Community Buildings Construction
The Church does not only build church buildings – Schools, Hospitals, Clinics, Orphanages and Emergency Relief Buildings are often the work of a church or other religious body.
At REIDsteel, we export well over half of our work worldwide, often to the more remote parts of the world. We can help you design and build simple, economical, high quality, long life community buildings that are easy to construct and to maintain.
We at REIDsteel like to keep up the local content, particularly where there is a shortage of funds to import goods, and an under-employed local workforce.
We like to design and make steel building structures and roofing. These can economically provide a strong, leak proof, earthquake resistant roof with structural support for the walls (and floors, galleries, balconies and stairs).
Building Dimensions
- It is advisable to consider the lengths that can be put into 20′ ISO containers – 5.85m. It is surprising that specifiers so frequently ask for 6m or 20′, the most difficult and expensive lengths to ship.
- We must also think of the local labour: masonry is realatively cheap up to 2.4m high, after which, becomes more expensive and dangerous as the height increases.
- Spans of 5.5m, 11m, 22m are best; bays of 5.8m or 5.5m are cheap and easy and 2.4m is usually high enough for schools, clinics etc.
Design
- Making housing or school rooms in blocks of 4 back to back and semi detached makes the best use of our materials and local materials, while giving everyone a fair share of external walls for lighting and doors.
Construction in tropical regions
- Building with overhangs and water tankAll tropical areas benefit from overhangs to keep the midday sun off the windows.
- Gutters are not normally needed, as there is usually no drainage system to remove the water.
- Where water is scarce, gutters should be fitted with water taken to tanks. These can be elevated off the ground to give water pressure for flow.
- It is easy to fit solar panels to steel roofs to allow battery charging for light or computers.
- It is easy to fit water heat exchangers for a warm bath.
- Buildings in tropical areas should have ridge ventilation and white sheeting, combined with ventilation through the lower parts of block walls.
Grain Stores
- We have made grain stores in many countries. These include grain stores in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Mozambique. One of them, the greatest Grain Store in Africa, was in Ethiopia.
Whatever your need is, REIDsteel have probably met and overcome cost effectively your construction problem. Ask REIDsteel first.
