I just saw in a recent Newsweek (Sept 20) where you will someday be able to “print” your house as an emerging technology. That is also the anticipated result of the research from this lunar lander project. In that future, a fabric and core harness is put into a mold, and sealed in with a vacuum. Epoxy resin is then infused into the part. Once it cures after 8 hours or so, it is done. That is not the future, but one of the futures. Why is BMW building a factory here in Moses Lake to make composite materials? Why are the windmill blades built this way? It’s the future or one of them. This project also is one of the futures. I am hoping to build the first of these future buildings here in Grant County, if I am allowed to.
Mine is slightly different however as I don’t have the infrastructure money to build the molds like BMW and GE do. Instead I’m using top quality plywood as both the mold and also the part. Like the BMW or GE parts, the entire thing is vacuum bagged with epoxy resin.
I do know some of which I speak. I run one of the nations leading multihull design offices. I have around 500 designs out sailing the world. If you go to Maui on a daysail snorkel trip, about half of those vessels are my designs. They are all certified through the USCG, which is basically the building department for certified boats in the US. I have the design of some 40 USCG certified vessels to my credit. The live loads I work with on the USCG projects are 100 lbs/sqft, not 40 lbs/sqft for houses.
I design what are basically houses that are designed to leap off of a 25’ wave at 30 miles per hour. You think any code compliant homes could fly off of a 25’ cliff at 30 mph even once, much less all day long?
Probably when you think of boat building, you think of a 25 Bayliner powerboat. Wrong. They are built from polyester and chopped fiberglass. The polyester burns hellaciously and the chopped strand matt is only good for about 20,000 psi bending strength. Boatbuilding as I do it means epoxy, which is self-extinguishing, and knitted laminates which have bending strengths of up to 70,000 psi or about twice that of A36 steel.
I have homebuilding experience also. Including with factory built homes. Bud Smith Construction was my job in my 20s, assembling factory built homes.