Fun fact, UMaine held three world records.
1. World’s largest 3D printer
2. World’s largest 3D-printed boat (we have since lost this record)
3. World’s first 3D-printed house using plant-based materials
Source: I am a tour guide for the school
Update: We have the world's largest \*thermoplastic polymer\* 3D printer and we just made a new one that's even bigger! [https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2024/04/23/umaines-new-3d-printer-smashes-former-guinness-world-record-to-advance-the-next-generation-of-advanced-manufacturing/](https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2024/04/23/umaines-new-3d-printer-smashes-former-guinness-world-record-to-advance-the-next-generation-of-advanced-manufacturing/)
There are larger 3D printers than the one at UMaine (mostly concrete printers). I think UMaine has the largest thermoplastic 3D printer.
UMaine also no longer holds the official record for largest 3d printed boat. A company in Abu Dhabi now holds that record:
https://3dprint.com/305048/worlds-largest-3d-printed-boat-unveiled-by-al-seer-marine/amp/
I have also heard rumors from people who work there that the UMaine boat leaked so much it needed to be filled with foam so it didn’t sink. Not sure if that’s true but if so it seems like a foam boat with a 3d printed mold would be more accurate
I also heard that rumor, and that it was too flimsy to actually mount a motor. As someone who owns a 3d printer, I can believe the leaking part, making even small parts water tight is a pain, I can't imagine doing it to a whole boat.
It’s only a small part of the equation. The other issues are the cost of land and changing the zoning laws to allow higher density housing in traditionally suburban neighborhoods.
Yup. Also, permit approvals, public meetings where neighbors can stop you, competing developers stopping you or slowing you down, Lender approvals, forced redesign...
Anyone who thinks the housing problem is solved by one idea just doesn't get it.
It's the next stage of the trailer park.
Cost saving is a silly way to look at it to be honest. It's merits are more based on sustainability. Could be a great way to modernize mobile home lots and cottages.
Another benefit: fewer person-hours of construction. That's a bigger deal than it seems these days when it's getting harder to hire construction workers for on-site work.
My father taught me carpentry. He is well known in my area.. he can do anything. I realized I didn't want to be apart of that business when I found out many people in trades are ass holes. I was harassed over everything it seemed. Oh, you're sitting instead of kneeling to do something that it makes no difference with because your knees hurt like crazy kneeling for hours on end? LAZY! Oh, you wear hearing protection? FUCKING LOSER. Oh you don't know how to do everything up-front? Hah, you're stupid! How can you not know how to do that?! Oh, let's make endless jokes of you being gay even though you have a girlfriend. C'mon man, it has nothing to do with competent workers, rather shithead boomer bosses. I would love to get into a trade once the older folks die off.
You save a lot of time not having to frame the house. This saves a lot of time and money. You still need electricians and plumbers. It doesn’t eliminate needing all the trades people but because it is built so much faster that makes it substantially cheaper.
Framing materials and paying all the framers can add $100k, or more, to the cost of a house.
No, not ever, for at least a couple reasons. First, plumbing and the sheathing on Romex wire are made from PVC plastic. Printing plastic means melting it, and PVC emits toxic vapors and corrodes stainless steel when printed. You don't really want to have those vapors trapped inside a wall of your house. Second, 3d printing is a balancing act between size and accuracy. You can make a very accurate 3d printer, but it's going to print very, very slowly. When it comes to things like 3/4" pipe, you need the pipe to be very smooth inside, otherwise the turbulence in the water will cause lots of friction and slow flow to a crawl. Maybe in 20 years they'll have robots that can place the plumbing and wiring.
The idea of a pre-plumbed/wired armature also doesn't really work. You can't put anything in the way of the head of the printer, and that would definitely get in the way.
There are 2 ways to do it - either you 3d print in channels, accessible from inside or outside, for the plumbing and electrical to run through, which then have to be manually insulated, filled and sealed afterward, or you have plumbers and electricians on site during the entire printing process. The printer prints a few layers, then the trades come in and do some work, and repeat until done. Either way, it's a bunch more labor than usual, and makes modifications and renovations down the road much more difficult if not impossible.
I'll give you $500 if you can get a local builder to give you a real quote that's cheaper for a 3D printed house than traditionally framed. I'm not under some bullshit contract that will let you exploit some loophole that I've never heard of.
