Here in the Netherlands, most homes have a red clay brick facade. Not quite the same as construction building from aerated concrete blocks -- but in the last 5 years, most construction companies have already (partly) "outsourced" the brick laying for facades to robots. The robot will apply mortar and place bricks, a human just cleans up the joints and does specialty parts around windows and doors. Most bricklayers are also quite happy about this change as they can focus on more artisanal detail work, get less health issues, and have to worry less about early retirement due to injury.
Thanks for sharing info on the local building trends in the Netherlands. I made a video on those types of brick+mortar robots a while back. Glad to see it's catching on.
@@PhilfreezeCH Dutch Home construction is typically carried out in projects by medium to large sized corps that devellop entire subsections of a new planned section. Subsections are typically a square of houses with an inner core consisting of any combination of gardens at the back of the house with an interior parking space allocated or the gardens back to back with a small path to get your bike out. The last bit is vital ofcourse ;). One face of the square typically consists of luxury townhouses side by side, semi detached dual townhouses or detached homes. Thats the upscale row with gardens that are typically larger. These Town houses usually are 3 full stories and wider ( usually ~6.1m interior width and 9-10m long ). Semi detached or detached typically 2 stories + pitched roof. Typically 8 town houses, 6 semi-detached or 4 detached houses per phase of the project with the exact type rotated per phase of the entire overall project. The 2 longer sides of the square are usually mid sized or plus sized townhouses ( typically 2 stories plus a pitched roof usually about 5.7m interior width and about 9m standard ground level depth.) Usually ab The lower cost face is generally located facing the 50 km/h access road and typically consists of 4.9-5.1m interior width houses, depth is typically 8-9meters. This is still an somewhat upscale block with overall block income level sliding downwards once you get nearer to the main traffic corridors (ie. smaller and cheaper homes ) You'll usually find atleast one appartment complex as part of any new residential plan with a mix of sizes for different income brackets. Dutch construction is typically either thick aerated concrete blocks, sandlime bricks or prefab concrete panels ( with doors and windows pre fitted ) for the interior facing of the outside walls with voids for sound decoupling between homes. Exterior facings are typically done in bricks but ground level brick + wood or engineered panels is also routinely done. Pitched roofs usually arrive prefab as a wood and insulation plus vapor barrier fold out combo that's hoisted on your home. Net zero homes are mandatory for new construction. Expect heatpumps with radiant floor heating, solarpanels ( roughly 5 kWpeak) and heat recovery forced air ventilation. Expect a package of option to choose from ( ground floor extensions, dormers, pitched roof windows, interior wall floor plan alterations, changes to wall outlets etc etc). Typically one of the larger kitchen vendors is involved which offer some volume costs benefits with a few pre-planned kitchen designs (or choose your own) and better integration with other contractors. Ditto the same for your bathroom. Scaffolding is slowly disappearing due to labor costs and is being replaced by section wide hydraulic gantries as much as possible.
@@dwwolf4636 "Net zero homes are mandatory for new construction" So glad to hear it! Net zero and especially passive house standards have proven lower heating and cooling cost over time.
Gotta say, after working in construction and adjacent fields for many years now, Belinda does such a great job of realistically talking about new tech. She always points out the parts that most everyone else ignores on how to bring this stuff into reality. So many of the 3D printers just flat out ignored electrical and plumbing needs that it was laughable (and plenty of the other issues she brings up). Always enjoy your vids!!!!
Yeah I have debated a lot of people supportive of 3d printing mortar but basically none of them have worked in the industry.. they don't know how much the first story walls cost in the construction budget or how this impacts running wire.. the problems list is just really long and the companies selling it don't realistic address this.. tell me how this will ever be better than a CMU crew? Cost, time, functionality? I don't see how it will ever outperform a traditional masonry crew specially with just a single floor.
Hi Belinda, good to see you back! We’re always happy to see the progress of automation in construction robotics. If we may comment on the concerns on the building science behind 3D construction printing (6:01): Based on a very significant amount of large-scale testing not just by us (in cooperation with the Technical University in Munich) but the whole concrete printing industry there is no cold joint between subsequent layers but they form a monolithic structure. Regarding the point on thermal bridging: The COBOD BOD2 construction printer can stop and start the print process at any time. Hence, we do not have the outer facade layer connected to the inner load bearing elements with a printed concrete layer. Instead, we use so called wall binders. With this process, we do not have any thermal bridging at all and can achieve the highest energy efficiency ratings.
@@BelindaCarr Of course, you're welcome on our site anytime. A heads up via E-mail would be appreciated though so we can make some room for you in our schedule. See you soon!
@repliesgpt Look op PERI mate, it's one of the world leaders in construction equipment. And they indeed also do 3D printing. The thermal bridging being non-existant I can agree with, but Belinda makes a valid point about the quality of joints and the dust buildup. When thinking about global warming, concrete is the worse choice for external walls in cities that are already several degrees hotter.
Good to see you back Belinda! This video brought to mind the thought that construction really is still to be a composition of means & methods. Some approaches, like 3D printing are trying to be a one trade solution… but, the reality in construction is that some materials are meant to be used in compression, and are not the best choice for areas in tension… or infill. In my mind, the perfect combo would be to use this block robot for long parallel load bearing walls, and SIPS or T-Stud walls for the perpendicular short walls - and walls with a lot of punched openings. ByFusion’s ByBlock or JustBioFiber’s hemp block set with this robotic arm?
We have build our house 9 years ago in germany. The bricks were not layed, but every sand-lime brick had his own place, like a puzzle. The brickt were heavy (1m x 1m x 18 cm). On the construction site was a crane, so the workers only had to position the bricks, but not lift them. Glued together with thin-bed mortar. Every story was build in about 3 days by 3 men. The ceiling is a filigree ceiling (hope it is the right word. You lay thin beton plates with reinforcements on the walls, put in reinforcement steel between the plates, can put in the electric hosing and pour beton on it. Till it is really dry and strong, there are lots of steel columns in the house).
Yes, this robot is kind of a gimmick really, as there is the possibility of pre-facricated homes for many years already. Which is basically what this robot does, with the nice fanfare. Surely the price is forbiditive for now, for the whole system, still a great future proffing for when few labourers are available.
Welcome back! I have been following Matt Ferrell at his Undecided channel and really like the net zero house he’s putting together. It’s a regular wood stud design but with panels assembled in a factory using robot arms to accurately cut and fit the parts, including installing the windows AND insulating the cavities (panels have OSB on both sides). They got his house in the dry in 3 days, despite horrible weather.
Funny thing is people outside construction doesn't know that 30% of single family homes are built in factories. Been that way for decades. For some reason it's popular for the public to tell construction workers about factory built homes in a condescending way.
In response to what Ms. Williamson had to say regarding "cold joints every 2 inches", I agree that testing is in order, BUT standard CMU construction also has "cold joints" *everywhere,* and those have stood the test of time (and rigorous testing). Obviously several factors determine how *cold* a joint is between 3D printed layers: time, humidity, temperature, wind, etc. *Earth bag* construction is an extreme example of cold joints between layers, with the added negative of plastic on plastic "lubrication" in the bags, though it is common to use strands of barbed wire between layers to lock each course to another... with a reinforced stucco surface layer adding strength. Regarding the surface finish, BOTH CMUs and 3D printed concrete *need* finishing, IMHO, and reinforcement can be used to add surface strength. It seems to me that the nozzle on the concrete printer could be rectangular or have one or two *squeegees* on the vertical sides to minimize the width variation between layers and possibly increase contact surface area.
I've seen multiple builds as an OJT plumbing supervisor between '19 -' 21. It's always a learning experience if your mind is receptive. I'm grateful for these insights, Belinda and welcome back.
Welcome back! Thanks for another great video. 3D printed homes seem to only appeal to those who want to be different for the sake of being different. I do like the thought of having a block built home for the sake of insulation and sound proofing. The many times I have been in the market for a home has made me realize how home builders only cater to certain looks of a home, while not building quality homes. Most stick built homes have bouncy floors where stomping or working out will reverberate throughout the home. I've walked the outside of homes while my wife was speaking with the realtor and quickly realized I could hear every word they were saying from the outside, even though the windows were closed. All of that said, my next home will be custom built, because I want a quality home that faces south, uses solar to warm in the winter while keeping it shaded and cool in the summer, has quality sound proofing so I don't hear traffic on the nearby roads, and collects every drop of rainwater to save on the need for water pumped from the ground or water treatment facilities.
