Dry construction for hotel industry

Prashant Zanwar

The Indian economy is booming and the demand in commercial and industrial sectors has led to a similar situation in the hospitality industry with many international hotel chains in queue to invest and acquire management control.

Trends are changing in all the sectors and civil construction industry cannot remain aloof. With many more players coming in looking at the huge demand, there is an urgent need for speedy, cost-effective and eco-friendly construction techniques which can help to achieve faster return on investment. How can it be achieved? Since post-tensioning of slabs available in India 1996 onwards has changed the scene in commercial building by providing larger heights from floor to floor quicker to accommodate the services property and larger column spacing. This change was really accepted with dramatic speed at which you are able to create the shells and start the return on investment though it is expensive when compared with conventional construction. Same has been the case as regard to glass facades though the technology is not competent enough for the Indian climate.

This has changed the pace and speed of constructing RCC shell for commercial building including hotels and hospitals. The time has come to adopt six decade-old proven dry walls as the complete replacement to brick/block walls partition/enclosures.

Dry wall is the construction typically done with a cold form GI section with gypsum plasterboards, cement boards, calcium silicate boards, magnesium silicate boards from both sides to create composite kind of construction and the cavity in between provides you enough space to accommodate electrical and plumbing services.

The weight of the construction reduces the dead load on RCC shell to the tune of 80 per cent, which in turn helps you to reduce the cost of steel and concrete towards the shell. Below is some comparison of some basic material, internal walling and partition.

The overall speed of construction helps you to reduce the construction time with a conservative estimate by 30 per cent with respect to estimated project schedule.

Fortunately, there is an internationality-acclaimed manufacturer of plasterboards calcium silicate boards, magnesium silicate boards, cement boards available in India either directly as manufacturing base as imports or in technically-collaborated way. Along with this, required skills are available in our country to complete the works as per the standards.

Advantages of dry wall over brick work and plaster

Work is carried out as per the international building norms i.e fire, safety, acoustics and weather. Calcium silicate boards, magnesium silicate boards, cement boards have good performance when in contact with water.

The cost of dry wall is slightly higher in comparison with brickwork and plaster but dry wall has low/negligible dead load which reduces the overall construction cost. Traditional brick manufacturing has so many adverse impacts on environment such as using fertile soil, improper fuels used for kilns, pollution, uncontrolled sloppy manufacturing process, child labour, etc. The dry wall material is manufactured in a controlled atmosphere with stringent quality norms.

Easy material handling and speedy construction, clean and neat site working condition, convenient in existing structures which are occupied and are in operation and looking up for upgradation and renovation. Highly compatible with RCC and steel structures as well as external facades. Cavity between the walls can be used to run services like electrical and plumbing without recessing walls. Non load-bearing and load-bearing walls can be designed with all the above advantages. To conclude, opting for dry wall certainly makes good business sense in terms of time, cost and quality for achieving faster returns on investments.

The writer is a civil engineer and director of Innovative Marketing. He can be contacted at innovative94@vsnl.net