Revisiting Lennar & ICON's 3D Printed Neighborhood 6 Months Later 

Good points. Don’t excuse yourself. I have a wood panel in my home which I have to vacuum once every 6 months. I imagine a lot of homeowners to plaster this evenly in the future, regardless the iconic look. I would.

Absolutely. When we bought our house we had drywall, but it was very textured. It accumulates dust like crazy.

Don't forget about accumulation of dirt/algae/moss on the textured EXTERIOR walls. I have to think that these houses are going to look pretty grotty after a few years.

There is no reason why they could not use something to smooth out the inner or outer walls and seal the concrete.

​@@dennisaustin8145did you see the size of the overhangs! I'm sure that will help. Even a brick building would have the same issues and require occasional pressure washing.

Could they make these houses on "stilts" to be more hurricane resistant too?

Good idea

Don’t think Oprah Winfrey is interested.

The wall system and metal roofs would be fire resistant as well.

Would love to have that here on the Big Island as well.

Seems like do not put it in closed walls. It is in the slabs and pre-designed exposed wall cavities. They show a bit of it in his first video with Ikon. @benarizola6609

Should design in a modular wall system on the interior IMO

I'm assuming it's similar to a normal pipe burst. You gotta cut the wall out. You do that with drywall as well.

I think based on other videos I have seen about how these are built, they are able to access much of those components through the attic. In Texas builders often use PEX for plumbing which is apparently very easy to repair due to how it is designed and installed. PEX is also more energy effecient than copper. Wiring would not "burn" out since a breaker would blow before a wire could be damaged, at least in the extreme majority of the time. But either way it would be able to be accessed through the attic.

That’s something that designers never seem to consider. Everything needs to be maintained.

I was thinking the same. Impossible to add stuff afterwards without conduits.

Thanks for asking the question I had in mind!

Thats a good point, have my doubts about seismic performance.

No, not true.. They have two stories buildings already. Look it up, it is not limited to one story anymore..

Can you share the link for this Airbnb

that is a lot of stucco for those gaps . Might be better filling with a cement coat first but either way its a lot of labor

@@sanisidrocr Actully it's not much stucco at all depending on the mix. Especially if you compare it to the amounts one would use in old school lathe and sanded plasters before the days of sheetrock. 😉 Dampen and Shoot with a mortar sprayer and knock into a tight finish with stucco trowels.

Dust was my first thought

Other countries have been using block or brick walls with Stucco or plaster for a loooong time. America has got stuck with this cheaper is better crap.

@@turboflush The US is a very large place and I have seen a very large variety of building materials and designs. One difference I see typically in the US is the higher use of wood framing which makes sense from a cost and climate perspective and it actually is really efficient and is a good way to lock up carbon in a renewable manner. The higher use of cheap gypsum/drywall is fine too because their homes are all air conditioned so mold is less of a concern. In my country we typically would avoid these materials due to humidity , earthquakes, and termite concerns. With regards to plaster/stucco , this is fine but you have to admit those grooves/gaps are quite large so I would personally not use this method of construction if you wanted to make the walls smooth due to the amount of added labor finishing these curved wallets.

Good question on the people. Unsure but I’d guess a team of 3-5 are needed per printer currently. Reducing printing time by 50% in 6 months is a big deal!

I'm sure a masonary "leveler", or a different finish could be applied maybe in the bathrooms for example...@@buildshow

I was curious about the "columns" that form with vertical steel ties. Surrounding the vertical tie, they pour in epoxy grout. Then, there are other elements like horizontal metal straps and u shaped to tie the structure. Within the lavacrete itself are probably fibers to prevent cracks. Slab movement and flatness over time... how, was that engineering challenge overcome? Are there piers in slab that align with the vertical wall columns. (English slab method?)

English slab method: drill, install rebar cage, pour concrete. This forms a pier, engineered location for load bearing. Slab is then poured and structurally tied to the columns/piers.

Great Q. Clay / "Calache" soil in Texas & Okla....

​@@martinp1544yes those clay soils known as expansive soil go clear into Canada and are a severe problem. I a home inspector in south Dakota and first thing I saw with the roof has no rain gutters that up here is a killer as water just collects around the foundation. Yes you can use landscaping to help, but the easier you. A. Get water away from the foundation is better. Also. First time someone goes to the with it raining will be pissed.

My question also, I live in Austin and the slab flexes quite a bit depending on the season and rainfall. Wood frame takes up a lot of the flex, but obviously the drywall does not and we get cracks that open and close, just have to deal with it. These would need a box basement or crawlspace of reinforced concrete or be built on piers and beam to bedrock to be stable for long term.

@@wojtek-33 You'd think they'd do that, but I see teardowns all over my neighborhood and never see them boring holes in the clay to pour pylons. Other than the house behind me , which was built on a 30degree grade of trash dirt and clay, they dug piers for 3 months for that home. The rest, the usual poured slab with a 2-3ft outer ring. But in about 20 years, it'll be flexing just like every other home built and they owners will be calling the foundation stabilization contractors. At least they dont put in cast iron drains anymore. Those last about 40 years before they rust out in the clay.

Where? All the houses I've seen so far are over 400k.. I have yet to see a house sub 200k..

@@geogmz8277 I actually worded that wrong there's a company called Mudbots that has a $13,000 concept that they printed in their factory they estimated the price after materials and printing

Where??? I can’t find a house anywhere I can afford. Even the “solutions to the housing shortage” houses (and modular homes etc) are $100k for a studio or 1 bedroom.

