Making houses affordable using building ‘waste’

Technology involves mixing debris from construction sites with cement to make long blocks, meaning you have fewer joints. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • “I did not want people to know what I was up to, so in order to learn how to weld metals, I would  go to welding workshops and busy myself, pretending  to help them,” he offers.

  • Once he had mastered welding, he bought steel plates and rods, which cost him about Sh20,000.

  • “I then went underground and when I re-emerged, I had the machine,” he says with a smile.

The high cost of mortgage loans and the equally high construction costs have made owning a home a pipe dream for many Kenyans. However, one man has the technology that could just make home ownership easier for many Kenyans. 

Haran Manyeki does not use the familiar standard bricks, but moulds longer ones, hence reducing the number of joints on the walls.

His main raw material is what many would consider construction waste: the mounds of sand and debris found at construction sites that are often used to cover potholes. This is what he mixes with cement to build the walls.

“With this technology, you save on cement, labour and other  related costs such as transporting materials, especially bricks, from quarries,” ge says. “In total, it can save between 30 and 50 per cent of the cost of walls, without the finishing.”

So, where and how did he learn the technology?

Manyeki, who has a certificate in electrical engineering, did not like the prevailing method of wiring, which required that walls  that had been plastered be drilled to enable the insertion of electric cables and pipes for plumbing. 

So, one day while working on a house in Nakuru, he shared these sentiments with a colleague, who told him he had heard there was a way of incorporating the plumbing and wiring during construction.

“I searched the Internet until I found the technique, which is popular in South Africa,” he says, adding that it took him several days to find the website.

However, since importing the moulding machine at the time cost about Sh50,000 and he did not have the money, he decided to make one himself.

“I did not want people to know what I was up to, so in order to learn how to weld metals, I would  go to welding workshops and busy myself, pretending  to help them,” he offers.

Once he had mastered welding, he bought steel plates and rods, which cost him about Sh20,000.

“I then went underground and when I re-emerged, I had the machine,” he says with a smile.

Pressed to explain the steps involved in making the machine he declines, saying that is his business secret.

“Of course I know copy cats will replicate it at some point but at the moment, I want to make maximum use of it,” he adds.

When DN2 caught up with him at Mariakani in  Kilifi County recently, he was finishing a three-bedroom house he had started building three months earlier.

The owner of the house, Manyeki said, had made huge savings on sand and cement, given that when construction is done using bricks, the inside walls tend to have huge depressions that have to be filled before they are plastered. But using his machine, both sides of the wall come out smooth.

While he buys the material at very low prices, in some areas, he gets it for free.

“Builders find it a challenge to dispose of the waste, so I buy it at between Sh100 and Sh400 per tonne, depending on the location,” he says, adding that some people  started selling it to him only after they discovered that he was minting money from what they considered useless.

But one of the challenges Manyeki faces is that people don’t believe they can save as much as he tells them.

“When I tell somebody about the savings they ask, ‘Can we see one of the houses you have built? May be it’s fake.’

“For those in places where I have not built a house, I have to show them pictures, but those who have seen my work say it is going to revolutionise the construction industry in the country,” he says, adding that the technology can also be used to make water tanks.

“Using conventional bricks to build a water tank is not only time consuming since one has to cut them into curved shapes, but the joints also present weak points for the whole structure, leading to leakage.” he explains, adding that  he has made a machine that produces  curved blocks, which he uses to build durable tanks that are not susceptible to leakage.

Today, nearly two years since he started off, he has built several houses in Nakuru and Mombasa, and dozens of water tanks. He markets his business online, especially through Facebook.

The order that  each homestead in his rural home  should have a latrine early last year  came as a boon to him. While a block consisting of a toilet and bathroom costs more than Sh40,000 using bricks, his technology brings the cost down to Sh15,000, he says.

However, the question is whether Kenyans, known for their penchant for stone and mortar  constructions — the market for fabricated houses has failed to take off — will embrace this new technology.

“The walls can be as strong as the cabro used on roads and depends on the cement ratios. But whatever the case, the costs are lower,” says Manyeki.