“THIS?IS 2011 and everythingis changing. We have to start building houses differently”.
So says Henderson Nurse, who is in the process of introducing a new type of building in Barbados. He said it was all about building “a better and more beautiful tomorrow”.
Nurse is the owner of H&N Limited, a building company operating from Cane Garden, St Thomas. He told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that he was teaming up with BRC West Indies Limited to offer steel-structured houses.
“Instead of putting up a building with wood or block, the frame would be galvanized steel. It lasts longer and it is faster [to build] as well and you won’t have insects eating anything.
“The whole home is going to be different. We are going to build it out of a material that the sun does not penetrate to make the house hot. We use a foam system; it is the ESP (Polystyrene expanded insulation board).
“So after we put up the structure, we put on the cement board and then clad it with ESP,” Nurse explained.
The builder also said some people believed that “building a structure out of wood or building a big house was energy-efficient or the better way to go”, but it was just a matter of time before the Barbadian public gravitated to the new concept.
“These houses will be much cooler, energy-efficient and hurricane-proof. This is all that people are using in North America, Europe and other places.
“It is just that in Barbados, people are not up to a lot of changes yet. Sometimes they have to see things to be able to make the change,” he said.
Nurse is currently building a model house in Fairfield, Black Rock, St Michael, and they would soon be looking at cost while staying competitive.
“As soon as we finish the model, we will get the response from people and see if they like it. That would give us an idea of where we are going to go. . . . Within this month we would like to finish,” he said.
