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| Brick-Making Workshop
Builds New Hope In Danang, Vietnam |
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Vaughn Thomas, HFH
Vietnam new country director,
checks the quality of a compresses earth block |
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DANANG,
5th July 2004 -- A brick-making workshop held in Danang,
Vietnam,
in mid-June brought together representatives from Habitat
for Humanity Vietnam,
Que Son Red Cross, World Vision, Clear Path International,
and other local NGOs
to learn how to make Interlocking Compressed Earth Blocks.
Geoffrey Wheeler, Director Center for Vocational Building
Technology based in
Udon Thani, Thailand, provided the training using a block-making
machine he had
designed. Habitat’s Udon Thani affiliate has used
the machine to build nearly a
dozen homes. |
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The Danang workshop participants.
Geoffrey Wheeler, left back row
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The
blocks lock together, needing no mortar between courses,
only a vertical mortar grout.
The bricks are made from local natural soil with a 10%
mix of PCB 40 cement. The bricks
cost under 700 dong each, the equivalent of less than
50 US cents. A 35 sq. m. house
needs approximately 3,000 blocks – in hot, tropical
Vietnam, external walls rise to about
four meters to allow air to circulate.
Interlocking bricks cost about the
same as kiln bricks, but as they are nearly 50 per cent
larger, they are bettervalue – some 1,500 fewer
bricks are needed than for a house made
of kiln bricks. Kiln bricks are also very
porous, so houses require external plastering,
as well as mortar between brick courses.
House construction using the interlocking compressed earth
block design will begin in
Vietnam in the spring of 2005. |
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