That’s pretty impressive. No, I’m not referring to building a house with a giant toothpaste tube full of mortar. You know, right after building a space village starship dock around the building site, and a giant factory to pre-fab anything that sticks out of the walls. When I said it was impressive, I was referring to anyone willing to move in and try to dust a concrete house with corrugated walls. Or hang a picture or something.
All the problems of construction that involve actual construction were solved decades, if not centuries ago. It’s vanishingly straightforward to build a lot of inexpensive houses quickly.
I’ve had a hand in building everything from a birdhouse to a football stadium. I’ve never had anything in my way but the government, and the occasional boulder in the cellar hole.
A monolithic pour, all concrete house is nothing new, either.
Florida’s full of concrete houses, I gather, built from CMUs (concrete blocks), which the guys in the second video no doubt could also handle just as nimbly. It’s pretty easy and fast for a few guys to build a single story house’s walls out of concrete block, and they don’t need a crane and a Cray computer to do it. I’ve done it for a wood frame house in a day or two, working along with only two other guys. And I could barely pull my weight back then.
You can always spot the “Tell” in these “new method to build a house in a day” schemes. They manage four walls in a day, or maybe two, after twenty weeks of preparation, using enough equipment to build the Hoover Dam. Then they call it “a house.” Four walls is not a house, guys. Well, I guess it’s a house, you know, except for the foundation it sits on and the utilities and the floors and the roof and the finishes and electricals and the plumbing and the HVAC, spangled with 24 building inspections, plus the occasional required bribe or gangster threat if you’re working in a city.
You can’t order a house from Amazon, built by Apple, no matter how hard you wish for it, kids. I suggest that you learn how to bang a few nails, and get busy.
6 Responses
There ain’t enough Spackle in the world to make that work. I have to wonder what happens in a nice German winter with blowing rain, water penetrates cracks, freezes, rinse and repeat sets in.
Hi Ed- To the modern mind, concrete is permanent, immutable, nearly indestructible. As you’ve pointed out, concrete, especially not very well reinforced concrete, will crumble to dust eventually due to the weather getting at it. And can you imagine patching that house made of concrete fondant? If a concrete block cracks, you hammer out the mortar that holds it in place, and put in a new one. In a unitary structure like this, I have no idea how you’d maintain it. It strikes me as permanent, and disposable at the same time.
Everyone likewise thinks houses made of wood are all one candle away from a four alarm fire at all times. But concrete structures have deadly fires all the time, same as wood structures. It’s not the structure itself that catches on fire initially, but the furnishings and other belongings inside. The smoke from that stuff kills everyone. It usually takes a good long while for the wood structure itself to burn. Drywall over wood studs, if detailed correctly, is considered a one-hour barrier against fire.
“…and make housing more affordable to people all over the world.”
I’ll be convinced when I see a few examples of these concrete confections slapped together by a couple of good ol’ boys using a 3-D house printer rented from that Orange home improvement place. Followed by a few using knock-off equipment from that Red store.
I’m eagerly awaiting the results in one of your recurring compendia of Maine’s architectural wonders.
Yep, you want a house built fast, you get a crew of Mexicans and basic hand tools. Bingo!
The capital investment required to build a series of small stick built frame houses, Hardie siding, slab foundations, is probably in the single digit thousands of dollars. Couple of chop saws, couple of compressors, some nail guns, the conveyor to bring the shingles up on the roof, and probably a couple other things I’m not thinking of right now.
Compare to the capital investment to spooge out a concrete house from a 3d printer.
As usual, when a new technology comes out, people try to justify using it for things it sucks at, just because.
Having seen more than one third world barrio, what is lacking is not the method for building shelter. What is lacking is building materials. They will scrounge every piece of corrogated sheet and 2×4 they can find. Pieces of plywood are regarded like gold. I once saw a family home that was roofed in metal shingles made by unrolling USAID cans, and nailing them down. And it was seriously durable. Had good overlap. They’re also big on straightening bent nails.
That’s why you see grass and mud huts; It’s what they’ve got to work with.
There’s a reason that settlers homes in the US great plains were roofed with sod. It was available and free, and they were going to have to dig anyway.
Creating an “affordable solution” that requires processed materials and a Daimlier factory ain’t it.
It’s been over 4 decades since i have been in Longview, but per St. Google (patron saint of ignorance) three of LeTourneau’s concrete houses still exist. Do a street view of 9 Macarthur St. Longview TX.
Mr. LeTourneau needed cheap houses for his new fabrication plant.
the one thing RG is quoted that sticks with me is:
Your job is not too big, your machinery is too small”
The house laying machine is born of that philosophy.