[citation][nom]inerax[/nom]Wow.... wonder if this would lower the price of a home. Would the machine cost the same as labor?[/citation]
the machine up front has a far higher cost, but over time, far lower. im assuming that the cost of a 3d printer doenst scale the same for the smaller ones. where its about 1000$ for a basic home one, but one that could produce a home would cost 100000000, im assuming that the basics of it, like all the hardware to program it and such is a flat cost, but the scale and size is bigger... god im not explaining that well.
[citation][nom]Netherscourge[/nom]You probably need "labor" just to set the machine itself up on the empty lot where the house is going to be "printed".And then it needs to be disassembled and removed once finished.[/citation]
our house took 3 or so months to be built, im willing to be money that setting this up takes less than 3 days and it will print in 20 hours.
[citation][nom]Cazalan[/nom]Houses aren't expensive today because of their innate value. It's because of greedy banks and deregulation. CDS/CDOs. That's what caused the housing bubble. They're still 100% over valued and it's crushing the middle class.[/citation]
no houses are expensive, i would never call a 100k + investment cheap, and thats before the loan.
[citation][nom]dark_knight33[/nom]You can't "print" wiring & plumbing. I understand the concept, but it just doesn't work that way. Even if you could get the copper molten enough to flow, it's not going to just "stick" to the previous layer like resin does. To bond metal, both ends have to be hot, and pressure applied. Assuming you used pvc for the plumbing and could effectively print that, there is still no suitable substitute for #10/#12 copper used to wire homes today.The idea is essentially the same thing as thinking you can fly by strapping on a giant pair of wings to your arms and jumping off a cliff. Might look like cool if you've never heard of it before, but in practice it's just ridiculous.[/citation]
lets see here, for the toilet we have pvc, and for the drains in our home, for the rest, we have copper pipe in the basement that comes up through the floor, and none of it into the walls if it has any other option. for the wiring, we have holes in the wood in the basement that snakes wires to various places, and we also have one big one that also goes into the walls for power mostly. if you modify that so you only need to put it in places that are right by the holes in the wall, you can easily snake the wires up. and if the isolation that the material gives isn't good enough, i know of spray isolation that stays a liquid for a while and foams up and out.
for bathroom ventalation, cut into the material, and snake the vents that way.
all in all, you get a very cheap way to build 90% of the house, and if the skilled trades do the work same day as the building, than damn, you got most of it done in 20/4 hours.
also, if you model the home in 3d first, you could make pre fabricated parts for the house, and build it on top of them, because every home will be the same, no need to change the layout.