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this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Futurology
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I seriously doubt 3D printed homes will ever be disruptive in any real sense. Effectively, it makes frame building easier. But that has never been the limiting factor in construction. All of the wiring, plumbing, etc is what is most difficult about building a home.
This company intends to do away with all that by just building a basic structure for people that need housing the most. Their "printer" is very cheap and fits in a shipping container. This is pretty much best case scenario, and it still would be upstaged by a shipping container of cinder blocks. The use case for 3D printed homes is luxury housing with funny shapes sold for high prices.
Only way I can see it happening is if they come up with a material where they can print the exterior facing, "studs" of some sort that are vertical like a typical 2x4 wall, and the subfloor/floor joists, and roof gables.
In such a way that typical trades people can still do the same work as they do in a regular home like drilling through the framework where needed to run pipes and wiring, throwing up drywall interior, and putting down tile or laminate flooring and putting up shingle roofing.
Wild theory time. I wonder how modular the piping/wiring could be made. With the right material (or technique) they could pause the print at various levels to do horizontal piping/wiring (or just put in conduit) and there's plenty of room in the infill to do vertical - joining the horizontal and vertical might need something new. Everything is going to be cadded up beforehand and presumably the material is going to be consistent. With the right fittings maybe the plumping snaps together and the wiring comes in precut lengths. (Am in UK, most houses are made from concrete blocks that need to be tracked for wiring/plumbing - not sure how much difference this makes).