Weekend Post: Business News: "Moladi solves key low-cost challenges
By Roux van Zyl Business Reporter
WHO would have guessed that houses could be exported from Nelson Mandela Bay?
Local entrepreneur Hennie Botes, designer and owner of Moladi, has been doing just this for the last two decades, of which five years were spent in Port Elizabeth.
Technically speaking he does not export a whole house, rather the means to build a house within one day.
The concept is based on casting technology. First a mould is built from plastic shutter panels in the form of the planned house and is then filled up with a light-weight mortar.
The mortar takes only one day to dry and is then ready to receive a roof and other finishes like window frames and plumbing.
Botes, a tool-maker by trade, started designing the system in 1986. While building a wall at his house he wondered if it might not be possible to cast a whole wall.
Botes developed a plastic injection moulded shutter system that was strong enough to handle the pressure of concrete.
�However, you can�t live in concrete � it is too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. So I had to develop an alternative material. �This material is like Kentucky Fried Chicken, it has secret ingredients,� he laughed. His cementitious material consists of river sand, cement, water and the �secret� chemical admixture.
He subsequently patented and received SABS approval for the entire concept.
Botes felt Moladi addressed the three key challenges in the low- cost housing market, namely lack of funds, skills and time.
The wall forms are removed in sections and can immediately be re-erected on an adjoining site thus speeding up the construction process.
He said Moladi brings the cost of low- cost housing down to about R680/m�. A Port Elizabeth buildin"