Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain

They already seem redundant considering there are giant 3D printers which can do a whole house.

These sorts of robots still need human intervention, so probably aren't going to save much in the long run. The tech who maintain than will cost a lot more than a bricklayer.
 
Last edited:
Dalandius said:
There is more to building a house than laying bricks and I very much doubt the machine will be allowed to run 24 hours a day.

That would make "none standard construction" and your going it hard to get a mortgage on one.
Click to expand...

Lots of homes are prefabricated now. Although it hasn't caught on as much as it should it's very much a thing. DFMA is not new and passes all the building regs.

It's far cheaper and quicker to do it that way. But it's still not common.
 
Werewolf said:
That's the sort of thing that always makes me sceptical, it's like the 3d printed houses which IIRC still require at least as much secondary work (often more) to finish off what would normally be done by the brick layers.

Personally if we're looking to speed up standard house construction, something like modular building sections would probably be more realistic at the moment, completed wall sections could potentially be carried on the back of a slightly modified trailer, with the only onsite work being bolting them together and laying foundations (most of the complicated work could be done in a factory setting where things like weather would not affect it at all).
Click to expand...

It's called dfma and it's very common in construction, less so in homes but it's a very feasible common construction technique.
 
An old pre-fab in Caerphilly was demolished last year. The old geezer had a lovely garden.

There are now 2 "executive detached" rabbit hutches with all brick paved parking on that plot.
 
I think the increased speed that they can work at is great, but its only a matter of time before robots replace a lot of manual labour jobs. Just look at Amazon
 
sprite1275 said:
Build more homes? I can hardly move where I am for new builds. Infrastructure crumbling, wildlife numbers plummeting, NHS struggling, police not enough, schools rammed.... Yeah but build more hoooomes.
Click to expand...

Well all of these things are problems but they aren't going away if we don't build more homes.

Freefaller said:
Lots of homes are prefabricated now. Although it hasn't caught on as much as it should it's very much a thing. DFMA is not new and passes all the building regs.

It's far cheaper and quicker to do it that way. But it's still not common.
Click to expand...

I've never understood why we aren't building most new homes using pre-fab methods. Surely its the logical solution, lower carbon, cheaper, doesn't rely of the frankly appalling standards of so many of the trades in this country and lets be honest, it doesn't exactly suffer aesthetically because most new builds are ugly warts packed like sardines onto estates where you might have 6 houses or more looking into your garden.
 
Jay794 said:
I think the increased speed that they can work at is great, but its only a matter of time before robots replace a lot of manual labour jobs. Just look at Amazon
Click to expand...

I guess robots are picking up the unskilled labour jobs while the skilled labour jobs are harder to replicate.
 
fez said:
Well all of these things are problems but they aren't going away if we don't build more homes.



I've never understood why we aren't building most new homes using pre-fab methods. Surely its the logical solution, lower carbon, cheaper, doesn't rely of the frankly appalling standards of so many of the trades in this country and lets be honest, it doesn't exactly suffer aesthetically because most new builds are ugly warts packed like sardines onto estates where you might have 6 houses or more looking into your garden.
Click to expand...

It's hugely frustrating. Furthermore you can customise and change the inside at the design stage and quickly mass produce bits with so little waste. I've been to a few prefab homes, and they're a lot better quality than "new builds".

It's a little bit of economies of scale though, doing a design for a handful isn't economically viable, but receive an order for say 1000 homes, then it becomes very profitable to do.
 
Freefaller said:
It's hugely frustrating. Furthermore you can customise and change the inside at the design stage and quickly mass produce bits with so little waste. I've been to a few prefab homes, and they're a lot better quality than "new builds".

It's a little bit of economies of scale though, doing a design for a handful isn't economically viable, but receive an order for say 1000 homes, then it becomes very profitable to do.
Click to expand...

From what little I have seen of them, custom one offs aren't even that bad compared to traditional construction methods. It just seems like it has to be the future. There is no reason a house shouldn't come off a production line like anything else.
 
fez said:
Well all of these things are problems but they aren't going away if we don't build more homes.



I've never understood why we aren't building most new homes using pre-fab methods. Surely its the logical solution, lower carbon, cheaper, doesn't rely of the frankly appalling standards of so many of the trades in this country and lets be honest, it doesn't exactly suffer aesthetically because most new builds are ugly warts packed like sardines onto estates where you might have 6 houses or more looking into your garden.
Click to expand...

Our housing building is out of date.
The materials are expensive, slow to put up and I don't really see the benefits myself vs wooden houses in Norway for example. (correct me if I'm wrong).
 
Last edited:
413x said:
Our housing building is out of date.
The materials are expensive, slow to put up and I don't really see the benefits myself vs wooden houses in Norway for example. (correct me if I'm wrong).
Click to expand...

I would assume thats its got something to with our lack of professional pathways into the trades from school and the seemingly standard path of "dunno what I am gonna do after school" so they join a building crew as a day labourer and learn whatever quality and competence their company expects/delivers. For some that will be a very good education and for a lot it will be a shoddy one.
 
I don't think we will see these replacing brickies any time soon. Apart from the maintenance, there are too many variables that could lead to issues. Can you imagine the robot fumbling a brick because its got too wet or cement dust building up in the servos?
 
mejinks said:
I don't think we will see these replacing brickies any time soon. Apart from the maintenance, there are too many variables that could lead to issues. Can you imagine the robot fumbling a brick because its got too wet or cement dust building up in the servos?
Click to expand...

I dunno brickies down tools and head to the nearest boozer at any sight of a grey cloud
 
mejinks said:
I don't think we will see these replacing brickies any time soon. Apart from the maintenance, there are too many variables that could lead to issues. Can you imagine the robot fumbling a brick because its got too wet or cement dust building up in the servos?
Click to expand...

Shockingly there are far harder conditions that machines work under than a bit of rain and brick dust.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom