Members, buying already made bricks and making your own, which is most cost effective/cheaper?. If you have an idea please advice

mekn ur own z beta but a big tym consumer.
yeah time consuming and I can imagine not very easy these days i.e. finding firewood etc
esp the firewood yes. watch out the rains!!
yes indeed, right now isnt a good time with the rains about to come...

Modding of bricks its cheaper but currently u just need buy

and why is that James, because of the rain? Guys, do you save a substantial amount when u mold them yourself? say u mold 40,000 bricks, is the difference in expenditure a big one in comparison with buying 40,000 bricks...because if the difference is small then one might as well just buy and save themselves the trouble of molding...

let me lay it down 4 u just did abt 55,000, in my case, molding costed K00.50/brick, water costed K00.25/brick. the issue that determines the overall cost is the firewood. In my case i was late and the pple do kno that u ll buy what ever the case since u afraid to lose out when the rains come. In my case 50,000 bricks = makomo 4, i was told i needed 10 tonnes of F-wood, 1st quote i got was K21,000 for a 10 tonne + aganyu okadula + transport, i opted to move around and just buy already preped wood, well it was crazy found lots of 7 tonnes, got 2, 1st lot K13,500 (chilengedwe trees) + 2nd lot K11,500 (mango and malaina) + transport two trips K17,000.00. now building the damn uvuni, K7,500, kumanga jekete K3,000, kuotcha K800/khomo = K3,200.00. Overall 55,000 bricks ended costing me around 100 - 125 (K1.00 - K1.25/brick) grand factoring in my car Gas + airtime in supervising the whole job. now this is nt a true reflection since i was doing it ku mudzi heavy, in town pple will tell u just molding K1/brick thats ok as long as u negotiate kuti madzi akhale awo. what you should do is to factor in the current cost yogula in ur ares say K4/brick, then ur after zonse should be atleast 40% cheaper. coz if u ll move the brick to some location u ll have to add in atleast K1.5/brick as transport. In my case a brick costed me K1.25/brick if i factor in transport say @ K1.50 that will bring my total cost to K2.75 to my project site, while buying would cost me K3.50 + K1.50 transport = K5/brick. On the other hand if u have money its better to buy but u ll have to make sure that u r moving the brick in a truck minimu 7,000 bricks/trip since u ll save on transport if u move alot at once. eg, a sm1 is buying brick frm chiradzulu to nyambadwe, buying K2.5 transport K25,000/10,000 bricks (K2.5/brick) giving the total price to K5.00. personally i think its easy to mold since u wont have to have a lot of money when doing it amatapa heavy by the time u done u wont even realize u have spent 100 grand...good luck

if you have the funds ,just buy the bricks and start building.making
the bricks is time consurming.

wow, thanks alot Darlington for sharing your experience it helps alot!!!!! and thanks also Betty! I think now I can make an informed decision :)

u welcome!

Thats a serious breakdown Darlington Chimutu.

Thanks these are the discussions we hope to have in this discussion, that will not only inform but also assist people as they make decisisons, thanks Darlington Chimutu for this

perfect analysis thanks. If you have money and want to build in a hurry Villa you might wish to buy...i explored both options really wanted to mould koma nkhani ya diesel imanditopetsa. Also in town the cost is K1.50 - K2 per brick kuumba. I am gllad - very informative discussion.

is also cumbersome, and too involving!... kulongolola with those guys, you need to visit them now and then.. koma with the rains just buy. and do so now because zikwera mtengo very soon ndi mvulayi mitengo ikwera.

If you will mould them right on your plot You will save on transport. It is better to mould. If you have to mould them elsewhere and then transport to your plot, it is not very economic. Whether you buy or mould the difference to the whole project is minimal. The most expensive items on a house are cement, reinforcement and finishes.This is where you should spend energy on how to save.

We recently bot 60,000.00 bricks from St Theresa, Chiradzulu @ k1.90 per brick,transport was K20,000.00/ten thousand bricks.The cost of 1 brick was therefore K3.90 and total cost K234,000.00. The transport cost included aganyu wokweza ndi kutsitsa.koma anthu ambiri ku njerwako amakana kugulitsa njerwa zawo coz akufuna kukweza kuti zifike pa K3/brick.

I want to know if there is anybody who makes cement blocks. I would like to build mpanda using these

I dont know about blocks now with the increases in the cost of cement. And the issue of transporting Mchenga to site wont it cost just as much

In Kanengo there is a woman who makes these a Mrs Thombozi and inBlantyre at Chirimba Industrial Area there is a company can't just remember the name.

