domehouse Posted March 23, 2014 Posted March 23, 2014 it seems standard of living is equal to nice space to live in at least a big part. So why do countries have such problems with allow mass produced huge cheap houses from cheap materials with good durability far apart ? IT would seem fastest way for a communist state like cuba to prove its system is better, perhaps sweden too. I can see the countervaling force fo banks wanting hugely expensive items and little compatition. Wouldnt this be overwhelmed by the gains?
NumberSix Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 In the US houses are mass produced using balloon frame construction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%28construction%29It is cheap and fast, but not very durable. All concrete houses would be more expensive for labor and materials. If the target market is poor people, they would be very price sensitive and not willing to pay a lot extra over the wood frame price.
ribuck Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 ... If the target market is poor people ... There are many good options for poor people, but those options are either prohibited by building codes, or burdened with so much bureaucracy that they are only available to rich people. For example, many traditional building methods are cheap. Really cheap, in terms of the cost of materials. They do, however, require many times as much labor as modern commercial building. So they are perfect for people who are cash-poor but time-rich, and prepared to work on their own house. Examples include plastered straw bale houses, yurts and mud-brick houses. Many poor people would have their needs met by a high-quality but tiny house, however many places impose minimum size requirements on new build. Land that has been granted permission for housing has its price artificially forced up. For example, in the UK you can buy farmland for £6,000 per acre. After a property developer gets that same land re-zoned for housing, it sells for £600,000 per acre. There are many good ways that housing can be allowed to become more accessible to poor people, but I don't think concrete houses are the best way.
WorBlux Posted March 25, 2014 Posted March 25, 2014 There was a company that did mass produce concrete houses, and some foundations are build with pre-cast sections. Trouble is with concrete that it's heavy and it's a finicky process to get really good quality and you need quite a bit of steel reinforcement. It's also not a great material for tropical or arctic climates There are places in the U.S. you can buy a factory build home, which are cheaper and better built than on-site construction. But the economy of scale with homes isn't great because most of the cost is reflected in materials and speciality labor. Beyond that the house has to fit with the culture and environment to really work well and just plain concrete is ugly. What would work better than mass-produced homes, is to mass produce Lego-like home parts, where if following a few basic rules will result in a stable structure. Housing for the worlds poor is just as much of an engineering and design challenge as it is a challenge for basic resources. You need the sort of information that just doesn't travel well vertically up a bueracracy.
ReptilianBrain Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 In the future massive 3D printers will manufacture homes inexpensively. The floors, walls and ceiling will be 'printed' with plumbing in place and empty space to run the electrical.
dsayers Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 I don't know much about 3D printers. Are the raw materials they use capable of the tensile strength needed as building materials?
ribuck Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 In the future massive 3D printers will manufacture homes inexpensively. The floors, walls and ceiling will be 'printed' with plumbing in place and empty space to run the electrical. 3D home printing is sure to become widespread in the future, but it's going to be a long time before it is inexpensive. By its nature, 3D printing is slow and expensive, but extremely flexible and versatile. As an analogy, consider a newspaper. Most homes have a 2D printer that can print a newspaper, yet (when you count the cost of the inkjet cartridges) it's perhaps a hundred times cheaper to buy a newspaper which has been mass-produced and transported to where it is needed. Similarly, printing simple parts using a complex device subject to wear-and-tear is going to be much more expensive than mass-producing them using a technique such as injection-molding. 3D printers ... Are the raw materials they use capable of the tensile strength needed as building materials? Yes that's not a problem. The structure needs to be designed with 3D printing in mind, but that's no big deal.
WorBlux Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 In the future massive 3D printers will manufacture homes inexpensively. The floors, walls and ceiling will be 'printed' with plumbing in place and empty space to run the electrical. I have doubts. It would have to be a very odd structure before it made more sense to print the whole thing rather than bolt-together wall sections. What I could see is a machine that lays bricks with cutouts for conduits and the like, or a machine that can assemble wall sections or trusses from demensinal lumber
endostate Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 Reminds me of concrete canvas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBHVKFCoYFc (2:12)
ribuck Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 Here's an example of a cool-looking house that was built inexpensively using concrete blocks: http://www.viralnova.com/dream-dome-home-thailand/
Alan C. Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 The idea of 3D printed houses is not all that farfetched. Materials like plastic lumber are maleable, extremely durable, and easily recyclable.
WorBlux Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Right now Plastic lumber is 3x the cost of actual lumber, and it's not as strong. I still think you can automate a lot of it, just that extrusion printing just doesn't make any sense. How to you support the ceiling with a large amount of fill that you have to remove later? Most of the newer cheap building materials I've seen are masonry, need forms, or require a step of curing under compression.
cobra2411 Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 I think SIP panels or similar would be the best way to go currently. Design the house and have he panels pre built and pre wired. Then build the foundation, truck out the panels, stand them up and bolt them together. Top with a roof, some on-site finishing work and done. Modular construction is nice too, but you need truck and crane access to the site.
WorBlux Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 I've seen some SIP's proposed that use agricultural wastes with fungal mycelium as the "glue".
NumberSix Posted April 18, 2014 Posted April 18, 2014 Watch Richard Ambrose and Jonny Phillips quickly construct a building made of concrete canvas—a material that has all the elements of concrete, but is flexible enough to be turned into any shape. This technology allows people to erect permanent structures in a fraction of the time needed for traditional building techniques.
Josh F Posted April 18, 2014 Posted April 18, 2014 lol that concrete bag house is so ugly! The cheapest houses for poor people are basic wood frames, in countries without a lot of environmental regulations you can get lumber inexpensively, pay someone about $1 an hour to work on your home, and you've got a house for well under $5,000. Not particularly good for cold weather, but it will keep the rain off Adobe and other earth based brink homes are even cheaper, but they take a lot of time to make.
trivs Posted April 21, 2014 Posted April 21, 2014 3D printing CAN push make this happen, and in fact is already on it way. Check this out, 10 3D printed houses in one day. Also, down the road these houses could all be customized. http://www.3dprinterworld.com/article/ten-3d-printed-houses-day I have a 3D printer and it has opened up my kids eyes so much to create their own ideas. And this technology is just getting started. If you want to learn more about it, feel free to follow me on twitter twitter.com/3Dnuts or on FB at https://www.facebook.com/DDDNuts Cheers!
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