Just a passer-by here. Very interesting outline, never knew about the robotic arm tech until this video. I’d seen Risingner highlight the 3D printers on his channel before. One factor that could be to the robotic arm detriment is elevation. The 3D printer can reach heights much higher (obviously sway becomes a greater issue to contend with) than a boom arm connected to a truck. In the case of “standard” residential subdivision development, this may not matter but a factor nonetheless. Thanks for the informative video! 😊
I'm really excited to see we're finally getting some real development around construction automation, in particular with an approach like the Hadrian X where it's very similar to more traditional masonry construction. The construction adhesive approach does make me kind of apprehensive though, not due to the strength of the adhesive but because it seems like it's the one aspect that limits what you can do for horizontal reinforcement. How do you lay down your steel bond beam now that you can't just set it into the mortar joint? What if you want to have traditional brick siding? How do you attach your brick ties to it? I'm sure these are solvable problems without having to do anything too radical like have variants of your blocks with a profile in the top to accept a brick tie and masonry ladder but it feels like the Hadrian X isn't quite a complete solution yet. One thing I've always wanted to see is similar to the Hadrian X but with traditional dimensional lumber instead of masonry. Imagine how much lighter and less capital intensive it would be to have a smaller mobile robot with a couple manipulator arms that can grip onto 2x lumber with some rollers and a circular saw so it can pickup, scan, measure, cut, cull, etc a bundle of wood and then just throw a nail gun on the thing and have it frame and stand up walls, give it a flimsy magnetic manipulator arm so it can nail on various Simpson connector hardware and have it put up trusses and joists as well. Maybe even make a variant that can straddle itself on joists and cut and manipulate panels and have it glue and screw all your subfloor down as well. I'm looking forward to the day we can have "Lumbertron 9000" that can reduce the amount of work a framer has to do on a house dramatically. Certain trades are definitely going to be harder to automate than others but even plumbing and electrical there's still a lot of room for automation around planning, cutting, gluing, recording, etc that could be a huge force multiplier letting them do substantially more work and more importantly higher quality work. That also sets the groundwork for taking BIM to a whole new level and have extremely detailed records of the as-built conditions of a home. It could be 50 years later and some future electrician could pull up the exact path that every single circuit in the house takes as well as stuff like lot numbers and locations of AFCI breakers, what batch of romex was used for a given conductor in the wall, where every junction is to make fault finding absurdly easy, etc. How great would it be if the next time there's some recall like the Federal Pacific Electric breakers that still regularly cause structure fires to this day every county code inspector could instantly have a report of every single serial number installed as well as their precise location and kept up to date during any kind of additions or alterations over the years? BIM gets unreasonable when every little piece of information has to be recorded and tracked by a human but with ubiquitous automation, now it's suddenly very cheap and a no-brainer to implement if you can get industry wide standardization and compliance in place. Here's hoping the Hadrian X is the start of some monumental shift in construction, these kinds of fundamental changes are the only way I see for it to be possible to solve the housing crisis without drastically altering the standards and quality of life we come to expect from a house currently.
indeed. i also like the interlocking "traditional" bricks system. they are easy to setup & even untrained builders can make viable structures for a low cost. trying to print the entire structure in concrete might not be the best answer as many compromises have to be made. future development may fix this. its an interesting space.
Printing the entire thing sounds great but when you price and plan out a house build with it, you see its not helping you much. And I don't see where it could improve enough to change that. Side note, what they downplay is its actually not concrete. Its a mortar mix with minimal aggregate (rock). Problem with that is, mortar is much weaker, expensive and has a larger environmental impact negating their green claims.
It's very nice to hear someone say cost is the most important factor because that suggest you are a sensible person and you realise that the thing that will drive the usage is cost. So many of these science and tech channels have an optimistic approach where just because something is better is will be adopted.
I would love to see liquid concrete as a mortar and bedding layer that is then used between layers of block work. Or perhaps used as a way of automatically levelling uneven foundations so that automatic block laying is possible. Combining approaches here, I think had the possibility of better adoption and more flexibility than either alone. This could also allow the automated creation of traditional looking facades, and the automated use traditional building materials.
The 3d brick layer seems like a better idea, less setup and environmental impacts to the process (like temp, humidity, sun, freezing, etc). but making the CMUs exact means they are going to be more expensive and not using mortar means the price of that glue is going to be another price unknown. Also, we will need to see the engineering reports on its strength and seismic abilities. Factory building as much as you can with robots/3d printers is where the most bang for the buck is. We don' take metal or plastic 3d printers outside or to the endpoint usage location. We run them in controlled environments where we can set it up and run it constantly. If we had to take down, move and reassemble constantly, the efficiency is drastically cut. This block layer does seem to be better in that it is highly mobile, doesn't rely on all the infrastructure that 3d printers require.
@@jamesbizs unlikely a completely different and tighter toleranced CMU is going to only be 10% more. She is most likely repeating what the people selling the machine claim. And since the price of that block makes or breaks their products effectiveness, they have a strong incentive to under-report its expense.
@@unicornadrian1358 CMU blocks are not cut in the manufacturing process, they use molds. Making the blocks to be exact with low tolerance for variation requires a more expensive process.. all manufacturing that reduces tolerances is more expensive. When you have this custom block being created there will only be a few plants out there making them.. so even more expensive.
@@Josh.1234 lol I am aware that they use molds. The outer sides are all exactly the same, only the height varies. Therefore only a single cut is needed. Not an expensive operation.
Belinda, you are my go-to source for unbiased construction methods. I love your content and I can only hope that builders watch your videos for proper insight. Keep going with the content you have been providing so far - it is spot on.
I am not in the construction trade but I still love watching your videos, it helps me understand the options available and which options would be best for my area.
As a builder I really appreciate the clear-eyed, hype-free perspective Belinda brings. I come here for objectivity with passion and rarely leave disappointed.
As simply another nerd with a 3d printer, it's very refreshing to hear about how architects are thinking about these techs, and it's easy to appreciate how correct Belinda is about it's overall feasibility for solving larger problems than the desktop toys that i create.
As a musician and a wanna be acoustics expert I think that liquid concrete has a great deal of potential in constructing studio control rooms and other specialized listening and playing environments. The geometries required for these spaces can be difficult and expensive to construct using traditional methods. With 3D printing we could design and build acoustical environments that might have been impossible before, with bass trapping and other sound-control features built right into the wall cavities.
The flexibility of the brick layer gives it a much stronger leg up when it comes to material choice. Materials like hemp-creat are even lighter but I don't believe it could be printed liquid like the big gantry system. The ability to use any kind of brick as opposed to needing something that filled through a hose is going to be able to use much more standardized materials which will absolutely reduce cost. As well those mushroom bricks I believe can be grown to shape. Concrete is going to eventually fall out of favor for it's high pollution production so being able to adjust in the future gives the brick layer a much more stable future, as well as using a lot of existing, proven tech rather then making new in development gantry systems for liquid 3d printing. It's a lot more future proof. And that's ignoring the fact that a gantry can only have one head. You could have multiple brick layers working on the same project simultaneously, so the scalability is only limited by how far the arms can reach.
Gosh, I've not been following this channel for a while, but what an absolutely wonderful journalistic work are you making, I’m so impressed, like… This is VERY informative, like neither antitech nor pro "tech is THE solution", trying to find what would fit the wanted results the best. And honestly, you're doing such an amazing job bringing the most informations on the table so we can actually think about it.
Good to see your videos again! GREAT TO HEAR YOU PAUSED TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! I'll never actually know you, but know you are valued for more than just your videos. Take care Belinda. Cheers!
I always found the 3D printed concrete method to be too crude for house construction, more like a grand experiment at this point rather than a building method. I think the block laying machine shows more promise.
Though, admittedly, they currently seem to be solving different problems. The concrete printing seems to want to be an all-in-one solution to getting the walls up while the block-laying is one part of the puzzle. It's not impossible to compare them but it certainly requires extra effort and understanding. Block-laying certainly shows promise in the near-term but I agree with our host here, 3D printed concrete hasn't found isn't home (pun intended) yet.
I think we're also ignoring the cold joint that her guest mentioned. If you print a wall 1 in at a time, the concrete will be cold by them time you print the next layer.
OK. I worked construction as a chippie's labourer in the 70's. Yeah, I'm old. And that was enough to make me realise I needed a white collar job. But at about 2:15 you say the machine lays ~200 bricks an hour; being ~ten times faster than a human. If I was only making mud and carting bricks to cater for the blokes laying 20 bricks an hour, I'd still be working that job. Just saying. I love your content. Cheers.
I don't know how you do it? Such great unbiased content, one after another. I've been in the AEC industry my whole life. I was a general contractor for 30 years and now work for an architectural firm. I teach construction technology: steel framing, estimating, contractor's license law and project management part-time at a local college in Southern California. I share a number of your videos my students. They are spot on. Thank you for all the effort. Take a brake, slow down, go for a walk and smell the roses:)
Welcome back Belinda! I’m glad you took some time for yourself. It’s important to see when you’re burning out and take action to change things. I had a business that put me way, way into burnout for years. It’s taking me years now to fully recover. Don’t let it happen to you, don’t hesitate to take more time whenever you need it. Thanks though for this latest piece of great information, it’s the same intelligent, clear-headed and understandable style we’ve all come to appreciate so much!
We use Kalksandstein (KS) bricks when we need dimensional tolerances to be that good. They are made by wet pressure treating silica sand with quicklime to let the caustic quicklime dissolve the surface of the and grains and bond with them. Those bricks are the common type of brick used in the past 30(+?) years in Germany for structural firewalls and similar in at least residential construction. (Because they get pressure-molded, it's easy to mold them to tight tolerances.)
Dang, those comparisons were seriously eye-opening! The video was pretty awesome too. And I gotta say, I'm not even into construction, but I actually learned a ton from it.
Good to know there’s another robotic method out there quicker and more sustainable. The only reason I like the other method is if people were already planning to build a cob house (only if it’s legal) out of the materials on the property. Using a robotic arm to lay thick circular walls would be more efficient than using only human hands, even with the set up and re-calibration factors.
The big companies doing the 3d printing have proprietary mortar mixes required for their systems (highly dependent on the exact consistency and dry time). They have some of the big companies making it lack quickrete but you definitely can't use just any mortar and definitely not anything just onsite.
@@Josh.1234 Oh I know. There was one company that was experimenting with soil onsite with a little added concrete, so I know some minds in the business are thinking about it (just not seriously because…once again, it’s not legal.)
