Great Concept For Affordable Housing in the Dominican

[bienamor]

Maybe it's just the farmboy in me (hey, we can't all be hillbillies, but close), but those yurts look a lot like something else that is readily available in the US in good supply, new or used. With a 4" concrete slab, a couple of wrenches, and a tool to cut out spaces for windows and doors, these might also work:

Slap a coat of white paint on, pop the top cover , or adapt a larger version of a cover a couple of feet above the hole for ventilation and to keep out the rain, and there's a potential house! Secure, and fast assembly. One day for two guys to bolt it together and erect it, with diameters from 12' and up.

Others think along the same lines of thought - here's Mother Earth News' versions:

Convert a Used Grain Bin to a New House

Wow having shoveled wheat into an out of those things in 105f Kansas heat, I cannot imagine living in one with out lots of insulation and an air conditioner! must have been 150f in those things. Definitely would have to vent, and something to reflect heat before it hit the metal, painted white or not.

 

[Hillbilly]

What most people never realized about the "tejemani" houses were that they were very efficient in dealing with the heat. Those that did not have mud plaster usually were built higher and had less overhang of the roofing. This way air circulated throughtout the living/sleeping space.

Inthe ones with mud covering the walls, the thatch usually comes down the sides almost to within a meter of the ground. (They are nearly always oriented North-South.) Therefore, the early sun warms the walls, making the inside more comfortablem, and the late afternoon sun warms the other walls for keeping the hut warm enough through most of the night. While this might seem silly in the tropics, reality of a 50 degree temp drop makes the perceived temp much cooler that it is in reality.

I do like the idea of steel mesh...

HB

 

[PeterInBrat]

One thing that could be added into the mortar mix for the panels is some kind of straw or other fine ag waste. It will make it stronger as a tensioning agent. The main thing is to make sure there are no clumps or the panel will lose integrity. I've experimented using over 50% straw by volume and it holds up well even after several years.

If burlap is available, you could make panels by putting down burlap, an half inch of mortar with steel mesh and then another layer of burlap on top. This would make something like the underlayment board we use in the US, which uses fiberglass mesh instead and is made into 3'x5' panels. The burlap would tension the boards so they would not bend to the breaking point as easily.

Is there a ready supply of wooden pallets in Haiti? I'm thinking they would be used for cooking fuel so they would be in short supply:

I don't think walls would hold up that well in a hurricane and you'd want some kind of sheathing for privacy. Maybe gangnail them into sections for roofing? Put three together with a 2x4 on either side and use six to eight sections to make a roof. Cover with a waterproof material and you are all set. I can see making whole floors with pallets.

 

[PeterInBrat]

Still brainstorming, I think gambrel construction would be VERY strong. Use gussets to make the skeleton and then fill in with pallets. Think of this structure with the walls being filled in with pallets:

So for each cross section, you'd have pallets two high for the wall and two more for the roof. I bet you can make the gussets and the rest of the structure by cannibalizing pallets. with 32 pallets, you could make a house about 16' square with a high roof.

I've made a greenhouse like this out of scrapes and the gussets make for some very sturdy walls. It only took a few hours to make. The pallet would make for diagonal support. The gussets are at 22.5 deg angles and you can make an over hang for rain to run off.

You really only need the pallets for one run around the base to make a sturdy building.

The advantage of the angled walls is they can't torque like a box construction can.

 

[PeterInBrat]

duplicate post

 

[Hillbilly]

Great design, You can see it is sturdy...and not that hard for people like Habitat for Humanity to put up by the thousands...

Way to go.

HB

 

[PeterInBrat]

Wondering if coconut charcoal is being made on the island anywhere??

 

[PeterInBrat]

Getting back to emergency housing, I was looking at a Haiti website and one guy was offering to make temp shelters out of imported prime pressure treated wood for about US$1500. No floor or walls, using local labor.

http://shelterhaiti2010.googlegroups.com/attach/73758e6ad1eaafd0/Ptype+A.jpg?view=1&part=4&hl=en

Sorry not impressed.

Too hard for locals to build, too many exotic parts and WAY too expensive for what it is. I'd like to know how long it took them to build this prototype. Kind of chuckled when I saw they had made a CAD drawing of the thing.

