Assessment of the Effectiveness of Local Building Materials used for Building Construction in Maikunkele Local Government Area of Niger State

Abstract

The study was carried out to assess the effectiveness of the use of Local building materials used for building construction in Meikunkele Local Government Area of Niger State. To achieve this, two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. A survey research design was used for the study. A total of 50 respondents comprising 30 residents and 20 masons were used as the population for the study. A structured questionnaire which was developed by the researchers was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three lecturers in the department of industrial technology education, Federal University of Technology, Minna. The reliability of the instrument was found to be 0.77 using Cronbach Alpha Formular. The data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions while, the t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that local materials such as clay and timber easily absorb water when used in water lodged areas; stones used for local buildings are not usually cut to workable size before they are used and stones are not easily accessible. Consequently, it was recommended among others that people should avoid areas with clay soil, torrential flooding or slopes in order to minimize costs for special foundations and damp proofing elements.

Key words: Assessment, effectiveness, local building materials and building construction