Love your videos, Belinda. About the adhesive, do we know the life time and repair issues? The adhesive will have to sit for a hundred years or more? My neighbor just had a 6 in pole rammed through the side of his house. No one injured, but the brick was repaired in a day, what about this system? GREAT STUFF!
Carbon footprint of cement/blocks. Nuff said. Then there is adobe/cob or stone for desert areas, non earthquake areas, wood framing with dimension lumber/engineered wood structure, for other areas. The wood structure can be factory assembled, to help lower overall cost.
I definitely like the brick system much better than the 3D printing, as well as their mindset. I don't know why the 3D printer owners think their walls should be seen on the inside. Aside from the dust-traps and cleaning troubles, it's uglier and provides less options. I have a brick exterior but my interior walls are all drywall. I can't imagine seeing my exterior bricks from the inside and thinking that's a good thing.
No Brasil usamos blocos de tijolos ou cimento. Depois ficamos massa fina com adesivo impermeável. Depois seco colocamos massa de cimento(areia e cimento) e desempenar com régua para liberar. Após nivelar aplicamos bloco de espumas para acabamento (liso ). O cabeamento da pintura com massa fina (lixa) e realiza a pintura.
I was meaning to ask about that, do people render or plaster over the 3D walls? I kind of like the unusual aesthetics of it, but the dust trap element alone would be a nightmare to deal with. Not to mention, people just want to put up shelves and pictures and other creature comforts that need a flat surface.
Well I’m sure there’s nothing stopping people from rendering over the walls or whatever, it’s just preference I guess, I don’t like exposed brickwork inside buildings but many love it.
My guess is they leave it exposed so they can be more cost competitive. I'm sure they feature it as an aesthetic choice but I think the bottom line rules over all.
You have great videos Belinda! Good to see you recovered from burnout. I’ve had several so far. Diet change is also important part as it has a direct impact on body’s energy
This would be ideal for those who want to build their own house, but work all the time. This would allow one to set up the machine on one wall and have it run for 3 days or one week, and then you just have to go to the site to drop off more material, check everything, and move it to another wall course, but it could essentially build one whole side of the building without anyone needing to be there. Combine that with some cameras, and other ways to check progress. There's no reason someone couldn't do all this on their own too, given if there is enough open source effort and info for building it. Ive seen them made out of a scaffold with little trailer wheels on it, so that whole frame part is taken care of, it wheels itself in a straight line, then all you have to worry about is the print head, hopper system, and mixing, but I'm pretty sure most mixing issues actually are taken care of by proper premixing of dry ingredients. If your dry mix is evenly mixed and has the right additives in it, all you need is a belt/ conveyor type of feeder hopper or maybe an archimedes screw type of feed, then a good number of small spray nozzles and a water tank/ pump, dial in how much and when to mist or spray your dry mix on its way to the print head, the print head could be like a box with a camera shutter type thing on the bottom, and a wiper on top, so your feed runs until the box is full, maybe have a vibratory on it to settle, screed off the top of form, then let it sit for however long it takes, then the shutter opens and the brick gets dropped in place, whole unit rolls down and repeat, or it can just be like a concrete pump and it moves at a steady rate. But i was thinking about Adobe more than concrete.
My first job ever was a summer holidays gig in 1989 as a 16 year old brickie's labourer to a "gun" brickie friend of my father's. The brickie was famous locally for his speed and strength, a man mountain. His winter job was on Macquarie island helping hold down leopard seals with a huge net to tag them. Although I was super fit as a 16 YO, regularly competing in Iron Man comps (swimming, running, kayaking legs), I couldn't however keep the mortar and bricks up to him, no matter how fast I ran. I remember being super competitive and trying so hard to keep up, but even as a young strong fit kid, I didn't have the muscular endurance to keep him supplied with bricks and mortar. I remember one evening after returning home I sat down in the front doorway to take off my dirty boots. My mum came home and found me asleep with my legs out the door and my body inside. I recently caught up with him at my dad's funeral. The ravages of a lifetime of backbreaking work evident in his body. For much of history society has put young men who were sick of school to work in physically hard jobs. This gave them a sense of purpose and self esteem and often blunted their more destructive urges. What purpose will young men feel once the building industry is fully automated? Will a UBI be successful in giving enough young people a living wage and allow them to focus on creative businesses and pursuits, or will the untapped competitive and aggressive urges lead to more social ills?
All your videos are excellent quality with an informed, balanced, nuanced, clear and pleasant presentation. Quantity is not why I am here Belinda. Don't let the algorithm turn you into a slave.
I’d like to hear more about that construction adhesive. If it isn’t stone-based, like mortar, I have questions about how long it will retain its strength.
I don't know how long you've been out but welcome back! what a top piece to talk about. such an interesting development and you explain it with all it nuances. thanks!
I continue to love what I learn in your videos Belinda. Keep up the good work but remember work life balance. I have nothing to do with the building industry, but I love science and tech and this fits the bill. 😊
Hadrian fascinated me the first time I read about it, what must have been over a decade ago. But here in Germany, we have "standard" bricks that come up to 500x500x240mm, quite a little bit larger than what is used in Australia. They even come with Perlite filling for better insulation ( e.g. Poroton made by Schlagmann, or bricks by Wienerberger). They are also mounted with a thin layer of adhesive. Those old toast loaf sized bricks have been on the decline here since the 70s since they simply take too long, don't insulate well, are too heavy and use up too much clay.
I’ve seen people starting to use what seem to be essentially a clay brick wall segment, as in it is like one gigantic prefabricated rectangular brick unit made of a composite block material with the insulation sealed inside the masonry. They are structural so the whole building is made of them, no other frames or anything. Really cool, you just plop the walls up, they interlock and are fastened, and a roof of your choosing is built by a normal roofing contractor. More expensive but it’s supposed to last like a thousand years and it can be assembled by like two people in a day
@@maaingan this is called "Fertighaus" here in Germany. Don't know how common it is elsewhere, but you can order them in a variety of materials; wood used to be the only material and still is used in most cases, but concrete (historically "Plattenbau" in the GDR), cinderblock, Ytong have/are being used, brick is pretty new but growing; historically brick houses are very common in Germany.
The added benefit also appears to be bricks can have major alterations done during renovations where 3d printed concrete can't easily have a floor plan changed during a renovation without compromising more of the structure.
Another benefit I see of Hadrian is probably the speed of set-up. That probably makes it feasible to build a single home with it, whereas the 3D printed homes always seem to be part of a larger development of many homes. Also, I suspect the finer tolerances Hadrian is capable of might have other benefits as well above standard building practices that have to compensate for larger variances.
I love this technology and your channel. What I find troubling is that in urban centres we need more, higher-density housing and paycheques so we can stop living so deperately. Oh well. Keep up the good work.
wow! as someone who knows way more about 3d printing than i do construction, it's nice to see someone actually knowledgeable about construction speak on this. i love 3d printing, but it always seemed like concrete printing was a tech demo at best and a useless gimmick at worst. in general, i think additive manufacturing can only take off once AM machines can move around and aren't limited by a build volume interior to themselves, and i think this is one of the first applications of that!
Thank you for taking time for yourself. "If the axe is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength." Ecclesiastes 10:10 Stay sharp, we love you!
Would love to see you interview someone from Stone Cycling... that's an environmentally friendly brick technology that looks like it could make an instant impact in the building industry, without the need for robots or mass retraining.
This is the first time that I have seen this automated brick laying machine. It is very impressive. I can see many possibilities for this this technology. Just imagine how quickly a tall sound wall along a freeway could be constructed with this technology. As for 3D printed concrete, I can see applications for it. But I doubt that fully 3D concrete printing houses will become widely used. Ed Schultheis, PE Mechanical design engineer and manufacturing consultant for 35 years Schultek Engineering & Technology, Inc. Washington state, USA
I feel like combining the aspects of bricklaying and factory/modular will be the best way to do it. Ship the walls tightly packed. Drop/fit the walls/floors into some precise foundation. Connect the pre-setup plumbing/electrical/AC between the walls. That way more aspects can be automated. (Framing, drywall, electrical, cat6, AC, plumbing, windows, etc.) Some rooms like for the water heater and AC unit could be 100% premade to have basically all systems connected on day 1. Also: Great video! Wasn't aware of the Hadrian X, seems real neat and compact
THANKS BELINDA 🤗 WE HAVE NO PROBLEM BEING PATIENT WITH YOU 😎 TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND KEEP US INFORMED 🧐 OF THIS AND OTHER OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE 🤗💚💚💚
If you just 3d print garages or footings and foundations, that would be awesome. Not a whole house though. That's crazy town. The robot arm looks like a great option for walls and fireplaces. Such a good time saver.
It's good to hear from you. I love your down-to-earth way about you. Thank you for sharing robotic technology I didn't know about. I like that one even moreso.
yeah, I agree with you on the 3d "so-called" concrete printers, you are spot on as usual. Need to check your page on hemp use, now. Just toured a construction site, it seems very promising.
Glad you took some time to revive, looking great ! I would go with brick over 3D printing. Just looks more reliable and easier to work with. Don't need to worry about the next concrete showing up or how to clear all those lines. Appreciate you bringing up the cons to 3D printing. Very few people are doing that.
