Journal of Building Engineering 15 (2018) 102–108

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Journal of Building Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jobe

The methods of using low cost housing techniques in India T

⁎
Manjesh Srivastava , Vikas Kumar
Civil Engineering Department Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology, Gorakhpur 273010, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Low cost housing refers to those housing units which are affordable by that section of society whose income is
Natural materials below than median household income. This depends on three key parameters—income level, size of dwelling
Low cost techniques unit and affordability. This paper aims to point out the various aspects of predestined building methodologies by
Low income group highlighting the different available techniques, and the economical advantages achieved by its adoption. In a
Structural component
building the walls, floors and roofs are the most important sections, which can be analyzed distinctively based on
the needs, thus, improving the speed of construction and reducing the construction cost. This paper also aims to
cover the use of local materials in the different components of building to make them as low cost available
solutions for low income groups. To own a house by middle and lower income groups in today's economic trends
is very difficult. Therefore, it has now became a necessity to adopt cost effective, innovative and environment-
friendly housing technologies for the construction of houses and buildings and availing them at low cost com-
paratively. In order to come up with viable solutions this paper compares the construction cost for the traditional
and low cost housing technologies and it was observed that with the use of technology and reuse of waste
material as building material the cost of construction can be minimized to an extent. It was observed that with if
the filler slab can be used as an alternative to conventional slab the cost of construction can reduce upto 25%.
With the time more studies are going to identify the reuse of waste material like fly ash, rice husk, etc as building
material. After realizing the true potential of these waste materials as building material in construction industry
the cost can be minimized to a greater extent. In addition the building up of cooperative to supply those al-
ternative raw materials rather than importing from somewhere else would help in reducing the cost by 20–30%.

1. Introduction building material there is a need to review alternate building materials

To stay healthy one need a proper place to reside for the entire life
and that is home. This is one important component of one's life. But
contrary to this, in India type and number of homes available is not
adequate as per the estimation reported by the Ministry of Housing and
Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India. With an annual po-
pulation growth rate of 1.64% as compared to world population growth
rate of 1.23% during the last decade there would be a great demand to
fulfill housing needs in coming years. In this context, the Pradhan
Mantri Awas Yojana (Prime Minister Housing for All Mission, 2015),
envisages to provide housing to all by 15th August 2022. The mission
seeks to build 20 million housing units for the poor and make Indian
cities slum free by the slum rehabilitation projects and affordable
housing projects for Economically Weaker Section. If officials fail to
provide accommodation for all, it is estimated that 200 million Indian
will be residing in slums by 2020 (UN Habitat estimates) [20]. This
would result in an enormous demand of building materials like steel,
cement and wood etc. To reduce this dependence on conventional
and formulate guidelines for their application in construction industry.
However, with the traditional building technologies it is impossible to
solve this menace as we cannot solely depend on the traditional con-
struction materials such as concrete, bricks, wood to cover all housing
needs, as they are produced from the natural resources. The continuous
exploitation and depletion of natural resources is harming the en-
vironment. More- over, different toxic substances such as carbon
monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and suspended particulate
matter are invariably emitted in the atmosphere during manufacturing
processes of traditional construction materials. Emission of toxic matter
further contaminates the air, water, soil, and aquatic life which influ-
ence the human health and the standard of living. Thus there is a need
for adoption of “Eco-Structures” that are in harmony with the sur-
roundings and does not affect the environment neither through building
materials or construction methods. Low cost house is a new concept
which deals with effective budgeting and use of techniques which help
in reducing the cost of construction by the use of locally available
materials along with improved skills and technology without

