Puttur: Dream Homes at Affordable Cost with Terracotta Bricks
 
Report and Pics by Arun Uppinangady
Daijiworld Media Network – Puttur (RD/SP)
 
Puttur, Feb 4: Everyone has a dream to build a palace kind of home for himself and his family, but in reality, this is not possible for all.  Those who are wealthy build palatial houses for themselves to live in.  However, for the lower middle income group, there exists an opportunity to capitalize on.  That is, to build low cost houses by using terracotta bricks for a healthy living.  Janardan Gowda, a resident of Kayyappe in Alankaru village near here, has experimented on building his own beautiful house by using terracotta bricks at a time when shortage of laterite stones that traditionally serves as building  houses in the  undivided Dakshina Kannada district, is being experienced. 
 
A visitor who ventures into Janardan Gowda's house at noon, exhausted of scorching sun and heat, gets refreshed in no time, getting a feeling of resting in an air-conditioned house. His house constructed out of terracotta bricks feels so pleasant that the scorching sun and heat has no impact on the interiors.  The minimum use of cement, steel, crushed stone and such other building materials has contributed to a healthy and pleasant living atmosphere.

The terracotta bricks that are used in the construction of this house are available in 13 varieties and different designs.  The interior of the house is cooler during summer and warmer during winter and monsoon season. Besides giving this benefit, the uniqueness of terracotta bricks is that they are also very cost affective. The cost of building the house out of laterite stones is considerably more than terracotta bricks.  Each laterite stone weighs nearly 35 kilograms while a terracotta brick weighs around 10 kilograms; hence they are lighter on earth.  If a house needs 1,000 laterite stones, mere 600 terracotta bricks would suffice for the same house.  If a house of 1,000 square feet is built exclusively with terracotta bricks, one gains 40 square feet area in addition, as compared to the one built of laterite stones. 'The erection of pillars becomes unnecessary if there are no plans to build upper stories.  It saves on cost' says Janardhan Gowda.
 
According to Gowda, if a house of 2,000 square feet is built with laterite stones as building materials, it would cost around Rs 16 to Rs 18 lac while with the terracotta it could be completed within Rs 12 lac that makes a saving of 40 percent on total cost.  Initially, these terracotta bricks were manufactured in Kerala that compelled Janardan Gowda to study the process there for nearly a month.  He is a now a certified Public Works Department (PWD) contractor and has taken up the district-level agency of these terracotta bricks and is engaged in building such houses in the rural areas from here.  Two more manufacturing units of terracotta bricks have come up in Mangalore taluk. Till recently, they were exclusively brought direct from the kilns located in Kerala.  These terracotta bricks are in great demand in Davanagere, Bangalore, Goa and other areas and also abroad.  However, 'the innovative building construction method by using terracotta bricks has become a boon particularly for the middle income group o own their own houses,' says Gowda.