Startup readies 3-D printed house in 24 hours

A company has 3D-printed a house in just 24 hours. The 400-square-foot home (37 square meters) was built in just a day, at a cost of just over $10,000.

3D-printing company Apis Cor built the house using a mobile printer on-site. A concrete mixture was used to print the main components of the house, including the walls, partitions and building envelope.

Other fixtures like windows and furnishings were added later, and a shiny coat of paint added to the exterior of the house.

The cost of construction of the house was $10,134.

The house comprises a hallway, bathroom, living room and kitchen and was located in one of Apis Cor's facilities in Russia.

According to the company the house could last up to 175 years.

"We want to change public views that construction can't be fast, eco-friendly, efficient and reliable at the same time," says founder Nikita Chen-yun-tai on Apis Cor's website.

"Our goal is to become the biggest international construction company to solve problems of accommodation around the globe."

Apis Cor claims to be the first company to develop a 3D printer than capable of printing whole buildings on-site.

Also last year, a Chinese construction company printed an entire two-storey house on site. It took the company some 45 days; the structure much more resembled that of a conventional house as compared to Apis Cor's.

"For the first time in the Russian construction practice a house was printed as a whole, rather than assembled from pre-printed panels," Apis Cor stated  in a blog post.

Apis Cor admitted the design of the house was "unusual". It added it was deliberate to showcase the flexibility of the equipment.

"The house can be of any shape, including the familiar square shape, because the additive technology has no restrictions on design of new buildings, except for the laws of physics," the startup stated in its blog post.