RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) – History was written in South Richmond as the construction of a house under construction using a 3D printer began.

On Thursday morning, the huge piece of tech used concrete to help build a 1,550 square foot home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

“It’s a house where your wall is made of concrete instead of wood, that’s all,” said Zachary Manngeimer, CEO of Alquist, an Iowa City 3D printing construction company.

“It’s mixed in a mixing bowl and from there it goes through a tube into a printhead and that printhead is programmed to go around and print the wall system,” said Chris Thompson, director. from Virginia Housing.

The process of building the walls takes around 15 hours, but requires less labor and materials than your standard job, but other than that, contractors say this house is no different from others.

“It’s the same plumbing, the same electricity, the same HVAC and the same roof structure. It’s all the same, ”Manngeimer said.

This new housing project is the result of a grant made possible by several organizations:

• Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech
• Alquist, a 3D printing construction company in Iowa City, Iowa, will work directly with VCHR to print the exterior walls of the house.
• The Coalition for Better Housing
• HOUSES
• RMT Construction & Development Group

All of these organizations have been researching 3D printing for years, hoping that this printer has the potential to lower the cost of home ownership.

“House prices have been out of control for decades and the pandemic has only made matters worse,” Manngeimer said. “We believe this technology can lower the cost, make it more efficient, and also help families customize a home to suit their lifestyle in ways they might not have been able to do before. “

“Now is a good time to really start testing and understanding how we are trying new materials and new ways of building,” said Andrew McCoy, director of the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech.

Currently, Florida and Arizona are the only two other states that have entered the home printing world, and now Virginia is next on this list in hopes of printing the opportunities of the dream. American Home Ownership.

“It gives us the ability to experiment and test what’s all that needs to happen,” McCoy said.

“This is the future of construction,” Manngeimer said.

The house is expected to be completed in October and sell for around $ 200,000.

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