Comment on Iowa Demolishes Its First 3D Printed House
guitarsarereal@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Yeah, so two things.
- Standard hempcrete mixes don’t exist which raises the barrier to entry substantially. You have to make your own at this time, which means correctly dialing in a mix and testing it to make sure you got it right. They almost certainly didn’t bother. Which would have happened because they were community college students already participating in a cutting-edge building process
- You’re not supposed to use hempcrete for load-bearing applications to start with, it lacks the structural strength!! What were they thinking!! It looks nice, has that lovely earth tone, and it has good insulating properties, but that’s it! It’s a finishing material! Here’s a page from some random builder I found on Google who specializes in hempcrete construction:
Areas of use. It can be used to build self-insulating walls, roofs and screeds It can be adapted to all types of building project including new builds and renovations. It is not a load-bearing material. Consequently, when building walls, it is cast around a primary or secondary structural frame made of timber, metal or concrete.
Anyways, as someone who’s looked into this stuff before, I’m irritated they did it like this. They were supposed to figure this out before they started printing. Where the hell was their professor?
Cris_Color@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It wasn’t hempcrete they used (there’s a note about the article being edited) and the article says that it performed appropriately in the lab, and they chose to tear it down because once built it didn’t meet the requirements they had established in the lab it should be able to meet
guitarsarereal@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Thanks for the update! Makes a tiny bit more sense.
Cris_Color@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Sure thing ☺️ hope you have a good one!