dc.description.abstract | Building walls in concrete blocks will, no doubt, continue
to play a major role in the construction of house's in Kenya.
Although in certain areas of the country other materials
are available for building "permanent" walls, like burnt
bricks and natural stone, the use of concrete blocks is
predominant, both for contractor-built structures and for
"sclf-help"·development.
Although concrete blocks are not expensive in an absolute
sense, a wide gap exists between the cost of:non-permanent
wall structures (mud and wattle. sun-dried bricks, etc.)
and concrete block masonry. For this reason research on
alternative materials (e.g. stabilised soil blocks) and
construction methods is relevant and may lead to adequate
wall construction at lower cost.
Nevertheless. in view of the predominance of the use of
concrete blocks, proper understanding of the ·cost aspects
is of importance especially for the self-help developer
(e.g. the plot allottee in a site and service scheme).
In this short paper costs of various sizes and types of blocks,
and the cost of masonry walls in various thicknesses are
analysed and compared. Purchase prices and costs of
transport (within the Nairobi area) have been obtained
from suppliers whose names and addresses are listed in | en_US |