GOVT BUILDS MODEL HOME PARK

The Model Home park, situated east of the Bon Air High School, Arouca will be used to display new affordable construction technologies which may be used in the national housing programme.

The park presently has only three houses which used two different systems of construction and is expected to accommodate 25 houses within the next few months, which will use several new building systems from Brazil, China, Venezuela, France, Canada and other countries, in their construction.

Dr Keith Rowley, Minister of Housing, said his ministry was examining several systems of affordable housing construction from around the world. Rowley noted that unlike the “hurricane bait” homes that recently fell apart after an earthquake shook parts of Indonesia, the HDC was a “standard concious” company that wanted to ensure that the houses built in TT were disaster ready.

Professor Clement Imbert, Mechanical Engineer, said the HDC had enlisted the help of the Helping Youths Prepare for Employment (HYPE) Programme to provide the manpower for construction projects. He said some of the buildings in the park would demonstrate different roofing systems and reinforced walls which can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes.

Marshall Nisbett of Economy Brick Limited gave a demonstration of the “tijolito” bricks designed by the University of Brazil, which interlock using “recessed grooves” and a limited amount of mortar. Nisbett said, the system was simple to implement since the interlocking system made it easier to stack the bricks and that two of the homes in the park took only 20 working days to construct using the said system.

Shane Hadeed of Trinity Housing Limited demonstrated a mortarless interlocking block system, using the “Haener” block. The system only utilises mortar for the first layer of blocks to get a straight and level base and reduces labour cost since stacking can be up to 10 times faster than block laying with mortar.The system additionally has “virtually eliminated” the possibility for placement error since the blocks fit “perfectly” within each other.

Hadeed said construction with the Haener system was like playing with “lego” blocks and one mason can work with up to five unskilled labourers to construct home with the “versatile” system.

Hadeed added that unlike regular blocks, the Haener block were available in 16”, 14” and 8” sizes so there was no need to break blocks during construction and since it uses no mortar to contruct walls, stacking could be done in any weather.

Present at the launch was Chinese Ambassador, Huang Xing, who would be spearheading the building of model units at the park using construction systems from China.

Other companies expected to construct model homes at the park include Thermal Impac Affordable Homes Company Ltd (TIAHCO) and MVC Componentes Plasticos of Brazil.