Your next home might be printed
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It reminds me a bit of the pre-fab housing that was build in the UK after WW2 to house the people who'd been made homeless. They were intended to last about 10 years, but were still very common in the 1970's - apparently 8000 are still in use today.
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I'm sure that prices will come down. The article says the cost is $160/sq ft versus the traditional construction process of $200.
A modular home can be purchased for half that cost for the base model, and about the equivalent cost for finished.
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In both cases, what counts is final cost (land, site prep, etc.)
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@Jolly said in Your next home might be printed:
In both cases, what counts is final cost (land, site prep, etc.)
Yes. The prices quoted in my link are for turn-key ready. All you need is the land.
Former partner of mine had a lake house in southern Wisconsin. It was little more than a shack. He tore it down and put up a custom pre-fab for about 75% of the cost of a stick-built.
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More like a busstop than a train station, but still..........
Need a train station shelter in a hurry? You can now print that.
In Arida, Japan, a Japanese architectural firm and 3D-printed house manufacturer partnered with JR-West, a railway network, to build what they claim is the world’s first 3D-printed train station. Assembled in less than six hours between the station’s last train of the night and first train of the following morning, it’s a promising first look at how infrastructure improvements might be done faster and cheaper.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91317868/3d-printed-train-station-japan-6-hours-to-build
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@Mik said in Your next home might be printed:
I hope they last too. Like the idea and it will use a lot less lumber.
But lumber is one of the easiest replenishable materials. The composites the 3d printers are using is not.
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https://www.bgr.com/2089651/3d-printing-robots-solve-housing-crisis/
As the name implies, 3D-printed houses are buildings that are primarily constructed by an automated arm extruding a special concrete mix. This material builds up the shell of the house layer by layer, which can reduce building costs by up to 35% and labor costs by as much as 80%, while also decreasing the amount of wasted material after completion. The process is mostly automated, but human workers are still on hand to install all the plumbing, electrical wires, insulation, HVAC systems, and roofs.
Thanks to 3D printers, houses can go up in days. In fact, Europe's biggest 3D-printed building was constructed in just under 6 days, and the world's largest house printer can build a home in a little over 3 days. And of course, reduced build time also means less energy needed for the process. Efficiency is the name of the game here.
Since 3D printing houses is more efficient than traditional building methods, this process might just help solve the housing crisis. The costs of labor, energy, and materials are comparatively lower (especially if material waste isn't tabulated into the price), so those savings could hypothetically be passed on to buyers. However, the savings might not stop there.
The single biggest advantage of 3D printing houses boils down to this: While traditional homes rely on insulation, 3D-printed wall systems are often built with insulated cavities and high-thermal-mass concrete that help manage heat flow. This can lead to lower energy and electricity bills — in fact, some 3D-printed homes are reportedly 40 to 60% more energy efficient than standard new builds.
