You can take soil and mix it with a little sand and cement and compress it into a brick. It’s called earth blocks. It’s interesting to consider how cheaply one could build structures if they are mostly dirt.
A house 3D printed from raw earth
121–130 of 261 posts
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#122I hope 3D printing homes will take off now that lumber prices are so ridiculous. The sudden cost increases in other materials will now hopefully give 3d printing space to achieve economies of scale. Imagine homes that are printed with a 20 year life expectancy. Especially in America where I don't know many families that remain in the same house for 20 years. We could start going to the Japanese model of razing the ho…
We don't need a new construction methodology to fix a materials problem. A specialized construction methodology makes the problem worse, because they often require very specific materials.
My 3D printer is compatible with ~5 very specific types of plastic. Traditional construction can be done with plastics, metals, masonry, wood, composites, and many others.
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well lumbar is expensive too now.
True. The question is if that is just a temporary thing or the new normal. I suspect prices will be back to 'normal' in a year
There was a deep dive about this in Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast. Although some of the price increase was due to the industry predicting lower demand and getting rid of inventory. Another, more fundamental factor is the actual scarcity of lumber due to lower harvesting quotas set by Canadian govt. These quotas are unlikely to go up any time soon.
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, this is the same technology used to make....... bricks. We used to make homes out of bricks, and we could do that again, now that lumber is expensive.
Are you suggesting that this whole building be set on fire? Because unfired bricks are crap.
Something like that could actually work. Bricks were often assembled into the kiln that would fire them. If you could figure out a way to efficiently bake these structures they would be incredibly durable and would require no additives since you would want to use all clay.
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate? Not everyone would see this as a bad thing. Many would argue that nuclear energy, while not perfect, is a logical next step that, solves quite effectively for the problem of demand.
Often container homes go above and beyond in their retrofits, and it would have been more effective to just build it conventionally. Both from a cost perspective and as a final result. If someone is happy with a simple container home, it really wouldn't be hard to build a similar box more conventionally. I suspect the real issue at hand is that you're usually not allowed to build such a house, which is where the "tin…
> Ignoring the part where an entire group of people seem to have forgotten that caravans exist
I don't think they forgot that they exist, just that they serve a significantly different niche.
A caravan (or travel trailer) is designed to be moved easily and regularly. Ideally with the smallest vehicle possible. This means they are built incredibly lightly, with at least a passing concern for aerodynamics.
Tiny houses aren't really designed to be moved often. They have generally have much more sturdily built and larger internal fixtures. They aren't particularly great on the road, often people hire a company to move them when they need to. But they are designed to be lived in full time.
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#126I thought this was going to be about... bricks. Houses are traditionally made from earth.
Not in the US. Americans prefer living in cardboard boxes. I mean, timber frame and drywall palaces.
You mean affordable structures made out of renewables and built to the latest safety and efficiency standards?
I always feel like this sentiment sounds like nostalgia some express about the "sturdy" cars of the 60's. Sure, you can hit them with a hammer without a dent, but the engineering is crap.
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#127I like the idea. Have these been put through stress tests? i.e. Wind tunnels, simulated forest fire, floods, earthquake, cold / hot weather, powder actuated projectiles and how do they compare to traditional wooden framed or steel framed homes? What is the thermal insulation rating? I would expect thermals to be pretty good. I've seen similar designs using aircrete [1] and those are fire-resistant. How strong is this…
The thermal resistance of raw earth is not good, similar to that of concrete. Thermal conductivity is around 10 W/m.K. To be compared to 0.1 W/m.K for a typical building insulating material. But raw earth is porous and will store moisture, hence behaves like a two-phase material. Water in the earth may vaporize or condensate in the pores, which helps in regulating indoor moisture levels, and explains the high thermal…
Thankyou for that really detailed explanation. That reaffirms for me that I will most likely stick with aircrete and concrete/shotcrete when it comes time to build a few hobby structures I had in mind.
Out of curiosity, could you suggest what material would be best for storing heat from the sun? I am going to build a greenhouse that will face the south and have a wall on the north side to absorb heat. I have seen some people use clay with a black metal wall and some use black barrels of water. I want to be able to extract some heat from it using pipes. Any thoughts on what might be even better?
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bulk of a house (and its major cost component) is the structure Using current pre-fab techniques a half dozen builders can raise the core structure of a single family house in a few days. A friend of mine is in the process of building a house and raising the core structure was the fastest and easiest part of the whole process. I don't see this being either cheaper or faster. The bulk of the cost in many cases is…
That's misleading when comparing this. There's a typical expectation of manufactured parts or prepared wood for a wood frame building. (It's not instantaneous to season wood for house building, and it's longer than this structure drying) I have looked into building a house a few month ago, the wait time for the structural lumber components to be manufactured to the spec - 3 months. "Raising the barn" part is hardly t…
Houses can also be “stick built” from lumber on site. The trusses will usually be manufactured so that they are all identical but they are generally quick barring any backlog of work.
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#129I hope 3D printing homes will take off now that lumber prices are so ridiculous. The sudden cost increases in other materials will now hopefully give 3d printing space to achieve economies of scale. Imagine homes that are printed with a 20 year life expectancy. Especially in America where I don't know many families that remain in the same house for 20 years. We could start going to the Japanese model of razing the ho…
We don't need a new construction methodology to fix a materials problem. A specialized construction methodology makes the problem worse, because they often require very specific materials. My 3D printer is compatible with ~5 very specific types of plastic. Traditional construction can be done with plastics, metals, masonry, wood, composites, and many others.
I didn't imply that 3d printing should fix the materials problem, I simply hope that the materials problem gives 3d printed housing enough room financially to achieve economies of scale to bring the prices down for those situations where 3d printed houses are specifically relevant.
Consider as one example low income areas that are filled with housing built in the 40's and 50's which can now be razed and replaced without inadvertently causing gentrification.
Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth
#130It seems strange that there is so much focus on 3D printing structures. Any close look at where the costs go in home construction can easily verify that foundations and services (power, water, sewage) are where the majority of the costs are. It always makes sense to pinch pennies, but starting with one of the smallest line items limits potential improvement. What we really need are ongoing improvements to modular service installations.
This is also a complex cultural problem here as well because even though there are obvious ways of making even comparisons such as time and money spent before receiving a use permit the culture of construction likes to focus on a single innovation while leaving the rest out. There is a modular apartment building near me that took only hours to assemble from the component modules. However, doing that took many months of site preparation and module delivery and after the several hours construction it has still been months to get finishing done, construct sidewalks, and the rest. Without some general agreement about how to measure construction costs and time it is easy to present innovations that are either minor improvements or actually steps backward.