Moladi solves key low-cost challenges
Moladi solves key low-cost challenges By Roux van Zyl Business Reporter WHO would have guessed that houses could be exported from Nelson Mandela Bay? Local entrepreneur Hennie Botes, designer and owner of Moladi, has been doing just this for the last two decades, of which five years were spent in Port Elizabeth. Technically speaking he does not export a whole house, rather the means to build a house within one day. The concept is based on casting technology. First a mould is built from plastic shutter panels in the form of the planned house and is then filled up with a light-weight mortar. The mortar takes only one day to dry and is then ready to receive a roof and other finishes like window frames and plumbing. Botes, a tool-maker by trade, started designing the system in 1986. While building a wall at his house he wondered if it might not be possible to cast a whole wall. Botes developed a plastic injection moulded shutter system that was strong enough to handle the pressure of concr