The chase could be in the floor system, with small stubs for electrical panels in a wainscotting. Plumbing stubs come up into cabinetry directly. Keep plumbing and wires out of the wall completely. Separate the functions. The floor access could be made very generous and make it easier to work on or change out utilities than is the case with typical construction.

Agree! It’s definitely going to play a part of the future of our housing industry.

Will do!

Hint: you’ll see the repair

I would imagine you could build a comb tool and a good stucco guy could fair it in pretty well, but it would be a tough match, just like any brick facade. Interior walls would be really tough and messy

Great question. You could easily stucco over an area to make it a smooth face. Do that wall-to-wall if you’re needing a patch and it would look pretty good. This is concrete after all. The marshmallow look might not appeal to everyone anyhow and this would be an option for interiors or exterior

​@@buildshowwhat a sorry @$$ video production

i would just run all that stuff in conduit on the walls.

Was the TV we see on a pat shot on mute? It was an insert edit with no sound. I suspect you're correct. Also, they didn't address maintenance questions, they just kinda blew the idea of it off with "we have no complaints...take our word for it... ho ho ho". So in 10 years, tinnitus lawsuits? All mold needs to grow is moisture, and organic material. Skin is organic material. Those are porous surfaces. Dust is mostly dead skin cells. So add Pets, the gunk they give off, ect ect. Seems like a nightmare. Now add that pipes burst, wires short, Shi$$ happens. I’m sorry I’m gonna need more than a 2 minute “ho ho ho, don’t be foolish with yhat question”.

And living in a cement block house that is 80 years old, I had have to deal with broken water lines and electrical wiring inside the concrete. The water lines had to be "erased." We had to reroute some runs on top of the wall. The main line went through the cement foundation, and that was not repairable. So, now the lines go around the outside margins of the house in the ground. Quite honestly, plumbing change must be considered no matter what. Maybe drop-in cavities for updates. We had conduit, so the wiring was very doable. But without conduit, I doubt rewiring would have been easy.

It is 3d printed, so you should be able to choose it all up front. Using 3d printing without customization is silly.

I bet you don't have stuff falling off your walls because the screw didn't stick.

@@JoeTaber Tapcons are kinda hard to get right too, pretty easy to oversize the hole and the tapcons won't stay in. As an electrician I stick a piece of copper wire in the oversize hole and just screw it in and it stays most of the time. Not an issue here I would think, but if the concrete is reinforced with gravel then it makes it even harder to drill through and the tapcons actually strip the thread when next to a rock, again, a piece of copper wire (or probably plastic anchor) remedies that though. Still stronger than drywall

Me too!

drop it in from the attic, one would imagine this gets an order of magnitude harder with a 2 story, which they aren't doing yet.

not to mention the spalling issues you'll have if there's a fire...

@@iamblainefulbut the walls are filled with spray foam insulation….so you can’t just drop something in from above either.

​@@bdoginitit's foam, it should be feasible to drill or cut a channel down to an electrical box.

@@mgkleymI can tell you as an electrician this would be difficult or impossible in that roof. I’m sure technology could be developed however.

Houses are getting bigger too. 1000sq ft houses built for a family of four are now considered to be only good for empty nesters, who want fewer but larger rooms.

0 room for any trees of any kind. Residents: "why is our neighborhood so hot?"

Welcome to suburbia. That’s actually a pretty good spacing. Here in Florida, some places only have room for the AC unit outside between houses and that’s about it.

Standard spacing for lennar and all the other national builders. Milk the land for all you can.

@@Omnis2 I'm in a new Lennar neighborhood in Fl. and we have plenty of room between houses. 20-30 ft. You are thinking of zero lot line homes. These are big homes though. Ours is a one story 3200 sq ft and we call it the baby house. Our neighbors are 2 stories and over 5000-6000 sq ft. Lennar does a lot of innovation for a non custom builder. We got in just at the right time. We signed just before Covid. People who came after us had a lot less choices in appliances and interior materials because Lennar couldn't get stuff. We picked a cheapie faucet for the laundry room and they ran out so they upgraded to the same one we had in the kitchen. We only ordered blinds for bedrooms they ended up doing the entire home no extra charge. Many of our neighbors came from a slightly older Lennar community basically across the street. So that told me a lot of people were very happy with Lennar. The only issue I had was after a year we had a roof leak in a valley. The roofers screwed up. Lennar plain as day gives you a year warranty. That was the only out of pocket expense. I built a custom home prior and I was the owner/builder. I had several roof leaks that were a lot worse. Eventually they all got fixed.

Yeah I'm a little skeptical of doing the interior walls in concrete for that reason.

They weren't about to adress it, they kinda chuckled the idea of any questions off. Verry upseting.

I don't think the interior walls have insulation so perhaps the cavity in them is accessible from the attic space.

@@bothellkenmore yes that's what I figured you might be able to access from attic but still the plumbing would all have to be routed that high up to really have access to fix something for example. Unless there's some method for putting a big hole in the wall and then patching it but that's tricky since it's considered part of the structure. That would be a cool video to show how to make these kinds of repairs on these houses.

ICF's are a better building system that has been around since the 1960s and still hasn't hit the mainstream. Concrete, in any form, is a superior building material for many reasons versus traditional stick-built homes. With that said, I do not believe 3D-printed homes will ever become mainstream.

I don't know offhand, but I remember them looking at the garage in the first video Matt did. They may have covered that previously.

I believe they said that they are tying metal studs all the way from the floors through the walls up into the roof... so the entire structure is tied together. With a metal roof done correctly, they are probably looking at 100 year life expectancy with a 50year or more warranty.