Seed Eco-Home Materials Cost Reduction

Solar Concrete + 3D Printing + CEB + Lumber - $45300 Savings

Solar Concrete -$6400

• -$2k gravel
• -$200 roof ballast
• -$2k concrete. Unless using Foundationless Foundation
• -$2k hardscape/driveway

CEB - $3000

• -$3k walls structure

Lumber

• -$10k saved out of the box using open source CNC sawmill

3D Printing - Wood-Plastic Lumber Composite and Components - $25.9k

Basic figure of feasibility is 20 lb/day Supervolcano-style extruder print rate per print head. 4-head machine is capable of 560 lb print mass per week. A 12 machine print cluster would thus produce around 3 tons of building materials per week.

See detailed breakdown spreadsheet: [1].

Phases - Low Hanging Fruit - $12.1k Savings

• -$2k lumber blocking
• -$3k nonstructural infill of excess framing
• -$1k interior wall modules - are all non-load bearing and can be substituted immediately
  • Includes PEX holders, electrical boxes, pvc holders, wire holders next to boxes, other known wire holders for main utility channel; penetrations; fans; through-wall fans; knockout adapters; pvc; pvc adapters; etc.
• -$3265 in trim [2]
• Geogrid - $472 [3]
• Geotextile - $250 actual [4]
• -$500 PV mounting. Plastic-metal composite - rebar with 3D printed shell
• -$100 for sewer tap
• -$500 - landscaping block
• -$1k - pervious pavement for driveway. See Pervious Pavement Blocks, which are $5k per house so this is -$5k off the higher quality version.

Minimal Research Needed - $1.5k Savings

• -$500 plumbing
• -$500 electrical conduit
• -$500 rest of electrical (boxes, mounts, other fittings)

Heavier Research Needed - $13k Savings

• -$1k interior insulation
• -$3k vinyl siding
• -4k - windows. Requires gas filling, but argon is not much better than dry air [5].
• -3 k - Doors
• -1k - roofing instead of membrane. Could utilize Roofless Roof

Insulation

• Straw bale is completely feasible in select locations.
• R30 straw bale [6]
• Cost of R30 insulation is
• Cost savings of $1/sf wall [7]

R&D Investment into 3D Printing Plastic Recycling

Note the infrastructure requirements:

1. Off-shelf shredder - $20k
2. Off-shelf filament maker - $30k -
3. 12 4-head printers @$4k each, high T chamber @20 lb/day/head = 960 lb/day capacity - $48k.
   1. MVP: smaller printer, $2k - $24k
4. 4 engineers and 4 builders for 1 year cost = $800k staff. See R&D Budgets of 3D Printing Companies. ROI of ~$25k/house=$1Mk/year at the 24 person operation assuming 50 houses/yr.

Open Source Replication:

1. Shredder - existing Skid Steer Auger + blades - $2k
2. Filament Maker - $600 per 1 kg/hr - need 1 ton per week for a complete house built every 8 weeks - 168 kg per week per filamenter = $3600 base cost.
3. $30k total at replication phase

Links

• SEH Cost Savings - materials and machines
• From logs - Seed Eco-Home Material Cost Reduction
• Seed Eco-Home Savings with Open Source Construction Machines
• Combine with Seed Eco-Home Material Cost Reduction
• Seed Eco-Home Designer 2021
• Seed Eco-Home Design Workbench