Homebuyers find style and substance in prefab houses

Prefabricated house with a shed roof and timber framework in Europe. Photo/FILE 

By DOREEN WAINAINAH, dwainainah@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• Technological refinement, high cost conventional buildings gets families looking at age old practice.

Picturing a prefabricated house is hard in the Kenyan context where stone and mortar buildings are popular with homeowners and property developers. It is hard to think of a prefab as a building with a long life.

But the growing cost of housing and construction, improved technology are helping to lower the cost for the buyer increasing their popularity among home owners.

Not only are new materials being used in the construction of houses in Kenya, but also new techniques.

Prefabricated houses are essentially houses that are pre-made at a factory or different location and assembled on site.

The most common material used is timber, but more recently technology that uses concrete, steel and even polystyrene (EPS) has emerged increasing choice for buyers.

Prefabs have been gaining popularity over the years due to their flexibility, cost efficiency and the limited time it takes to put them up.

A house can take anywhere between three days to six months to set up depending on how intricate the design is, the size and the materials being incorporated into the structure. This compares favourably compared to the conventional method of stone and mortar.

One of the biggest nightmares new home owners face during the construction phase of their houses is overshooting the budget.

This is usually due to loss of material, shifty contractors and the completion date that keeps being pushed back further and further, making that house but a dream, and an expensive one at that.

“With prefabs, you not only save on labour costs, but there is also no loss of material as the basic blocks of the structure are done in controlled environment like a factory,” says Lekina Tutui, project manager of Zen House at Zenith Steel Prefabricators limited.

Zen House is an insulated concrete block—Styrofoam encased in two layers of concrete—to make up the walls and steel columns which make up the support of the house. Using the technology, the building can go up to over twenty storeys and as wide as the client wishes.

The technology is similar to that used by state corporation NHC, save for the fact that they use expandable polystyrene between the concrete blocks.

The project by NHC, which is being used in the construction of police houses, is a cost cutting measure to provide affordable housing for Kenyans, an initiative by the government.

Wooden or timber prefabs are the most commonly known and used in Kenya. Economic Housing Group (EHG) and Timsales are some of the companies that have been involved in the setup of these houses.

Jackson Majani, EHG’s sales manager, said prefabs have become more sophisticated over the years, with clients opting for houses as large as six-bedroomed and some going up a storey or two