A Comparison of Conventional Blocks and Stabilized Earth Blocks as Building Materials in Uganda

Abstract

The high cost of conventional cement and sand blocks in Uganda has led to the widespread adoption of alternatives like wattle bricks, compressed earth blocks, and burnt bricks. Compressed earth blocks are a biodegradable, energy efficient, and eco-friendly building material made from damp soil compressed at high pressure. They reduce environmental hazards and deforestation without firewood. Case study methodology was used and deliberatesampling for collection of data. SPSS v20 was used for the analysis. The result shows that Stabilized Earth Materialshave positive relationship on satisfaction such that it causes 0.651 satisfaction against Conventional Blocks which is 0.602. It revealed a significant impact of Stabilized Earth Materials on cost with 4.8% difference. It is recommended that construction manager should make more use of stabilized earth materials to reduce cost and improve quality Keywords: Conventional blocks, stabilized earth blocks, building materials