The last time I checked they were K10 each

Chabi's Construction has got the molds and capacity to mold concrete blocks. If you're creative, you can actually make the mold yourself. I recall one of my projects earlier this year (new Total filling station in Zomba) used only 3,000 blocks (1 bag of OPC mixed with quarry dust produced apprx 90 hollow blocks using mix of 1:10)for the entire building and it took 2 weeks to put up the walls. However, follow Engineer Greshom Sichinga's advice and "count the cost" of the whole project to see where substantial savings can be made. For those building houses, extensions, consider use of alternative walling materials e.g. cement sand blocks, stabilised soil blocks (SSB's). If you do chose to buy mold your own bricks and transport them to site, factor in 40% loss/breakages due to transportation and handling...

much as am not sure abt the cost in cement blocks, but the idea is great, faster and risk free. Plus guys, if we go cement blocks we go Green! I support the Motion. Its a go.

i wud also suggest that those that r close or work with Terrastone in Chirimba cud hav a beta idea, they mould these. Another guy hu can build a shopping mall without using a single *brick is Ian Sonke, the former MP. If anyone can cox this brain to ths platform we wil gain alot. #justanidea#

i think we should indeed look into concrete blocks, Washington U Chimuzu thanx man 4 the input i ll mos def look into this...

take note that kumanga cement and lime have also proved successful as alternatives to OPC in stabilized soil blocks (SSB's). Kumanga is cheaper than OPC and can actually be used in production of concrete blocks.

True that Washington. Will look for Jap he is on facebook

a very beneficial discussion guys, thanks alot!

Cool enough, remember your supervision in moulding the bricks costs you alot of productive time. I put it at 12.5% of the total cost...the only unfortunate thing is that we most of the times do not cost this element. However, moulding will give you an opportunity to come up with similar and properly sized bricks for yoor project. I'd prefer buying provided you are good at chosing the right qualuty bricks


You could also build the corners with Cement blocks and the space in between could be filled with a wall made of soil and cement( say 1:15) The structure will be quite safe if done properly. You can make your partitions with board and insulation which will allow you to modify the size of your rooms later.

This is a good discussion. I am looking for a plot in the NRC area and if I do get it, this analysis by Darlington will surely help in decision making when we start building. Thanks

can u get me in touch with Chabi Construction I m serious about the cement blocks The headache of buying Bricks and transport cost, loading and offloading, the costs pile up. My project is in LL around bunda turn off so everything has to around that area. I just need someone who has actually made those blocks to train my boys using the right mixture of sand quarry and cement

moulding your own is the best.. the size is bigger, no tpt cost bola nkhuni zokwanira basi

, am checking out the pamodziinvestment group, very impressive stuff!

I like this discussion. My observation, however, is that in the longterm, the one moulding is well-off. You have an opportunity to produce the type of brick you want. Have you ever compared the commercial bricks with the ones people do for their own use? 3 lines built with commercial bricks may be equal to 2 build with your own bricks. What does that tell you about cement consumption, time spent building e.t.c. I, therefore, insist that moulding has longterm advantages than buying.

, you can contact Chabi's Construction via chabiscon@globemw.net

Moulding bricks is very labour intensive. Bola kugula zopangapanga and you will ony buy the good ones. While when you mould your own you might run the risk ya oven osapsya or alot of breakages. In my view bola kugula.

Thanks for the info

Ladies and Gentlemen this is very informative..keep that info coming.

High rentals in Lilongwe

Finding a house in Lilongwe has become a nightmare, not only for people moving into the city but also for the residents. This is mainly due to the high rates of urbanisation the city is experiencing. There are other reasons that are fuelling the growth of the problem.

The reasons are numerous yet, the most pertinent one relates to the current Government’s decision to restore the capital city status to the City of Lilongwe, thus ensuring that all the Ministers and the President himself be operating from Capital Hill. This move alone meant that all the houses that were on the market were snapped up. Ordinary people like you and me started to compete with a landlord whose stature is government and that is no competition at all.

Following that, other companies like Zain have moved their headquarters to Lilongwe and their employees have to be guaranteed housing; they too compete for the house on the market and are able to support tenants who can manage 6 months upfront payments. International NGOs that were based in Blantyre like World Vision, Oxfam, and Habitat for Humanity have also moved to Lilongwe and this is also coupled by the growth of local NGOs (mostly headquartered in Lilongwe).
Over the past few years Malawi has had a few countries (France, Japan, and Iceland, amongst others) establishing their embassies and they are all based in Lilongwe, this is the same with several bi-lateral organisations who have also established offices in the capital. The growth of the economy has also created its own opportunities that have attracted entrepreneurs who are snapping up all the available homes and these include international citizens who now call Lilongwe home.

