Montana First State to OK 3D Printing of Walls

Montana has become the first state to grant broad regulatory approval to the use of walls made by 3D printing—also known as additive manufacturing—in building construction.

Building regulators in Montana have okayed 3D-printed walls as a replacement for walls made via concrete masonry units (CMUs) or standard cored concrete blocks. The approval was granted in an application from a housing contractor in Billings, the state’s largest city.

Tim Stark, who filed the application, will use Florida-based Apis Cor’s 3D printing system to complete a project building single-family housing in the city.

“The need for safe, quality affordable housing is significant across Montana, and this approval puts Montana at the forefront of innovative housing construction technologies nationwide,” said Laurie Esau, Montana’s Commissioner of Labor and Industry, in a statement.

Apis Cor’s 3D printing building construction system includes a robotic pump and extruder that can build walls nine times faster than traditional construction methods while reducing costs by more than 30% of the cost, according to the company’s website.

The building materials—a sand-cement mixture with additives including geo-polymers and gypsum—are fed into the extruder by a mobile, vacuum-sealed silo.

Montana regulators reviewed testing data—submitted by Stark in his application—conducted by an independent, third-party lab in Boston and at the University of Connecticut’s Civil and Environmental Engineering School. The National Fire Protection Association published specification that were used at the basis of the Boston lab tests.

Satisfied that the walls constructed with Apis Cor’s system and materials meet design, engineering and fire safety standards set out in Montana’s building code, state officials gave broad regulatory approval for their use in all construction that follows the code.

Apis Cor, which has built several pilot projects in the US and the United Arab Emirate, says on its website that it’s 3D printing system is the only one of its type that complies with international building codes.

“Having this clear support from the state of Montana paves the way for faster decisions at the county level, which will make it easier for developers to move forward on their 3D-printed housing projects,” Apis CEO Anna Cheniuntai said, in a statement.

The company, founded in 2014, earlier this year opened its first 3D printed home showroom in Florida and began offering publicly traded shares in the US via an SEC-sanctioned Regulation A+ offering.

Apis Cor currently is working on two projects to introduce affordable housing in Florida and North Carolina made using 3D printing. The company is working with the Struggle for Miami’s Affordable and Sustainable Housing—an organization known by its acronym, SMASH—and Eden Village Wilmington.