Friday 18 October 2013

The Dura-San

One of the main challenges that has been identified for households to purchase latrines is in the trust between the household and the mason constructing it. Often a householder will go out of their way to buy materials for the mason and only pay him for labour because they don't trust that the mason will be honest in what he purchases. Furthermore, many of the materials available on the Ugandan market are inconsistent so a mason may not be able to buy something as good as expected by the householder.

An answer to this is to produce a standard construction kit; which we've dubbed the Dura-San. Water For People worked with John Parry's Associates to produce mortar less block construction system and then refined the idea in Uganda. We first worked with a large materials manufacturing company called Multiple Industries but found more success with a medium sized enterprise called Turn Key. Concrete manufacturers are quite common in Uganda but ensuring that they produce quality products could be a challenge.

The idea is reasonably simple. Concrete blocks are cast and left to cure.

Once the blocks are cured they're put together by slotting plugs between the holes at the end of the blocks.



Finally a door frame is added at the front and a concrete roof.


It is still a work in progress and requires for a modular pour flush system be produced but, as opposed to our feelings, must people don't think it's ugly and we've had a lot of interest following the trade fair.

The basic idea will be for a concrete manufacturer to be the producer and installer of the latrine, therefore cutting out the need for highly skilled masons and the increasing the trust between the householder and the latrine supplier.


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