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: manjesh.srivastava396@gmail.com (M. Srivastava), vikaskumarnitk@gmail.com (V. Kumar).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2017.11.001
Received 4 January 2017; Received in revised form 30 August 2017; Accepted 1 November 2017
Available online 10 November 2017
2352-7102/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Srivastava, V. Kumar
compromising the strength, performance and life of the structure. There
is a huge misconception that low cost housing is suitable for only sub
standard works and they are constructed by utilizing cheap building
materials of low quality. The fact is that Low cost housing is done by
proper management of resources. Reducing cost of structure is also
achieved by postponing finishing works or implementing them in
phases. Seeing the past constructions one can see the use of natural
materials like straw, bamboo, fibers (jute, coir), earth etc. as an old
practice in India. These materials apart from being locally available
have easy workability and speedy construction hence reducing costs.
After analyzing various industrial wastes it had been observed that fly
ash and rice husk do possess pozzolonic properties which can act as an
excellent substitute material. This paper aims to compile the studies of
all these materials keeping in mind their affordability. For the con-
struction of high strength structures and for high rise buildings the
dependence on the materials like steel, cement has been increasing
widely day by day. Thus extensive use of such materials has also been
linked to global warming at various platforms. Therefore, the use of
sustainable and eco-friendly building materials have now became a
global concern from environment point of view as well. Thus there is an
urgent need to look out for cheaper yet sustainable low cost housing
technologies. The recent developments in this area in India have been
done under various organizations like Building Materials and Tech-
nology Promotion Council (BMTPC), Central Building Research In-
stitute (CBRI), Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi, Roorkee, Madras,
Kharagpur) and Indian Plywood Industries Research and Training In-
stitute (IPIRTI). These institutions have discussed many such materials
along with their potential applications and cost aspects. Numerous is-
sues in context of these materials have been highlighted like lack of
codal guidelines, technology transfer and manufacturing facilities.
2. Literature review
Realising the importance of low cost housing in countries which
have varied living standards and huge population to cater alongwith
keeping a check on availability and use of natural resources in con-
struction; the option of low cost housing needs to be explored at the
fullest. Several studies have gone under pilot project to estimate the
cost reduction. If only walling and roofing to be analyzed alone for low
cost solution they saved 26.11% and 22.68% respectively [2]. Using
several alternative building materials as discussed in subsequent sec-
tions of this paper will also help in saving the cost of construction be-
cause if materials are locally available then cost of transportation will
be reduced which is approximately 30% of the total construction
budget [5].
2.1. Importance of planning
In this section, it has been described that on incorporating certain
changes and concepts while planning of structure, keeping in mind the
deliverables in terms of low cost houses following methodologies and
technologies can be adopted.
2.1.1. Some alternatives that can be adopted
• Reducing plinth area by using thinner wall concept i.e. 15 cm thick
solid concrete block wall.
• Using locally available material in an innovative form like soil ce-
ment blocks in place of burnt brick.
• Use of energy efficiency materials which consume less energy like
concrete block in place of burnt brick.
• Using environmental friendly materials which are substitute for
conventional building components like use of R.C.C. Door and
window frames in place of wooden frames.
• Preplanning every component of a house and rationalizing the de-
sign procedure for reducing the size of the components in the
103
Journal of Building Engineering 15 (2018) 102–108
building is also an important intuitive change.
• Extensive planning of each and every component in a house the
wastage of materials due to demolition of the unplanned component
of the house can be avoided.
• Every component should be analyzed for its usability in the house if
not needed then the component can be done away with totally.
2.2. Ways to achieve cost effectiveness
In this section, construction method of walling, roofing and lintel
are compared. During construction strength and durability of the
structure, stability, safety and mental satisfaction are factors that as-
sume top priority during cost reduction. In the case studies for walling
and roofing it has been found that about 26.11% and 22.68% of the
construction cost can be saved by using low cost housing technologies
in comparison with the traditional construction methods respectively
[2]. From these results it can be said using low cost housing technol-
ogies is a cost effective mode of construction that can be adopted in this
industry.
2.3. Technologies
The environmental friendly building material technologies for low
cost housing that can be adopted are as follows:
• Lime- Sand Brick
• Cement -Waste Slag Brick
• Concrete Hollow Block
• Decorative Concrete Block
• Light Weight Concrete Block
• Concrete Paving Block
• Wall Plaster
• Paint for interior and exterior wall
3. Methodology
Concept of prefabrication/partial prefabrication has been adopted
for speedier construction, better quality components & saving in ma-
terial quantities & costs. Some of these construction techniques & ma-
terials for walls and roofs that are used many times have been described
further.
3.1. Review of different techniques adopted by changing certain design and
material being used
Different techniques are adopted for different components of a
building to reduce the cost and without compromising the strength of
the building.
3.1.1. In walls
In the construction of walls, rammed earth, normal bricks, soil ce-