You are spot on, prefab is where its at. Builders First Source has this process, ready frame which is basically the Sears house kits but can be done to any house design practically and its all built using robotic assembly lines which cut and label all timber and locations. You go in and work with their designer to convert your plans into their ready frame system and they precut, package and ship in correct construction order to your site. Watching videos of guys building most of the first floor without pulling out their circular saw.. crazy. Framing efficiency, the extra time spent on planning and precutting reduces errors as well as requires less skilled carpenters. Less waste as the program can maximize the usage of all cut pieces. And its done all in a factory where everything is much more accurate. Only downside is price as most of these are custom homes but if they offered a catalog of 100 houses you could choose from and reduce the upfront plan costs, then its really a great idea. Specially if bigger/more companies get into modernizing the robotic efficiencies of the factory work.
@@Josh.1234 Another negative with prefabs is transport costs. Prefab is quick to assemble and the elements cheap to make, especially if they are all standard elements. But they don't pack all that compact meaning it takes up more space when shipped. Bricks and concrete are however very efficient when it comes to transporting them. Same could be said for shipping lumber and building everything on site, but then you get higher labor costs and it will take longer to get the house up. No matter what solution you go with there are tradeoffs. Cost, time, aesthetics, longevity, isolation and so on. Choose your poison... Makes me think of the Chinese standard building code introduced several hundred years back. Some dude got in their head that if all official buildings were constructed only from a selection of building elements then any builder who could make those elements could be employed to build for the government. The designs were collected in a book and no deviations from measurements or design was allowed. This also let them compare prices between the builders as they all worked with the same book. It was an interesting "experiment" that I think was used for a couple of hundred years. But don't quote me on that as I haven't looked into the details. I just found it interesting as I feel there's often way to many solutions for the same thing only from different companies, and often they are not easily combined. This was a way of trying to standardize how houses were built. And it also allowed any competent builder to repair or restore a building as everything was more or less a big Lego using standard parts. Some of these buildings still stands, though they've been torn down and rebuilt using the standard elements many times over the years. But again as every part is described in the building code book there's no guess work involved. I seem to remember that some temples has been rebuilt like this every 80 or so years. So the several hundred year old temple you may visit on a vacation doesn't have a single piece of wood left since it was originally built...
@@blahorgaslisk7763 so there is different levels of prefab. Ready frame typically just cuts all the limber and ships it to you. You build on site but with every wall already cut and in stacks, it's super fast to build and stand up. They also do fully assembled wall panels but that is tricky shipping an 8ft tall wall. Not really impossible though as long as it can fit on a flat bed and you have a boom to set them. Government forcing building designs and products is dangerous. Free market is what arrives at the best building science solutions and if you let the government shortcut that process then we are going to get stuck with bad solutions.
Prefabs are not suitable, or desireable for every environment. Neither are they so flexible in their design. You are stuck with what each manufacturer decides to provide, so custom designs are out, as they are prohibitively expensive. The robot arm has the benefits of completing the brick work in 3 - 4 man working days. (And depending on the site, it could even be used at night.) Moreover, it is flexible enough and potentially faster to adapt to different designs and plot sizes within a development. And being able to work with different blocks means even more flexibility and adaptability. It is highly likely that different regions in the world will use different technologies, but prefabs aren't the only solution. Its been tried, but on a mass scale they haven't been successful. Especially for durability and lifespan. If everybody could get a Hüf Haus, that would be great, but that isn't going to happen is it?
@@BigHenFor you can prefab any wall panel design you want, not sure how that is limiting. Or you can have all the timber precut and labeled for you to assemble on site. Either way, you can build any residential house design and it will be of the same or higher quality. Prefab can be any amount of factory preparation of building materials. Doesn't have to be full walls.
Excellent video as usual. Very well thought through and well explained / demonstrated. On another note, I really admire that top you are wearing. Very smart.
There is a lot of potential in the material science for 3d printing in construction, as it's a new technology before breakthrough. There also a lot of potential in how 3d printing is integrated with other parts of the construction, for example considering inlays of other materials, dynamic material formulation in the nozzle for different features of the structure, or how the printed structure can be coated and even selectively cut out post-print and replaced with tailored inserts of other materials. It looks like in the mean time brick laying robots will take the lead because they are far more predictable and the structure is integrated with other traditional building methods.
Exactly what I thought too.. The more we can build in a factory taking advantage of that controlled environment and the efficiencies of fixed assembly lines the better. Too many people who comment on 3d printed mortar as being the greatest thing, have never worked with cement before and don't realize how much variability is in it especially given the environment.
This seems like a good match for AAC blocks that are already laid using adhesives even when done by hand. And there are 50cm blocks available that have R values suitable for northern climates with zero additional insulation. Routing in conduits for pipes and wiring is also easily done by a robot arm. Only issue is that the labor needed is already a small fraction of the total and the robots don't seem to be providing any other advantage.
Additionally, I'm only seeing *_one_* robot arm truck where you can have a swarm of bricklayers working on a single building. The advantage of autonomous robots are that they don't need food or bathroom breaks. That don't call in sick or come hungover. You don't pay outrageous compensation insurance for work off the ground. Perhaps the biggest advantage is that their productivity is a known quantity so it is _much_ easier to schedule other trades around their time slot. 10X the productivity of a bricklayer is a farce. If you took 3 minutes to lay each brick (20 per hour) you wouldn't be employed for long.
Brick/Wall/Roof-element installation-robots make sense to me, especially avoiding accidents in risky situations, like installation in height/roof. So for house upgradings like wall insulation or PV montage on top or instead of old roof tiles might have a big chance and market. Manufactoring artistic wall robots are interesting for the rich, but won't help building/maintaining affordable house. Also mass production reduces costs with same or better quality from bricks/parts, pre-installed but still modular wall-elements to prefabricated house, which already exists. So robots which taking advantage of this already existing prefabricated house parts might be a next logically step forward, especially for regions with destroyed cities (catastrophs: earth quakes, flooding or war).
The Icon/Lennar 3D homes are in my area north of Austin. You can see some of the concrete walls and 3D printers from the street, but they have the whole area fenced off. It will be interesting to see the final finished area.
If you can pair it with a portable brick fabrication machine that and use materials on-site to make brick that could make it even more useful and cut down on material shipping. Obviously not all sites would have the needed materials, but those that do could really improve efficiency and cost.
haha exactly my thoughts.. the people selling it the hardest do not have a background in building project management nor have they done masonry work. I see a huge headache and expense if I bid out a job using this stuff..
laying briks is not hard, in romania we use autoclaved concrete froms, they are light and well insulating. a team of 3 guys can build a floor in a day ( excluding pouring concrete for the structure). here you maybe have une less man but the machinary and quality of work is trerrible and the downtime when the blody software has a glitch can be huge, meanwhile 3 guys can make something better with very simple and cheap tools
An even faster and cheaper method would be 'tilt-up' pre-poured light weight 'concrete' slabs (walls & ceilings, pre-fab roofing etc.) delivered to the site and robotically lifted from the delivery truck, manipulated and put in place, quickly and with minimal manual labor. All conduits and outlets-boxes (plumbing & electrical) as well as connection corner points and physical tie points built right in. After pulling the wiring and flexible water tubing, the final receptacle and faucets can be quickly mounted. Off-site manufacturing also allows for good quality control. The 3-D method seems a bit 'gimmicky', being done simply because it is an achievable idea that can get investment.
Here in the Netherlands, most homes have a red clay brick facade.
Not quite the same as construction building from aerated concrete blocks -- but in the last 5 years, most construction companies have already (partly) "outsourced" the brick laying for facades to robots. The robot will apply mortar and place bricks, a human just cleans up the joints and does specialty parts around windows and doors. Most bricklayers are also quite happy about this change as they can focus on more artisanal detail work, get less health issues, and have to worry less about early retirement due to injury.
Thanks for sharing info on the local building trends in the Netherlands. I made a video on those types of brick+mortar robots a while back. Glad to see it's catching on.
I have never seen something like that (to be fair, I also don‘t actively look out for it) but that sounds like a way better approach in general.
@@PhilfreezeCH Dutch Home construction is typically carried out in projects by medium to large sized corps that devellop entire subsections of a new planned section.
Subsections are typically a square of houses with an inner core consisting of any combination of gardens at the back of the house with an interior parking space allocated or the gardens back to back with a small path to get your bike out. The last bit is vital ofcourse ;).
One face of the square typically consists of luxury townhouses side by side, semi detached dual townhouses or detached homes. Thats the upscale row with gardens that are typically larger. These Town houses usually are 3 full stories and wider ( usually ~6.1m interior width and 9-10m long ). Semi detached or detached typically 2 stories + pitched roof. Typically 8 town houses, 6 semi-detached or 4 detached houses per phase of the project with the exact type rotated per phase of the entire overall project.
The 2 longer sides of the square are usually mid sized or plus sized townhouses ( typically 2 stories plus a pitched roof usually about 5.7m interior width and about 9m standard ground level depth.) Usually ab
The lower cost face is generally located facing the 50 km/h access road and typically consists of 4.9-5.1m interior width houses, depth is typically 8-9meters.
This is still an somewhat upscale block with overall block income level sliding downwards once you get nearer to the main traffic corridors (ie. smaller and cheaper homes )
You'll usually find atleast one appartment complex as part of any new residential plan with a mix of sizes for different income brackets.
Dutch construction is typically either thick aerated concrete blocks, sandlime bricks or prefab concrete panels ( with doors and windows pre fitted ) for the interior facing of the outside walls with voids for sound decoupling between homes. Exterior facings are typically done in bricks but ground level brick + wood or engineered panels is also routinely done. Pitched roofs usually arrive prefab as a wood and insulation plus vapor barrier fold out combo that's hoisted on your home.
