Evaluation of existing practices of low cost housing methods

A field survey of 73 houses was held to evaluate the used building materials, successes and failures, acceptance and rejection by the users etc. The survey included 12 soil based wall houses, 24 cement bases wall houses, 13 coir fibre sheets/tiles houses, 23 houses with concrete doors and windows and without traditional timbre roof structure and 3 houses without door and window frames. Low cost houses cost Rs.25000 or more however available loans for low cost house constructions fell well below Rs.25000/ =. Satisfactory walls were observed with 1:12 cement quarry dust with coir fibre, rammed earth and stabilised earth blocks. Satisfactory low cost coir fibre cement mortar sheets/tiles and cement mortar micro tiles were observed. Satisfactory arrangement to fix doors and windows was observed. Approximately 25% cost of walls, 10% to 30 % cost of roofs can be saved by the use of low cost methods. A maximum of 40% of the cost compared to owner supervised houses can be saved by the use of low cost housing methods

Use of infrastructure related information in education planning and management

Information on education infrastructure has a greater impact on planning and management decisions. As administration of an education system is always being challenging, before addressing the data needs, it is a prerequisite to identify where decision making is actually taking place across the system (Crouch et ai, 2001). Once the decision making process at different levels (Strategic, management and operational levels) are identified, each level must be provided with the correct information in order to make proper decisions. Not only the educational authorities but also the external stake holders who provide assistance to a country's education system require very accurate information timely for their planning and monitoring activities

Integrated project cost system

The primary objectives of any contractor are to obtain jobs, to complete them within a reasonable time, and to obtain payments for the work completed with an acceptable profit. They also like to keep a positive cash flow throughout the project. In order to achieve these objectives, contractors should hold a managing and controlling system of all costs involved, in addition to completing the project on time

An Innovative approachto produce soil-based building products

Soil has been used as a building material in different forms, such as mud, adobe, rammed earth, and bricks. Compressed Stabilized Earth Block (CSEB), a form of soil blocks with different additives including cement, fly ash, and lime, is a sustainable building material with many advantages compared to other conventional building material

Stabilised soil block technology for Sri Lanka

Due to the high cost and environmental problems associated with burnt bricks and cement blocks used as walling materials, cement stabilized compressed earth blocks have been introduced as a timely alternative. The design parameters which deal with aspects such as cement content, fines content, quality control at site and compaction ratio of the machine have been investigated in order to make this technology scientifically viable. It is shown that the wall strength and the block strength can be related so that it could be used in quality control at site. A summary of the cost analysis is also included in order to show the cost effectiveness of the compressed earth block technology

Risk in the use of asbestos cement roofing sheets in Sri Lanka

In presence, with increase in the global population, need for house is a changing task. Even though many researches are focused on new construction materials, some of the old techniques and materials are no longer used nowadays. Asbestos can be identified as one of them. To date, more than 40 countries, including all members of the European Union, have banned the use of all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile. However, in the USA asbestos cement corrugated roofing sheets and flat sheets are not banned. The case is the same for many developing countries and they still struggling with identifying the risk and and identifying how to live with the risk. This study was mainly focused to a repair work done on war damaged houses in Sri Lanka and to identify the awareness of the risk and the use of asbestos in those areas

Feasibility study on a mud block with straw

When, trying to establish “Sustainability” within local built environment, it is important to understand prevailing methods that are using. As a result, concentrating on “methods of wall construction”, it was found that, “mud”, was used over many centuries in traditional architecture. Therefore, concentrating on “mud wall construction”, the goal was set to be developed, a “mud block”, which has more structural durability, less weight, low cost, together with high performance with respect to indoor air quality. However, as an initial attempt of the ultimate invent of “mud block”, this research was carried out to analyse, the correct proportions to invent such block. During the research mainly two types of mud blocks were casted; partially compacted mud block and poured mud block. During the casting process soil, cement, straw were mixed with water in different proportions to understand the best particle mix for the proposed block and compared the compressive strengths of each sample. From the analysis it was found that, there is a high possibility of inventing a effective mud block which has required strength for a load bearing dwellings, while minimizing the structural cast with less weight and low cost with simple manufacturing process