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construction mud bricks

juliensmets
related country: Congo

I am looking for (construction) ideas to improve the drying of freshly made mud bricks during the rainy season in the "Bas Congo" Julien


1 Answer

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I'm guessing these are sun dried bricks, and the area is to large to be covered with a roof or more temporary cover (plastic)? Do we know what percentage of the drying time needs to be exposed to full sun?

I have seen bricks stacked and covered with polythene for drying in Indonesia - are the bricks sufficiently strong when wet to be stacked?

How open is the community to change - could you introduce something like compressed earth block (which can then be stacked dried as above)?

Comments

yes these are compressed earth blocks, I am still trying to find out what the production process looks like. In the rainy season the relative humidity is very high, slowing down the drying process. I am thinking of a shelter with open roof to create a natural ventilation, speeding up the drying time and protecting the blocks against the rains. I never did that before, so I am looking for similar experiences, low cost construction ideas, ..., Julien

juliensmets gravatar imagejuliensmets ( 2014-12-07 10:57:35 )

I would wonder whether solar drying would be more effective than natural ventilation. Even with really high humidity, if they get a hot sunny day, then I would expect things would dry out pretty quickly. If they are stacking the bricks, then they would have to lay the bricks out for the last few % of moisture removal.

bones49 gravatar imagebones49 ( 2014-12-09 05:56:48 )
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Asked:
2014-12-04 20:26:04
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130 times
Last updated:
Dec 07 '14