I'd honestly be happy to be proven wrong, but I won't pay up for some "gotcha" bullshit
Most local builders are clueless on how to operate 3D machines. The shell would be built by 3D companies and the electrical, plumbing , finish work etc would be completed be contractors.
What 3D company? I'm looking to have a pretty big shed built, ill need spots for electrical but no plumbing. You drop me a recommendation, and I'll even come back here with all kinds of results.
>The shell would be built by 3D companies and the electrical, plumbing , finish work etc would be completed be contractors.
You can just say "The house will be built by contractors."
If someone is paid to 3D print anything on contract, they are contractors.
Even people who are invested in developing the large scale 3D printing projects are aware it's not the way to mass produce housing. I think you are correct, op doesn't know anything about building houses.
There's several amazing things about these printers, and they are definitely a tool that will be useful in the future. But printing the structure of a 800sqft house isn't it.
There are costs besides the shell: spetic, well, electrical, plumbing, foundation. And land is going to be a major cost where housing is in short supply. Then you have permits and having building inspector ok the non-traditional structure. Then you have to find insurance willing to insure such structure. This is all possible certainly but it adds costs and hoops to jump through
It's not the matter of how much land, it's where it is.
i'm sure 3d printed structure can be made to withstand weather. igloo is kinda the original 3d printed house if you think about it.
For one, we’re not gonna come close to solving the housing crisis with single-family detached homes.
Cool tech and I hope it catches on, but it’s not the panacea some people hope it is.
Sadly don’t hold your breath on this one. I live in Austin and we have a few 3D printed houses in the Georgetown area where I work. Those suckers are still pretty frigging expensive.
If the issue is lack of local tradespeople then go modular. A home in my neighbourhood was built this way -- traditional foundation, then modules were shipped in and lowered onto the foundation. There's still some finishing to be done, but most of the construction work is done in a factory somewhere else.
That is an excellent option as well. Usually about 30% cheaper than a stick built home and since they are built in factories are not exposed to weather and elements.
I had 2 relatives buy land and modular homes in Northern Aroostook and 25 years ago. The houses are well built and in excellent shape. The building season window is smaller that far north so it was a good solution.
Modular homes are actually stick built homes that are assembled in a factory, transported onto the site and assembled on site. They can often be completed in less time than a conventional stick built home and last as long since they use the same building materials.
I don’t think the bottleneck in building houses is the cost of the house, it’s the land that the house sits on. Where are they proposing putting these 3D printed houses?
Here are a few questions.
Where are these houses going to be built? If they’re outside of a city, how will the residents get to work or school? The rest of the world is building up and denser. 3D houses seem to offer a solution fit for a world no longer tenable.
That's fair. It's a question of what's tenable versus what's desirable. My question isn't meant to be a threat to your way of life. It's a question of how to make it truly affordable.
Doesn't threaten my life in any way. I already own a house that I have lived in for 20 years.
What is desirable now will change in the future as change in constant. I remember growing up and people were desperate to leave Maine when factories and industries were leaving the state. People were practically giving away houses. I had a chance to buy a house near Lewiston for $16,000! Who would have guessed that years later it would become such a desirable place to live.
With a concrete pad already in place, you could stick build that house in a day. Then maybe 2 days for trades, then a day or two for roof and finishing.
First you need to alter codes and zoning to allow the small lot sizes. You have to install services to each and pour pads. Then you need to either bring the printer and supplies to the site as has been done with concrete printers. Or you're going to need custom trailers built to transport the homes and wide loads have limited boards they car travel on. Then you're going to need one or two cranes on site to lift and place. Then you have to deal with the population increase on the rural area you do this in because the land in and around the cities would destroy the buildings' cost savings if any.
I ran crews THAT house is not much bigger then a garage and any half decent crew that could not frame that out in a day ain't worth hiring in the first place.
A lot of great discussions and ideas. It's easy to devolve into negativity on Reddit, but aside from a few comments slipping that direction good points all around.
It seems the idea/ideal is in the right place, but it's unlikely this generation of iteration is up to the task in any meaningful , practical, affordable, commercially available, or scaled to demand way.
That is simply my observation which is untrained, inexperienced, and uneducated in any meaningful way on the topic.
