
What sounds interesting is it seems to use much less menial labor than previous methods. Construction workers are hard to come by in many regions of the world and and are often underpaid.
As a pro education nerd am sorry when i hear politicians supporting the sabotage of their own education system because they find they have not enough unsophisticated people to accept menial jobs and they think educating people harms the economy.
This could be an example of robots helping improve humanity by liberating more p
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Rough carpentry is a small percentage of total labor for building a house.
Kind of ugly (Score:2)
The exterior walls look very rough and unfinished in the photos. They have a melted ice cream look. I am seeing small voids as well, possible insect habitat. Dirt will accumulate on those walls and they will need to be cleaned periodically. I am also wondering about water permeability, ordinary concrete gets wet. Do they spray it with a sealer later?
It seems like they should have some kind of smoothing mechanism built in to the printer. Some kind of trowel or roller that gets pulled along behind the print h
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They turned off the anti-aliasing?
Printing the concrete... (Score:2)
Shelter is easy (Score:3)
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And then getting support from local government, who are supportive of low-cost housing in the abstract but would much rather it be built somewhere else.
Re:Shelter is easy (Score:5, Insightful)
I like habitat for humanity because they focus on getting the people invested in their own home.
Me too. A friend that is a single mom won the Habitat lottery and landed in a house. Now her kids get to grow up in a much nicer environment than they otherwise would have been in. What a gift from those volunteers and donors that helped make it happen!
The hardest part is finding affordable land where you can connect to utilities (and thus have sanitation) and have economic opportunity sufficient to sustain someone with entry-level employment skills, etc.
I believe this mythical land is known as the Midwest, and most Americans don't choose to live there. But, undesirability is the key to affordability in a market economy.
Housing homeless people means putting them somewhere they are willing to go and can support themselves and where hygiene, etc can be seen-to.
I live in an area with a significant homeless population. From my chats with various ones, it seems like 1/3rd are homeless as a lifestyle choice and are pretty happy, 1/3rd are low-functioning addicts, and the rest have other mental issues that preclude holding down a job (paranoid delusions, etc..). It seems like the 'problem of homelessness' has been unsolvable, because involuntary homelessness is largely a complication of mental illness (including addiction). It isn't hard to help those with clear minds bounce back from setbacks. SLC had a program to provide a year of housing and regular counseling to help people become self-sufficient. My understanding is that opinions are mixed on how well it worked, but they at least tried to address the underlying problem. So, I agree shelter is easy, but think the really hard part is addressing mental health.
Most Americans don't choose where to live (Score:2)
bR. I'm stuck in a major city because that's where my job is. I'm WFH right now, but if I move and buy a house in the midwest and my current job goes away (as they're wont to do) I'm SOL. I moved to a major city from a smaller one with much cheaper housing because there were no jobs. It doesn't matter how cheap the house is if I can't make a living.
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No the home was not built in 12 hrs (Score:2)
This isn't some panacea for low cost housing. It's hard to see how it lowers cost at all really.
Made of concrete? (Score:2)
I don't think making the electrical wires out of concrete will supply much power. If the concrete walls have shaped holes for carrying water in and sewer out, I sure hope the concrete never cracks.
Seriously, it's quite an achievement to also get all the wiring and pipes in place to pour the concrete around, in the 12-hour window. I suspect that expert workmen in a tight team are needed.
Not as significant as it sounds (Score:3)
I used to teach a woman who was an accountant in the construction industry. She told me that, out of the final market price of a finished home, roughly 1/2 was the cost of the land & around 10% was construction costs. The rest was revenue for the construction company.
So if you can cut construction cost in half, you're shaving about 5% off the overall total. That'd probably just be added to the construction company's revenue/profit. On the housing market, it doesn't make homes any more affordable. The significant part of the story is that the construction company is non-profit, which can reduce the sales price substantially more as well as providing revenue for future non-profit construction projects, and which has selective policies over whom it sells the homes to. It really doesn't matter that much *how* the homes are constructed - the business model for investing in & selling homes is the important part. In other words, it's an economic/financial story, not a technological one.
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You're still only saving a percentage of 5% of the final cost of the home.
I'd still take it if I was offered a 5% discount :). But the cost of construction, if like other industries, would be reducing faster than this. Computer analogy, blah, blah, blah, although raw materials are, in reality, a big factor too.
The traditional feasible solution is govt owned housing rented to tenants selected on more criteria than simply the ability to pay.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense.
Hello (Score:1)
Login time volunteer (Score:2)
Temblors? (Score:2)
I look at that thing and all I can think of is how will that survive in a region that features ground that relocates itself from time to time with tiny forces (creep) to large forces (6.0) to very large forces( 8.0+). Out here on the Pacific Ocean rim houses dance, houses walk around, concrete bends, buildings pancake, and other insalubrious things happen to structures. I took a quick look on their site and saw no mention of temblors or earthquakes.
{o.o} That parking garage in Northridge left an impressi
Hype (Score:1)
OK Janet, lets see you demonstrate how you would print a (working) electrical outlet. Or a 6 foot piece of trim.
Slab leaks? Long term maintenance? (Score:2)
Rebar? (Score:2)
I'd love to know if there are automated solutions for installing rebar reinforcements,or some alternative to classical rebar.
Some companies have brought out mesh-like panels that can be incorporated into pured concrete.
The real test... (Score:1)
Mortgage are allowed on 3d print homes (Score:1)