A robot revolutionizing homebuilding in Southwest Florida
Keeping up with building as many houses as people moving to SWFL is not easy, until now with a new robot brick-laying system.
Over 800,000 people call Lee County home, and that number continues to rise. That is why one company is trying to help the homebuilding process.
Building a house brick by brick is rigorous and time-consuming, but that all might be a thing of the past.
"Some of the main advantages of using the Hadrian X is accuracy, speed, safety," Dan Mackrell, Fastbrick Robotics' director of business development, said.
Originally from Australia, Hadrian X now calls Fort Myers home. FBR calls this new technology a Fast Brick Wall System.
They use different blocks and glue than other home builders in SWFL.
"We're erecting a house from a robot," Mackrell said. "The first one of its kind here in America."
Hadrian X starts up by project workers loading bricks into the back of the truck, where robots are waiting inside to separate and organize the bricks. From there, the bricks get lifted onto a conveyor belt and then get placed on the wall of the house. In total, it takes about a day to finish the walls of a house.
"We estimate roughly anywhere from eight to 14 hours," Mackrell said. "The extensive testing that we've done in the past back in Australia and overseas shows that we're a lot stronger than traditional mortar."
So far, through hurricanes Helene and Milton, their bricks have remained intact.
Hadrian has already hammered out five structures in Lehigh. It is now working on its sixth. But the robot is not the only one building these homes. There is a team that follows behind it, straightening bricks and adding more glue.
"So because we've got no mortar join, as you could imagine, if a block was to sit on a large rock or a pebble, it would kind of move around, and it would look terrible going out," Mackrell said. "So the guys' job is purely focusing on quality control, just making sure that everything's straight, everything's neat and everything's built to code."
Soon, you may see Hadrian X and the team from down under handcrafting homes in your community. FBR has plans to work with builders in Babcock Ranch and Cape Coral next.
"We'd love to have a fleet of Hadrian X here," Mackrell said.
Next, the goal is to train local contractors to operate Hadrian so homes can be built faster and stronger in Southwest Florida.