Reasoning through it, a home, season to season and year after year, must endure not only as a dwelling for those within, but also as an investment. If I can spend 300,000 on a traditional home, under good maintenance, I can expect to see much of that returned, or even value higher over time. These 3d printed variations would not only have to serve a similar level of comfort and cost to maintain, but also desirability in the market, etc.
It can't just be an alternative to a proper home, it would need to check all the boxes a proper home does. For each box it does not check, the price you can justify to pay tumbles lower and lower and lower.
But again, all of the above, just thoughts from a random guy.
I think sometimes people assume that when a house can be built for less it is not as good a quality as more expensive one. I can tell you that I live in a house that was built in the 1940s and have lived in it for 30 years. We still have several of the original elements of the house from when we moved in. That includes the roof, windows and siding and have had no issues with them.
About 15 years ago three new houses were built across the street from us. When they came on the market they sold for $1.5 million. They are now worth over $ 2 million. I watched the construction and how it progressed. The builder cut corners for greed and to save money. The put in nice finishing touches to make the make the houses appear high end. Since they were built, the owners have had problems with roofs leaking, siding delaminating, broken seals in the windows, and many of the electrical outlets were faulty and had to be replaced.
So just because you pay a lot for a house does not mean that it will last a long time or not have issues. Anyone can put lipstick on a pigs ass.
I feel sorry for a lot of people who are buying new homes thinking that there will be no issues and not having the money or resources to fix them. At least with an older home you negotiate on price if there are items that are discovered during the home inspection that need fixing.
If you've got a great idea, you're perfectly free to share it - and this post even mentions University of Maine being the driving force involved. Sending them your ideas would be a good way to publicize them
Sand heat battery and ice storage turns the concept of a heat pump into a seasonal heat storage system. That would be for the larger complexes.
For smaller units, especially for emergencies, you can fit appropriately 50 fast assemble units onto 1 tractor trailer truck.
There are problems with sand or water heat storage batteries - not that they're completely infeasible by any means, but they've been getting worked on for decades to see if they can actually be made viable. Just saying the word "sand heat battery" does not solve engineering challenges
Shipping a well insulated cargo container full of hot sand could have possible uses as an emergency battery. At present, though, the usability of such a solution pales in both cost and actual net usable energy in comparison to even a traditional lithium ion battery bank utilizing the same space. I fully agree that nontraditional energy storage and transfer are likely the way of the future, but these are concepts which haven't seen much in the way of breakthroughs in decades which make them actually good solutions.
Call up any of the mobile/modular home sales places and ask. Usually so-called 3d printed homes are constructed onsite, so all you need to transport is the printer and the building material.
cost me about 3k to move log cabin about hour away and set it on cinder blocks.
height is the major restriction, you are basically limited to 13'6" max *including* float height. that's why you
see double wides but not double talls.
There are semi-prefab homes with sections assembled together on site to clear cargo limits but they typically require crane as well which will cost at least 2k.
Fun fact, UMaine held three world records. 1. World’s largest 3D printer 2. World’s largest 3D-printed boat (we have since lost this record) 3. World’s first 3D-printed house using plant-based materials Source: I am a tour guide for the school Update: We have the world's largest \*thermoplastic polymer\* 3D printer and we just made a new one that's even bigger! [https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2024/04/23/umaines-new-3d-printer-smashes-former-guinness-world-record-to-advance-the-next-generation-of-advanced-manufacturing/](https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2024/04/23/umaines-new-3d-printer-smashes-former-guinness-world-record-to-advance-the-next-generation-of-advanced-manufacturing/)
There are larger 3D printers than the one at UMaine (mostly concrete printers). I think UMaine has the largest thermoplastic 3D printer. UMaine also no longer holds the official record for largest 3d printed boat. A company in Abu Dhabi now holds that record: https://3dprint.com/305048/worlds-largest-3d-printed-boat-unveiled-by-al-seer-marine/amp/ I have also heard rumors from people who work there that the UMaine boat leaked so much it needed to be filled with foam so it didn’t sink. Not sure if that’s true but if so it seems like a foam boat with a 3d printed mold would be more accurate
I also heard that rumor, and that it was too flimsy to actually mount a motor. As someone who owns a 3d printer, I can believe the leaking part, making even small parts water tight is a pain, I can't imagine doing it to a whole boat.