ment blocks, hollow clay blocks, dense concrete blocks, small, medium
and room size panels etc of different sizes are used. Although bricks
continue to be the backbone of the building industry, in actual con-
struction, the number of the bricks or blocks that are broken into dif-
ferent sizes to fit into position at site is very large which results in
wastage of material. On increasing the size of wall blocks they will
prove economical to an extent due to greater speed and less mortar
consumption, which can be achieved by producing low density bigger
size wall blocks by the use of industrial wastes like blast furnace slag
and fly ash. Several prefabrication techniques have been developed and
executed for walls but these medium and large panel techniques have
not proved economical for low rise buildings as compared to traditional
brick work.
3.1.1.1. Non erodable mud plaster. The plaster over mud walls gets
M. Srivastava, V. Kumar
Fig. 1. Mud plastered house.
eroded during rains, which necessitates costly annual repairs. This can
be made non-erodable by the use of bitumen cutback emulsion
containing mixture of hot bitumen and kerosene oil. The mixture is
pugged along with mud mortar and wheat/ rice straw. This mortar is
then applied on mud wall surface in thickness of 12 mm. One or two
coats of mud cow dung slurry with cutback are applied after the plaster
has dried as shown in Fig. 1. The maintenance cost gets lowered due to
enhanced durability of mud walls.
3.1.1.2. Fly –ash sand lime bricks. By mixing of lime and fly ash in the
presence of moisture, fly ash sand lime bricks are made. Fly ash reacts
with lime at ordinary temperature and forms a compound possessing
cementitious properties. After reactions between lime and fly ash,
calcium silicate hydrates are (ACSGE-2009, Oct 25–27; BITS Pilani,
India) produced which are responsible for the high strength of the
compound. Bricks made by mixing lime and fly ash are therefore,
termed as chemically bonded bricks. The bricks are manufactured with
the help of hydraulic press and are dried in the autoclave. These bricks
have various advantages over the clay bricks, as they possess adequate
crushing strength, uniform shape and smooth finish therefore does not
require plastering and are also lighter than ordinary clay bricks.
3.1.1.3. Solid concrete and stone blocks. This technique is suitable in
areas where stones and aggregates for the blocks are available locally at
cheaper rates. Innovative techniques of solid blocks with both lean
concrete and stones had been developed for walls. The gang-mould is
developed for semi-mechanized faster production of the blocks.
3.1.2. In floor and roof
3.1.2.1. Filler slab. A filler lab material may be termed as a waste
material and is used to ensure advantage over RCC slab [4,7]. It is used
mostly in southern parts of India [7] as a simple and innovative
technique for roof construction. As it is known that steel is good in
tension and concrete in compression therefore it is difficult to remove
concrete from tension zone but on the other side can be replaced by
using a filler material. Materials are placed in such a way that strength
is not compromised; thereby removing unwanted concrete from below,
which leads to decrease in the quantity of material required. These
steps act as a cost cutting measures in addition leading to reduction in
dead load. To add an extra advantage internal cavity wall can be
provided. Different materials had been used as filler material like
Mangalore tiles, coconut shells, etc. [7–9]. The advantage of using these
materials are that they are cost effective, have improved thermal
coefficient, reduces carbon emission by 20% and better appealing
recycled material [7–9]. Before deciding the design of slab, type of
filler material to be used should be decided first because size of filler
plays a role in deciding the depth of slab and also the spacing of
reinforcement. Filler should be soaked in water so that it does not
absorb water from concrete [8].
3.1.2.2. Brick panel roofing. It had been developed by CBRI, Roorkee.
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Journal of Building Engineering 15 (2018) 102–108
Fig. 2. Brick panel.
The codal provisions from IS14142:1994, IS 14143:1994 were used for
its design. The concrete used was in high compressive zone whereas
bricks were used in less compressive zone. Use of M20 grade or 1:3
grade cement mortar was done for construction. Brick Panel Roofing
was made up of first class bricks reinforced with 6 mm MS bars, length
was varied between 900 and 1200 mm but width was kept at 530 mm
for allowing 36–40 mm gaps between bricks as shown in Fig. 2. In order
to increase the length of brick panel, diameter of bars was also
increased [11] and is most suitable for rural areas. The different
advantages of using these were that they help in saving the quantity
of cement, steel, labour. It also saves time and cost, concrete and
concreting cost can be saved by 20–25% and 25–35% of complete slab
cost respectively [8–12]. If the production for ensuring availability is to
highlighted then in that case a factory can produce approximately
1,20,000 brick panels/day in an 8 h shift and 24,000 RCC joist in an
annum. For all those produced the compressive strength ranges up to
150 kg/cm2. Standard size of brick panel used was of size
1200×530×75 mm and while that of RCC joist was 130×
1200×3600 mm. The numbers of skilled and unskilled labour
required are 6 and 20 respectively [12]. Brick panel weighs around
75 kg whereas RCC joist weights 15 kg/m. [8].
3.1.2.3. Flat slab. Slab is one such component of house that is directly
supported on columns without any intermediate beams as shown in
Fig. 3. It was constructed in 1906 by Turner in USA by using some of the
basic theoretical designs. Testing of different slabs was done during
1910–1920. But Nicholas in 1914 gave a basic design method for its
construction, but Jacob S Grossman's method of equivalent frame
method with equivalent beam had been preferred by many engineers
[13]. Different methods came into existence for different types of
designs like for small ones empirical method were used, for irregular
frames sub frame method was used and for calculation of reinforcement
