For the last 9 months, with the funds from Environment Canada and technical support from INBAR, ABARI had been working on bamboo based water tank and  renewable means to transport water. The technology, developed in Nepal was also transfered to Ethiopia. The project’s aim was “to scale up the use of local resources, such as bamboo, gravel and sand to alleviate the pressures caused by erratic rainfall patterns, which are under threat of further exacerbation by climate change. This manual showcases the lessons learned from the project and is designed for entrepreneurs, development and water resource management professionals working with rural communities to adopt and adapt these new technologies within their own work.”

Please download the manual from INBAR’s website for more information.

Bamboo Water Tank

After the first trial of 250 liters we have gone 20 times more! Here is the our  5000 liter water tank made out of bamboo.This is the biggest of its kind.  Cement is used to plaster the tank but any alternative material like lime or plastic can also be used in order to save on cost. The tank will be connected to a solar pump and a bio-sand filter. This was done in collaboration with INBAR.

Abari and INBAR recently signed a contract to build couple of bamboo water tanks in Nepal and Ethiopia. Bamboo tank was investigated in the 1980′s but due to borer attack and fungus it was later discarded. The earlier bamboo tanks were basically woven bamboo that were plastered with cement. Due to unitary modular ratio, different shrinkage ratio and low Youngs Modulus of bamboo the cohesion with bamboo and cement were not satisfactory. As the material knowledge and technology has developed in the last 20 years, our team along with INBAR experts have now been reinvestigating the concept again. Here is a small prototype of 250 liters and our next target is 5000 liters. The tank will have solar water pump, bio sand filter and reed bed for water recycling. Our target is to reduce the cost by 50 percent compared to the conventional plastic or concrete tank.

Our first two story residential house in Kathmandu is in progress. The second floor is now coming up. First floor is rammed earth and the second floor is lightweight bamboo frame with natural insulation.

Here is the first edition of our furniture. Its all hand crafted by local youths and women, chemical free with minimal use of all materials which were sourced from 100 km radius. Contact us if you would like to order some.

Here is a youtube video of our treatment machine in process.

Complete!

Another rammed earth house in the making in Kathmandu. This time we are going two stories! It celebrates beautiful rato and pahelo mato of Kathmandu. The process is getting mechanized and things are getting more and more efficient. In order to streamline the process, we have used modern formwork and machines. Not far from today, rammed earth and bamboo will be a mainstream material in Nepal. The structures follows New Zealand building code for seismic resistance. There have been lots of inputs from national and international expert on seismic safety. Other features of the house are that all the rooms are designed for passive solar heating, it has open plan design, second floor has high insulated but light weight bamboo walls for thermal and acoustic insulation, water harvesting, solarium etc. Congratulations to Narayan dai and Naomi for this wise decision to make the house out of good ol’ dirt.

More details later