Author Topic: 3-D print your own concrete house  (Read 3830 times)

MillCreek

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3-D print your own concrete house
« on: September 02, 2014, 11:16:56 AM »
http://www.gizmag.com/custom-3d-printer-concrete-castle/33577/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=a40e340383-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-a40e340383-89720485

I wish this guy luck and will be interested to follow his progress.  It would be amazing to be able to print and build your own house.
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MillCreek
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Tallpine

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2014, 11:24:42 AM »
Can it do ten foot thick walls  ???   >:D
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Brad Johnson

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2014, 11:42:39 AM »
Cool tech.  I can see it being used a lot in the military, or for high volume commercial applications.

I've become a big fan of ICF construction.  A friend used it to make his workshop/storm shelter. He used 10" forms and added rebar extending from the foundation through the forms up to the sill plate.  The ceiling was 1/2" plate tented over a 24" i-beam, all welded to the sill plate.  He figures it's good for anything mother nature can throw at it short of a direct asteroid strike.  I tend to agree.

It kinda helped that his family is in the commercial metals and heavy construction business.

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Ben

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2014, 11:49:50 AM »
It's been probably a year, but I saw a Fox Business interview with an MIT (I think) professor that has already developed a big honkin' prototype of one of these for everything from houses to commercial buildings for eventual use in "assembly line" housing and buildings.
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zahc

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2014, 11:04:38 PM »
What about tip-up construction? I always thought it seemed the cheapest thing, because you don't even need to build strong forms. Just pour 4 slabs out and tip them up. It doesn't seem popular among the cheap diy house crowd, though.
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Tallpine

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2014, 11:29:32 AM »
I don't understand why there isn't something like pre-cast "lego" blocks  ???
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brimic

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2014, 11:52:56 AM »
I wonder how strong the 'extruded concrete' is....
Is there rebar to reinforce it?
The layering looks kind of nice, but I wonder how it would hold up to cycling of seasons in temperate climates: -20 to 100 F, with lots of moisture...
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brimic

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2014, 11:54:58 AM »
What about tip-up construction? I always thought it seemed the cheapest thing, because you don't even need to build strong forms. Just pour 4 slabs out and tip them up. It doesn't seem popular among the cheap diy house crowd, though.

For walls? I would think traditional stick construction would be still be a lot easier and cheaper.
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zahc

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #8 on: September 03, 2014, 12:30:31 PM »
For walls? I would think traditional stick construction would be still be a lot easier and cheaper.

But not concrete.
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drewtam

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #9 on: September 03, 2014, 02:49:05 PM »
Last time I looked at home costs, I recall that the material of concrete is what made it expensive, not building the forms to pour in.
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KD5NRH

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #10 on: September 03, 2014, 05:35:56 PM »
I don't understand why there isn't something like pre-cast "lego" blocks  ???

Need heavy equipment for the whole project, plus wiring and plumbing would suck.  ICF lets you build the forms like legos, then run wiring and PEX plumbing in slits cut in the foam after the concrete sets.

Tallpine

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #11 on: September 03, 2014, 09:03:09 PM »
Need heavy equipment for the whole project, plus wiring and plumbing would suck.  ICF lets you build the forms like legos, then run wiring and PEX plumbing in slits cut in the foam after the concrete sets.
Using heavy equipment to set the blocks is a feature, not a bug  =)

There could be wiring plumbing grooves plus knockouts for access.

ICF doesn't get you a 3-4 foot thick wall.
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cassandra and sara's daddy

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3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2014, 11:05:14 PM »
Concrete ain't cheap anymore.
And you can go 24 inches thick

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Firethorn

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #13 on: September 04, 2014, 03:23:07 PM »
I wonder how strong the 'extruded concrete' is....
Is there rebar to reinforce it?
The layering looks kind of nice, but I wonder how it would hold up to cycling of seasons in temperate climates: -20 to 100 F, with lots of moisture...

From what I've read, it's all about the concrete you're feeding it.  Generally speaking you're not feeding it the cheap stuff.  Where they've specified the concrete details it's been the fiber reinforced stuff.  From what I remember it's a slow setting compound that will flow if in a 'section' much larger than what it extrudes, but it sets up far stronger than standard concrete, and the fibers help with moisture and temperature flex, often better than steel reinforcement.

Of course, it'd be stronger still WITH rebar, but when the concrete itself is 10-20X as strong as the plain stuff and the fibers promote self-healing of cracks on a practically microscopic scale, it actually is competitive with standard concrete rebar construction. 

It's not going to take the same punishment as roller-compacted concrete, but I don't think anybody is using that to build inhabited structures as opposed to things like dams.


AJ Dual

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #14 on: September 04, 2014, 04:21:10 PM »
The concrete 3D printers/extruders I've seen will print a double row about 8" apart, then splooge down a zig-zag between the two creating a wavy interior section to the wall like corrugated cardboard.

Leave it hollow for insulation value, or you could drop rebar down the voids and then fill them pretty easily like an ICF structure for strength. I also imagine that spools that feed out and bend reinforcing steel, post-tension cables, all sorts of things will become possible as the technology is further down the road to commoditization. Or laying in bars, wire or grids manually after the print-nozzle has passed but before the concrete sets would work. 

