Exposing 5 LIES about 3D Printed Concrete Homes

What do you think about 3D printed concrete construction? Do you see the potential or is it just a gimmick? I also stayed at ICON's 3D printed concrete house in Austin! Check out my review: https://youtu.be/JscfKdqLwPo

"The arrogance of designers and architects really shines when they talk about homelessness" Dam, you're right though

Ironically homelessness is NEVER about a lack of houses.

As someone who spends a lot of time 3D printing, I get bombarded with questions about 3D printed homes all the time. I was skeptical from the beginning. 3D printing any item requires a calibration effort that is ongoing. The concrete can also be effected by weather at the time of printing too. Day time to night time temperature changes could create problems too.

As a retired residential builder, I was drawn to your video about 3D Printed Homes. I know very little about them, but nothing I’ve seen has me particularly excited about the technology. Your video was an immensely impressive, articulate, tour de force on the subject of these homes and on construction in general. It was very informative and a true pleasure to watch. I rarely take the time to even sign into YouTube, but after watching this video I felt compelled to subscribe to your channel and to thank you for your contribution. Thank you!

"The lies cheapen the value." Awesome statement.

Having grown up in Africa let me put forward my two cents. the issue is not a housing issue in Africa the issue is Africans by nature tend to be semi nomadic so move to where the work resources are. I have seen traditional mud huts that were over 50 years old, they don't need some tech company to build them something they can build from the earth. They need a static place to stay with the required resources infrastructure and work. Unfortunately political issues don't always allow this.

I have been involved in the 3d printing space for 11 years and have used them in many industries and have even built several of my own and your breakdown was spot on regarding all of your points. Well done.

I'm in the construction industry and build alot with concrete. Concrete block, poured concrete, tilt up and ICF. Not all cement is the same. The cement they are using in 3D printing is mortar mix and has no structural strength. Structural concrete gets its strength from the rock that is added in the mix it should have enough rock to break above 3500psi. I'd like to see a break test on this and see how it breaks. With no rock in it it probably breaks below 2500psi. It's like building a block wall using only stacked up mortar joints and no blocks. Concrete can handle compression loads but does not do well with torsion loads, tension loads, shearing loads, etc. When it is used in a structure steel rebar must be added in order to handle the different loads. You can take base cement powder, just portland and wet it down and it will harden and take a compression load but it is very brittle. When you add an amount of sand it will become less brittle and tolerate a higher load, add an amount of rock and it will handle an even higher load depending on the size, shape and amount of the rock. A mix containing crushed rock will handle more load than a gravel mix because the rocks tend to lock together like pieces of a puzzle but without steel to reinforce it, it will fail. Building a wall with only mortar mix and no steel is the worst possible way to build with cement.

I never understood why 3d printing concrete walls is an advantage to preformed panels. Only thing I can think of is shipping, but the same will apply to the shipping of raw materials

"3D printing creates walls, not homes." YES!

If you remember back a few decades, there were foam portions of concrete forms along with rebar for pouring concrete walls instead of using concrete block. Essentially as I look at that industry in the United States, the most unreliable people who did that kind of work were masons. Not all masons, but block layers and bricklayers historically have been a problem child. As I talk to builders I find out it is the toughest thing to get them on the site and get them to do the job as contracted. I want to build a home and it was during the winter and they had a big problem being able to brick the front of the house because of the weather. I told them when you get here tomorrow morning the front of the house will be tented and there will be a heating unit in there to keep it well above freezing and well above 45°. It never occurred to them to do that kind of a job so they could work, they just wanted to work under ideal conditions for them and the hell with the job. Then the bricklayer and the concrete guy got into an argument on who was going to pour the porch floor first or after the brick job. So I just fired them both and hired a company that did brick and concrete work and let them decide in their own mind what they wanted to do first. 3-D printing to some extent tries to replace the troublemakers which are the Masons.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your calm analysis is so refreshing. I’ve been in construction for over 20 years and I’ve looked at 3D printing in a few different applications. I’m encouraged by the possibilities, but I’m frustrated by the hype. So thank you for your well-thought out and well-executed video.

“It seems to be a solution looking for a problem” what an eloquent way to summarize these sensationalized, ambitious trends. Thank you for being able to articulate your thoughts so well, I’m happy I found this channel.

When I travelled in Ecuador, the trend in construction was to build the first floor of a house, and start living in it, and build the second floor when they had the money. There were houses all over with re-bar sticking up, anticipating the addition of a second floor. Then someone got the idea: build the second floor first, and live in a house up on stilts, until they could afford to build the first floor. This created a sheltered space beneath the house, that they could use for drying laundry, motorbike repairs, etc. This is the kind of shifts that occur in house construction techniques. Designers who think they're going to swoop in with a better way of doing things are deluded; innovation is local, situational, and incremental. Oh, and the houses with the re-bar sticking up just looked like the old way of doing things, even though the houses weren't finished yet.

Excellent detailed coverage of this topic. I learned a lot and, like you, I despise hype that creates an unrealistic picture of anything -- especially about something as fundamentally necessary as good housing! Thanks very much, you're an excellent teacher!

"I'm sure people will call me a buzz kill" — yes, and I am eternally thankful to you for doing this! Finally, not everyone is just riding a hype but actually formulating constructive criticism.

"Outsiders from the tech industry want to disrupt and automate the entire industry without realizing its intricacies" That's just standard tech people mentality, not only in regards to construction.

So basically even when used to its full potential, it's still only an option instead of being a magic cure all. Depending on where the job site is or local electricity costs, 3d printed concrete can be potentially incorrect to use. It still looks really handy for urban environments. Very insightful video

This is the first video of your channel I've seen and I'm an instant subscriber. Keep up the great journalism, Matt from Texas :)