Wow, I'd hate to have to do retrofit wiring in this! It's a tremendous feat, though, despite some rather obvious drawbacks.

Or maybe they don't show the electrical wiring on purpose. Did they print the THHN?

[Link: mashable.com]

That's pretty cool. It does look like retrofitting would be tough or impossible. But, it's not the only construction style or design that has that problem.


But, how big of a printer would they have to build to print a 14,000 sq ft house?

You'd just build it in sections.

Unless you framed out walls inside the house, I wouldn't want to attempt to "snake" wire through.

I went back and looked at it again. They "printed" the house in 24 hours, but people had to put spacers and diagonals in to strengthen the structure, and they have one shot of plumbing. Can we guess that the time to install the plumbing was not within the 24 hours of printing time?

There's also a shot looking down on a wall, showing foam inside a cavity and what looks like the end of a pipe nipple inside the wall.

This is missing so many required details that it's on the verge of being BS reporting of something that's pretty cool.

kgossen, building it in sections requires some kind of clever attachment of wet concrete to dry concrete.

It looked like there was conduit installed in the beginning too. Probably was a lot of prep that wasn't in that 24 hrs. But still, it's pretty impressive.

Oh, yeah: flooring.
Painting, which they showed, but didn't tell about.

Roofing. I'd LOVE to see them print from a bucket of Henry's!

Worked down in Florida, years ago, where we installed the water and drain piping for the plumbing before the slab was poured.

Took about one to two hours on the average 2,500 to 3000SF Ranch, so I'd say the prep work wouldn't be too much outside that 24 hours.

I know some of the Habitat for Humanity houses are built in less than 24 hours as well, having worked on a 1400SF one that took a little over 12 hours. One such project was built in New Zealand, and it took all of 3 hours 26 minutes.

building one of Lego's new toy structures takes a hell of a lot longer than that! Lol (side note, todays lego's suck, not near as much imagination being used. you can build ONE thing with todays "kits". Ashame)

And one of those kits costs more than this house.

I quoted that whole thing because that's amazing. I see you don't mention how many people you threw at these things, though; and for sure the ordering, prep time, and trucking arrangement time were not included in that!

Figuring these things reminds me of the glad-handing financial consultancy company... When they advertise that "our staff have more than a hundred years of experience in these matters," my devilish mind thinks "yeah, you've got two hundred college students, each with six months' experience!"

I have no doubt that on any of the Habitat projects, the logistics were planned ahead of time, as well as the foundation work.


I cannot say exactly how many people as I had but one job (electrical) and there were 8 of us doing the rough in, and 8 doing the final a few hours later.

Every crew had several people, with those that required a rough and final, having a split crew.

On the one I worked on, the house was "move in" ready in 13 hours. The nly time I saw ALL the trades working alongside each other and not having fights break out.

It was a do your task, and get out of the house and out of the way. You were absolutely not to do anything else, and were instructed to get outside the ropes and across the street.

How is it possible in the printed house for the concrete to be cured to a minimum safe amount in that amount of time?

Have you ever felt the oppressive humidity inside a closed building 24 hours after the entire inside has been mudded? But a house can be "ready" in 13 hours?

When you worked on projects, how did you get the drywall tape to dry quickly enough? For that matter, how about the paint? Did any plumbing caulking need to cure? Aren't there some things that just can't be sped up like that? And if there are, are they inexpensive? Or are they crap?

Curved housing.... finally an actual reason to use a curved TV.....

Back in the 60's and 70's there was a bit of a trend around here in the ski resort communities to build round houses. They were absolutely horrible. The rooms are wedge shapes and there are no halls. You just walk through each room to get to the next. Some are more than one story and they always have those awful metal spiral stairs.

Ernie,

There are myriad drywall compounds. Some dry in a very few minutes. Same with some paints. Some dry to touch within minutes and fully cure within hours.

Plumbing caulking doesn't actually dry and is only used in a very few locations like sink drains and such. The rest of the plumbing takes minutes these days, what with PEX, but even with copper, it's soldered, it's done.

The entire home can be done, and finished, in that short time, since it involves a crew that has specific tasks. You go in at your time, do your job, and get out of the way.

To me, the worst part was being inside while the roof was being shingled. The two hours of hammering was awful....LOL


As an example, the crew I was on, was wiring the house while the outside walls were being sheathed, and the roofing was going on, and the plumbing guys were also doing there thing.

Fun stuff, and amazing to be a part of.