After having decided to build a not so small pump house, we wondered if we should stretch our budget a little bit and go for eco friendly construction material. We have always wondered how it would be to live in a house constructed with mud bricks. Many say that it not only is eco friendly for several reasons, but also helps moderate temperature inside the house, keeping it cool during summers and warm during winters. We have only heard of the advantages but never experienced. We visited a couple of farmers who built their houses with mud bricks, but a one or two day experience does not tell you much. So we decided to build an eco friendly pump house and experience it ourselves.


Some of the advantages of using mud bricks, other than maintaining good temperature inside the house include not needing any cement for the construction of the walls. Basically the mud blocks will be interlocking and bricks are layered one on top of the other and no cement is used to bind them together. The stacked weight is supposed to hold them in place. Since we were going for only one floor, we don’t need any pillars. The bricks walls are load bearing by themselves. In fact when we talked to various people, they said that we could build 2 floors without any pillars. The mud block walls are supposed to be able to bear the weight of 2 floors. Another advantage is that the walls need not be plastered with cement. They will just be bare bricks all over. The corners will be pointed with cement though. For those of you who are having difficulty imagining (I sure did) how it would look like, below is an example image.


Source: Deccan Herald


After having decided on an eco friendly house, we started calling up contractors who have experience building such houses. Their rates were exorbitant to say the least. Eventually we found a couple of contractors who would do for a price that fits in our budget. Unfortunately both of them have very little experience having constructed only two houses earlier and both did not complete those projects. Not a good sign at all. The online reviews for one of the contractor was not good, but we anyway called him up and asked for references. He gave one and we called that person, but we felt like we are talking to a friend of the contractor :). We asked photos of the construction work they have done and both contractors sent us some pictures.


The constructor with poor reviews, uses more eco friendly materials which we liked. Basically, not only does he use compressed stabilized earth bricks, but for the roof, instead of using iron bars in the slab, this guy uses bamboo. However, we were not sure of the quality of the roofs with bamboo and did not want to take a risk, especially for the roof of a house. What if it starts leaking etc. Then there is that online review which scared us a little bit. Moreover, the reference he gave did not seem genuine. The final nail in the coffin was that he was asking for 80% payment upfront which we found to be quite risky. The other contractor was asking for payments by phases.


Another contractor was also quoting us a similar price, but he was planning to use regular iron rods for slab. The rest of the house will be built using compressed stabilized earth bricks. We asked if he would use metal sheet or some other more eco friendly roofing material instead of cement slab. He was willing to do it. He worked only on 2 other projects using the eco friendly material. One of which was for his relative which was completed and he sent us the photos. Another was for a friend, but he left the project mid way because the friend ran out of money. These were not good signs, but one thing was sure. He was being very honest with everything. He is running the business along with his sisters who were financing and he was doing the field work.


After a lot of discussions with the person on the phone we decided to go with the contractor. But before he can give an estimate he wanted to see our farm so he can decide if he can do it or not. So we sent him the location to checkout our place. Thankfully, since we already have the CCTV installed, we did not have to go to farm. We just gave him the location and told him to walk up to the CCTV and that is where he is supposed to built the pump house. He checked out the location, soil condition etc. We watched him in our CCTV while we talked to him on the phone to give directions.


Then it seems he went around the surrounding villages to find workers. Next day he reported that he could find mason workers, tiles person, some one to do wood work, windows etc. He said he will take up the work. We were excited! But little did we know that an avalanche of troubles were waiting in store for us to bury us alive :). All the troubles in future posts.