Affordable Housing Materials & Techniques for Urban Poor
Affordable housing projects are characterized by an increasing demand mainly due to urbanization. The selection of building materials should meet the needs of local conditions to improve the quality of life for the most needed ones by building new structures and/or by improving existing structures.
This dissertation is a study on the use of building materials and engineering design in affordable housing projects in Maharashtra India.
A field study was carried out in Dhule town between July and November 2012, comprising on-site and literature investigations in addition to interviews with key persons such as engineers from MHADA, who are involved in the construction of affordable housing projects.
For further reading: Ten principles for developing affordable housing
Although this study attempts to cover most of the factors influencing the use of building materials& construction methods & techniques, the focus has been to investigate the impact of processed building materials on building construction & development of affordable housing models for urban areas.
A small house of his own to live in is the cherished dream of the little man in our country, whether he is a daily laborer, a small farmer, a low-paid employee in Government or other service or a pretty merchant. More often his dream remains unfulfilled.
This is mainly because of the high cost of house building. What contributes to this high cost is not only the high cost of materials and the high rates of wages prevailing especially in our State; It is also because of the insane craze for the so-called ‘new fashions’ in house building which the large majority of our engineers are advocating and persuading their clientele to adopt.
Very often the poor householder is at the mercy of the ‘all-knowing’ engineer and he cannot or dare not have his way as to what sort of house he wants.
A small house of his own to live in is the cherished dream of the little man in our country, whether he is a daily labourer, a small farmer, a low-paid employee in Government or other service or a pretty merchant. More often his dream remains unfulfilled.
This is mainly because of the high cost of house building. What contributes to this high cost is not only the high cost of materials and the high rates of wages prevailing especially in our State; It is also because of the insane craze for the so-called ‘new fashions’ in house building which the large majority of our engineers are advocating and persuading their clientele to adopt.
Very often the poor householder is at the mercy of the ‘all-knowing’ engineer and he cannot or dare not have his way as to what sort of house he wants. The result is that houses are built with lavish use of steel and cement and painted all over in garish colours. It is hardly fit, to live in, because it is hot as an oven, during summer.
And for this contraption, the poor man has to spend his whole fortune. Such is the picture of the house-building activity in our State at present. People have begun to realize the folly of the whole thing and are seeking ways and means of building houses of reasonably good quality and capable of fulfilling their real needs.
In addition to the conventionally used materials there are various alternative technologies and materials developed by various research organizations, innovators and manufacturers in India that are beneficial in the housing construction. As part of this study, these alternatives were researched and the information collected has been provided in the subsequent sections.
Steel reinforcement can be made entirely of recycled scrap iron. This material is salvaged from automobiles, appliances, and steel-reinforced structures, which include reinforced concrete pavements, bridges, and buildings.
In general, steel reinforcement bars can be rolled out from either of the following: used scrap rails, automobile scrap or defence scrap, defectives from steel plants, scrap generated from ship breaking or discarded structures, ingots from induction furnaces, tested billets from mini steel plants and main producers.
The primary criterion to be satisfied by steel reinforcement bars is mass per meter run. The IS 1786 specifies batch rolling tolerances in the range of +/- 7 to 3 percent, depending on the diameter of the bar.
It is very well possible to control the weight of the reinforcement bars within these limits and if it is specified that steel should be supplied in the minus tolerance range only then substantial savings in the weight of steel could be achieved. Though a premium of 1 to 2 percent may be charged for this, it is possible to save up to 7 percent of the cost of steel.