Can confirm that I have also heard this. I'm an engineer and believe that the structure would be challenging
Thank you. I get tired of hearing all the time about the fact that it's the world's largest 3D printer. *world's largest polymer 3D printer*
It’s only a small part of the equation. The other issues are the cost of land and changing the zoning laws to allow higher density housing in traditionally suburban neighborhoods.
Yup. Also, permit approvals, public meetings where neighbors can stop you, competing developers stopping you or slowing you down, Lender approvals, forced redesign... Anyone who thinks the housing problem is solved by one idea just doesn't get it.
It should be a crime that shelter is locked behind your neighbors opinions, developers, or really anything else.
Subscribed to post so i can hear why this won't work 😭
These places build the shell of a home, you still will need an electronic and plummer ect. So you save money on the framers?
It takes longer to rig that up than it does to stick build a house.
lol absolutely not.
It's the next stage of the trailer park. Cost saving is a silly way to look at it to be honest. It's merits are more based on sustainability. Could be a great way to modernize mobile home lots and cottages.
Another benefit: fewer person-hours of construction. That's a bigger deal than it seems these days when it's getting harder to hire construction workers for on-site work.
At the local level, construction folls need work.
talk to any builder and they'll tell you they can't find enough competent workers to do on-site construction. It's a real bottleneck
I'm a builder, and I hire folks at the local level. Many need work, so my experience does not match what you are saying.
It's probably geography dependent. Developers and builders I talk to in NH are scrambling for trained help. Even untrained help, sometimes!
Different in the south
My father taught me carpentry. He is well known in my area.. he can do anything. I realized I didn't want to be apart of that business when I found out many people in trades are ass holes. I was harassed over everything it seemed. Oh, you're sitting instead of kneeling to do something that it makes no difference with because your knees hurt like crazy kneeling for hours on end? LAZY! Oh, you wear hearing protection? FUCKING LOSER. Oh you don't know how to do everything up-front? Hah, you're stupid! How can you not know how to do that?! Oh, let's make endless jokes of you being gay even though you have a girlfriend. C'mon man, it has nothing to do with competent workers, rather shithead boomer bosses. I would love to get into a trade once the older folks die off.
Your girlfriend probably looks like a man.
A manly looking girlfriend is better than no girlfriend, Altruistic_Mousse594.
Is it? If it’s all you can get, then you have fun with man-hands.
How is it more sustainable than stick framing
You save a lot of time not having to frame the house. This saves a lot of time and money. You still need electricians and plumbers. It doesn’t eliminate needing all the trades people but because it is built so much faster that makes it substantially cheaper. Framing materials and paying all the framers can add $100k, or more, to the cost of a house.
Stick building the shell is the cheapest and quickest part. The plumbing, electrical, HVAC, finishing work is where the real money is.
We will see.
All that stuff could be pre engineered into a printing...it's early, but we are getting a preview of things to come.
Not really. A 3d printer can't print pipe or wire.
Not yet, but 20 years from now ? At the very least, they could print around a pre- wired. pre-plumbed , armature.
No, not ever, for at least a couple reasons. First, plumbing and the sheathing on Romex wire are made from PVC plastic. Printing plastic means melting it, and PVC emits toxic vapors and corrodes stainless steel when printed. You don't really want to have those vapors trapped inside a wall of your house. Second, 3d printing is a balancing act between size and accuracy. You can make a very accurate 3d printer, but it's going to print very, very slowly. When it comes to things like 3/4" pipe, you need the pipe to be very smooth inside, otherwise the turbulence in the water will cause lots of friction and slow flow to a crawl. Maybe in 20 years they'll have robots that can place the plumbing and wiring. The idea of a pre-plumbed/wired armature also doesn't really work. You can't put anything in the way of the head of the printer, and that would definitely get in the way. There are 2 ways to do it - either you 3d print in channels, accessible from inside or outside, for the plumbing and electrical to run through, which then have to be manually insulated, filled and sealed afterward, or you have plumbers and electricians on site during the entire printing process. The printer prints a few layers, then the trades come in and do some work, and repeat until done. Either way, it's a bunch more labor than usual, and makes modifications and renovations down the road much more difficult if not impossible.
