Cost Effective Building Techniques for Houses

Need for cost effective house building techniques Today we are living in the world of raising prices. Considering the cost of cement, sand, aggregates and steel ,the need to adopt Cost effective technology in Construction has become imperative, so that the constructing a house is within the reach of a common man. But nowadays we are constructing most our houses by framed structure concept made of columns and beams. This need lot of Cement and steel .For a simple structure like house we can adopt cost effective time technology to save cost. How we achieve Cost effectiveness in Construction ? We can achieve cost effectiveness in construction at various stages right form planning to construction:Planning stage is crucial to any projects. Essential aspect of planning a house is that user friendly environment is available at all the time to the occupants and must satisfy our needs. Interior of a house be given adequate attention rather than Exteriors. Exterior must be kept simple and nice. Time consuming and labour intensive components in exterior may be avoided. Examples are putting ornamental borders ,art work on wall and Sunshades, Putting unsymmetrical and costly elevations in the name of architecture etc., shall be avoided . Building can be divided in to two main parts namely Foundation and superstructure.

Foundations Foundations for building are of various types 1.Open foundations a. Spread footing type Made of Bricks /stones b. Sloped footing made of Reinforced Cement Concrete 2.Raft foundations 3. Pile foundation A particular type of foundation is adopted depending upon the type of soil in a particular locality. But as we can see nowadays , we are constructing most of our houses with reinforced cement concrete(RCC) sloped footing open foundation made of steel and concrete .it is not necessary that we should always go for a RCC open foundation. Soil is the main criterion in deciding the type of foundation. If the soil in a locality is of higher bearing capacity i.e. soil is made of gravel ,course to medium sand or rock we can go for open spread footing foundation made of bricks/ stone which are laid at shallow depth. The above type of foundation is safe for G+1 storeys. Thus we save cost of steel, cement, sand and aggregates substantially. Super structure For a simple house with G+1 storeys we can avoid framed structure concept of building houses, wherever possible . We can use load bearing wall concept using bricks/ fly ash bricks. But as the cost of bricks are also raising, we can build walls using

RAP TRAP bond technique instead of conventional English bond technique. RAP TRAP wall is same as conventional wall in terms of strength and stability but also provides better protection against moisture ingress in to buildings ,they also offer

thermal comfort and better protection against noise pollution .This type of Bond results in around 30 % savings in cost of bricks using conventional English Bond technique. If bricks and the mortar joints are laid properly we can avoid external plastering also as this type of bond gives better elevation.

Thus we can achieve better construction at lesser cost.

(To be continued) Er, B.Venkateswaran M.E., Flexure Civil/Structural Engineering consultant Thanjavur Mobile 9486277496

PART II The economy in construction can be achieved by designing the houses/ buildings for the need and to meet functional requirements. The framed structure concept of constructing a house is best suited for a multi storied construction and in the situations where the bearing capacity of soil is low and settlement of the soil is predominant, this concept is costlier as it involves lot of steel and cement . Framed structure concept is used to transmit roof load and wall load to columns by beams and ultimate transfer of all the loads by foundation to the soil. In order that the framing concept become effective they need roof level beams and plinth level beams other wise transfer of load takes places through wall itself. But sadly without understanding this concept, lot of houses are constructed today using framed structure concept in which we can notice roof load is transferred directly to walls without any beams at Roof level but column are constructed up to roof level, Thus the columns are functionless in such cases. Also dummy column concept is also practiced widely in construction, where column and a footing are constructed up to plinth level. Further effective tying of beams to columns should be made by means proper detailing of steel for realising the concept of framed structure in buildings. Hence These kind of construction, without any concept and also uneconomical may be avoided to achieve safety and economy. Following cost cutting measures may be adopted in construction of Houses to achieve economy. 1. Window sunshades are constructed to give protection from sun and rain but roof slab is also extended over sunshades in the name of elevation, Thus it is necessary if we construct only sunshades over windows. 2. If the wall does not act as a load bearing wall and lies inside the house, we can construct 4.5 wall which results in savings in bricks, cement, sand and labour.

