The document discusses alternate building materials and their importance. It notes the rising demand for housing is depleting natural resources and polluting the environment. Alternative materials should be locally available, require little skill to manufacture, be durable and energy efficient. The document outlines different types of energy used in building construction, maintenance, demolition, and embodied in materials like bricks, cement and steel. It discusses environmental issues from building materials like deforestation from firewood and pollution from stone and marble dust. The role of transportation in energy and costs is also covered. The document concludes with discussing building technologies appropriate for different climate regions in India.

1. Module 1
INTRODUCTION TO ALTERNATE BUILDING MATERIALS

2. Need for an Alternate Building Materials :
 The demand for building materials has been continuously
rising with the increasing need for housing both in rural and
urban areas.
 The resources used to manufacture construction materials
affect the environment by depleting natural resources and
releasing pollutants to the land, water.
 Commercial exploitation of traditional building materials by
various industries has aggravated the situation.
 For instance a brick house of 50sq-m plinth area will
consumes 5 to 6 tons of firewood for the burning operation
 To meet the demand without environmental degradation and
over exploitation of natural resources, alternative building
materials are needed.

3. Characteristics of alternative building materials:
SHOULD BE:
 Be strong enough for the required purpose
 Be Tolerable in appearance
 Be locally available
 Be easily manufactured (require little skill) and sophisticated machinery
 Be easy to use , energy efficient, durable, cheap, thermal efficient, resistant to moisture, environmental
friendly
 Provide safety

4. ENERGY IN BUILDING MATERIAL AND BUILDING
Construction activities of all types involve expenditures of
energy in one form or the other. It is useful to recognize
different categories of energy consumption in a building and
is may be listed as,
 Energy consumption during building construction
 Energy utilized for Maintenance during the life span of a
building
 Energy spent in demolition of the building at the end of
its life
 Embodied energy in building materials

5. Energy in building material:
 The primary use of energy in building materials is in the production of the
building material. bricks and tiles -burning coal or firewood in kilns. Cement
and lime - heating clay and limestone using coal. Steel- coking coal as the
fuel. In all these cases, the basic energy -thermal energy.
 However, many materials also need mechanical processing through
electrical energy. pugging of clay bricks -electricity. Grinding of raw
materials and clinker -electricity.
 Some materials like sand, essentially need transportation energy for
procurement at site

6. Energy in BuildingBlocks
 Building blocks used for wall construction constitute a
significant component of embodied energy in a building. This is
due to the fact that walls represent the largest volume component
in a building.
 The stabilized mud Block (SMB) is produced by pressing a
mixture of soil, sand and cement in a machine. The example uses
6% cement stabilization.
 The Hollow Concrete Block had 7% cement in the mixture. The
steam cured block is made by pressing lime, soil and fly ash
mixture and curing in a steam chamber. Lime percentage is 10%
of soil and fly ash.

7. Energyin Building
 The total embodied energy in a building depends on the type of
technologies used like RC framed structure construction with brick in-
fill walls, RC roof, Load bearing walls, Mosaic floors etc.

8. ENVIRONMENTALISSUES RELATEDTO BUILDINGMATERIALS
The production of building materials often leads to two types of
environment/health related problems.
 Firstly, a particular building material can lead to a local
environmental impact either in the form of pollution/health or
in the depletion of natural resources.
 Secondly, building materials production using fossil fuel
energies can cause global environmental problems like global
warming.

9. Stone
 Stone, especially granite, is extensively used in building
construction.
 Size stone is often used for foundations and walls. Crushed stone
aggregate is widely used for concrete manufacture.
 Considerable amount of fine granite dust is generated at the site of
stone extraction whether it is manual shaping of stone or
mechanized crushing.
 The stone workers often inhale the fine dust and succumb to
silicosis or tuberculosis after several years of such work.

10. Top soil for Brick
 The top soil is often used for brick making,
especially in the Indogangetic plains.
 It is well known that the top soil is a rich source
of nutrients for trees and crops and this nutrient
base is depleted by large scale brick manufacture
near metropolitan cities.

11. Pollution by marble Dust
The marble processing industry produces large
quantities of fine marble dust which can affect the
usability of agricultural land.
 Additive to cement to make masonry cement.
 Source of calcium carbonate for lime/cement
industry.
 Building products like Stabilized mud Blocks,
marble dust + resin for wash basin.

12. Mangalore Tile
 The extensive use of firewood for making Mangalore tiles in
Coastal India has led to deforestation in the Coastal regions.
 It is possible to use natural gas or coal for tile burning.

13. Timber
 Good quality timber is in short supply in India.
Many a time, attempts are made to replace timber by
concrete or Ferro cement.
 Cement based materials cause depletion of fossil fuels
and excessive carbon emissions leading to global
warming.
 Use of timber also alleviates global warming since the
carbon in timber is stored for a long period.
 Thus, timber is a very environment friendly material,
provided it can be procured without disturbing natural
forests

14. Global warming
 The utilization of fossil fuels like coal and petroleum has been
increasing steadily for more than 200 years, carbon-di-oxide in
the atmosphere which was about 280 ppm at the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, has now reached levels like 354 ppm.
 The importance of buildings in the energy scenario can be
understood by the fact that in the European Union 40% of the
total energy consumption is accounted for by buildings sector.
 It is hence essential to explore ‘Energy Efficient Building
Alternatives’. Here again, two categories of energy efficiency
need to be recognized.
 Firstly, the embodied energy in a building needs to be reduced.
 Secondly, the energy used during the operational life of a building
should be reduced.

