An Industrial Concept for the BoP: Affordable Fire and Earthquake Resistant Houses

By Peter Rossi, Controls

An Industrial Concept for the BoP: Affordable Fire and Earthquake Resistant Houses

The recent earthquakes show that not earthquakes are killing most people but the insufficient built houses.

Glass reinforced pipes are very popular in the gas, oil and water industry as they are heat resistant, lightweight and almost indestructible. They consist of sand (50%) polyester resin (30%) and glass fiber (20%).

With diameters up to 4 m and cut to length of 3 m they can be used as the safe walls of a house when erected vertically and inserted 0.5 m deep into the soil and refilled up to ground level. The round shape is wind resistant and the roof made of half pipes collect the precious rainwater and stores it in tanks for domestic use and irrigation. Also the shape of the roof made of halfpipes has practical no wind resistance and it isfixed with f.e. bamboo ropes.

These houses cannot be torched, withstand earthquakes and even at tsunamis they would “swim”away but not destroyed. By the lightweight of the elements the houses are deployable.

Transportation of the tube elements to the site are normally done by trucks in containers, the larger diameters has to be sliced to fit in.

A larger family house consisting of 3 living rooms diam. 4 m, 1 kitchen diam. 2 m, 1 toilet diam. 2 m with roof and water storage tank can be produced for about $ 10’000 and last almost forever. Smaller house complex are cheaper of course. A warranty of min. 50 years in the pipeline industry in hot and arid ambient is standard.

A larger investment in such a production plant is a blessing for every country as besides the house elements the same plant can produce any length of pipes for fresh and waste water transportation

Technology fights poverty!

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