Recently I read an article about a tech startup 3D printing homes. And if that wasn’t intriguing enough, they manage to do so for merely $10,000 and in one week. Did I read that right, I asked myself?
You’d be forgiven to think that Mr Money Mustache was involved in building a whole house cheaply and efficiently, but he is not.
Thanks to huge 3D printers outputting layers upon layers of cement, you can now 3D print a whole house on site in a week or less. And it looks beautiful too!
In the case of this startup’s house, all parts not in cement like the roof, windows and doors are not 3D printed but added manually on site. Their aim is to offer a solid solution for affordable housing as well as to deliver homes to poor communities for example in South America.
This is a dream for a financial independence enthusiast! Build your own home inexpensively and quickly too.
This thought led me down an internet rabbit hole. To my surprise there are various example in different countries that are developing similar technologies.
The Netherlands
In 2018 a similar project was unveiled by the Eindhoven University of Technology which aims to start 3D printing a series of rental homes in their of own city of Eindhoven. These houses are on various floors and can have balconies. The university plans to start building them in the coming 5 years.
In an article, The Guardian quoted a manager at the construction firm developing this saying “the use of 3D printers in the construction of homes would be “mainstream” within five years”.
The Netherlands are developing this technology out of necessity: there is a shortage of bricklayers in that country.
The initial designs are, I find, a little unusual but when this technology will be more widely available to the public, people will probably be able to design their own homes just like they are at present.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any information on the cost of these Dutch houses. My gut feeling is that they will be initially more than $10,000, but will become more affordable as the technology advances.
France
Moving south to France, one family has already moved into a 3D house.
A social housing project, this house was finished in 2018 and more social houses are being 3D printed. It only took two days and six hours to build the home, but they believe it can be done in just 33 hours. The process is environmentally friendly and at $207,000 it costs 20% less than traditional methods.
I feel that 3D printed houses are still far from being accessible to the general public, yet again this technology will develop quickly.
The only limitation to this new construction method is land – where would you place these houses in large and densely populated cities like London, New York or Rome? Even for digital nomads, looking at more rural areas land is still rather expensive.
In any case, 3D printed houses will be a game changer in the near future.
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