11 Lies of the 3D Printed House | EXPOSING THE TRUTH of Printed Construction

three years ago i set out to find every 3d printed building in the world i started in china went to europe the middle east now i regularly visit many projects across north america but it's not all what it seems there's a lot of marketing jargon and promises that are bigger than what's being realized i've seen more 3d printed buildings from different companies than anyone else in the world and stefan's literally writing the code so between the two of us we set out to crush all of the lies myths and misconceptions in the 3d printed construction industry you can listen to the episode where we broke it down in its entirety at the link to my podcast in the description i also have a course how to 3d print a house that goes over the basics in a four hour series of lectures and then has a community forum some of the things we bring up in this list will change as the technology improves this is why i always make new videos and add updates to my course so that people are ready for the changes that will come with the future the biggest one still remains unfortunately is price so people assume that that when you figure print houses you're still gonna get them for cheap like five thousand ten dollars ten thousand dollars which is very unrealistic but um people still i still get calls today where it's like oh yeah we heard that we can 3d print houses for cheap and and we just want to learn more about this amazing technology and i try to try to explain the facts as to when it comes to that so one of the biggest ones that we still face today is the the price yeah it's funny in a 3d printed construction job site uh i used to do construction auditing comparing subcontractor uh receipts to their payroll uh taxes to make sure everybody's reporting the right numbers and without a doubt on every construction site people try to make it look more expensive than it actually was so they can charge more money however in a 3d printed construction site they do the opposite so instead of trying to make things look more expensive they mask costs and they don't include the shipping the printer assembly i've noticed often the skills needed to operate these systems are very specialized so it's hard to put a price on the team some of them are pretty irreplaceable okay we ripped off the band-aid that wasn't so bad let's move on to the next one this is sure to upset some people as well a house can be printed in 24 hours yes or just time in general i see these claims often and they say print time or something specific like time active and they're not lying but the language they're using makes it sound like the project was completed in less than 12 weeks 16 weeks uh i haven't seen any of these projects come in much faster than a traditional construction project because of all the associated subcontractors and having to try things for the first time absolutely i mean like everybody's doing things differently so some people are printing and leaving the the holes for the mep as part of the print some people are actually printing full walls and then cutting things out so everybody's still on a trial uh error trial process when they're trying to see what works and what works best for that solution um and some people are taking it one step further and say okay i'll do the the form work for this lab or i'll do something else so there's everybody's doing something different so there's not one way of doing things and as because people are learning and trying to adapt um this this is also something that that is different from one project to the other also everybody's using different materials some people are trying to use mortars other peoples are trying to move away from waters and more conventional aggregate and regular concrete so you cannot do a one-to-one comparison especially when you're comparing stick build or traditional construction with your 3d printing consortium people seem to think that 3d printing is this phenomenon that nobody can relate to when it's not the approach towards 3d printing is just like you would do any other piece of equipment on your construction site there are two things first 3d printing has to address a pain point um you're not going to get a 3d printer just for the sake of getting a 3d printer just because it's the latest and greatest thing out there and we want to be part of the hype um you have to equate 3d printing just like you would do any other piece of equipment so like if you're buying a crane or a bulldozer or an excavator you're buying it because there's a specific reason why you're buying that or there's a specific job you want to do when you're buying it you wouldn't buy invest so much like 1.5 million dollars in a piece of equipment if you're just going to have it sit and then figure out okay how am i going to use it and the same depreciation the same investment and the same thoughts and the same reservations that you would have when you're buying this big piece of equipment has to be carried out when you're buying a 3d printer the next lie is that you can easily just add water to your mix and be ready to print in any new location the complexity comes into the material science and that's not something you can just like find anywhere off the shelf i mean there's has to be a dedicated person who actually does the material and to augment the material and troubleshoot the material as it happens um yeah that's a real challenge every time i've seen a new project site they always struggle with the material on a new location it's never just quick and easy yeah that's number four where the myth comes into play i mean when you're dealing with material just because the material and equipment works we're not talking international just let's take uh u.s if just because it works on the west coast doesn't mean it's going to work work on the east coast and magic is going to happen and you're you're off your uh go off and printing from day one and just because it works at six a.m doesn't mean it'll work at 9am exactly so you have to take your your consideration into testing the material making sure that the material that you have even though it's a verified mix and formula that that you actually do your your due diligence and testing it and making sure that you're getting the consistency that you want and not just jump to conclusions that just because it works in one location it's going to automatically work in the other location all right enough about that let's move on to the next one press a button and print a house it's never that simple and you kind of hit the nail on the head at the mixer pump system uh maybe it's not the printer maybe on the printer you can click a button and if everything goes well it's fine but you need at least one person loading the mixer pump system and probably a couple people observing uh maybe one observing the printer making sure the hose doesn't hit and one observing the team for safety you have to be be realistic as to your output and your expectations and it's not just a magical again it's not a magical piece of equipment or that's just going to be installed and boom it's going to work and everything's going to come out just perfect it doesn't work that way you have humidity you have temperature you have the water the material temperature the water temperature if it rains if it's cold if it's hot if there's wind you have so many factors that play into this so that just because it works in one location with the same formula with the same equipment it doesn't mean that it's going to be automatically a go on on the next site now that's taken care of let's talk about some of the