Shelter is a basic human need and everyone needs to have a home.
The single largest investment in our lives is in a home.
However, several factors have pushed up the cost of a decent home very high in Kenya.
We have come up with the Prefabricated House solution to challenge this situation and make decent housing available to all.
Use of prefabricated technology whereby the house is prefabricated in a factory greatly saves on materials in that the customer only pays for the used materials as opposed to the normal traditional method whereby a lot of material is wasted on site.
Prefabricated technology also saves in labor since the house parts are easily fastened to each other during installation.The quality of construction is also kept high since the houses are made in an ISO 9000 2000 certified factory as opposed to the normal traditional method whereby the quality of construction and workmanship is not easily determined until the building is completed.
We use current global building technological advances, mainly Structural Insulated Panels on structural steel structures for wall, roof and floor. Structural Insulated Panels are made of two steel panels with polyurethane form insulation in between them and come in panels of 1.2 meters by 2.4 meters.
The room space design is flexible and can be customized to a customer’s requirements. Customers can select a house plan form our list or request a new house plan design according to their wishes. Once house plan design is agreed, the house is then installed in the customer’s land anywhere in Kenya.
We aim at providing genuine housing solutions to all in the most economically viable and environment friendly way.
Tag Archives: house plan
Buying a new home: Checking out quality of finishes.
When buying your new house, finishes play a very crucial role to determine the value of the house. Your architect will be of great help in advising you on the most appropriate finish for a particular room.
Floor.
Floor finishes vary according to one’s taste, room use and budget.
In living rooms, the cheapest finish is cement plaster screed. This is cement plaster applied on top of the floor slab. It can be colored into different shades of red, green and blue.
Another cost-effective method is use of PVC tiles. These tiles can be arranged to a specific pattern and colors mixed to achieve a desired effect. They come in various thicknesses depending on the traffic that they will contain.
Ceramic tiles are also common in Kenya. These also come in various colors and textures. They are durable, easy to clean and cheap. These are fixed to the concrete floor slab using cement mortar.
Granito tiles are expensive and are mostly used in office floors and banking halls. They come in larger sizes 450mm by 450mm since they are designed to cover large floor spans.
Marble tiles are also in the range of granite tiles but more expensive. These are best suited in entrance porches or other highly visible areas.
Wood tiles are made of hardwood and are a very comfortable floor finish. They come on wood block, wood parquet or wood strips. They make the rooms feel warm and cosy. They are costly to purchase and should be avoided in wet areas.
Wood plastic laminate floor finish is a new floor finish that looks like wood strip finish. It’s much cheaper than wood. Care should be taken when this floor finish is being laid to leave expansion space at the edges to prevent it from bulging up during warm weather.
Mazeras tiles from Mombasa are good in creating the African concept. They are available in uncut natural shapes or cut rectangular shapes in Nairobi.
Wall.
For masonry wall, cement plaster is laid on the surfaces.
The surface is then painted with one undercoat and 3 coats of paint which can be gloss or emulsion. New surface finishes such as Crown Ruff n Tuff, stucco or wall master are available with a wide range of colors and textures.
Ukambani stone finish is also very aesthetically appealing especially around columns or entrance lobbies. A good example is at Kihingo Village in Kitusuru, Nairobi.
In wet areas such as kitchens or bathrooms, ceramic, granito or marble wall tiles are the best.
Wall paper is also a common wall finish in Kenya. This is available in various colors, textures and images.
Wood plastic laminate is also increasingly becoming a common wall finish especially in phone shops and banking halls.
Finishes are abundant and it remains the choice of the home owner to choose the best after shopping from several shops with the architect advising on costs and functionality.
Homes for Sale: Factors to consider before buying a home.
The most available units for sale in Nairobi, Kenya are usually 3 bed roomed houses. This is because home buyers usually have a long term plan envisioned to house a large family unit.With the onset of sectional properties act which allows people to buy individual units in an apartment, there are many apartment units for sale especially in the high income areas of Nairobi such as Kilimani, Hurlingham and Lavington.
