Colombians Have Made Amazing Low-Cost Houses Made From Coffee Waste

When you think of Colombia, you think of coffee. This country is known to have one of the best beans that they supply to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the country isn’t known to be the richest in the world. Some of its citizens suffer from poverty.

Look around and there are drug problems as well. There are those who barely can afford to maintain a viable life. There are those in dire need of good homes. Where should they live? They can’t afford to build one from scratch.


Apparently, Colombia has found the means to solve the housing shortage problems with the help of its excess coffee production. The world’s leader in coffee successfully leveraged itself by making use of one material to fix its major problem – low-cost housing made entirely from coffee waste.

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How exactly were they able to create low-cost housing? They had an overproduction of coffee husks. This paper-like material that covers the prized beans can now be made into strong, lightweight, and flexible building materials that can serve as panels of a house. Not much money is required because to make boards costs as little as $4,500. This project, if implemented all the way, can solve the housing issues the country is faced with.

The innovative material has been developed by Woodpecker, a Bogota-based company. This wasn’t their first attempt at developing cheap but reliable materials to make affordable homes. They first ventured into the industry by trying to develop a material made from rice fiber, palm fronds, sawdust, and even recycled plastic. While some of these did work, coffee husk proved to be the most workable choice because of its availability. More importantly, the bean-based panels are fire resistant, and have the ability to withstand water and insects. There’s also another benefit to it. When they make use of coffee husks, they would be able to stop filling up the landfills that have been overflowing and that have added to the methane emissions of the Colombia.

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Alejandro Franco, the CEO of Woodpecker, said, “We saw that there was a huge necessity for a lightweight construction system for housing and classrooms in rural and isolated places where traditional construction systems cannot go—like bricks, cement, and concrete.”

These wood panels are called “casa kits.” The finished products have been loaded and transported on small boats and helicopters. The others have even been lugged by donkeys, on the condition that these animals are only able to carry a certain amount of weight. Each kit comes with lightweight steel frames. What makes these a better choice is that the pieces can be linked together, much like Lego. All you need to do is wait for the click. Tools may be required to fully build a home, but the fact that these panels have been prefabricated to make construction easy, there’s minimal tool use. The coffee husk boards are simply attached to the steel frames without the use of nails and screws.


Woodpecker has been in the industry for more than a decade now, and since the time they entered the market, they had successfully built around 2,500 homes made from affordable and sustainable materials.

In fact, when the category 5 Hurricane Iota hit the Colombian island of Providence in November, they were immediately there, making repairs for the thousands of homes that have been destroyed. They provided a much-needed relief for the citizens as they donated two complete houses that the army received and assembled for them. The people in the community couldn’t have been more grateful for the aid. A spokesperson from the company shared, “The system worked perfectly considering that there was no energy supply, the soil was muddy, the airport damaged, no food, etc.—all the problems that you can imagine. We think our houses are an excellent solution for the housing crisis there.”

 

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