Cost Of Concrete Block Walls

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