Hand moulded or Machine Made Block? 4 Ways Nigerians Can Know Which Is Better When Building Their Houses

• Deciding between hand moulded and machine-made blocks could be a task for new builders when looking at what would serve better
• A block expert, Waliu, said that buying machine-produced ones could save one supervision stress
• In terms of cost-saving, employing labourers to build blocks may increase the number of units one gets per bag of cement

When building a house or planning one, the cost and quality of materials used are always a priority as they determine how strong a building will be.

One of the things people consider when setting out to construct their houses are the blocks. There have been various arguments online over which block is better between the ones made by machine or hand.

In this report, Legit.ng will be drawing resources from Building Contractor Secrets to explore some of the differences between them.

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1. Time-saving

According to Building Contractor Secrets, one advantage of machine moulded blocks over the ones made by hand is that using manual labour takes a lot of time to mould many units at a time. No wonder block factories opt for machines as they have to mass produce.

2. Cost saving

In conversation with a block expert, Waliu, he revealed that with the right supervision, one could reduce cost if one can employ manual labour, get cement, sand and build blocks on one's site. He believes that one could have more units of blocks that way.

He said:

"If you have the time, mould your blocks. You can get more from a bag, but you really don't have control over what a cement factory mixes to produce theirs."

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3. Quality

The quality between the two types of blocks is debatable. While a thread in a Nairaland forum is of the opinion that the need to make profit may make a company increase their number of blocks per bag of cement, Building Contractor Secrets argued that machine-made blocks come with a smoother surface.

4. Increased time of supervision

Both Waliu and Building Contractor Secrets agreed that with hand moulded blocks, much time is given to supervision to guard against manual workers outsmarting their employers. There could also be cases of stolen bags of cement, a situation that could be eliminated.

While building a house could be quite stressful if you are on a budget and do not want any of your materials stolen, the experience is worthwhile when all is done.

Lady builds mansion

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that a young Nigerian lady wowed many people online after showing the beautiful house project that she started in December 2021.

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In nine months, she finished it. At the start of the project, the lady showed labourers working on her site in a video as they tried to bring the building to the lintel level.

At the lintel level, they added concrete and took the building up more to accommodate the extra-storey building.

Source: Legit.ng