Net zero homes are mandatory for new construction. Expect heatpumps with radiant floor heating, solarpanels ( roughly 5 kWpeak) and heat recovery forced air ventilation.
Expect a package of option to choose from ( ground floor extensions, dormers, pitched roof windows, interior wall floor plan alterations, changes to wall outlets etc etc).
Typically one of the larger kitchen vendors is involved which offer some volume costs benefits with a few pre-planned kitchen designs (or choose your own) and better integration with other contractors.
Ditto the same for your bathroom.
Scaffolding is slowly disappearing due to labor costs and is being replaced by section wide hydraulic gantries as much as possible.
@@dwwolf4636, I have heard about construction code and standards that builders must follow in the Netherlands. Are there really such things?
@@dwwolf4636 "Net zero homes are mandatory for new construction" So glad to hear it! Net zero and especially passive house standards have proven lower heating and cooling cost over time.
Gotta say, after working in construction and adjacent fields for many years now, Belinda does such a great job of realistically talking about new tech. She always points out the parts that most everyone else ignores on how to bring this stuff into reality. So many of the 3D printers just flat out ignored electrical and plumbing needs that it was laughable (and plenty of the other issues she brings up). Always enjoy your vids!!!!
She's quite good at what she does here on this channel
Yeah I have debated a lot of people supportive of 3d printing mortar but basically none of them have worked in the industry.. they don't know how much the first story walls cost in the construction budget or how this impacts running wire.. the problems list is just really long and the companies selling it don't realistic address this.. tell me how this will ever be better than a CMU crew? Cost, time, functionality? I don't see how it will ever outperform a traditional masonry crew specially with just a single floor.
Thank you so much for your support!! I am so grateful for the community I've found on YT.
Except the part where 200 block an hour is 10x faster than a human.
Totally agreed
Hi Belinda, good to see you back! We’re always happy to see the progress of automation in construction robotics. If we may comment on the concerns on the building science behind 3D construction printing (6:01): Based on a very significant amount of large-scale testing not just by us (in cooperation with the Technical University in Munich) but the whole concrete printing industry there is no cold joint between subsequent layers but they form a monolithic structure. Regarding the point on thermal bridging: The COBOD BOD2 construction printer can stop and start the print process at any time. Hence, we do not have the outer facade layer connected to the inner load bearing elements with a printed concrete layer. Instead, we use so called wall binders. With this process, we do not have any thermal bridging at all and can achieve the highest energy efficiency ratings.
Thanks for clarifying those issue, Peri! Hope to visit your construction site in Houston soon.
@@BelindaCarr Of course, you're welcome on our site anytime. A heads up via E-mail would be appreciated though so we can make some room for you in our schedule. See you soon!
@repliesgpt Look op PERI mate, it's one of the world leaders in construction equipment. And they indeed also do 3D printing. The thermal bridging being non-existant I can agree with, but Belinda makes a valid point about the quality of joints and the dust buildup. When thinking about global warming, concrete is the worse choice for external walls in cities that are already several degrees hotter.
Please don't stress too much about getting some time for yourself, we all need that regularly. Love your videos, thank you.
Good to see you back Belinda! This video brought to mind the thought that construction really is still to be a composition of means & methods. Some approaches, like 3D printing are trying to be a one trade solution… but, the reality in construction is that some materials are meant to be used in compression, and are not the best choice for areas in tension… or infill. In my mind, the perfect combo would be to use this block robot for long parallel load bearing walls, and SIPS or T-Stud walls for the perpendicular short walls - and walls with a lot of punched openings. ByFusion’s ByBlock or JustBioFiber’s hemp block set with this robotic arm?
We have build our house 9 years ago in germany. The bricks were not layed, but every sand-lime brick had his own place, like a puzzle. The brickt were heavy (1m x 1m x 18 cm). On the construction site was a crane, so the workers only had to position the bricks, but not lift them. Glued together with thin-bed mortar. Every story was build in about 3 days by 3 men. The ceiling is a filigree ceiling (hope it is the right word. You lay thin beton plates with reinforcements on the walls, put in reinforcement steel between the plates, can put in the electric hosing and pour beton on it. Till it is really dry and strong, there are lots of steel columns in the house).
Yes, this robot is kind of a gimmick really, as there is the possibility of pre-facricated homes for many years already.
Which is basically what this robot does, with the nice fanfare.
Surely the price is forbiditive for now, for the whole system, still a great future proffing for when few labourers are available.
Welcome back!
I have been following Matt Ferrell at his Undecided channel and really like the net zero house he’s putting together. It’s a regular wood stud design but with panels assembled in a factory using robot arms to accurately cut and fit the parts, including installing the windows AND insulating the cavities (panels have OSB on both sides). They got his house in the dry in 3 days, despite horrible weather.
I'm in touch with Matt! Great guy. I'm going to visit a modular home factory in Idaho soon. Hope to build my own passive house someday.
Funny thing is people outside construction doesn't know that 30% of single family homes are built in factories. Been that way for decades. For some reason it's popular for the public to tell construction workers about factory built homes in a condescending way.
In response to what Ms. Williamson had to say regarding "cold joints every 2 inches", I agree that testing is in order, BUT standard CMU construction also has "cold joints" *everywhere,* and those have stood the test of time (and rigorous testing). Obviously several factors determine how *cold* a joint is between 3D printed layers: time, humidity, temperature, wind, etc. *Earth bag* construction is an extreme example of cold joints between layers, with the added negative of plastic on plastic "lubrication" in the bags, though it is common to use strands of barbed wire between layers to lock each course to another... with a reinforced stucco surface layer adding strength.
Regarding the surface finish, BOTH CMUs and 3D printed concrete *need* finishing, IMHO, and reinforcement can be used to add surface strength. It seems to me that the nozzle on the concrete printer could be rectangular or have one or two *squeegees* on the vertical sides to minimize the width variation between layers and possibly increase contact surface area.
I've seen multiple builds as an OJT plumbing supervisor between '19 -' 21. It's always a learning experience if your mind is receptive. I'm grateful for these insights, Belinda and welcome back.
Thanks!! Happy to be back!
Welcome back! Thanks for another great video. 3D printed homes seem to only appeal to those who want to be different for the sake of being different. I do like the thought of having a block built home for the sake of insulation and sound proofing. The many times I have been in the market for a home has made me realize how home builders only cater to certain looks of a home, while not building quality homes. Most stick built homes have bouncy floors where stomping or working out will reverberate throughout the home. I've walked the outside of homes while my wife was speaking with the realtor and quickly realized I could hear every word they were saying from the outside, even though the windows were closed. All of that said, my next home will be custom built, because I want a quality home that faces south, uses solar to warm in the winter while keeping it shaded and cool in the summer, has quality sound proofing so I don't hear traffic on the nearby roads, and collects every drop of rainwater to save on the need for water pumped from the ground or water treatment facilities.
Just a passer-by here. Very interesting outline, never knew about the robotic arm tech until this video. I’d seen Risingner highlight the 3D printers on his channel before. One factor that could be to the robotic arm detriment is elevation. The 3D printer can reach heights much higher (obviously sway becomes a greater issue to contend with) than a boom arm connected to a truck. In the case of “standard” residential subdivision development, this may not matter but a factor nonetheless. Thanks for the informative video! 😊
I didn't realize how much I missed your methodically expressed contrasts and comparisons for the sake of sustainable building ideas!
Thanks a lot! Happy to be back
Do what you need to do in order to keep a balance. Whether it is once a week or once every 2 months, I'll always be happy to see a new video from you.
Thanks for the support!
I'm really excited to see we're finally getting some real development around construction automation, in particular with an approach like the Hadrian X where it's very similar to more traditional masonry construction. The construction adhesive approach does make me kind of apprehensive though, not due to the strength of the adhesive but because it seems like it's the one aspect that limits what you can do for horizontal reinforcement. How do you lay down your steel bond beam now that you can't just set it into the mortar joint? What if you want to have traditional brick siding? How do you attach your brick ties to it? I'm sure these are solvable problems without having to do anything too radical like have variants of your blocks with a profile in the top to accept a brick tie and masonry ladder but it feels like the Hadrian X isn't quite a complete solution yet.
One thing I've always wanted to see is similar to the Hadrian X but with traditional dimensional lumber instead of masonry. Imagine how much lighter and less capital intensive it would be to have a smaller mobile robot with a couple manipulator arms that can grip onto 2x lumber with some rollers and a circular saw so it can pickup, scan, measure, cut, cull, etc a bundle of wood and then just throw a nail gun on the thing and have it frame and stand up walls, give it a flimsy magnetic manipulator arm so it can nail on various Simpson connector hardware and have it put up trusses and joists as well. Maybe even make a variant that can straddle itself on joists and cut and manipulate panels and have it glue and screw all your subfloor down as well. I'm looking forward to the day we can have "Lumbertron 9000" that can reduce the amount of work a framer has to do on a house dramatically. Certain trades are definitely going to be harder to automate than others but even plumbing and electrical there's still a lot of room for automation around planning, cutting, gluing, recording, etc that could be a huge force multiplier letting them do substantially more work and more importantly higher quality work. That also sets the groundwork for taking BIM to a whole new level and have extremely detailed records of the as-built conditions of a home. It could be 50 years later and some future electrician could pull up the exact path that every single circuit in the house takes as well as stuff like lot numbers and locations of AFCI breakers, what batch of romex was used for a given conductor in the wall, where every junction is to make fault finding absurdly easy, etc. How great would it be if the next time there's some recall like the Federal Pacific Electric breakers that still regularly cause structure fires to this day every county code inspector could instantly have a report of every single serial number installed as well as their precise location and kept up to date during any kind of additions or alterations over the years?
