Melbourne company plans to 3D print entire homes

A Melbourne company plans to construct entire homes through 3D printing.

With materials shortages and skyrocketing costs devastating the construction industry, there are hopes the new approach will help solve the nation’s housing crisis.

Chief executive officer of Fortex, David Lederer, says the process is not dissimilar to a 3D desktop printer, it’s just on a “massive” scale.

“A full gantry system will go over the full building site, where you’ve got a slab laid, and at that site materials to produce concrete will be batched and pumped through the printer head,” he told Stephen Quartermain and Elise Elliott, filling in for Ross and Russel.

“You’ll print, layer by layer, the wall system of the home that you want to build.”

Mr Lederer says 3D printing will drastically cut the time it takes to build a home, and it’ll be much cheaper too.

“You might have a wall system that takes, conventionally, 8 to 12 weeks to do, and that’s excluding time blowouts for timber frames of up to 14 weeks,” he said.

“Here you’ve got a system where … a single storey 210 square metre home, the whole wall system can be done in around two weeks.”

Press PLAY below to hear how 3D printing of houses works

Image: 9News