details yield line method was used. For slab spanning 5–9 m, thin flat
slab must be preferred, whereas slab spanning for more than 9 m, post
tensioning should be done [14]. Several advantages that can be
elaborated are first an easy form working, less construction time and
easy concreting as well [13–15]. Despite all these advantages Indian
engineers had to use ACI – 318 because of IS 456:2000 limitations [13].
The disadvantages props up from the point of being able to sustain
earthquake shocks and vibrations [15]. Leonhard et al. had studied flat
slab by spread of seismic load on a model of two span supported by
columns, three specimens were tested having one internal and two
Fig. 3. Flat slab.
M. Srivastava, V. Kumar
external joints, these models were subjected to identical horizontal
cyclic load by increasing target displacement with different vertical slab
loading. The results had shown that an increase in vertical load will
cause overturning moment and horizontal replacement [15,16]. Pan
et al. studied flat slab which had external joints including 27 H shape
specimen under seismic loading and concluded that higher the dead
load, higher will be the deflection [15–17]. Tegos et al. researched on
the seismic behaviour of joints and internal drift of multi storey
structure to understand the deformability of internal slab [15,18].
3.2. Materials used in low cost housing solutions
Low cost Housing materials can be broadly classified into natural
materials and manmade materials according to the source of their
availability. Materials like bagasse, rice husk, banana leaves, coconut
husk, are naturally available from the remains of agriculture industry
[6]. Natural materials such as fibers, earth and fly ash are some of the
materials which are easily available and have excellent prospects of
being used in the construction industry. Materials like fly ash and ferro
cement are an example of man-made materials which can be recycled to
make new product that helps in lowering the cost of construction [1]
(Fig. 4).
3.2.1. Earth
One of the oldest material available but due to its limitation like
erosion, water penetration, termite attack and high maintenance it is
less used. But this limitation can be overcome by:
1) Compressed earth block – developed from adobe block or also
known as earth block and also consists of cement using manual
press.
2) Non-erodible mud plaster – Its constituents are bitumen which is
mixed with a specific mud paste and has the ability to resist water
[3]
3.2.2. Natural materials
Fibers are hair like materials which are discrete elongated pieces
like threads. They are paintable, attractive, cheaper, rot-resistance,
having low density with eco–advantages over other composites. Natural
fibers have a potential to replace glass fiber but the main disadvantage
is water absorption, therefore chemical treatments are required.
3.2.3. Bamboo fiber
Bamboo which can be used as reinforce material is the second lar-
gest to be produced in world after China. India grows around 50% of
world's total share with an area of approximately 9.57 million hectare
[6]. Swaptik et al. stated that the tensile strength of bamboo is around
650 N/mm2 and that of steel varies between 500–1000 N/mm2.
Bamboo is also more flexible than steel having low modulus of elasticity
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Journal of Building Engineering 15 (2018) 102–108
Fig. 4. Different low cost building materials.
of 50 GPa (50,000 N/mm2) than that of steel [6]. The rapid growth and
easy availability of bamboo has led to its use as a structural material in
countries like India, China and Japan. G Leake in a paper compared the
use of bamboo and stated that the upper class of Colombia uses concrete
but in India upper class uses stone, middle class uses wood, and lower
class uses bamboo for construction. Mechanical properties of bamboo
vary from specimen to specimen. It can be used mostly as beams rather
than in columns as it has a tendency to buckle. One of the major pro-
blems with the use of these is that of connection of bamboo culms. It
can also be used as bamboo roofing sheet which is strong, durable, light
weight and fire resistance.
3.2.4. Straw fiber
The early use of straw was done by Mesopotamian and Egyptian in
1500 BCE. Straw had provided reinforcement to ancient products like
boats and pottery. After the removal of chaff and grain, straw is ob-
tained which is one of the byproducts of agriculture industry. This
variety is toughest as compared to other straws. One has to be extra
careful in disposing it off because if burning is adopted then it will
cause breathing problems, therefore, an alternate mode need to be
adopted and discovered [3].
Applications
1) Life extended thatch roof – environmental friendly also is fire re-
sistant and water proof [6]
2) Improved thatch roof – CBRI has designed a technique to make the
roof more fire and water resistant and by doing the plaster with the
layer of mud makes it more resistant to fire [6]
3.2.5. Bagasse fiber
This is obtained from the remains of sugarcane or sorghum stalks.
The amount of waste generated is approximately same as the quantity
of production. To understand the generation in India the presence of
around 500 sugar mills reflects a big number [3]. Its physical properties
are color pale green to grey yellow, texture and size -non-uniform and
bulky. Balaji et al. stated that approximately 50% cellulose and 25% of
both lignin and hemi cellulose is present in the remains and if properly
modified will show better mechanical properties. To estimate approx.
85% of the material is burnt or deposited on field. The advantages re-
lated to this are low energy input required, eco-friendly and reduces the
density of product. Disadvantages are because of less impact strength
problem of stocking, degradation of fiber etc. In addition, it can be used
as bagasse cement board and panels, bagasse PVC boards and in bio-
mass power generation [3].
3.2.6. Jute and coir fiber
It is a vegetable fiber and cultivation of jute started around 800 BCE.
It had spread in many parts of India with 33 districts in the list covering
around 98.41% of total area under jute cultivation [3]. Jute used for
M. Srivastava, V. Kumar Journal of Building Engineering 15 (2018) 102–108

