Contour Crafting: Build a house in 20 hours

[zorgon]

They been making concrete houses here in Las Vegas... come as prefabbed sections or molded on the spot. They are a BIATCH to run security and cable wires in LOL

Here is one cement house... comes in at $37 million 



Poured concrete is great for interesting designs too





But yeah they do simple quick ones too





As to solving the problem of housing for slums... that will only happens IF someone is willing to build houses for the slum occupants for free since they don't have any money.

And even when you do that, the places will very soon be totally trashed.

I know this from experience in two countries. Several high rise state of the art apartments buildings were condemned because the welfare tenants literally destroyed the place

Native Americans built homes out of mud... but they were clean and livable

But in certain slum areas they throw their garbage and toilet leavings into the very water they drink...

Then their kids swim in it



Love this machine... great business... but it won't solve the slum problems...


Here is the Illegal Hyway in Arizona  the trail illegal Mexicans use to enter the USA... Now we know about it so why are we not closing it?  But these people drop everything including dirty diapers.








We have a problem right here in our own country with the slum mentality. You can build them a house and take the person out of the slum, but you can't take the slum out of the person by giving them a home

In the meantime millions of working class Americans are losing theirs  and many millions more are close

[deuem]

As a design/drafter I've used CADAM, AutoCAD, Inventor, and SolidWorks for 3D modeling. I've heard of 3D printers for rapid prototyping, but this company takes it to another level! Contour Crafting looks very promising for the future of this planet, and for structures off planet. Here is a short 12 minute video explaining a new method for building houses that could revolutionize home building while solving some of humanity's problems.

I seem to share a lot of your past, add for me designing and building automated machines. I do like the TED shows, never a bad one. I understand very well that this is in concept phase. I also have designed and built a lot of very large facilities. So I think I should know something about this.

If you want to build this or a slab, it could work. What about foundations and digging them or adding piles. Underground sewage and water lines. All of which would have to be above ground. For windows, I guess they could just hang some material over the opening at night. As far as any steel, I guess they could just butt weld the lengths as they move up. Automatic welding has been around for years. But all of the little things that take the time are not covered in the video. The toilets, the wiring, plumbing, flooring, walls, stairs, painting or wallpapering. To finish a building is where the time and money comes in. You can put up a house in a day, Ask Jimmy Carter.

I do see one advantage. It would be really nice for irregular shaped buildings if any one wanted one. It could also do a nice job on swimming pools. The NASA stuff was interesting also. Machines could do all of the form work and then let them be fitted by the Astronauts.

As far as the slum problem. This will never help that in any way. All those new buildings would be just new concrete slums in a week. If you ( they ) really want to help those people, Stop them from having so many kids # 1 and then train them to make their own houses. If they build them themselves they might care for them a little bit better. Most people like this, do not care one inch about things they do not own or do! It is the old give a man a fish deal! I would be willing to say that if they gave them to these people, within a week they would pull out any copper wire, aluminum, glass and anything else they could sell to make money. They would be stripped so quick it would make your head spin. They would even cut up those machines while you were at lunch and sell the metal.

If you don't believe that, you need to get away more and see it for yourself. My friend just finished a bridge in one of these areas and everything was taken at least 3 times until they put on big guard dogs behind 2 fences with barb wire. The first 2 sets of guards were in on it and took bribes. Even when some of them were offered work, they refused. It would take away their standing. At the very end they took the barb wire while the team was in town returning the dogs. Came back to nothing!

Free homes for the poor?  Who pays that bill? I think they should spend more time on the social issues first. Have Gates send them some free 3rd world toilets first. That might help as long as they have no trade in value.

IMHO this will not cure the problem in the video but may have other uses, even underwater or building railway lines! Deuem

[Primus58]

Armap, Zorgon, and Deuem, all of you missed my point about this video! I never said it would solve the problems of third world slums, nor did I say or even allude that we would build free houses for the masses... LOL! Man oh man, let me break down what I said; I often write things in the wake of a very fast mind, hence what I write skips much of what I thought. But first, ArMap, I apologize for being condescending, I had just watched a video of someone committing suicide and I was upset... I know that's not an excuse, but I was sideways in spirit. I appreciate you thinking differently, no need to apologize!

This technology, when implemented with good design, might reduce the cost of housing and massive insurance claims due to wind, earthquakes, and be more fire resistant. Over time, it would spread and eventually be more affordable for the poor too.  This certainly isn't a panacea, but it's a workable solution for affordable housing that can better withstand the elements. I say it looks promising for the future of this planet because it does have that potential to streamline the building process while improving safety. If this method of building took off and spread, we might also see a reduction in deforestation... but I'm not sure about that. as for the time it takes, you guys are correct, it would be longer, but it sure would blow away the time it takes to build a conventional house.

