Posted on 12/01/2023 1:18:27 PM PST by Red Badger
It sounds like a headline from the future: the weekend before Thanksgiving, a bulldozer came for the first example of a printed home that was supposed to help the housing crisis in the city of Muscatine. Fortunately, it hadn’t been completed and sold yet.
Printing of this first house began in May 2023, and nine more were to be completed by the end of the year. The house was being constructed from Hempcrete, which a biocomposite of hemp hurds, and either lime, sand, or pozzolans that is used in Europe and Canada.
In tests, the hempcrete was capable of reaching a compressive strength of 6,000 to 8,000 PSI. But in actuality, it didn’t even meet the 5,000 PSI minimum required for the project.
The project is a collaborative effort between the Community Federation of Greater Muscatine (CFGM), Muscatine Community College, and Alquist 3D. Although not as proven a printing material as traditional concrete, Hempcrete was chosen in part because Muscatine Community College has Iowa’s only hemp program. One of the goals for the project was to have students research hemp’s properties, and launch a 3D printed construction curriculum in partnership with Alquist 3D.
The project’s leaders haven’t given up hope yet. Although it was back to the drawing board to get the hempcrete just right, it should now meet the 5,000 PSI requirement. The plan is to start building the originally-planned second house in the spring, and begin construction on this first site after that.
Want to know more about the state of 3D printing when it comes to housing? Check out our handy guide.
VIDEOS AT LINK.....................
Someone smoked all the hemp rather then mixing it in?
From what some of the other folks are saying about hemp fiber, that might improve the mix.
Everything else is kind of iffy.
Well said. It is easy to laugh, but this really is how we learn. I'd probably have tried it on a smaller scale, but sometimes to really tell, you have to go all in.
Almost all stem cell research lines that I've read about than have been successful are from adults. Most use your own stem cells (from the nasal cavity for example). When you use your own cells, your body doesn't reject it as foreign.
They should just chop up all those windmill blades and use it as a fiber mesh.
It wasn’t the design or the building method.
It was the materials. They used hemp ......................
Hempcrete? Go all the way and Pyekrete.
Opus Caementicium, Roman concrete.
“Recent research has shown that the incorporation of mixtures of different types of lime, forming conglomerate ‘clasts’ allowed the concrete to self-repair cracks.”
After the first pig made his house of hemp, the others just kinda lost interest, and wandered off................😉
“I’m going to cough, and puff, and blow your house down.”
I don’t see how they thought that using an organic plant material to strengthen the mixture would last very long.
Even sawdust would have been better, and lasted a little longer...................
“Hemp hurd is the woody inner core of the hemp stalk12. It is produced by breaking and scutching the stalk to separate it from the fiber1. Hemp hurd is also called shives or hemp wood1. It is not suitable for making materials that require long, strong fibers, but it has many other uses”.
The problem is the mixture. No Portland cement was used.
Exactly.
“It is not suitable for making materials that require long, strong fibers”
Which is what is needed, long strong fibers.
But it is organic and will deteriorate rather quickly, exposed to the weather, sun and rain.
This was doomed from the get go..................
off to get some snacks ?
I hear the 3erd pig was Colombians .... and those bricks ...
well ... they stacked up pretty good. Until the Chinese pigs swamped the market with fentynal ... then it was just BLTs for everyone.
But really ... why would anyone spend $$ and time to try and build a house out of hemp?
Hemp has a lot of uses ... but straw houses isn't one of them.
Why not use old tires like they used to?
earth homes ... hippy dippy BS
An acquaintance of mine tried building a Ferro-cement sailboat in his backyard. Finished the hull but never completed or launched the boat. Would have been interesting.
Cool. So now we're back to cardboard.
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