Steel brings down the cost of building a flat

If you went around asking people the choice of their ideal homes, you will discover that many dream of owning a flat. However, not all of them achieve this dream.

The main bottleneck to building a flat is the cost implication which few can afford.

However, with innovations in the construction industry, one can now build a flat with ease, in the shortest time possible and on a friendly budget.

One of such inventions is steel and wood technology. You can save up to 40% of the whole project cost.

Yusuf Kazibwe, an engineer at Nana Corp Ltd in Kampala, says this technology helps to reduce the number of building materials and other construction costs.

It works for both residential and commercial projects such as apartments and office blocks.

“With a spike in the cost of building materials, steel and wood are the choice for commercial and residential structures,” he says. This technology helps clients to complete their projects with reasonable resources compared to the conventional method of construction.

You can add as many stories as you wish

Columns

While building a column (three metres) using steel, one needs steel (hollow section) which cost sh125,000.

With the conventional method one needs three iron bars worth sh152,000, four timber worth sh34,000 and two rings which cost sh36,000, cement for sh58,000, nails worth sh5,000 and sand for sh12,000.

You also need aggregate for sh18,000, binding wire for sh15,000 and labour worth sh30,000. The whole total of the column is sh360,000.

Slab per square metre

With steel technology, one needs timber, nails, BRC, I beam, cement and aggregate plus sand, metal lath and labour amounting to sh325,000.

In the conventional method, you need timber, iron bars, maxi span, shuttering, BRC, aggregates, sand and cement. You also need polythene paper, nails, gum poles, rings, and binding wire and labour all mounting to sh550,000.

Finished structure

Walling

With steel technology, thinner walls are built and each takes 32 bricks per square metre (sh11,200). Each brick is estimated at sh350. With the conventional method, thick walls are built with 52bricks per square metre at sh18,200.

Shuttering

As far as steel technology is concerned, shuttering is not required. But with the conventional method, it is done with lots of timber and labour.

How steel helps one save

While using steel, there is minimal wastage of material because every steel used is accurately measured and cut. Kazibwe adds that steel helps in building larger spans.

You don’t need to use many iron bars and concrete in supporting slabs with larger spans. One piece of an I-Beam measures 12 metres.

Some materials are not needed, say, iron bars, maxspans, binding wires and many bags of cement among others. While raising columns, a steel column is just placed and welded to the I-Beam.

This makes it easy and cheaper compared to the conventional method where a lot of materials are used to build a flat.

These include; iron bars, 12x1 timber, binding wire, rings, cement, aggregates, form work for the column and labour. When you use steel columns, these are eliminated.

One also needs a few bricks compared to those required with the conventional way of building flats where the header arrangement is used.

Here, the brick arrangement called stretcher takes few bricks to erect the walls. With the stretcher, the long narrow side appears on the face of the wall. It makes the building lighter as it depends on steel columns.

Kazibwe explains that usually while building a wall with the header arrangement, each square metre takes up to 52 bricks against a stretcher that takes only 32 bricks.