Table 1
Availability of natural fiber in India and its applications in building materials.

Item Source Application in building material

Rice husk Rice mills As fuel, for manufacturing building materials and products
Banana leaves/stalk Banana plants In the manufacture of building boards, fire resistance fiber board
Coconut husk Coir fiber industry In the manufacture of building boards, roofing sheets, insulation boards, building panels, as a lightweight aggregate, coir fiber
reinforced composite boards
Groundnut shell Groundnut oil mills In the manufacture of buildings panels, building blocks, for making chip boards, roofing sheets, particle boards
Jute fiber Jute industry For making chip boards, roofing sheets, door shutter
Rice/wheat straw Agricultural farm Manufacture of roofing units and walls panels/boards
Saw mill waste Saw mills/wood Manufacture of cement bonded wood chips, blocks, boards, particle boards, insulation boards, briquettes
Sisal fibers Sisal plantation For plastering of walls and for making roofing sheets, composite board with rice husk, cement roofing sheet, roofing tiles,
manufacturing of paper and pulp
Cotton stalk Cotton plantation Fiber boards, panel, door shutters, roofing sheets, autoclaved cement composite, paper, plastering of walls

Table 2 3.2.9. Bamboo

Comparison between conventional and filler slab [7]. Bamboo has a high tensile strength with a good weight to strength
ratio thereby making it highly useful in sustaining high velocity winds
Slab Item Cement (kg) Steel (kg/m3) Cost (Rs/m2)
and earthquakes. As compared to materials like steel, plastics, alu-
Two Way Convectional slab of 38.4 71 415 minum it requires very less energy for production. Steel requires 50
Slab 120 mm thick times more energy than bamboo to produce 1 m3 material per unit of
Filler slab 150 mm thick 32 4 346
stress. However being susceptible to termite attack it needs to be
Saving (%) 16 44 17
One Way Convectional slab of 48 6.5 450
treated first either by chemical or non-chemical treatment which in-
Slab 120 mm thick creases its life span. In India, the treatment specification for bamboo
Filler slab 150 mm thick 32 3.5 338 structures are defined by IS 9096 [9]. It is one of the fastest growing
Saving (%) 33 46 25 plants in the world with some of its species growing at an incredible
rate of 91 cm per day as per Guinness Book of world Records [7] is an
excellent low cost substitute to wood. India is the second largest pro-
Table 3
ducer of bamboo in the world after China with over 136 species pre-
Cement & lime content in blocks [19]. sently cultivated [5]. Fig. 3 shows the major bamboo growing areas in
India (Fig. 5).
Description Minimum Average Maximum

