Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

Cool tech, but...

Curved walls only look good from the outside. Design looks like something someone who has never built a house before drew up. Things like a sofa that can't face the TV screen, or ostensibly a bathroom that you have to walk through the bedroom to get to.

Also everything looks very narrow. I want to see them build a real house this way, something with full-sized doors (36"), full-sized washers and dryers, something with 2 levels, something with actual electrical outlets (I see none in the video or pictures).

I can slap together a shed without plumbing or electricity in a day. Boasting about the price, showing electrical appliances, but not including the electrical wiring... let's be kind and just call that some "optimistic marketing." I mean... It doesn't even look like they have a real foundation... And small point... if they are going for speed, why are they using a roller to apply paint? Spray would do a better job and cut the painting time more than 50%.

Here's a video of them making a larger more traditional structure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViqzfPW6TFo

Though part of the point is that you can use this to make more complicated structures with less effort and error; whether they are always appropriate is sort of a separate question.

I think they have included wiring costs based on comments here & on reddit, though their site seems to be down after the HN hug.

Personally I'm more interested in modular construction than 3d printing since it's much clearer how you scale that up to larger buildings, but this is still neat.

I don't see any electrical outlets in the photos or videos.

I also don't see the cost of the foundation included... looks like they built on top of an existing concrete slab but didn't add that into the cost. I don't want to rip on them too much, but if they start talking about time and cost (literally as the headline) and they aren't being honest about what it really costs... it's hard to trust anything else about the article.

Can it even be called a "house" without a heater? I mean... they aren't following any sort of industrialized nation building code at all here. No sinks, no bathrooms (can't tell), no insulation in the roof, no smoke alarms... Calling it a "house" and bragging about the time it takes to build and cost... it's moot if it's not really a house. That's all I'm getting at.

Bottom of the page gives the cost of the foundation -- $277. It also does have an insulated roof, heating, a sink, a bathroom, etc. Electrical, they probably used a wall chaser/cutter to put a groove in to lay the conduit, which was covered when they surfaced the wall. Finish work like that is really similar regardless of the house, and is not really different from what you'd do with a brick surface, etc.

$277 seems suspiciously cheap. A google suggests that should cost $5/sq foot, or $2000 for this house.

This was done in Russia where labor costs are a lot lower. Most construction workers make a fifth of what they make in the states, and I imagine related costs are also lower. So probably a lowball figure, but plausible.

They have other videos where they print straight walls. I think this is really just a tech demo.

Right, it's to demonstrate that it can make any shape.

I'm not sure why the OP thinks that it can only do curved walls. The "print head" is pretty clearly capable of accessing any point within its working radius.

It seems they do include wiring.

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