BIM gets unreasonable when every little piece of information has to be recorded and tracked by a human but with ubiquitous automation, now it's suddenly very cheap and a no-brainer to implement if you can get industry wide standardization and compliance in place. Here's hoping the Hadrian X is the start of some monumental shift in construction, these kinds of fundamental changes are the only way I see for it to be possible to solve the housing crisis without drastically altering the standards and quality of life we come to expect from a house currently.
how the heck do you clean those rough 3d printed concrete walls!! those look like dust traps
Pressure washer !
@@KirkWagner147 ...lol, inside?
Yeah i never understand the desire some people have for rough surfaces inside the house that will be really difficult to clean properly
Need a Roomba for the walls!
That's just the tip of the iceberg in problems the current 3d printed wall introduce into building science..
indeed. i also like the interlocking "traditional" bricks system. they are easy to setup & even untrained builders can make viable structures for a low cost. trying to print the entire structure in concrete might not be the best answer as many compromises have to be made. future development may fix this. its an interesting space.
Printing the entire thing sounds great but when you price and plan out a house build with it, you see its not helping you much. And I don't see where it could improve enough to change that.
Side note, what they downplay is its actually not concrete. Its a mortar mix with minimal aggregate (rock). Problem with that is, mortar is much weaker, expensive and has a larger environmental impact negating their green claims.
Glad your back, love your videos!
It's very nice to hear someone say cost is the most important factor because that suggest you are a sensible person and you realise that the thing that will drive the usage is cost. So many of these science and tech channels have an optimistic approach where just because something is better is will be adopted.
Welcome back, Belinda! You’re a breath of fresh air!
I would love to see liquid concrete as a mortar and bedding layer that is then used between layers of block work. Or perhaps used as a way of automatically levelling uneven foundations so that automatic block laying is possible. Combining approaches here, I think had the possibility of better adoption and more flexibility than either alone.
This could also allow the automated creation of traditional looking facades, and the automated use traditional building materials.
Nice to see you back again! I personally love the idea of curved walls that 3D printers can do. It'd be soo fun to design a structure with.
The 3d brick layer seems like a better idea, less setup and environmental impacts to the process (like temp, humidity, sun, freezing, etc). but making the CMUs exact means they are going to be more expensive and not using mortar means the price of that glue is going to be another price unknown. Also, we will need to see the engineering reports on its strength and seismic abilities.
Factory building as much as you can with robots/3d printers is where the most bang for the buck is. We don' take metal or plastic 3d printers outside or to the endpoint usage location. We run them in controlled environments where we can set it up and run it constantly. If we had to take down, move and reassemble constantly, the efficiency is drastically cut. This block layer does seem to be better in that it is highly mobile, doesn't rely on all the infrastructure that 3d printers require.
Yes. 10% more expensive. They said that in the video
@@jamesbizs unlikely a completely different and tighter toleranced CMU is going to only be 10% more. She is most likely repeating what the people selling the machine claim. And since the price of that block makes or breaks their products effectiveness, they have a strong incentive to under-report its expense.
@@Josh.1234 a single saw cut performed in an automated system isn’t going to add significant expense. The 10% figure sounds about right.
@@unicornadrian1358 CMU blocks are not cut in the manufacturing process, they use molds.
Making the blocks to be exact with low tolerance for variation requires a more expensive process.. all manufacturing that reduces tolerances is more expensive. When you have this custom block being created there will only be a few plants out there making them.. so even more expensive.
@@Josh.1234 lol I am aware that they use molds. The outer sides are all exactly the same, only the height varies. Therefore only a single cut is needed. Not an expensive operation.
Belinda, you are my go-to source for unbiased construction methods. I love your content and I can only hope that builders watch your videos for proper insight. Keep going with the content you have been providing so far - it is spot on.
Happy to see you back here. Good video. Take care of yourself.
I am not in the construction trade but I still love watching your videos, it helps me understand the options available and which options would be best for my area.
As a builder I really appreciate the clear-eyed, hype-free perspective Belinda brings. I come here for objectivity with passion and rarely leave disappointed.
As simply another nerd with a 3d printer, it's very refreshing to hear about how architects are thinking about these techs, and it's easy to appreciate how correct Belinda is about it's overall feasibility for solving larger problems than the desktop toys that i create.
As a musician and a wanna be acoustics expert I think that liquid concrete has a great deal of potential in constructing studio control rooms and other specialized listening and playing environments. The geometries required for these spaces can be difficult and expensive to construct using traditional methods. With 3D printing we could design and build acoustical environments that might have been impossible before, with bass trapping and other sound-control features built right into the wall cavities.
The flexibility of the brick layer gives it a much stronger leg up when it comes to material choice. Materials like hemp-creat are even lighter but I don't believe it could be printed liquid like the big gantry system. The ability to use any kind of brick as opposed to needing something that filled through a hose is going to be able to use much more standardized materials which will absolutely reduce cost. As well those mushroom bricks I believe can be grown to shape. Concrete is going to eventually fall out of favor for it's high pollution production so being able to adjust in the future gives the brick layer a much more stable future, as well as using a lot of existing, proven tech rather then making new in development gantry systems for liquid 3d printing. It's a lot more future proof. And that's ignoring the fact that a gantry can only have one head. You could have multiple brick layers working on the same project simultaneously, so the scalability is only limited by how far the arms can reach.
Good to have you back. And thank you for an interesting discussion on a topic that is very relevant.
Gosh, I've not been following this channel for a while, but what an absolutely wonderful journalistic work are you making, I’m so impressed, like… This is VERY informative, like neither antitech nor pro "tech is THE solution", trying to find what would fit the wanted results the best. And honestly, you're doing such an amazing job bringing the most informations on the table so we can actually think about it.
Good to see your videos again!
GREAT TO HEAR YOU PAUSED TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!
I'll never actually know you, but know you are valued for more than just your videos.
Take care Belinda.
Cheers!
So happy to see you back.
Your information is far above the rest.
Thank you so much! Happy to be back!
I always found the 3D printed concrete method to be too crude for house construction, more like a grand experiment at this point rather than a building method.
I think the block laying machine shows more promise.
Though, admittedly, they currently seem to be solving different problems. The concrete printing seems to want to be an all-in-one solution to getting the walls up while the block-laying is one part of the puzzle. It's not impossible to compare them but it certainly requires extra effort and understanding.
Block-laying certainly shows promise in the near-term but I agree with our host here, 3D printed concrete hasn't found isn't home (pun intended) yet.
I think we're also ignoring the cold joint that her guest mentioned. If you print a wall 1 in at a time, the concrete will be cold by them time you print the next layer.
OK. I worked construction as a chippie's labourer in the 70's. Yeah, I'm old. And that was enough to make me realise I needed a white collar job. But at about 2:15 you say the machine lays ~200 bricks an hour; being ~ten times faster than a human. If I was only making mud and carting bricks to cater for the blokes laying 20 bricks an hour, I'd still be working that job. Just saying. I love your content. Cheers.
I don't know how you do it? Such great unbiased content, one after another. I've been in the AEC industry my whole life. I was a general contractor for 30 years and now work for an architectural firm. I teach construction technology: steel framing, estimating, contractor's license law and project management part-time at a local college in Southern California. I share a number of your videos my students. They are spot on. Thank you for all the effort. Take a brake, slow down, go for a walk and smell the roses:)
Welcome back Belinda! I’m glad you took some time for yourself. It’s important to see when you’re burning out and take action to change things. I had a business that put me way, way into burnout for years. It’s taking me years now to fully recover. Don’t let it happen to you, don’t hesitate to take more time whenever you need it.
Thanks though for this latest piece of great information, it’s the same intelligent, clear-headed and understandable style we’ve all come to appreciate so much!
We use Kalksandstein (KS) bricks when we need dimensional tolerances to be that good.
They are made by wet pressure treating silica sand with quicklime to let the caustic quicklime dissolve the surface of the and grains and bond with them.
Those bricks are the common type of brick used in the past 30(+?) years in Germany for structural firewalls and similar in at least residential construction.
(Because they get pressure-molded, it's easy to mold them to tight tolerances.)
Dang, those comparisons were seriously eye-opening! The video was pretty awesome too. And I gotta say, I'm not even into construction, but I actually learned a ton from it.
Good to know there’s another robotic method out there quicker and more sustainable. The only reason I like the other method is if people were already planning to build a cob house (only if it’s legal) out of the materials on the property. Using a robotic arm to lay thick circular walls would be more efficient than using only human hands, even with the set up and re-calibration factors.
The big companies doing the 3d printing have proprietary mortar mixes required for their systems (highly dependent on the exact consistency and dry time). They have some of the big companies making it lack quickrete but you definitely can't use just any mortar and definitely not anything just onsite.
@@Josh.1234 Oh I know. There was one company that was experimenting with soil onsite with a little added concrete, so I know some minds in the business are thinking about it (just not seriously because…once again, it’s not legal.)
