Fibonacci House, Canada's First 3D Printed Home, located near Nelson. (Photo via Twente Additive Manufacturing)
The City of Merritt is looking at whether 3D printed homes could be a viable solution to help house people who were displaced by flooding in November.
Recovery Manager, Greg Solecki, says the pilot project will in partnership with the University of British Columbia, noting Merritt could potentially start 3D printing these 600-square foot homes as early as this April.
“UBC has looked at the technology and the engineering that would be involved with it. And if we can get enough funding then we can definitely put the money to something like that and start printing these homes,” he said. “It takes about $30,000 to print one of these homes.”
“The way it works is think about a normal printer and how it is prints sideways on paper but you just multiply that by a size of you know 10,000 and flip the actual ink cartridge over. It is a motor that is basically on a stand and it starts printing these rows of houses and walls and it just keeps going along.”
Solecki tells NL News the entire pilot project will depend in part on how the upcoming Hell or High Water fundraiser on March 13 goes.
“With some funding we could partner with different pubic and private consortiums to come up with the funds to get the printer up here and start printing these homes,” he said. “We could do one printed home every five days or so, and what that gives you is the walls. We still have to do some more to it, but it definitely is a viable option.”
“The roof comes after but we still have groups that can provide things like that after the walls are done.”
He says the printer itself costs over a million dollars, noting Merritt can’t afford to do this on its own, hence the partnership with UBC as well as charity organizations and potentially other levels of government.
“If we can generate some funds then UBC can match it and the federal government can hopefully match that and we end up having the printer in place so that we can start printing houses for people who need it,” Solecki added.
“There are other options like tiny homes and modular homes but we’re hoping that Hell or High Water money which they’ve committed to us comes so that we can start getting people back home.”
Solecki says there are already a few 3D printed homes in British Columbia, but he notes Merritt could be used a case study when it comes to rebuilding a community after future disasters.