But that is just the demand side of the housing issue. Lilongwe City is a very young City having been declared as such in 1975, and has most of its suburbs and housing stock being developed in the 1970s and 80s under the stewardship of the Capital City Development Cooperation and the Malawi Housing Corporation. This is the time of the Area 18 ndidamanga fame and all the other recognisable suburbs were developed, and all this was done with the public servants in mind.
During this time, the Malawi Housing Cooperation and later the Lilongwe City Council was also opening up areas that are currently called the Traditional Housing Areas (THAs) where the poor could be housed at very low cost using traditional materials. Unfortunately, the pace of this kind of housing provision that was pub lic sector driven almost came to a halt in the late 1990’s when the Government embarked on the controversial home ownership scheme.

You might wonder why I’m calling it controversial. It’s because when Government decided to offload most of its housing stock to the sitting tenants, there was no programme whatsoever to go towards replacing such homes, thus supplying more homes into the market so as to meet demand. One might also say it’s not Government’s job to construct housing for its people. That is true; Government’s role is to facilitate the process. Unfortunately, the process of ensuring that serviced land is available to the populace has been very slow and when done, the job has been left halfway through, with people being allocated plots with neither roads nor any other essential service. This has not been conducive to the quick provision of housing that can meet the rising demand. A layman’s comparison of the housing status in the city of Lilongwe with that of Blantyre City, the number of suburbs in Blantyre is way more than that of Lilongwe yet the population is more or less the same.

There hasn’t been a paradigm shift on housing provision as we still expect a house to be on a plot. As land is finite, it is high time as a nation we started developing high rise buildings that will provide housing at a faster pace but also closer to the existing services. In the past few years, individuals have begun driving the process of house provision albeit at a very slow pace due to the challenges mainly revolving around failure to provide serviced land by the authorities especially the Department of Lands and the Malawi Housing Cooperation that have been tasked with providing land for the middle and high income bracket of the society. Before the astronomical rates of urbanisation, the Lilongwe City Council was ably providing plots to the poor in such areas as Chilinde, Area 25 amongst others and the poor were reached. With the high rates of urbanisation and demand for the plots by all sectors of the economy even the THA plots are now being invaded by the middle income (case in point being Area 25 Sector 3,). The people being ingenious as they are have also found ways of housing themselves and the solution has been found outside the formal housing areas and this is mainly in the outskirts of the city. This is working for both the rich and the poor. We now have slums for the poor and those for the rich in the City of Lilongwe and that has formed a ring around the city and for the rich the concentration is along the major highways especially the Lilongwe to Blantyre route and the Mchinji Road. In this area multi-million dollar homes have been constructed on mainly communal lands where the villagers in these areas have sold off their fields for very little only to realise that they sold the golden geese.

For the poor though, traditional areas like Mtandile, Mbayani, and Chinsapo remain popular for housing provision and the midhadhas in the THAs continue to provide housing for the multitudes.

Housing crises for the urban poor in Malawi

(This is a re-post about to close the other blog)

Thursday, June 14, 2007
Housing crises for the urban poor in Malawi

Malawi is one of the highest urbanising countries in the world but with very little on the ground to alleviate the plight of the thousands of new immigrants into the cities and towns of Malawi such that the bulk of the people are living in deplorable condititons and the conditions are worsening. I guess someone could say that this is a phenomenon that is happening throughout the world but i guess around the world is urbanised whilst Malawi is not. It means that everything that can go haywire will, with informal settlements growing at huge rates and the slightly better off following on these people and displacing them, we are calling it salient evictions whilst the planners and the other professionals call it gentrification. If one was to look at the developments happening in Mchesi, 25, Kawale, Biwi etc the poor are definately on the move, to where, no one knows i guess there is need for a study on this but who would institute such a study, seems as if no one really cares anyway back to the issue, currently an average of 12 househols stay in one plot and when the landlord sales off the plot to a low middle income family (usually working with the Bank or kufodya (tobacco) they build one family home usually 3 bedrooms (mes) with a single quarters thus qualitatively 2 households displaces 12. The major problem is that most of these neighbourhoods are in close proximity to the sources of employment where people simply walk to work. As this is happening there are very few legal areas that are coming up for the poor to move to, very few though go back home as the bulk start renting usually in other low income communities. These issues are not just confined to Lilongwe, its throughout the country in all the cities, towns and small centres and as many more people move into the urban setting the problems are geared to get worse.

Its not all gloom though as the Malawi government is currently one of the most receptive in the SS region as it wants to be pro-active but i guess all the parameters are not in place for this to start making a difference especially for the people who have been waiting for over 43 years since Kamuzu Banda put shelter as one of the 3 basic needs that his people needed.

There is more though that can be done, but at this rate the problem far outweighs the solutions and if one was to look at countries with relatively bigger economies like Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa struggling with the housing problems one shudders on the thoughts of what will happen in Malawi where the problem is expected to be bigger and the poverty conditions to be worser.