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A house 3D printed from raw earth

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Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#71

Post by lhpz »

cheschire wrote: post #40

I 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…

The interesting question would be to know if the mix of raw earth + additives necessary for 3D printing, can be reused for a new construction after 20 years.

The raw earth used for traditional building techniques like rammed earth, can be re-used just by adding some water after razing the earth walls, as long as no cement/lime additive was initially used. This is also the Achilles heel of these traditional techniques: moisture will destroy the structure of a rammed earth wall when not appropriately protected with a large roof + above the ground foundation to avoid capillary rise.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#72

Post by doh »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #67
doh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of land, just not in desirable locations. But if you could build infrastructure easily and with speed, maybe those locations can be transformed too. Up until last 40 years ago people didn't want to live on the ocean. Now they can't get enough. US has a huge swaths of land empty, especially in the Pacific Northwest.

>Up until last 40 years ago people didn't want to live on the ocean. Now they can't get enough. US has a huge swaths of land empty, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Can you expand on this please? What do you mean by 'people didn't want to live on the ocean' and also, what do you mean by 'vast swaths of empty land in the PNW'. Are you talking east of the cascades? I don't think there is a whole lot of land there w…

> What do you mean by 'people didn't want to live on the ocean'

I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger being confused why "nobody" wanted to live in Santa Monica or Venice Beach to a point that the government was subsidizing it to attract people.

For instance north of San Diego there are old apartment buildings on the water that have only window facing the ocean in their bathroom.

Historically ocean was considered as a hassle. You have to deal with the salty air that breaks down many material quite swiftly.

In Turkey, fathers would give the prime land to their sons (pastures) and the crap land to their daughters (ocean fronts). How the world changed.

> what do you mean by 'vast swaths of empty land in the PNW' If you go anywhere outside of the majors settlements there are major swaths of empty land which is fairly cheap, but there is no infrastructure there and people don't want to be the city founders anymore.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#73

Post by prox »

surgeryres wrote: post #51

Yet another example of the over-hype of “3D Printing”. Yes it’s neat that they collected some local dirt, mixed it with some non-locally sourced water and binder, and poured it into an extruder run on some kind of non locally sourced energy, then sprayed it with some protective coating - it baffles me that people see this as a possible mainstream building technique. Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc…

While that’s true, and this is no instanthouse.exe, these are all proof of concept projects. Things like longevity or other challenges might not even be the focus. So while this is no holy grail, it’s a stepping stone towards certain building solutions or local solutions (think quick emergency shelters, or off world for instance, to name a few)

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#74

Post by CyberDildonics »

surgeryres wrote: post #51

Yet another example of the over-hype of “3D Printing”. Yes it’s neat that they collected some local dirt, mixed it with some non-locally sourced water and binder, and poured it into an extruder run on some kind of non locally sourced energy, then sprayed it with some protective coating - it baffles me that people see this as a possible mainstream building technique. Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc…

> Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc through this structure is doable but much harder,

You realize there are lots of brick houses out there and those things aren't run through the brick walls either right?

2x4 dimensional lumber framing is used inside and those are run through the studs.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#75

Post by whoomp12342 »

surgeryres wrote: post #51

Yet another example of the over-hype of “3D Printing”. Yes it’s neat that they collected some local dirt, mixed it with some non-locally sourced water and binder, and poured it into an extruder run on some kind of non locally sourced energy, then sprayed it with some protective coating - it baffles me that people see this as a possible mainstream building technique. Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc…

Some day we will 3d print pipes and wire!!!

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#76

Post by mikeg8 »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #74
surgeryres wrote: post #51

Yet another example of the over-hype of “3D Printing”. Yes it’s neat that they collected some local dirt, mixed it with some non-locally sourced water and binder, and poured it into an extruder run on some kind of non locally sourced energy, then sprayed it with some protective coating - it baffles me that people see this as a possible mainstream building technique. Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc…

> Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc through this structure is doable but much harder, You realize there are lots of brick houses out there and those things aren't run through the brick walls either right? 2x4 dimensional lumber framing is used inside and those are run through the studs.

Yea but good luck running interior 2x4 furring walls for MEPs (Mechanical, electrical, plumbing) on curved wall structures like this. Would be an absolute carpentry nightmare.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#77

Post by surgeryres »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #74
surgeryres wrote: post #51

Yet another example of the over-hype of “3D Printing”. Yes it’s neat that they collected some local dirt, mixed it with some non-locally sourced water and binder, and poured it into an extruder run on some kind of non locally sourced energy, then sprayed it with some protective coating - it baffles me that people see this as a possible mainstream building technique. Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc…

> Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc through this structure is doable but much harder, You realize there are lots of brick houses out there and those things aren't run through the brick walls either right? 2x4 dimensional lumber framing is used inside and those are run through the studs.

Yes true, but brick and other base material like it is very strong and support fixtures to attach ducting, pipes, cables - I’m not sure you can drill brackets into this mud and safely secure an AC duct or conduit.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#78

Post by bruiseralmighty »

flatline wrote: post #70
mbgerring wrote: post #66

Every one of these obnoxious mud huts I’ve ever seen are single story, on like 10 acres of land, in a car-dependent rural area. More people living like this would worsen every current issue we face with environmental sustainability.

Good luck trying to get permits to build anything the slightest bit unconventional in any populated area. I looked at building a geodesic dome, and was going to end up in the boonies and likely still paying off the inspector to pull permits. You could get it done in town and it would have to be over-built, completely ruining the whole efficiency angle of the dome to begin with, and taking months or years to work thro…

Yeah basically this. Trying to build an eco-structure or even a mostly earthen home in the US you are basically relegated to a sparsely populated counties or taking your chances squatting on Federal land.

This was quite eye-opening to me once I had to actually attempt to find some land to build on.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#79

Post by surgeryres »

prox wrote: post #73
surgeryres wrote: post #51

Yet another example of the over-hype of “3D Printing”. Yes it’s neat that they collected some local dirt, mixed it with some non-locally sourced water and binder, and poured it into an extruder run on some kind of non locally sourced energy, then sprayed it with some protective coating - it baffles me that people see this as a possible mainstream building technique. Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc…

While that’s true, and this is no instanthouse.exe, these are all proof of concept projects. Things like longevity or other challenges might not even be the focus. So while this is no holy grail, it’s a stepping stone towards certain building solutions or local solutions (think quick emergency shelters, or off world for instance, to name a few)

I think it’s a great idea to build mud huts on another planet where labor is scarce, machine energy is under different constraints, and certain resources are “unlimited”.

But this approach for building a house on Earth to house humans seems way off the bell curve of potential to scale.

Re: A house 3D printed from raw earth

#80

Post by wmil »

surgeryres wrote: post #51

Yet another example of the over-hype of “3D Printing”. Yes it’s neat that they collected some local dirt, mixed it with some non-locally sourced water and binder, and poured it into an extruder run on some kind of non locally sourced energy, then sprayed it with some protective coating - it baffles me that people see this as a possible mainstream building technique. Running electrical, plumbing, air conditioning etc…

Automating anything opens up new doors.

Continuing to develop this tech could make it useful for setting up buildings in hostile environments. Initially deserts and the arctic/antarctic.

But eventually using unattended robots to construct structures on the Moon and Mars.

I think the relevant Onion article is this classic from 1998: "New $5,000 Multimedia Computer System Downloads Real-Time TV Programs, Displays Them On Monitor" https://www.theonion.com/new-5-000-multimedia-computer-syste...

20 years later analog TV is long dead. TVs are now computers.

This probably won't add up to much in the next 20 years. But it's early tech and there are exciting long term possibilities.

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