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The horror story of Canada’s housing market features two protagonists: historically low mortgage rates and a painfully short supply of homes for sale.

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The first could gradually subside. The second will invade the nightmares of home buyers for years to come.

Increasing the supply of housing using traditional methods is not easy in Canada. And this is especially true in large cities, where real estate experts note that the space required to build thousands of units each year has proven elusive, and the time required to design, approve, build and sell properties. projects take years.

The supply crisis in Canada may require new solutions, and one of them may have already arisen: 3D printed housing (3DPH).

“We can reduce the cost of wall assemblies and… slab preparation,” says Ian Comishin, president of Dutch construction technology company Twente Additive Manufacturing (TAM).

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TAM, and other tech pushing companies, say it’s an affordable and efficient method of delivering new homes.

How to print a house?

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Instead of putting ink on paper, a home 3D printer lays down layers of concrete to create the foundation, walls, or other structural components of a house. Windows, doors and everything else are added later by contractors.

If you’re like most people, print conjures up images of what is spat out of your computer setup at home or at work.

3D printing of a house is type of like that, but instead of putting layers of ink on a sheet of paper, he puts layers of cement to create the foundation and the shell of a house. Once this shell is finished, the finishing work – windows, roofing, wiring, plumbing – is carried out by contractors.

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An overview of the process can be found in this video of the 3D Printed Homes Corporation of Calgary.

While houses can be 3D printed from scratch, it requires transporting the printer – a large, sophisticated machine – to a construction site.

This is not always doable, so some houses are built by printing their individual components, transporting them to the job site, and assembling them there.

“Creating a more automated process in this way will make prefabricated buildings and homes more accessible,” it reads. a blog post from Prefab Housing Canada. “It can go a long way to providing more affordable housing options. “

3D printed homes in North America

Additive manufacturing Twente / YouTube
While the 3D printed homes are yet to be sold in Canada, one of them recently went on sale in Riverhead, New York, for US $ 299,000. For Canadian buyers, the lower costs of building 3D homes may not make up for the high costs of land near major cities.

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Canada holds a special place in the history of 3DPH. The first 3D printed house listed on Airbnb is in Proctor Point, BC.

The Fibonacci house, a 377 square foot two-bedroom home about 40 kilometers south of Nelson, British Columbia, was designed and built by TAM.

It consists of 20 separate components, which have been printed at the factory and then assembled on site.

The house is intended to be part of Canada’s first 3D printed affordable housing project, a partnership between TAM and affordable housing provider World Housing. The income generated by Maison Fibonacci will be used for the realization of the project.

Through its relationship with US construction company ICON, World Housing has also been involved in 3DPH projects in Austin, Texas, and Tabasco, Mexico. The houses have been allocated to families of former homeless people.

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As a charity, 3DPH makes a lot of sense. Houses are inexpensive to produce, reproducible, and can be built in remote areas that have little access to new housing.

While these same qualities make it a choice for consumers who cannot afford traditional homes to today’s inflated prices that remains to be seen.

The challenges of the commercial deployment of 3DPH

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Building 3D printed houses requires access to the house printing units themselves. For the technology to take off, several units would have to be located in every major city in Canada.

Even one of the most attractive aspects of 3DPH – affordability – has its limits.

Aside from the concrete work, says Comishin, “everything else, like electricity, plumbing, windows, doors, roof… costs the same, regardless of the type of construction.

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Anyone hoping to get a modest 3D printed home like the Fibonacci House, which Comishin says would sell for around $ 185,000, would also have to pay for the land – often the most expensive part of any real estate transaction.

The 3DPH industry must also consider the desires of Canadian consumers, who have come to expect certain things from the homes they buy, from traditional design touches to the ability to renovate and add space.

Comishin says consumers who aren’t moved by the idea of ​​incorporating curves and waves into their home design can opt for a traditional looking 3D printed home. Renovations to add to a property, he says, are “fairly easy.”

He adds that he is confident that homes produced using this technology will one day be widely available to Canadian consumers. But for that to happen, communities and developers will need to embrace large-scale.

“For it to be widespread, there must be a few 3D printers in every major city and at least one in every mid-sized community,” Comishin said. “They cost less than most excavators that people see on construction sites, and significantly less than cranes. “

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.