Appropriate Technology, Haiti is calling you.

 

[Hillbilly]

Not too impressive.
There have to be better options.

HB

 

[PeterInBrat]

Here is one of the designs they have:

http://shelterhaiti2010.googlegroup...EWmeV4duv6pDMGhhhZdjQlNAw&view=1&part=4&hl=en

Nice they have an electrical plan. Now all they need is electricity. For the price of one of those units you could built 20 basic units. Come to think of it you could prob put up a house or two for the cost of the CAD work. These guys need to get out into the country and see what reality is in Haiti.

 

[Hillbilly]

You can't fault the design. I think the cost factor is more of a deterrent to building manyu of them...

Remember, there are more than a millionhomeless in Haiti as I write this..

HB

 

[PeterInBrat]

Remember, there are more than a millionhomeless in Haiti as I write this..

If I were there, this is what I would be cranking out. I'd rework the pallet idea into this:

Two or these would make one 4'wide arch and they would need 20-30 nails to connect one half arch to the other. I'd prob use 3x3 for the verticals and 1x4s for the cross sections. Two or three people could carry a half arch so if you built them onsite with raw materials with a jig they could be carried for a hundred yards or so. 8 half arches would make an open ended structure with the ends to be filled in by the resident and covered with some kind of sheating. With a tin roof to tie the units together, it would be VERY strong. The width of the roof would be determined by how long precut corrugated is.

 

[woofsback]

it's an idea

these designs look better that some of the places i've seen and i've been to the back woods of the dr.

wouldn't it be feasible for the government to start using them?...would go a long way to building some credibility with the people...wouldn't be as expensive as most projects.....would create jobs...might even get a little respect from the citizens

 

[PeterInBrat]

These are suppose to be temporary housing. Using pressure treated or any kind of wood in the tropics is a bad idea for anything long-term, esp when you look at the cost of importing wood. For small government buildings, I'm more into the idea of converted refridgerator container with air conditioners, esp since they can be put on the back of a truck and moved whenever they need to put in a field office. We even had the local DMV in Vermont made from one and I worked in a kitchen where our large cooler and prep rooms were made from them.

I've seen the shacks in the country too. The old style buildings with rotting palm slab sides and the thatched roofs. They used to have them in small towns until not too long ago, but with concrete floors.

Right now they just need some kind of roof over their heads that they can upgrade into something sturdy by hurricane season. A "typical" 20' x 20' Dominican house with reinforced cinderblock walls, a concrete slab floor, a thatched roof and a flush toilet. would be a dream home for most Haitians.

 

[PeterInBrat]

I spent about 2 months staying with my Dominican GF and I was perfectly content to have no hot water, no fridge, a one burner range, very finite electric and a shower that consisted of a 5 gallon bucket with a hose that took five minutes to fill the bucket. I considered the flush toilet she had to be a nice perk, really.

We get so jaded. In the third world, any day where your kids go to bed healthy and well fed is a good day. Everything else is gravy.

I'm a big believer that any tech you bring into Haiti has to readily accessible by the locals. If you need "experts" to build a house out of materials that can't be bought on the island, there isn't much hope for long term success. Whatever is being built by the aid workers, they should also be willing to live in for their stay.

The Dominican dream house is funny. My dad worked in Haiti in the 70s with the Peace Corps trying to introduce adobe construction. The problem was that even in Haiti, any building made out of mud is considered to be for the poorest peasants. He was making mud bricks with manure and straw and the locals wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted cinderblocks then, and they want cinderblocks now.

One movie I really like is "The Fog of War." MacNamara describes how the US failed in numerous endevours because they didn't develop any empathy with the nation they were invading. The peace corp failed with the adobe because they didn't understand the stygma of living in a "mud hut," Sisbly failed to see the concern about taking children out of Haiti and these architect aid workers are wanting to build houses that are far beyond what most Haitians expect or their ability to build on their own. What they need and want now is quantity. Quality can come later. They are so desperate, they may even give adobe a chance...

 

[PeterInBrat]

The gambrel could also have a permanent structure built under it. Few Haitians can afford to build a cinderblock wall all at once. This a big advantage with the pitched walls. They could build it over a year or two and then lower the roof section onto the walls: The side panels could then be used somewhere else: