3D Homes That Take 24 Hours and Less Than $4,000 to Print

Publish date: 2024-05-05

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Printable homes represent the latest wave in construction, but they're not always cheap or easy to build.

In March, New Story, a housing nonprofit based in San Francisco, and Icon, a construction-technology company that designs 3D printers, defied these stereotypes by producing a $10,000 tiny home in just 48 hours.

Icon called the structure "the first permitted, 3D-printed home in America."

Read more: A French family just became the first to permanently live in a 3D-printed home

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At 350 square feet, the house was far cheaper than the average tiny home, which has a price tag hovering at around $25,000, but can often reach six figures. Before using 3D-printing technology, it took New Story eight months to build 100 homes, each costing about $6,000.

While the prototype was being developed, Icon's printer, known as the Vulcan, was running at only 25% speed. That gave the companies confidence that they could build a 600- to 800-square-foot home in just 24 hours for $4,000 or less.

When it comes to producing an average-sized home — around 2,000 square feet — the savings aren't quite as stark. A year after releasing its $10,000 prototype in Austin, Texas, Icon told the Wall Street Journal that printing a 2,000-square-foot home would cost around $20,000.  

More remarkable is the fact that the company's upgraded printer, the Vulcan II, is now available for purchase, and could soon be used to produce affordable homes in places like Austin and Latin America. 

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Icon's first 3D model offers a glimpse of what the machine could produce in the future. Take a look. 

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