Love your videos, Belinda. About the adhesive, do we know the life time and repair issues? The adhesive will have to sit for a hundred years or more? My neighbor just had a 6 in pole rammed through the side of his house. No one injured, but the brick was repaired in a day, what about this system? GREAT STUFF!
Carbon footprint of cement/blocks. Nuff said.
Then there is adobe/cob or stone for desert areas, non earthquake areas, wood framing with dimension lumber/engineered wood structure, for other areas.
The wood structure can be factory assembled, to help lower overall cost.
No need to burn yourself out!
Your audience will be there.
Another great program
God bless
Very happy to see you back Belinda. I am happy to hear you took some time for yourself.
Great to have you back! Thanks for all your great videos, Jan
I definitely like the brick system much better than the 3D printing, as well as their mindset. I don't know why the 3D printer owners think their walls should be seen on the inside. Aside from the dust-traps and cleaning troubles, it's uglier and provides less options. I have a brick exterior but my interior walls are all drywall. I can't imagine seeing my exterior bricks from the inside and thinking that's a good thing.
No Brasil usamos blocos de tijolos ou cimento. Depois ficamos massa fina com adesivo impermeável. Depois seco colocamos massa de cimento(areia e cimento) e desempenar com régua para liberar. Após nivelar aplicamos bloco de espumas para acabamento (liso ).
O cabeamento da pintura com massa fina (lixa) e realiza a pintura.
I was meaning to ask about that, do people render or plaster over the 3D walls? I kind of like the unusual aesthetics of it, but the dust trap element alone would be a nightmare to deal with. Not to mention, people just want to put up shelves and pictures and other creature comforts that need a flat surface.
@@nozero1 neither one of those require a flat surface, technically.......
Well I’m sure there’s nothing stopping people from rendering over the walls or whatever, it’s just preference I guess, I don’t like exposed brickwork inside buildings but many love it.
My guess is they leave it exposed so they can be more cost competitive. I'm sure they feature it as an aesthetic choice but I think the bottom line rules over all.
You have great videos Belinda! Good to see you recovered from burnout. I’ve had several so far. Diet change is also important part as it has a direct impact on body’s energy
100% agree. dust collection on each of the layers can be a nightmare. Then it would need to be panelled on the inside. more cost.
This would be ideal for those who want to build their own house, but work all the time. This would allow one to set up the machine on one wall and have it run for 3 days or one week, and then you just have to go to the site to drop off more material, check everything, and move it to another wall course, but it could essentially build one whole side of the building without anyone needing to be there. Combine that with some cameras, and other ways to check progress. There's no reason someone couldn't do all this on their own too, given if there is enough open source effort and info for building it. Ive seen them made out of a scaffold with little trailer wheels on it, so that whole frame part is taken care of, it wheels itself in a straight line, then all you have to worry about is the print head, hopper system, and mixing, but I'm pretty sure most mixing issues actually are taken care of by proper premixing of dry ingredients. If your dry mix is evenly mixed and has the right additives in it, all you need is a belt/ conveyor type of feeder hopper or maybe an archimedes screw type of feed, then a good number of small spray nozzles and a water tank/ pump, dial in how much and when to mist or spray your dry mix on its way to the print head, the print head could be like a box with a camera shutter type thing on the bottom, and a wiper on top, so your feed runs until the box is full, maybe have a vibratory on it to settle, screed off the top of form, then let it sit for however long it takes, then the shutter opens and the brick gets dropped in place, whole unit rolls down and repeat, or it can just be like a concrete pump and it moves at a steady rate. But i was thinking about Adobe more than concrete.
My first job ever was a summer holidays gig in 1989 as a 16 year old brickie's labourer to a "gun" brickie friend of my father's. The brickie was famous locally for his speed and strength, a man mountain. His winter job was on Macquarie island helping hold down leopard seals with a huge net to tag them. Although I was super fit as a 16 YO, regularly competing in Iron Man comps (swimming, running, kayaking legs), I couldn't however keep the mortar and bricks up to him, no matter how fast I ran. I remember being super competitive and trying so hard to keep up, but even as a young strong fit kid, I didn't have the muscular endurance to keep him supplied with bricks and mortar. I remember one evening after returning home I sat down in the front doorway to take off my dirty boots. My mum came home and found me asleep with my legs out the door and my body inside.
I recently caught up with him at my dad's funeral. The ravages of a lifetime of backbreaking work evident in his body.
For much of history society has put young men who were sick of school to work in physically hard jobs. This gave them a sense of purpose and self esteem and often blunted their more destructive urges. What purpose will young men feel once the building industry is fully automated?
Will a UBI be successful in giving enough young people a living wage and allow them to focus on creative businesses and pursuits, or will the untapped competitive and aggressive urges lead to more social ills?
As a 3d printing company founder I agree with you in terms of robotic arm freedom , even we are solving this issue.
All your videos are excellent quality with an informed, balanced, nuanced, clear and pleasant presentation. Quantity is not why I am here Belinda. Don't let the algorithm turn you into a slave.
I’d like to hear more about that construction adhesive. If it isn’t stone-based, like mortar, I have questions about how long it will retain its strength.
I don't know how long you've been out but welcome back! what a top piece to talk about. such an interesting development and you explain it with all it nuances. thanks!
I continue to love what I learn in your videos Belinda. Keep up the good work but remember work life balance. I have nothing to do with the building industry, but I love science and tech and this fits the bill. 😊
Hadrian fascinated me the first time I read about it, what must have been over a decade ago.
But here in Germany, we have "standard" bricks that come up to 500x500x240mm, quite a little bit larger than what is used in Australia. They even come with Perlite filling for better insulation ( e.g. Poroton made by Schlagmann, or bricks by Wienerberger). They are also mounted with a thin layer of adhesive. Those old toast loaf sized bricks have been on the decline here since the 70s since they simply take too long, don't insulate well, are too heavy and use up too much clay.
I’ve seen people starting to use what seem to be essentially a clay brick wall segment, as in it is like one gigantic prefabricated rectangular brick unit made of a composite block material with the insulation sealed inside the masonry. They are structural so the whole building is made of them, no other frames or anything. Really cool, you just plop the walls up, they interlock and are fastened, and a roof of your choosing is built by a normal roofing contractor. More expensive but it’s supposed to last like a thousand years and it can be assembled by like two people in a day
@@maaingan this is called "Fertighaus" here in Germany. Don't know how common it is elsewhere, but you can order them in a variety of materials; wood used to be the only material and still is used in most cases, but concrete (historically "Plattenbau" in the GDR), cinderblock, Ytong have/are being used, brick is pretty new but growing; historically brick houses are very common in Germany.
Looks like they just built one with Wienerberger blocks ruclips.net/video/VYju1b3rf1Y/видео.html
You have a very professional, realistic outlook on things you talk about. Thank you for your content, your videos are always a joy to watch!
Your content is amazing and worth the wait, you do you when ever you need, we'll be here when you get back.
We need to import more cheap labor to compete with advanced countries that use automation.
So sorry to hear you where dealing with burnout. Takes a while to recover from that. Take good care of yourself & your family.
The added benefit also appears to be bricks can have major alterations done during renovations where 3d printed concrete can't easily have a floor plan changed during a renovation without compromising more of the structure.
Glad your back, great video! thank you for shading the info!
Welcome back! Brick robots makes a lot of sense. I didnt even know about them. Thanks!
Another benefit I see of Hadrian is probably the speed of set-up. That probably makes it feasible to build a single home with it, whereas the 3D printed homes always seem to be part of a larger development of many homes.
Also, I suspect the finer tolerances Hadrian is capable of might have other benefits as well above standard building practices that have to compensate for larger variances.
I think you do a terrific job. Your practical approach to construction and examining claims.
Thanks a lot!!
I love this technology and your channel. What I find troubling is that in urban centres we need more, higher-density housing and paycheques so we can stop living so deperately. Oh well. Keep up the good work.
wow! as someone who knows way more about 3d printing than i do construction, it's nice to see someone actually knowledgeable about construction speak on this. i love 3d printing, but it always seemed like concrete printing was a tech demo at best and a useless gimmick at worst. in general, i think additive manufacturing can only take off once AM machines can move around and aren't limited by a build volume interior to themselves, and i think this is one of the first applications of that!
Thank you for taking time for yourself. "If the axe is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength." Ecclesiastes 10:10 Stay sharp, we love you!
YOU ROCK BELINDA, take all the time you need to avoid burnout!
Would love to see you interview someone from Stone Cycling... that's an environmentally friendly brick technology that looks like it could make an instant impact in the building industry, without the need for robots or mass retraining.
Belinda - glad you are back! The block laying robot is fantastic. I think it has a real future.
Good to see you back again.
This is the first time that I have seen this automated brick laying machine. It is very impressive. I can see many possibilities for this this technology. Just imagine how quickly a tall sound wall along a freeway could be constructed with this technology.
As for 3D printed concrete, I can see applications for it. But I doubt that fully 3D concrete printing houses will become widely used.
Ed Schultheis, PE
Mechanical design engineer and manufacturing consultant for 35 years
Schultek Engineering & Technology, Inc.
Washington state, USA
I feel like combining the aspects of bricklaying and factory/modular will be the best way to do it.
Ship the walls tightly packed.
Drop/fit the walls/floors into some precise foundation.
Connect the pre-setup plumbing/electrical/AC between the walls.
That way more aspects can be automated. (Framing, drywall, electrical, cat6, AC, plumbing, windows, etc.)
Some rooms like for the water heater and AC unit could be 100% premade to have basically all systems connected on day 1.
