IIT Madras innovates Eco-Friendly Low-Cost Houses
Posted on: 18/Sep/2018 5:57:55 PM
IIT Madras has come out with an innovative design in house construction - environment-friendly as well as lower construction cost! In fact, it is possible to construct a 500 sq ft house in Rs. 7 Lakhs.
The new technology, developed by IIT Madras and known as ‘GFRG’ has gained popularity to build quality constructions at lower costs.
This development is a boon, especially for the middle-class section of the society residing in suburban areas.
With the substantial and growing population in India, the demand for houses also grown day-by-day. However, the prices of the essential construction material such as cement and rod have sky-rocketed and still keep rising. So, the construction cost is also astronomically high. Thus, the ambition/desire for an ‘own house’ remains a distant dream for the larger section of the population. With the current financial emergencies, the central government is also unable to construct and provide houses for the citizens.
In this scenario, IIT Madras embarked on a research to build quality constructions at low costs without affecting the environment.
The professors and the research students of the structural engineering section of the Civil Engineering Department undertook the research for this in the year 2003.
Based on the Australian Technology, the Structural Engineering research team came up with the innovation of GFRG – Glass Fibre Reinforced Gypsum in the year 2013.
Model’ construction has been built inside the IIT Chennai Complex using this technology. Some professors have been residing in these houses with their families. They had encountered 2 severe cyclones including ‘Varda’ and the great floods in Chennai during 2015 which the construction has withstood.
Professors Devadas Menon and Meher Prasad, from the Structural Engineering section of the IIT Chennai Civil Engineering Department,, shared their experience:
The main ingredient of the innovation of GFRG is gypsum. Presently, India has a stock of 65 million tons of gypsum. The wall is built in the production plant with the basic ingredients of gypsum, These are then brought to the construction site and the houses are built with care and quality.
As the construction is made without guiders (Uthiram) or pillar supports, the available interior area goes up. The average thickness of the wall in the normal buildings is 9 inches. However, under GFRG technology, the wall thickness is only 5 inches.
Building a house with present technology costs around Rs. 2000 per square foot. However, with GFRG, it costs only from Rs. 1250 to Rs. 1500.
As the requirement of sand and rods get reduced in this technology, the construction cost comes down by 20%. It is possible to construct a house of 500 sq ft with Rs. 7 Lakhs.
Normally, it takes around 6 months to 1 year to complete constructing a house. With GFRG technology, the construction can be done within a month! The life of the construction is around 70 Years. The construction will not be affected by nature’s furies such as an earthquake, etc. The construction is so so strong and of high quality.
We constructed a house in Chennai IIT and 5 hostels asas 4-storeyed buildings in IIT Andhra. Several independent houses have been constructed in Bengaluru.
36 houses have been constructed in Nellore, Andhra. On the whole, around 1000 new constructions have been completed with this technology in South India.
With these developments, this technology has now gained huge popularity.
Several leading construction organizations such as CREDAI, Indian Builders’ Association, etc., have reviewed and analysed about the adoption of this new technology.
The most prominent positive development among all is that for the construction of new building in the heavily-flood affected Kerala State, they have given priority to our technology.
In a situation demanding houses for 12000 people, the customers were granted Rs. 5 lakhs apiece to construct 1500 houses. Out of this, 500 houses will be our constructed using GFRG technology. If the other customers desire, we can give our technology free.
It is worth noting here that during the floods in Aanaichaal village in Idukki district, the houses constructed using GFRG technology in this area were not at all affected by the landslide.