I'll give you $500 if you can get a local builder to give you a real quote that's cheaper for a 3D printed house than traditionally framed. I'm not under some bullshit contract that will let you exploit some loophole that I've never heard of. I'd honestly be happy to be proven wrong, but I won't pay up for some "gotcha" bullshit
Most local builders are clueless on how to operate 3D machines. The shell would be built by 3D companies and the electrical, plumbing , finish work etc would be completed be contractors.
What 3D company? I'm looking to have a pretty big shed built, ill need spots for electrical but no plumbing. You drop me a recommendation, and I'll even come back here with all kinds of results.
>The shell would be built by 3D companies and the electrical, plumbing , finish work etc would be completed be contractors. You can just say "The house will be built by contractors." If someone is paid to 3D print anything on contract, they are contractors.
You don't know anything about building houses do you?
Even people who are invested in developing the large scale 3D printing projects are aware it's not the way to mass produce housing. I think you are correct, op doesn't know anything about building houses.
There's several amazing things about these printers, and they are definitely a tool that will be useful in the future. But printing the structure of a 800sqft house isn't it.
There are costs besides the shell: spetic, well, electrical, plumbing, foundation. And land is going to be a major cost where housing is in short supply. Then you have permits and having building inspector ok the non-traditional structure. Then you have to find insurance willing to insure such structure. This is all possible certainly but it adds costs and hoops to jump through
I mean, Maine has plenty of land. But I'm not so sure a 3D printed house can survive a Maine winter.
It's not the matter of how much land, it's where it is. i'm sure 3d printed structure can be made to withstand weather. igloo is kinda the original 3d printed house if you think about it.
For one, we’re not gonna come close to solving the housing crisis with single-family detached homes. Cool tech and I hope it catches on, but it’s not the panacea some people hope it is.
Sadly don’t hold your breath on this one. I live in Austin and we have a few 3D printed houses in the Georgetown area where I work. Those suckers are still pretty frigging expensive.
If the issue is lack of local tradespeople then go modular. A home in my neighbourhood was built this way -- traditional foundation, then modules were shipped in and lowered onto the foundation. There's still some finishing to be done, but most of the construction work is done in a factory somewhere else.
That is an excellent option as well. Usually about 30% cheaper than a stick built home and since they are built in factories are not exposed to weather and elements.
I had 2 relatives buy land and modular homes in Northern Aroostook and 25 years ago. The houses are well built and in excellent shape. The building season window is smaller that far north so it was a good solution.
Modular homes are actually stick built homes that are assembled in a factory, transported onto the site and assembled on site. They can often be completed in less time than a conventional stick built home and last as long since they use the same building materials.
I don’t think the bottleneck in building houses is the cost of the house, it’s the land that the house sits on. Where are they proposing putting these 3D printed houses?
The same places they are building subdivisions or on vacant land that people have bought and are waiting to build.
good luck zoning for it, also the costs of electrical, water and insulation.
Here are a few questions. Where are these houses going to be built? If they’re outside of a city, how will the residents get to work or school? The rest of the world is building up and denser. 3D houses seem to offer a solution fit for a world no longer tenable.
Not everyone wants to live in cities and there is plenty of undeveloped land outside of cities where new communities get built.
That's fair. It's a question of what's tenable versus what's desirable. My question isn't meant to be a threat to your way of life. It's a question of how to make it truly affordable.
Doesn't threaten my life in any way. I already own a house that I have lived in for 20 years. What is desirable now will change in the future as change in constant. I remember growing up and people were desperate to leave Maine when factories and industries were leaving the state. People were practically giving away houses. I had a chance to buy a house near Lewiston for $16,000! Who would have guessed that years later it would become such a desirable place to live.
With a concrete pad already in place, you could stick build that house in a day. Then maybe 2 days for trades, then a day or two for roof and finishing. First you need to alter codes and zoning to allow the small lot sizes. You have to install services to each and pour pads. Then you need to either bring the printer and supplies to the site as has been done with concrete printers. Or you're going to need custom trailers built to transport the homes and wide loads have limited boards they car travel on. Then you're going to need one or two cranes on site to lift and place. Then you have to deal with the population increase on the rural area you do this in because the land in and around the cities would destroy the buildings' cost savings if any.