Also: Great video! Wasn't aware of the Hadrian X, seems real neat and compact
I was wondering where your videos went, welcome back.
THANKS BELINDA 🤗 WE HAVE NO PROBLEM BEING PATIENT WITH YOU 😎 TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND KEEP US INFORMED 🧐 OF THIS AND OTHER OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE 🤗💚💚💚
Hi Belinda Carr thankyou so much for posting this report.
Another very informative video. Thanks 🙏
If you just 3d print garages or footings and foundations, that would be awesome. Not a whole house though. That's crazy town. The robot arm looks like a great option for walls and fireplaces. Such a good time saver.
It's good to hear from you. I love your down-to-earth way about you. Thank you for sharing robotic technology I didn't know about. I like that one even moreso.
yeah, I agree with you on the 3d "so-called" concrete printers, you are spot on as usual. Need to check your page on hemp use, now. Just toured a construction site, it seems very promising.
Nice! Thanks Belinda. Your concrete block fan from Maine!
Glad you took some time to revive, looking great ! I would go with brick over 3D printing. Just looks more reliable and easier to work with. Don't need to worry about the next concrete showing up or how to clear all those lines. Appreciate you bringing up the cons to 3D printing. Very few people are doing that.
Welcome back! I missed your informative materials science videos.
Thanks for the unbiased realistic thorough review.
We are all still here Belinda!
Thank you!! I'll always remember the OG subs :)
Seems like you combine these two and you have potential to solve some of problems. Offsite prefab still seems the be the winning strategy here.
You are spot on, prefab is where its at. Builders First Source has this process, ready frame which is basically the Sears house kits but can be done to any house design practically and its all built using robotic assembly lines which cut and label all timber and locations.
You go in and work with their designer to convert your plans into their ready frame system and they precut, package and ship in correct construction order to your site. Watching videos of guys building most of the first floor without pulling out their circular saw.. crazy.
Framing efficiency, the extra time spent on planning and precutting reduces errors as well as requires less skilled carpenters. Less waste as the program can maximize the usage of all cut pieces. And its done all in a factory where everything is much more accurate.
Only downside is price as most of these are custom homes but if they offered a catalog of 100 houses you could choose from and reduce the upfront plan costs, then its really a great idea. Specially if bigger/more companies get into modernizing the robotic efficiencies of the factory work.
@@Josh.1234 Another negative with prefabs is transport costs. Prefab is quick to assemble and the elements cheap to make, especially if they are all standard elements. But they don't pack all that compact meaning it takes up more space when shipped. Bricks and concrete are however very efficient when it comes to transporting them. Same could be said for shipping lumber and building everything on site, but then you get higher labor costs and it will take longer to get the house up.
No matter what solution you go with there are tradeoffs. Cost, time, aesthetics, longevity, isolation and so on. Choose your poison...
Makes me think of the Chinese standard building code introduced several hundred years back. Some dude got in their head that if all official buildings were constructed only from a selection of building elements then any builder who could make those elements could be employed to build for the government. The designs were collected in a book and no deviations from measurements or design was allowed. This also let them compare prices between the builders as they all worked with the same book. It was an interesting "experiment" that I think was used for a couple of hundred years. But don't quote me on that as I haven't looked into the details. I just found it interesting as I feel there's often way to many solutions for the same thing only from different companies, and often they are not easily combined. This was a way of trying to standardize how houses were built. And it also allowed any competent builder to repair or restore a building as everything was more or less a big Lego using standard parts.
Some of these buildings still stands, though they've been torn down and rebuilt using the standard elements many times over the years. But again as every part is described in the building code book there's no guess work involved. I seem to remember that some temples has been rebuilt like this every 80 or so years. So the several hundred year old temple you may visit on a vacation doesn't have a single piece of wood left since it was originally built...
@@blahorgaslisk7763 so there is different levels of prefab. Ready frame typically just cuts all the limber and ships it to you. You build on site but with every wall already cut and in stacks, it's super fast to build and stand up.
They also do fully assembled wall panels but that is tricky shipping an 8ft tall wall. Not really impossible though as long as it can fit on a flat bed and you have a boom to set them.
Government forcing building designs and products is dangerous. Free market is what arrives at the best building science solutions and if you let the government shortcut that process then we are going to get stuck with bad solutions.
Prefabs are not suitable, or desireable for every environment. Neither are they so flexible in their design. You are stuck with what each manufacturer decides to provide, so custom designs are out, as they are prohibitively expensive. The robot arm has the benefits of completing the brick work in 3 - 4 man working days. (And depending on the site, it could even be used at night.) Moreover, it is flexible enough and potentially faster to adapt to different designs and plot sizes within a development. And being able to work with different blocks means even more flexibility and adaptability. It is highly likely that different regions in the world will use different technologies, but prefabs aren't the only solution. Its been tried, but on a mass scale they haven't been successful. Especially for durability and lifespan. If everybody could get a Hüf Haus, that would be great, but that isn't going to happen is it?
@@BigHenFor you can prefab any wall panel design you want, not sure how that is limiting. Or you can have all the timber precut and labeled for you to assemble on site. Either way, you can build any residential house design and it will be of the same or higher quality.
Prefab can be any amount of factory preparation of building materials. Doesn't have to be full walls.
Excellent video as usual. Very well thought through and well explained / demonstrated.
On another note, I really admire that top you are wearing. Very smart.
So good to hear from you. Love your videos. And love to hear that you also take time when you need it. ❤
Hi Belinda! I'm so happy you're back! Great video, as always.
There is a lot of potential in the material science for 3d printing in construction, as it's a new technology before breakthrough. There also a lot of potential in how 3d printing is integrated with other parts of the construction, for example considering inlays of other materials, dynamic material formulation in the nozzle for different features of the structure, or how the printed structure can be coated and even selectively cut out post-print and replaced with tailored inserts of other materials. It looks like in the mean time brick laying robots will take the lead because they are far more predictable and the structure is integrated with other traditional building methods.
When i first saw these 3d printing concrete machines my first thought was why don't we just use premade blocks.
Exactly what I thought too.. The more we can build in a factory taking advantage of that controlled environment and the efficiencies of fixed assembly lines the better.
Too many people who comment on 3d printed mortar as being the greatest thing, have never worked with cement before and don't realize how much variability is in it especially given the environment.
This seems like a good match for AAC blocks that are already laid using adhesives even when done by hand. And there are 50cm blocks available that have R values suitable for northern climates with zero additional insulation. Routing in conduits for pipes and wiring is also easily done by a robot arm. Only issue is that the labor needed is already a small fraction of the total and the robots don't seem to be providing any other advantage.
Additionally, I'm only seeing *_one_* robot arm truck where you can have a swarm of bricklayers working on a single building.
The advantage of autonomous robots are that they don't need food or bathroom breaks. That don't call in sick or come hungover. You don't pay outrageous compensation insurance for work off the ground.
Perhaps the biggest advantage is that their productivity is a known quantity so it is _much_ easier to schedule other trades around their time slot.
10X the productivity of a bricklayer is a farce. If you took 3 minutes to lay each brick (20 per hour) you wouldn't be employed for long.
Brick/Wall/Roof-element installation-robots make sense to me, especially avoiding accidents in risky situations, like installation in height/roof. So for house upgradings like wall insulation or PV montage on top or instead of old roof tiles might have a big chance and market.
Manufactoring artistic wall robots are interesting for the rich, but won't help building/maintaining affordable house. Also mass production reduces costs with same or better quality from bricks/parts, pre-installed but still modular wall-elements to prefabricated house, which already exists. So robots which taking advantage of this already existing prefabricated house parts might be a next logically step forward, especially for regions with destroyed cities (catastrophs: earth quakes, flooding or war).
The Icon/Lennar 3D homes are in my area north of Austin. You can see some of the concrete walls and 3D printers from the street, but they have the whole area fenced off. It will be interesting to see the final finished area.
If you can pair it with a portable brick fabrication machine that and use materials on-site to make brick that could make it even more useful and cut down on material shipping. Obviously not all sites would have the needed materials, but those that do could really improve efficiency and cost.
this looks like a good idea to anybody who doesn't have a clue about construction
haha exactly my thoughts.. the people selling it the hardest do not have a background in building project management nor have they done masonry work. I see a huge headache and expense if I bid out a job using this stuff..
laying briks is not hard, in romania we use autoclaved concrete froms, they are light and well insulating. a team of 3 guys can build a floor in a day ( excluding pouring concrete for the structure). here you maybe have une less man but the machinary and quality of work is trerrible and the downtime when the blody software has a glitch can be huge, meanwhile 3 guys can make something better with very simple and cheap tools
Interesting! Question: what is the long term structural viability of these larger glues together concrete blocks vs bricks and mortar?
An even faster and cheaper method would be 'tilt-up' pre-poured light weight 'concrete' slabs (walls & ceilings, pre-fab roofing etc.) delivered to the site and robotically lifted from the delivery truck, manipulated and put in place, quickly and with minimal manual labor.
All conduits and outlets-boxes (plumbing & electrical) as well as connection corner points and physical tie points built right in.
After pulling the wiring and flexible water tubing, the final receptacle and faucets can be quickly mounted.
Off-site manufacturing also allows for good quality control.
The 3-D method seems a bit 'gimmicky', being done simply because it is an achievable idea that can get investment.
Greetings from Brazil. Thank you for the great content. I hope you get better at managing your burning rate!