VietNamNet Bridge – The Government’s drastic measures for wide application of unbaked bricks, also known as lightweight concrete bricks, promise a brighter future for producers of this new type of building materials.

Best of both worlds

Replacing traditional baked clay bricks with unbaked bricks is an inevitable trend as the latter type has many advantages, including its eco-friendly feature, according to the HCMC Department of Construction.

A worker handles a piece of lightweight concrete brick. The Government has issued policies supporting this type of building material.

It is forecast that around 42 billion bricks will be needed in the period from now to 2020. If baked bricks were all used to meet this demand, 60 million cubic meters of clay, or 3,000 hectares of farmland, and 5.6 million tons of coal would be consumed and 17 million tons of carbon dioxide would be emitted to the environment.

On the contrary, unbaked bricks are not made of clay, helping protect farmland, a non-renewable resource. In addition, this green material is soundproof, heat resistant and lightweight, helping save energy, shorten construction time, reduce the structure weight and cut construction cost.

Therefore, the Government in April 2010 released Decision 567/QD-TTg setting the target that unbaked materials would make up 40% of the building material output by 2020. The decision also requires buildings of above nine stories to use lightweight concrete bricks equivalent to at least 30% of the total amount of materials needed.

Since 2011, several baked brick kilns in HCMC have been forced to halt operations. As per the city’s plan, all polluting facilities will be eliminated by 2015.

Search for market continues

Given its advantages and the supportive policy, unbaked materials are enjoying favorable conditions. Lightweight materials, like aerated autoclaved concrete, are used more often in high-rise building projects in the country, said Nguyen Thanh Xuyen, deputy head of the construction quality management division under the HCMC construction department.

However, as the absorptive capacity of the market is limited, unbaked material producers are struggling, with some of them having already folded up their businesses, heard a workshop on unbaked building materials held by the construction department last Thursday.

The market is not accustomed to the new type of materials. In addition, the local property market has been frozen for over three years, making unbaked material consumption very slow.

Another reason is the high price of lightweight concrete bricks, almost twice as much as the price of baked clay bricks. Specifically, a cubic meter of lightweight concrete bricks is priced at some VND1.3 million, versus only VND700,000 for a cubic meter of traditional bricks.

To encourage the use of unbaked materials, information about their advantages must be further disseminated to the public. Moreover, producers must seek ways to lower their prices.

Phan Hoai Thanh, general director of Tan Ky Nguyen Company, owner of an unbaked brick factory in the southern region, hoped the recently introduced policies would assist development of unbaked building materials. Still, he admitted the situation would not get better as long as the real estate is still mired in troubles.

Source: SGT