15. Global warming
 A building consumes far more energy during
its life time than what is spent during its
construction
 Recent trends in air conditioning buildings in
India can exacerbate the situation since most of
the buildings are poorly insulated and guzzle
lot of energy to maintain thermal comfort.
 Use of Solar Passive cooling concepts and
improved thermal insulation are needed to
mitigate these problems.

16.  A brick vaulted building with simple Solar
Passive Cooling concepts was built in a village
near Bangalore showed significant
improvements in indoor climate with marginal
cost.
 It is perfectly feasible to build 4 to 6 storeyed
than masonry buildings using bricks/blocks
with strengths in the range of 8.0 to 20.0 MPa.
 Hollow-Concrete Blocks or Stabilized Mud
Blocks of 8.0 MPa strength can be easily
obtained with technologies available in India.
 Thus a switch over to masonry of moderate
rise (4 to 6 storeys) can save 30.0 to 40% of
the embodied energy.

17. Role of Transportation in Buildings
 Transportation of building materials to the construction site
contributes to the cost and embodied energy of a building.
 An example, one can explore the issue of sand for building
mortars. The city of Bangalore has exhausted nearby sources of
sand and it has to be imported from distances of more than 100
km.
 Extraction of sand from remote villages is also leading to rapid
deterioration of roads and erosion of river banks due to loss of
protective sand cover.
 In this context, if sandy soils are available locally, stabilization of
the soil by lime and cement can easily produce a mortar with a
short term strength of 2.0 MPa.
ENVIRNOMENTAL FRIENDLY ANDCOSTEFFECTIVE BUILDINGTECHNOLOGIES

18. Efficient Foundations and walls
 Use of stones (size stones or random rubble) is quite common in South
India for foundations of walls.
 Wall construction can be cost effective, if the finish of the masonry unit is
so good as to eliminate plastering.
 There is often a tendency to reduce the thickness of the wall, especially in
framed structures, to achieve cost reduction.
 It must be noted that a wall thickness which is less than 225 mm can lead
to penetration of heat, especially from East and West facing walls.
 The marginal reduction in cost is then accompanied by significant thermal
discomfort in the interior.
 Increased use of fans and coolers will also lead to greater energy
consumption throughout the life of the building.

21. Costs and Energy Efficient Roofing Systems
 A number of efficient roofing alternatives can be considered. Use of
partial or complete prefabrication can lead to efficient use of materials.
 This will also permit combination of two or three different materials for
cost and energy economy. For instance, in a Jack Arch Roofing,
expensive concrete is partially replaced by brick masonry.
 Use of filler slabs, where the tension zone concrete is partly replaced by
SMB or brick is also cost and energy efficient.
 Use of brick domes and vaults can lead to roofing systems which
reduce penetration of solar heat into the building.

23. BUILDINGS IN DIFFERENTCLIMATE REGIONS
The Indian subcontinent has widely varied climatic conditions. Some of the
major categories of climate can be listed as:
 Hot Summer and Cold Winter
 Hot Summer and Moderate Winter
 Hot and Humid
 Moderate Summer and Cold Winter
 Cool Summer and very Cold Winter

24. BUILDINGS IN DIFFERENTCLIMATE REGIONS
 The choice of building technologies/materials depends on the climate
context.
 For instance, hot summer and cold winter occurs in most of North India
and the buildings should use cooling techniques in summer while retaking
the heat in Winter. Well insulated buildings are needed here.
 In the case of hot and Humid environment, air circulation becomes
important to eliminate the discomfort due to humidity.
 In situations like cool summer and very cold winter, where the Winter is
very Cold (like in Ladakh and Sub-Himalayan Regions), use of Winter
heating using Solar Energy becomes important. Concepts like “Trombe
Walls” which use double glazing on the Southern Walls to capture Solar
heat are useful.

25.  Hot Summer and Cold Winter
cooling techniques in summer
while retaking the heat in
Winter

26.  Hot Summer and Moderate Winter
Pune and banglore are examples for hot summer
And moderate winter.

27.  Hot and Humid
Hot and Humid- Coastal climates
of the subtropical regions.
Eg. Southern India, Bali, Thailand etc.

28.  Moderate Summer and Cold Winter

29.  Cool Summer and very Cold Winter

30. Traditional and Vernacular Architecture:
 Use of stone, soil in place of cement mortar going for roofs out of
Mangalore tiles instead of using concrete are the basic materials of
construction.
 The use of conventional methods consumes energy less as the locally
available material is used so it saves on the time and energy on
transportation.
 Lime used to be final coat of paint unlike today’s chemical
constituent matrix in the paint.