Construction Watch

MaximsNewsNetwork: 10 July 2010 – UN MINUSTAH: Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Months after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, local and international engineers work with Haitians to improve construction standards and built better houses in the country. A team made of national and international engineers under the authority of Ministry of Public Works is now running practical tests in order to make a universal guidelines. They came to Haiti shortly after the earthquake, in cooperation with Pan American Development Fund. For engineers of Miyamoto International, specialized in reconstructing earthquake engineering, all the details matter. These guidelines should allow masons throughout Haiti to build and repair the damaged houses in a uniformed and standardized way. The goal is to use material such as cement blocks, iron and mortar available to local masons: technology also needs to be accessible to everyone so that even small business masons are capable of building safer buildings. The sand is another issue as its not the kind that can be used as a building material. Haitian masons also have a habit of using inadequate amount of cement and and then mixing it with too much water. The good measure appears to be three buckets of sand, one bucket of cement mixed with half bucket of water. That makes mortar as strong as recommended by international norms of construction. Masons also need to wet blocks before placing them in the wall. That will make the wall even more solid. After …