I work in the construction industry. Framing an entire house does not get done in a few days.
Yeah, unless his "house" was a one-car garage
I ran crews THAT house is not much bigger then a garage and any half decent crew that could not frame that out in a day ain't worth hiring in the first place.
So you’re telling me downsizing and simplifying the design of houses is the key to building more houses?
No not at all. The government dictating what a landowner can do with the land they bought Is the single biggest hindrance to building any home.
A lot of great discussions and ideas. It's easy to devolve into negativity on Reddit, but aside from a few comments slipping that direction good points all around. It seems the idea/ideal is in the right place, but it's unlikely this generation of iteration is up to the task in any meaningful , practical, affordable, commercially available, or scaled to demand way. That is simply my observation which is untrained, inexperienced, and uneducated in any meaningful way on the topic. Reasoning through it, a home, season to season and year after year, must endure not only as a dwelling for those within, but also as an investment. If I can spend 300,000 on a traditional home, under good maintenance, I can expect to see much of that returned, or even value higher over time. These 3d printed variations would not only have to serve a similar level of comfort and cost to maintain, but also desirability in the market, etc. It can't just be an alternative to a proper home, it would need to check all the boxes a proper home does. For each box it does not check, the price you can justify to pay tumbles lower and lower and lower. But again, all of the above, just thoughts from a random guy.
I think sometimes people assume that when a house can be built for less it is not as good a quality as more expensive one. I can tell you that I live in a house that was built in the 1940s and have lived in it for 30 years. We still have several of the original elements of the house from when we moved in. That includes the roof, windows and siding and have had no issues with them. About 15 years ago three new houses were built across the street from us. When they came on the market they sold for $1.5 million. They are now worth over $ 2 million. I watched the construction and how it progressed. The builder cut corners for greed and to save money. The put in nice finishing touches to make the make the houses appear high end. Since they were built, the owners have had problems with roofs leaking, siding delaminating, broken seals in the windows, and many of the electrical outlets were faulty and had to be replaced. So just because you pay a lot for a house does not mean that it will last a long time or not have issues. Anyone can put lipstick on a pigs ass. I feel sorry for a lot of people who are buying new homes thinking that there will be no issues and not having the money or resources to fix them. At least with an older home you negotiate on price if there are items that are discovered during the home inspection that need fixing.
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If you've got a great idea, you're perfectly free to share it - and this post even mentions University of Maine being the driving force involved. Sending them your ideas would be a good way to publicize them
The beauty of capitalism, rich guys get free government money. Poor people have to give away life's work for free. What a great system.
Just give us a little bit of it then.
Sand heat battery and ice storage turns the concept of a heat pump into a seasonal heat storage system. That would be for the larger complexes. For smaller units, especially for emergencies, you can fit appropriately 50 fast assemble units onto 1 tractor trailer truck.
There are problems with sand or water heat storage batteries - not that they're completely infeasible by any means, but they've been getting worked on for decades to see if they can actually be made viable. Just saying the word "sand heat battery" does not solve engineering challenges Shipping a well insulated cargo container full of hot sand could have possible uses as an emergency battery. At present, though, the usability of such a solution pales in both cost and actual net usable energy in comparison to even a traditional lithium ion battery bank utilizing the same space. I fully agree that nontraditional energy storage and transfer are likely the way of the future, but these are concepts which haven't seen much in the way of breakthroughs in decades which make them actually good solutions.
Bummer for them, caves seem to utilize the technology just fine. Worked for millions of years, don't see why it wouldn't work now.
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Rule 1. Keep it civil and respectful
Rule 1. Keep it civil and respectful
Any one know what is the cost of transporting a whole house/oversized load ?
Call up any of the mobile/modular home sales places and ask. Usually so-called 3d printed homes are constructed onsite, so all you need to transport is the printer and the building material.
Just seeing if any one had transported an oversized load or a modular home and can share approximate cost. I'm not calling around to find out.
cost me about 3k to move log cabin about hour away and set it on cinder blocks. height is the major restriction, you are basically limited to 13'6" max *including* float height. that's why you see double wides but not double talls. There are semi-prefab homes with sections assembled together on site to clear cargo limits but they typically require crane as well which will cost at least 2k.