3. Wherever possible we can construct Brick arches over openings, inside the house, to avoid cost of construction of lintel, wood for door frame and door shutters. This also gives better elevation inside the house. If doors are necessary we can provide simple lintels using bricks on edge masonry with a thin concrete beam over it, instead of a belt of RCC all around the wall. 4. Doors and windows openings should be provided to cater to the ventilation requirements rather than elevation and other criterion. Minimum of 30 % floor area may be kept as inlet opening ,provided dependable wind and adequate day light are available. 5. In bathrooms and toilet where water is in use, we can avoid marble, other costly tiled flooring and we can adopt simple cement concrete floors to achieve safety and economy. 6. elevation. 7. RCC precast door frames and windows can be adopted in place of costlier doors and window frames using Wood. We can also adopt PVC door and windows in place of wooden doors and windows. Part III Roof is an essential component of a House .Roof protect us from the effects of atmosphere . Today most of our roofs are constructed using RCC as Flat roof where large amount of steel and cement are used. Main function of using steel in any RCC element is to take tension, as concrete is weak in tension. Roof element is designed considering only steel to take tensile force ignoring concrete near the steel and thus the We can construct ventilator openings by using brick pattern works with

openings instead of ventilators made of wood and steel to avoid cost and to achieve nice

concrete immediately above the reinforcement serve the purpose of only confining the steel . Thus we can avoid concrete for confinement purpose to achieve economy.

We can replace the confinement concrete with tiles and bricks and this concept is called Filler slab concrete. This type of roof results in substantial savings in cost of steel and concrete. Thus we can achieve economy. Overall saving of about 25 % is achieved in adopting this technology. Also for roof we can avoid Reinforced concrete(RCC) altogether by means of pyramid like construction using Bricks. We can also go in for a pre cast roof if precast roof elements are easily available in the market. However if we wish to construct RCC roof we can go in for 85 mm thick sloping RCC roof instead of 120 mm RCC roof which results in substantial savings in cost of Roof. Sloped roof also gives better elevation and transmit less heat than flat RCC roof. Water stagnation over Roof can also be avoided by constructing sloped roofs. Part IV Today Hollow and solid light weight concrete elements called Hollow blocks are readily available in the market. We can use Hollow blocks for various construction like compound wall, constructing toilet /bath rooms outside the house etc, they involve less labour, less mortar and we can avoid plastering when we adopt hollow blocks for construction. They also form effective filling walls for a framed structure construction.

We can also make use of Ferro cement technology for sunshades, water tanks etc to reduce cost. For open space outside our House we can lay floors using precast CC ( cement concrete) blocks which are readily available in the market .They give better look and they can be laid easily besides they are economical.

Cost effective building technology in India is being promoted by Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council, Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India. Useful reference can also be made to their web site www.bmtpc.org and to the web site of Laurie Baker ,Noted architect, whose article on Cost effective technology has been published in the web site http://lauriebaker.net

Thus we can adopt above cost effective methods to achieve economy in House construction. Er, B.Venkateswaran M.E., Flexure Civil/Structural Engineering consultant Thanjavur Email rrkb_23@yahoo.com

/By speed Post/ From B.Venkateswaran M.E.,(Struct.) Flexure Civil/ Structural Engineering Consultant, 8.Ganesh Raja Complex,Anna Nagar Nanjikottai Road, Thanjavur 613006 To The Editor The Hindu, Senthannerpuram, Trichy Sir, Kindly refer my previous letter dated 29.11.09 with my article on Cost effective construction techniques. Further, I am sending herewith remaining parts of my article divided in to three parts for publication. Hence I request that the articles may kindly be published to educate and inform the common man about the techniques of Cost Effective Construction. Thank You . (B.Venkateswaran)