Cement stabilization 3% 5% No max 3.2.10. Rice husk

Lime stabilization 2% 6% 10% Around 600 million tons of rice is produce every year out of which
20% is waste i.e. rice husk and this is either dumped or burnt. Rice husk
ash is produce during burning of rice husk. About 220 kg of husk can be
packaging comes from the husk of coconut; coir obtained has two third
produced from 1000 kg of rice and around 55 kg of ash is produced if
productions in account of India. It is durable as it contains linin. It is
burnt. 20% of the world's rice production is done by India. West Bengal
grown in approx. 10 million hectare in tropical region. It has a length of
has highest production area but Punjab has highest productivity.
35 cm and a diameter of 12–25 µm. Coir industry is located in India,
Constituents of husk are 75% organic matter and 25% (by weight) of
Brazil etc. Jute and coir fibers are used to produce coir – CNSL board,
husk which is converted to ash, 85–90% of silica is present in ash [3]. It
jute coir composite, coconut and wood chips roofing sheet, geo textiles
is used in power plants, roofing units, rice husk binder, fibrous building
etc. (Tables 1–3).
panels, bricks, acid proof cement, production of activated carbon,

3.2.7. Sisal fiber

D. Chandra Mohan stated these fiber are naturally available that
have low price, high specific strength and are recyclable. This can be
used as a reinforcement to make reinforced polymer composite. Life
span of sisal plant is 7–10 years which produce 200–250 leaves with
1000 fibers of a leaf can produce. The limitation with this fiber it cannot
be used in weather such as long spills, snow, and rain. On the other side
it can be used for paper production, cordage industry, tiles, geotextiles,
roofing sheets, and cement flooring sheets, production of ropes.

3.2.8. Banana fiber

Banana is also known as Kalpatharu in some places in India. India is
the largest producer of this after Brazil. India has 5 lakh hectares of
farms to do the farming while generated 10% of the waste can be used
to extract the fiber. There is no particular standard method for ex-
traction of banana fiber it varies depending upon the end use. It is a
highly strong fiber, with small elongation, light weight with average
fineness of about 2400Nm and is bio-degradable as well environmental
friendly. It has found its applications in many components such as
production of building boards, fire resistance boards, and medical ap- Fig. 5. Major bamboo growing areas in India.
plications, ropes, mats, home furnishes [3].

