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Why you may need to invest in a brick making machine
Machines such as this one can save construction sites a lot of money. PHOTO/Phionah Nassanga
What you need to know:
Whether to make your brick or buy already made ones is a debate that has existed for ages. There are merits associated with making one’s own bricks, especially if one has invested in a machine.
One clay brick costs Shs250. If one needed 10,000 clay bricks you are likely to spend Shs2.5m. Yet with a brick making machine you can actually make your own bricks at the construction site thus cutting the costs.
According to Alex Ssemudu of Makiga Appropriate Technologies, who deals in brick making machines, unlike before, the cost of bricks should not scare anyone that wants to put up a building. He says investing in a brick making machine is cheaper compared to buying them from a brick maker.
Revealing that for a three bedroomed house, you might need about 8,176, bricks, but if your plan per square is seven blocks, this will cost you about Shs20.5m.
Why a machine?
One may wonder, if all one wants is a beautiful house, why then should they invest in a brick machine? Tony Matovu, a dealer in brick machines at Katwe, says owning a brick machine is cost saving. Because where you would spend, Shs150, 000 to Shs300, 000 on transport, you will need two to three men to operate the machine. Spending less than Shs150, 000 on their labour yet in a day they can produce 400 to 500 bricks. And in less than a week you are in position to produce more than 1,000.
“You may make plenty of bricks in the shortest time possible when using a brick machine. It also makes sense to make your personal bricks if you must use a lot of them, especially with the construction of a perimeter wall,” Matovu explains.
According to Ssemudu, investing in brick machines, especially the interlocking machine, is cheap since no cement is needed on the joints. Any sub red soil from your compound can be used for example soil found after excavating a pit latrine. No transport costs and no breakages since blocks are made at site.
Types of machines
Ssemudu mentions that there are different types of brick machines, but the commonly used ones are the non- interlocking soil blocks. “These make more than 500 bricks daily. While making the bricks the soil has to be mixed with a little cement.”
The hydraulic brick making machine can produce clay bricks with high strength and density, and with a good shape. It can produce about 700bricks per day. The interlocking machine is also capable of producing approximately 500 standard size blocks in an eight hour day.
Matovu says the cost of each of the mentioned machine varies depending on where one buys it.
“Different people sell the different machines differently and this is because of the location and the make. Some are made from Uganda while others are imported.”
However, he says the best machine to use should be manual because most of these range between Shs3.5m to Shs4.5m. And this is because these only require simple maintenance such as oiling and cleaning. And when properly used, they can serve for more than 10 years. All you need is to replace a roller every after two to three years which costs Shs20, 000.
For all the machines any sub red soil with a little cement can be used to make the number and quality of bricks you want.
