81–90 of 121 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, plan in advance ...
Every home builder is planing in advance, the problem is that down the line you'll realize mistakes you didn't think about, 100% of the time. You also can't plan failures in advance that good, and if you do care about that you certainly won't encase all your utilities in concrete
If you have the ability to pump concrete, and a gantry across the whole site, why wouldn't you pick and place concrete blocks or other materials rather than concrete the whole thing on site? Also, aren't these walls significantly more CO2 unfriendly than lumber, and more difficult to renovate? What if I need to get a builder in to do repairs, is there a concrete wall guy who knows how to repair them? Can it print mul…
Is it purely that this robot never takes vacation and never asks for a raise? Feels a lot like this permits building a home largely without human labor, which I'm sure the VC class would be very excited about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You misunderstood. If I can build a house for half the cost, that goes to my profit margin, not a discount for the buyer.
As Jeff Bezos says, your margin is my opportunity. So yes, it would drive costs down. But we aren’t even there yet because the houses aren’t being sold because they’re too expensive. Another way to pad your profit margins would be to raise the asking price of the $360k home by $100k. There is a reason people aren’t doing that.
Amazon deals in commodity goods that are easily substituteable.
Housing is different because every single one is unique (by virtue of location) and also incredibly scarce (again, location).
Housing markets tend to strongly fight any tendency towards underpricing. When a house is underpriced, buyers will get into a bidding war and push the price back into the fair market price.
Glad to see new building techniques being attempted in real world scenarios. 3d printed structures will be most compelling when they do more things that are difficult or impractical with traditional techniques: curved walls, built inside, ornamentation, patterns, etc.
There is nothing you can’t do with classical drywall. Curved walls, ornamentation, patterns, integrated furniture… you name it. 3d printing has a huge limitation here - you need support to print over empty area. I am sure it’s not fun removing concrete support pieces from huge concrete structure without cracks.
Okay, I name compound curves. Can I do that with drywall?
"...range in price from around $450,000 to close to $600,000." In other words, there is little economic incentive to recommend this construction method. Not much in the way of aesthetics either --- unless you want a ranch box.
3D printing doesn't relieve any important construction constraints and probably raises costs because unfamiliarity increases risks and increased risk increases price. Superstructure is about the easiest and fastest part of residential construction. Sitework, finishes, and MEP systems are harder, tend to take longer, and cost more. Anyway, market rate housing sells at market rates no matter how it is built.
This is a demonstration project.
If there were any economic advantage, I would expect them to be eager to demonstrate it.
But such does not appear to be the case. $450-600K for a simple, single story ranch 30 miles outside of Austin is not exactly awe inspiring.
If you have the ability to pump concrete, and a gantry across the whole site, why wouldn't you pick and place concrete blocks or other materials rather than concrete the whole thing on site? Also, aren't these walls significantly more CO2 unfriendly than lumber, and more difficult to renovate? What if I need to get a builder in to do repairs, is there a concrete wall guy who knows how to repair them? Can it print mul…
I would also imagine that a home with a concrete exterior (with appropriate roofing) would be more likely to survive a wildfire, in areas susceptible to those.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet successful balloon building businesses don’t build balloons from lead because of the fundamental nature of the balloon building problem.
Again, I really don't understand how this metaphor fits with housing getting more or less customisation with more or less 3D printing vs. prefab vs. whatever the other option(s) is/are called at higher or lower costs.
There’s also the capital cost of the printer, the inherent complexity of pumping concrete, and the material cost of concreter per unit volume.
My opinion is based on my bullshit detector. I worked in a precast plant with its own concrete plant, for a very large home builder, and for and with residential developers as an architect. Sure I might be wrong, but my opinion is formed from directly related experience with the materials and with the industries.
But even on the face the article is talking about moonbases as future projects not suburban Atlanta.
[1] Most likely this project is subsidized with non-commercial resources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like a huge drawback? Running new electrical and plumbing and doing repairs becomes much more difficult.
Yes, plan in advance ...
Why would someone want one of these ugly homes for $400k when for that price you can buy something much nicer?
I can't believe I find myself saying this, but it would have been much nicer to just build nice condos in the middle, and use the rest as shared greenspace.