Good news for builders as Nigerite unveils new housing solution
For builders either erecting new houses or renovating an existing ones, it is a new dawn as a new housing solution has been introduced into the property market by Nigerite, Nigeria’s leading building materials manufacturer.
Kalsi, as the new product is called, comes in many variants for ceiling, walling, cladding and flooring, and according to Nigerite officials, it has a lot of advantages especially its cost and time efficiency.
Adewale Ogungbe, Nigerite’s head of construction unit, explained at the launch of the product recently that building with Kalsi saves for the builder about 20 percent of the cost of building with other materials, adding that the product has exceptional speed with over 60 percent efficiency.
Ogungbe explained further that Kalsi Boards were manufactured with an autoclave technology coming from the international experience of the Etex companies worldwide.
“All Kalsi boards are made from cement, quartz sand, cellulose, natural calcium silicates and water and processed by autoclave (drying process under high pressure and temperature) for durability and dimensional stability”, he said, adding, “building with Kalsi is simple and requires simple and portable tools; installation time for Kalsi solutions can be one fifth of what is required for a block wall”.
He said that the product has been used in many project sites, disclosing that they had used it for the development of a 24-unit estate in Abuja which took just two months to complete and deliver.
According to him, Kalsi Boards are environmentally friednly and safe, explaining that the nature of the dry construction makes it the safest system to be installed in areas of high seismic activity. “The solutions made with Kalsi boards are able to withstand earthquakes and building settlements without being a threat for their occupants”, he added.
Frank Le Bris, Nigerite’s Managing Director, said the manufacturing of Kalsi Boards is a huge project on which they were investing about N1.8 billion for both equipment procurement and staff training. “We have invested more than N1.8 billion which goes into equipment procurement, training, in Europe, China etc. It is going to be a high level production in Nigeria. We are looking at April next year to start production”, he assured.
He noted that the recent devaluation of the naira was going to affect them in terms of production cost, explaining that they would be needing some fibre which could not be sourced locally, so they would have to import with high exchange rate.
Le Bris hoped that with this product, the problem of housing deficit in Nigeria could be addressed significantly, saying, “I would advise the Federal Government to team up with us in its bid to solve the problem of housing deficit in this country. When government subsidises low income housing, with Kalsi, one-bedroom apartment could come down to as low as N800,000 which is good for low income earners”.
CHUKA UROKO