Plinth area.
When buying a house, plinth area or floor area is very important. Compare floor area versus the cost of the house. The larger the floor area the better.
Other factors to consider are:
Foundation.
Check the type of foundation that your house rests on. The most common type of foundation in Nairobi is strip foundation .In areas with black cotton soil, all soil is excavated to prevent the soil expanding when the ground is wet thus cracking the ground floor slab.
In areas where the black cotton soil is over 1.5 meters deep, it’s cheaper to have a pile foundation whereby the soil is not excavated and columns are sunk till stable ground and the ground floor slab rests supported by the columns and beams.
In areas where the ground is unstable and the building is to go several stories high, e.g. Nakuru, raft foundation is utilized. This is a kind of foundation which has a slab resting on the excavated underground from there columns to support the other floors emerge.
Check whether the damp proof course is well laid. This damp proof membrane helps to prevent the ground floor slab from sucking wetness through capillary action. This wetness makes the inside of the room unusually cold and damp.
Walling.
Most walling in Nairobi is masonry stones from quarries in Njiru, Juja or Ngong. For external walls, check if the stones are 200mm thick. This is thick enough to prevent rain from seeping through the stone from the outside which can cause damage to the paint inside and cause dampness.
Ensure that the walls do not show signs of wetness where they rest on the ground floor slab. Also check for major cracks. If major cracks are visible, this shows that the foundation was not laid on firm ground so the self weight of the building has made the building lean on one side hence the cracks.
For the inside, check the quality of the paint work. In Kenya the paint is manufactured in 1st quality and second quality. Ask if its first quality.
Roof.
Check the roof trusses. For concrete and brick tiles which re heavy, trusses are spaces at 600mm centre to centre so as to be able to be strong enough to carry the heavy load. For concrete and brick tiles, the steeper the roof pitch angle, the better since this will prevent leaking.
For lighter roofs such as iron sheets or stone coated steel roofing sheets the spacing is wider-1.2 meters. For iron sheets, check the thickness of the sheets. Sheets come in various gaouges, 26 being the thickest, followed by 28, 30 and 32 the lightest. The light gauges don’t stay for long before vagaries of weather and rust takes a toll on them.
Budget control using House Design Types in Nairobi, Kenya.
It’s possible to achieve a great house design with a low budget. To achieve this, one must invest keenly on the architectural design.
A good example is Allan Donovan’s House in Kitengela which is designed with a West African concept in mind-flat roof with pigeon holes on the parapet wall.
See http://www.africanheritage.net/ for more images.
Another example is the Hacienda Eco City Development in Mombasa which is also coincidentally designed with a West African/Islamic architectural concept with a flat roof and pigeon holes on the parapet walling. See pictures on http://www.haciendakenya.com/gallery.htm
The presidential State Lodge in Sagana, Nyeri is also a magnificent piece of architecture that has utilized architectural design to achieve greatness without necessarily using very expensive materials. It’s a plain rectangular house with hipped roofs and low aluminum casement windows.
Technological uses also affect budget. New lighter roofing materials such as stone-coated steel roofing tiles save on the amount of timber trusses used to support the roof.
The choice of foundation type will also affect the costs. Estates such as Jericho in Eastlands area were built on a raft type of foundation which is very cheap to put up. The ground floor slab rests on small sized beams which are laid on top of the ground so no excavations and foundation walling is done.
On superstructure walling, within Nairobi area, masonry stone is readily available hence not expensive. A cost-effective way to achieve elegance is to have the stones hand-dressed to a pattern of your liking. Hand-dressed stones bring out character to your house and will save you in terms of maintenance since they virtually require no maintenance at all.
Prefabricated houses are slowly coming into the Kenyan market. These houses are the solution to affordable housing in the developed economies such as USA, China and Europe and it’s a matter of time till they find their niche in Kenya.
In conclusion, architectural design and use of appropriate technology can greatly reduce the cost of construction of your house.
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