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Hillsborough County turning to 3D printers for affordable housing

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Published  August 22, 2024 4:34pm EDT
Hillsborough County
FOX 13 News

Hillsborough County 3D-printing affordable homes

Evan Axelbank reports

TAMPA, Fla. - With a shortage of affordable housing, Hillsborough County is turning to robots to help. They're helping to fund the construction of new units with the aid of a 3D printer.

Joyce McHenry hopes the new way to build a house makes it easier for her to buy both.

"I'm getting ready to sign my lease this month, and it's going up another $300," she said. "[I'm going to have to] pray."

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Hillsborough County helped the Corporation to Develop Communities (CDC) buy a 3D printer that can precisely lay concrete to build housing. It's critical, given the county is thought to be 30,000 units short of what it needs.

"Man has been building homes for the same way for over 2,000 years," said Ernest Coney, the head of the CDC. "How can we bring technology and manufacturing to that, to that process?"

It would take about a week to build the walls needed for a house, both interior and exterior. Or about one third the time it takes for people to build a house.

"It's about 30% cheaper on average," said Coney. "So, we're just looking at the ability to really scale that. If we can find cement a little bit cheaper, we can even drive that price down a little bit more."

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Builders can input instructions for how much material to use, where it needs to go and how high it needs to go. The concrete is strong, and the designs of homes can be easily changed. 

Right now, the county has four homes in the permitting process that will hopefully be underway by the end of the year.

"There's actually been entire subdivisions built with 3D printed technology," said Coney, "but we're only going to get better at it."

For McHenry, who took on an hourly job to supplement Social Security after she had already retired, she's glad there are new ways to build cheaper homes.

"I sit down [and] lose sleep over how to pay my bills every month," McHenry said.

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