negative things people say about 3d printed construction that's untrue that it takes away jobs which it doesn't i agree it's the work experience that every construction worker has had or gained or developed over the years as working in construction this experience is not documented anywhere and this experience is being lost in the construction sector as people retire and get out of the construction sector to move away this has is invaluable when it comes to moving forward and making this construction sector or this this tool uh more productive and more efficient than the way it moves forward nice yeah i agree completely i would say the next one is that uh 3d printed construction eliminates construction waste a lot of companies look at construction waste and they just see the averages and most people on a construction site they aren't considerate about that because someone else is paying for the materials so they over order they're reckless with their cuts a considerate job site can reduce their uh waste tremendously from the average without any technology just by being considerate so the 3d printed construction companies they're trying to be more considerate but oftentimes they're not and almost none of them are actually recycling their material to take so much effort to crush it up and reuse it even though you could do that it might later on when you're using like um sort of like the as much material as you need when you're creating again it's something that that it's debatable it's hard to figure out now if it is actually zero waste or not but again oh it's definitely not zero because they have to get the mix right so they have to run exactly slowly at first uh there's always waste it's a matter of how much waste and if you're good it's very little if you're not great it could be a tremendous amount of waste yeah i mean we're really waiting on data so that we can do more scientific analysis rather than qualitative analysis right yeah and and also waste is comes at a cost i mean like you have to pay to get rid of the waste at your construction site i mean as a general contractor company when we worked we had our projects but we also had to segregate our waste like where's the wood where's the concrete where's the rebar and then sell it send it out to a recycling agency to actually do the recycling or actually dispose of the material so there's a big cost if we can reduce that and 3d printing promises in the future to do that then that will be a cost saving on your project that was a heavy one let's move on to the next one that construction 3d printing is just concrete and it just houses and it's not additive construction is metals polymers plastics recycled materials and everything and it's not just houses and walls it's metals it's bridges it's spare parts it's digital inventory it's anything and everything that happens in construction 3d printing is just a tool in your construction project it's not going to be your old save fix everything type solution so yeah from my perspective it's really about the future like people are investing in learning how these systems work learning how to implement robotics on the job site safely with people increasing the number of people trained especially all the universities teaching students increasing the job pool so it's not uh even though we're saying some negative things about the myths people over promise a lot of marketing people especially but the realities are good too it's like headed in a positive direction it is and i mean the market is so big in the construction sector when it comes to 3d printing there's going to be enough playing field for everybody to participate in it so um but the more you use it the more people get aware of the technology the more research happens the more uh research and development improves the material and the technology the cheaper it gets so the more players the cheaper the solutions the cheaper the materials um and people get used to it and then just like anything else this next one may sound harsh but it can be said for any truly innovative cutting edge industry every single aspect of every single project needs improvement and so what it needs is lots of people motivated willing to do the improvements and do the stuff that doesn't work best because that's how you take the baby steps like you were saying from the horse buggy to the tesla uh and it's hard it's not it's very hard the people on these job sites they're putting in long hours they're sweating they're using their minds tremendously and putting in tremendous effort we're about to get into the last misconception if you'd like further details and want to understand the full nuance of our conversation check out the full episode on the automate construction podcast available on all podcast platforms or the link below please subscribe to the new youtube channel i created to host the podcast separately i used to post them here on this channel but because of the algorithm it's much smarter to have a separate dedicated channel for the podcast even though there are some growing paints especially getting started now you have to follow international construction standards for construction projects in america there have to there there are certain standards that you have to follow um whether i mean everybody uses astm standards um in the us so if you look at the certain standards that are being referenced as your building codes you're still referring to certain specific asdm standards within those building codes there's lots of references and it's used frequently extremely helpful beneficial for everybody but there's no requirement for any international code or astm on an american construction site it's just a supplemental uh additive uh thing for engineers to look at like you mentioned it for for us as a legal requirement yeah for us as a general contractor we were dependent on standards to actually move forward with any project without standards we didn't move forward and not necessarily specific iso or specific asdm some people told us that they need to use the british building codes to build uh the project so that's what we use and um so everybody gave a cent but there have to be standards implemented whether uh they use iso asd or astm specific standards within the us consortium company um we are looking at it from a global perspective so and the best way to actually get a global perspective is through iso and asdm and that's why we moved with this initiative that way like right now there's nothing to go off of besides ac509 so just having anything even though it's not a guarantee it's a it's a guide instead of walking around blind they're walking around with a little string on the wall yes huge thank you to stefan for being willing to have this difficult conversation with me we're both dedicating our careers to construction automation so it's not easy to talk about some of the darker sides of things but it's an important conversation that we believe needs to be added don't be disenchanted by the things you hear in this video 3d printed construction isn't a get rich quick scheme but if you're willing to work hard and innovate this industry is minting millionaires left and right to keep up with all the future innovations in the automated construction space make sure to subscribe to my channel and maybe check out some of the other videos took around the world

Channel: Jarett Gross

Views: 216,099

Keywords: 3D Printed Housing, 3D printed construction, Are 3D printed houses real?, Are 3D printed houses cheap?, Can I 3d print a house?, Is 3D printed construction fast?

Id: GI-dLmQBqaM

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 12 2022