The fact remains that housing has been universally acknowledged as the second most important
human need after food. It has been of perennial interest to the world at large since its availability touches on one
of the widest spectrum of human existence. Sandcrete blocks as building materials have become so popular in
many parts of Africa that although similar to bricks in many respects, they both deserve to be treated separately.
It is therefore worthy of note that for an engineer to select one of these materials (block and brick), the fitness or
suitability of the chosen materials for the purposed structure must be considered.Tests carried out in this
research include sieve analysis, Atterberg’s limit tests (Liquid limit and plastic limit) were carried out on the
materials (sand andlaterite)to be able to ascertain certain of their properties for their intended use. About ten
pieces each of sandcrete block and burnt bricks were prepared for the study and density and compressive
strength tests were carried out on them. Findings of the study shows the samples Liquid Limit to be 32%, Plastic
Limit of 16.7%, density of the sandcrete block is 1947.47kg/m3 while the density of the burnt brick is
1823.58kg/m3
.The average compressive strength of burnt brick (5.20N/mm2
) was found to be higher than that of
sandcrete block (3.15N/mm2
).This shows that the compressive strength is directly proportional to the crushing
load on the specimens and this is shown by the regression equation y = 0.2129x+1.5;R² = 0.9817 for the burnt
bricks and y = 0.14x + 0.7; R² = 0.9942 for the sandcrete blocks.The study therefore concludes that burnt bricks
just like sandcrete blocks is a good construction material and can be used for sustainable building construction
