Projects & Case Studies Cua

Cua

Cua House, Venezuela

Click on the image to view the slideshow of a development in CĂșa, Miranda State, Venezuela built by the Engineer Augusto Corrales. Sr. Corrales is a developer of larger scale projects, having built more than one thousand houses in the past few years. Two of his trusted engineers worked with our company for two weeks in Barinas, to learn how to build with CEB blocks. Soon afterwards, they built a demonstration house with this system at the site where Sr. Corrales already had constructed 300 houses using cement blocks. Their intention for doing so was:

1. To determine the present cost of CEB construction in comparison to building with concrete blocks, and

2. Observe the reaction of potential buyers for this style of construction.

The results were totally unexpected: The house built with compressed earth blocks reduced the cost of construction by 20% using the same floor plan and area used previously but with concrete blocks. The overall reduction of cost included using a wood ceiling instead of metal panels and ceramic tile floors instead of concrete floors. The reaction was that people much preferred the new CEB designed house. Sr. Corrales was then obligated to price the CEB house (even though it cost 20% less to build) 15% higher than the concrete block houses because otherwise he would be unable to sell the remaining concrete houses!


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