How to Build a Prefab in South Sudan

Friday March 1st was moving day!  It had been about 2 weeks that we had been here in Melut, South Sudan and I (David) had spent that time building our prefab house, connecting electricity and plumbing.  Our new home was finally ready for us to move in...  but let me start at the beginning.

While we were in Nairobi I was able to have a tour and attend a training course at “Essential Structures” (the manufacturing company who makes prefab houses).  The prefab houses don’t come with instructions so I had to take notes during the training and come up with my own instructions (linked here).  It reminded me of playing with Lego growing up.

A few things they didn’t tell me during the training were:
1) You will need to be very patient!  At times it will be very frustrating when you try to connect all of the pieces together.  Sometimes the aluminum perimeter connections may break, or during transportation other damage may occur to the panels, so be prepared with some replacement rivets and pieces of aluminum.
2) The wall panels are the easiest to install!  It only takes about 30 minutes to build a room that is 3 panels by 3 panels (12’x12’).
3) The roof panels and specifically the top roof “ridge connection pieces” are the hardest to install!  Be patient and have at least 3 or 4 helpers with you when putting on these pieces. I must say that I now disagree with their website which says the panels can be “assembled quickly and with ease”.  The wall panels, yes.  The roof panels, not so much.

Other materials that we needed which weren’t included in the package Essential Structures gave to us were:
- tubes of silicone sealant/caulking (I’d recommend 10 tubes of caulking per 12’x12’ room.  I only brought 10 tubes total and our house is 12’x32’ and I used 9 tubes just sealing the base of the wall panels to the concrete foundation around the perimeter.  The silicone can also be used to seal the metal/metal joints).
- a caulking gun (It would be wise to bring a second one too since the one I bought in Nairobi broke after only using it for 10 minutes and I had to temporarily fix it with some nuts and bolts).
- spray polyurethane foam to install around the perimeter walls or at any joints/separations in the panels (I only brought 2 tubes and I could have used another 2 or 3).
- bituminous tar (I didn’t bring this but my friend had some which he got at Uchumi in Nairobi. He had 2 small tins and he used this around the perimeter of his prefab to seal the concrete/wall joint).

Obviously we provided our own tools including:
- a rubber mallet
- hammers
- a piece of 2x4 wood + baseball bat (for tapping the connection pieces in place)
- rivet gun (to fix the L shape aluminum connections)
- cordless drill to remove broken rivets and to install the expansion anchors which secure the prefab to the concrete pad
- at least 2 ladders

Once the house was completed we ran electricity!  Its 240V here (not 120V like in Canada) and all of the outlets are the UK style.  The 3 lights and light switches we installed were easy (one in each room) but the outlets were a bit more complex since they were labelled E, N, L (“E” for “Earth”, “N” for “Neutral” and “L” for “Live”).   We got it all figured out and then we had to connect the houses to the grid.  We were able to turn off all of the power that runs to the college campus and then it was my friend Jon’s task to climb the ladder and hook the lines up.

The final item was plumbing.  The town of Melut has running water which comes on each morning (around 9 or 10am) and turns off each night (around 4 or 5pm).  On campus there are various buried lines ranging in size from ½” to ¾” diameter.  We had both sizes of hose but only enough faucets, elbows and connections to run the ½” diameter hose.    I hired a few Sudanese guys to dig the trenches and now we have a faucet connected in our kitchen and one outside our house near the front porch.

And that my friends is how you build a prefab in South Sudan!

Here are the photos which tell the story...

Here are some before/after photos of the kitchen, our bedroom and Rachel's bedroom.

** More info about the new roof we built over the prefab is in the blog post linked here