106
M. Srivastava, V. Kumar
thermal insulating bricks, production of some acids, production of
building materials and low cost sand concrete block.
3.3. Manmade materials
Industrial revolution created many by products that if not made
would have posed a problem of disposing them off. After a deep re-
search into their properties, it was observed that they had best pozzo-
lanic properties therefore these materials were started to be used as an
alternative material [3].
3.3.1. Fly ash
It is obtained from the burning of coal and is recovered from gasses.
Major constituents of fly ash are iron, alumina and silica [3]. Fly ash
generation has increase from 68.88 million tons/annum to 131.09
million tons/annum from 1996 to 2011. But the utilization has only
increased by 6.64–73.13 t/annum i.e. about 14%. Fly ash can be used in
fly ash brick, bulk fill, filler in bituminous mix, artificial aggregate [3].
3.3.2. Aerocon panels
These are inorganic bonded sandwich type panels consisting of two
fiber cement reinforced sheets. It is made up of Portland cement, bin-
ders and a mix of micaceous and siliceous aggregates. These panels are
eco-friendly, light weight, fire resistance and have sound reduction
properties as well. It had been used in one of the housing scheme in
India under “VALMIKI” for slums [3].
3.3.3. Ferro cement
It is a versatile cement product based on the composite material
made by cement mortar reinforced with one or more layers of wire
mesh. It has a high performance with good strength of material. The
only disadvantage is high creep and shrinkage. It had been used for
making water tanks; cycle shed etc. They are easy to use and hence can
be used in post disaster management activities.
3.3.4. Cement concrete hollow bocks
These may serve as a cost effective and better alternative to burnt
clay bricks. They are resistant to fire and durable as well. The speedier
construction can be done while using this. Owing to their larger
quantity of mortar required is comparatively less. The strength can be
enhanced depending upon the end use of these [3].
3.3.5. Recycled steel reinforcement
Steel obtained from used up constructions can be used as a recycled
scrap iron. It is used in steel reinforced structures like building and
bridges. Main criteria to be satisfied to use them as reinforcing bars is
mass/meter run. Rolling tolerance in the range of (+/-) 7 to 3% de-
pending on diameter as specified in IS 1786. Wastage can be reduced if
purchase in standard length, but if different lengths are needed then not
more than 5–7% may be wasted. Electrical melting of recycled steel
produces 40% of world steel. The advantages are high strength, bond
strength, resistant to termite, weathering [6].
3.3.6. Precast R.C.C
These are door frames with welded reinforcement. They are durable,
economical, fire resistant, corrosion free and termite proof. Using them
can overcome the problems of cracking, bending and shrinkage. The ad-
vantage with them is that they are easy to install at site. It also possesses
much stronger strength than other door frames. High strength to weight
ratio as compared to RCC and gives 20% savings on cost and materials [6].
4. Analysis and discussion
After analyzing the use of various sustainable materials which are
environment friendly, cheaper and easily available following conclu-
sions are made:
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Journal of Building Engineering 15 (2018) 102–108
• Filler slab is much more economical than traditional slab as it saves
16%, 44%, 17% of cement, steel and cost in two way slabs and 33%,
46%, 25% in one way slab respectively.
• Brick panel saves 19% per m3 and Rs 418 in cement, 19% per m3
and Rs 21 in sand, 19% per m3 and Rs 127 in aggregate, and 38%
per m3 and Rs 536 in steel.
• Soil stabilized bricks are 27.7% cheaper as compared to country
fired bricks walls, where country fired bricks use Rs 934 per m2 on
contrary soil stabilized bricks use Rs 736 per m2 also they cause less
air pollution, energy consumption and carbon emissions.
• Aluminum form work is a comparatively high cost construction but
gives high quality and speedy construction which can be used in
places where construction is required at a fast pace. For flat slab the
total quantity of steel and concrete used are 8.644 m3 and 1294 m3
as compared to conventional building which uses 10,593 m3 of steel
and 1505.25 m3 of concrete and the cost saving percentage in flat
slab is 15% in B+G+3 building respectively.
• Hollow concrete blocks can be used in those places where the load is
not coming directly on wall; the cost is saved by 17.78%.
5. Conclusions
Mass housing targets can be achieved possibly by replacing the
conventional methods of planning and execution of building operations
based categorically on special and individual needs and accepting
common denominator; based on surveys, population needs and rational
use of materials and resources. Adoption of any alternative technology
on large scale needs a guaranteed market to function and this cannot be
established unless the product is effective and economical. Building
houses for low income families as per now poses a great challenge. It
involves a great effort to develop new technologies for using different
alternate materials in the construction industry. In this study, low cost
housing technologies were studied and the potential for the materials to
be used as alternative building materials was discussed. Even though
different low cost housing technologies have been developed but still
there is a shortage of housing. Still we are unable to provide shelter to
people from low income sections. There are no proper guidelines for-
mulated for structural aspects of these alternate building materials.
Lack of awareness is also there among builders on the applicability and
benefits of these materials. The use of filler slab as replacement to
conventional slab is an alternative method to achieve low cost of con-
struction. Similarly more use of fly ash and rice husk ash is another
alternative to cement. The use of bamboo as an alternative to steel is an
effective material to be used in construction. Partial prefabrication is an
approach towards the operation under controlled conditions. The es-
sence lies in the systematic approach in building methodology and not
necessarily particular construction type or design. The methodology for
low cost housing has to be of intermediate type- less sophisticated in-
volving less capital investment. The cooperatives needs to set up which
are dedicated to low cost housing so that cost of transportation and
import of materials can be avoided which in turn will automatically
reduce the overall cost of construction budget by 20–30%.
Acknowledgements
This work has been carried out in Civil Engineering Department of
Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology, Gorakhpur, India.
The author presents its heartiest gratitude towards Mr. Vikas Kumar for
constant encouragement, guidance and support.
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