Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain
- Thread starter Tram
- Start date
Someone probably said the same thing when the first steam powered weaving machines came in to replace people in the workhouses.
Associate
- Joined
- 10 Apr 2021
- Posts
- 216
Hope they can dance to rock round the clock too.
Associate
- Joined
- 9 Jul 2013
- Posts
- 2,201
Maybe some of the robots will take cash in hand?
Just like the factories that are almost entirely automated you'd have a skeleton crew keeping an eye on them.
Yea but the factory isn't outdoors, where feral kids can stick their fingers in machinery.
The trades have a long and storied history of having people whos job it is to watch other people work.
You can put sensors on them to stop if someone comes within a certain distance of it.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
- 9,113
From one of the articles I read they require ongoing supervision if only for recharging the mortar and brick stocks. We are desperately short of brickies and for standard non complex work it strikes me as a sensible solution. I read that patterned brickwork is more achievable with these machines so we may also get some innovation in house design as a consequence.
Oh god, think of the McMansions we could have with a massive Dolce and Gabanna logo inlaid into the brickwork.
I doubt it. Housing estates are being built as cheaply as possible, which is the reason they look like a dystopia. A robot isn't going to change that.
Nothing to do with ability. If they wanted to make them look nice they'd hire proper architects to design them. Not just copy/paste the same designs all over the country, which look more suited to a council estate in Luton.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
- 9,113
Well the specific article I read said that patterned brickwork is inefficient for human bricklayers but makes no difference to robot ones. Taking that claim at face value, adding patterned brickwork adds to cost which is why it is so uncommon. But the essential point that brickies are in short supply and about the highest paid trades on building sites at the moment suggests there will be some scope for reducing cost simply by virtue of increasing supply.
I watched a video on youtube a little while ago, which annoyingly I can't find, where the robots building the walls had robots that kept them topped up with both bricks and mortar. Still had a human supervisor, but still.
Thats the default response to everything in the job market.And they said become a tradesmen
"Learn a trade!!!!!!" Then you have this coming around the corner.
Last edited:
Stuff like pre-manufactured SIPs are far quicker at building houses, I continue to be surprised that they have not taken off at all.
You can have the entire structure of a house up in a day including extremely good insulation and most of the core electrics/plumbing done. You can be water tight in under a week and basically finished however you want externally.
You can have the entire structure of a house up in a day including extremely good insulation and most of the core electrics/plumbing done. You can be water tight in under a week and basically finished however you want externally.
I've wondered this, some of the prefab modular houses you see online look great. I suspect the big incumbent house builders are quite content with the slow, costly supply of new houses. Therefor, not enough investment in the manufacturing and supply chain for prefab. Makes a lot of sense to mass produce ready to install, standardised house parts in a factory IMO
It will probably be classed as a non-standard building method here despite them being very common on the continent. The word prefab also has negative connotations in that people think they are getting a porta-cabin.
The other benefit is they are very low impact, less concrete, etc. and the tolerances are tiny meaning they perform excellently from a thermal point of view and the quality is also excellent in that every wall is actually straight and flat unlike a brick built house.
The other benefit is they are very low impact, less concrete, etc. and the tolerances are tiny meaning they perform excellently from a thermal point of view and the quality is also excellent in that every wall is actually straight and flat unlike a brick built house.
Last edited:
If you can keep the supply low and slow you can make a lot of money on it.
In many cases I suspect it is not in the interests of the really big builders to make homes faster, as they can sit on the land they've bought and got planning permission for and watch the price of housing increase significantly faster than the costs involved in building them.