The tech to do this kind of additive manufacturing has been around since the first computer controlled X-Y plotter became a reality. It's just a matter of scale, and of engineering details, with a little materials science thrown in for improving the attributes of the actual materials being printed.

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Hawkmoon

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #15 on: September 04, 2014, 04:33:50 PM »
I don't understand why there isn't something like pre-cast "lego" blocks  ???

There are -- they're called "concrete masonry units," or "cinder blocks" in the vernacular. There are systems out there to drop insulation into the cavities as the wall is erected (or the insulation comes pre-installed from the block manufacturer). And there are systems to just pile the blocks up dry-laid (no mortar) and then just spray with a polymer or epoxy coating that has fibers in it to hold everything together. IIRC, it's called Block Bond. (I hate it, but it got code approval.)
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Firethorn

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #16 on: September 05, 2014, 12:51:52 AM »
There are -- they're called "concrete masonry units," or "cinder blocks" in the vernacular.

I'm going to ditto the ICF forms - they're basically foam blocks(lifting of which is a lot easier on your back), that you stack up to 'build' your house, then have the concrete truck(s) stop by and do the hard lifting by pump.  As a bonus you get a nearly ideal structure where most of the insulation is on the OUTSIDE where it belongs for energy efficiency.  Mass on the inside to stabilize temperatures, insulation on the outside to slow heat transfer.

MechAg94

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #17 on: September 05, 2014, 10:00:26 AM »
A coworker had a garage foundation done with fiber reenforced concrete.  It promptly cracked in half within months and had to be repaired.  The concrete company he used said they used it twice and no more. 

I like the idea of a printed concrete house, but they really ought to figure out how to do rebar.  Also, what about aggregate especially for foundations? 

 
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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #18 on: September 05, 2014, 10:20:14 AM »
A coworker had a garage foundation done with fiber reenforced concrete.  It promptly cracked in half within months and had to be repaired.  The concrete company he used said they used it twice and no more. 

I like the idea of a printed concrete house, but they really ought to figure out how to do rebar.  Also, what about aggregate especially for foundations? 

 

Fiber is fine for patios and porches, pathways that will either get static loads or just foot traffic.  I've got a 25'x25' patio made with fiber, and it's holding up a 10,000 gallon above ground pool just fine. That my contractor dug my yard out down over 12", then filled with road-base, then drove over it with his skid-loader/Bobcat, then ran a vibratory compactor probably has something to do with it.

It can't make up for a pad or base that needs a wire grid or rebar. Like a driveway or garage pad that has cars driving off and on every day.  Fiber AND rebar/wire grids ought to be great.  I think the fiber crete failed because of a bad mix or a bad pour that would have happened with or without the fiber.
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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #19 on: September 06, 2014, 01:05:10 PM »
I think the fiber crete failed because of a bad mix or a bad pour that would have happened with or without the fiber.

Mech, from what I understand there's a fair chance that the company doing it wasn't doing it correctly in that case.  Underlayment is still a big concern and you have to get the mixes right, and they're different than normal concrete.

cassandra and sara's daddy

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #20 on: September 06, 2014, 05:51:28 PM »
Fiber once it cures is a hard son of a gun. I have subjected it to field tests with both sledgehammer and jack hammer.  It inspires great vocabulary. If it cracked I suspect a fail in foundation


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It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


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just Warren

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #21 on: September 07, 2014, 12:31:42 AM »
Is there a website that has all of the building techniques/materials for homes (not matter how out-there the material or method may be)?

I'm not sure what a good search string would be so I'm hoping one of you already knows about one.
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Firethorn

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #22 on: September 07, 2014, 02:21:53 AM »
Is there a website that has all of the building techniques/materials for homes (not matter how out-there the material or method may be)?

I think there's just too many of them to be all on one web site.  How in depth are you looking for?  Something that will let you actually build a house using the methods described within?

Let's see:
Frame built
Traditional form poured concrete, ICF
Sprayed concrete dome
Earth Dam, tire house
Container modification
Flat roof, peaked roof, domed roof, shingles, slate, metal, straw, shakes, etc...

The options are nearly infinite.

MechAg94

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #23 on: September 07, 2014, 11:30:19 AM »
Fiber is fine for patios and porches, pathways that will either get static loads or just foot traffic.  I've got a 25'x25' patio made with fiber, and it's holding up a 10,000 gallon above ground pool just fine. That my contractor dug my yard out down over 12", then filled with road-base, then drove over it with his skid-loader/Bobcat, then ran a vibratory compactor probably has something to do with it.

It can't make up for a pad or base that needs a wire grid or rebar. Like a driveway or garage pad that has cars driving off and on every day.  Fiber AND rebar/wire grids ought to be great.  I think the fiber crete failed because of a bad mix or a bad pour that would have happened with or without the fiber.
I think someone along the way sold it as not needing rebar, either the contractor or someone selling to them.  They repaired it, but it doesn't look so great.
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cassandra and sara's daddy

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Re: 3-D print your own concrete house
« Reply #24 on: September 07, 2014, 12:53:11 PM »
Locally by code it does not need rebar. It makes me wonder if it was formulated or blended correctly.


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It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


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