Page 4 - CSEB Report

Study on Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks

1. Introduction

Bhutan being a developing country, construction industry is booming and new infrastructure
and building up to six stories are shaping the skylines of towns across the country. The

constructions demand skilled labors and high quality building materials which at the
moment are mostly imported from the neighboring countries like India and Bangladesh.

This materials include blocks/bricks, Aluminum, CGI sheet, etc. The import of bricks is very
significant compared to other building materials. For instance, despite the issuance of

government order stating the mandatory use of local materials for public construction in
December 2015, Bhutan imported bricks worth Nu 7.625M (million) from India in 2016

and the import value increased to Nu 28.222M in 2017, according to Bhutan Trade
Statistics (Subbu 2018).

After circulation of the government order, additional 10 local bricks manufacturers were
certified-including one Cement Stabilized Earth Blocks (CSEB) manufacturing industry by

the Bhutan Standard Bureau (BSB). In December 2018, the local manufacturers informed

the national media about the increased demand for local bricks from the public agencies.

However, majority of the local brick suppliers produce concrete bricks which has slightly

more thermal conductivity (0.7-1.28W/mK) (Desai n.d.) than CSEB (0.771W/mK)[9] which

means the former is less energy efficient the latter. Lower thermal conductivity indicates

lesser heat transfer through the building envelope hence increasing energy performance of
the building. Additionally, CSEB has lower carbon footprint as it is more environment

friendly than other bricks.

Despite CSEB having upper hand in characteristic properties, the market share of the CSEB
manufacturers is almost negligible which ultimately reduces opportunities for the
manufacturers. Thus, to offset the exponential import despite 2015 circular (mandatory use

of local material in the public construction) and to change people’s mind set, study on CSEB

under the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) funded project, “Promotion of Renewable
Energy and Energy Efficient Technologies in the Building Sector” has been taken up by the
Ministry.

The Engineering Adaptation and Risk Reduction Division (EARRD), during the studies,

collected soil samples from different locations and tested for the characteristic properties
and some samples of CSEB bricks were molded and tested. The final full-mission report

containing the findings is documented to disseminate technical know-how to the institutes
and for future reference.

3 Engineering Adaptation and Risk Reduction Division (EARRD), DES, MOWHS