I fully agree that this will do nothing to lift people out of poverty! Maybe another reason I like Contour Crafting is the fact that I lost a house to foreclosure when my job went to India, and now I live in an expletive trailer, a real P.O.S.! LOL!

[ArMaP]

I never said it would solve the problems of third world slums, nor did I say or even allude that we would build free houses for the masses...

No, you didn't said that, but the video is presented that way, as something that will be the best thing since sliced bread, even the elderly will be employed in "more creative activities of construction".

But first, ArMap, I apologize for being condescending, I had just watched a video of someone committing suicide and I was upset... I know that's not an excuse, but I was sideways in spirit. I appreciate you thinking differently, no need to apologize!

No problems.

This technology, when implemented with good design, might reduce the cost of housing and massive insurance claims due to wind, earthquakes, and be more fire resistant.

In what you wrote we can already see something that makes this technology limited to some places, as insurance claims due to wind, earthquakes and fire are few in Portugal (for example), where even the poor have brick houses (like the third pig in the story ).

Over time, it would spread and eventually be more affordable for the poor too.

I doubt it will spread, for several reasons, one of them the fact that the construction business is multi billion dollar business, so any thing seen as an attempt to change the status quo will be pushed aside. Other reason is that I don't see this becoming cheap enough (both the machine and all that is needed to make it work on the construction place) to replace the present day methods.

I fully agree that this will do nothing to lift people out of poverty! Maybe another reason I like Contour Crafting is the fact that I lost a house to foreclosure when my job went to India, and now I live in an expletive trailer, a real P.O.S.! LOL!

That sucks. 

[deuem]

All of my notes have to do with the video and not you.

He is presenting this as a save all and a lot of people will buy into it if not careful.

People make a lot of money exploiting the poor.

These people in his video will never change, even if you gave them the houses for free.

The social life has to change first. If i had to live in that enviroment the place would be clean and we would dig out houses. All of the water would be treated as sacred and untouchable except for drinking and using. Many people arond the world have less money than they do and make a better life out of it. Take the ones that care and help them get out. The rest are there because they want o be there and live like that. No worries, just make kids to do all of your work.  Deuem

[zorgon]

I fully agree that this will do nothing to lift people out of poverty!

Well I agree that it would be (and is starting to be) a solution. Our house here in Vegas is built of cinder block  very cheap for the builder but also not to bad for insulation as the blocks have air pockets. The poured concrete houses they were building years ago when I was still putting in systems had a core layer of foam for insulation

Re: Deforestation...

Canada came up with a solution..  we call it 2x4 trees   basically what it is is a fast growing spruce variety that matures into a tree large enough to cut 1 or 2 2x4 studs and the rest cut into wood chips.

If you check the lumber yard you will see most 2v4 studs ALL look like they were cut from the center of the tree... they were   So there are solutions

What they do is take five plots of land, plant enough in each lot to harvest in one year. Then they replant it. Next year the second lot is ready and so on. After 5 years you sart at lot one again

Now concrete has one drawback...  you have to strip mine the limestone





The advantage to that for guys like me is free fossils for the picking

Maybe another reason I like Contour Crafting is the fact that I lost a house to foreclosure when my job went to India, and now I live in an expletive trailer, a real P.O.S.! LOL!

That sucks big time...

I lost 2 already... not foreclosure but when I left Winipeg had to walk away becuase the property was worth 1/3 of what we owed. When we then had the second house in Toronto, just before we moved to the US General Motors closed there Oshawa plant so instead of selling and having cash to start here, we lost that one because there was only one employer in town and everyone left. Houses were abandoned...

So now we find that under the current financial conditions the bank is saying they won't refinance at the lower rate because our property is worth less again. Even though we have an FHA and a large corner lot.

Going to fight it but that is three times in a row....

If we move out we are screwed because there will be no equity and yet only a few years ago the place appraised at $480,000.00 when the California Rush was on... now places close to us are going for $85,000...

LOL had I known... but then I like it here

[deuem]

On the cinder blocks, you can fill them with foam or concrete as you go up an they make a nice toasty home. You can also add insulation to the outside before siding.

On the House value, There is a good thing you can do, get your taxes lowered. If you are paying on 480K and the value is 85K, Run don't walk to city hall with facts in hand and get a tax break. I did this once and won, they did ask me to keep my mouth shut because everyone would want it. I cut my home tax by 2/3 for 10 years. Try it. Your house can only be taxed on its selling value. Not the sold value. Deuem  Yes you can fight city hall and win!