Ash house - launching of new building material?

(Miloš Marković)

For Miloš Marković, civil engineer from Požarevac, ash is not only a useless waste. That is an excellent building material that, luckily or unfortunately, can be found in the vicinity of steam power plants "Kostolac" in huge quantities.

- Every hour Kostolac's steam power plants produce 40 tons of ash. Multiply that with the number of hours and days in one year, and you will see how much potential free building material is wasted - Miloš claims.

In order to prove his theory of ash as the building material of the future, Miloš built a house of panels, made of the mixture of ash and cement (70:30), in his yard.

- Ash is nothing new in the world of building materials. I only tried to adapt it, that is, to mix ash and cement and make panels that are much easier to assemble - says Miloš.

According to his words, such panels are cheaper and 50% lighter than concrete panels. They are 7 cm thick and thin steel armature can be added to protect them. There are always those who are sceptical when it comes to ash as a building material. Miloš Marković harshly denies all their claims.

- We think that everything is radioactive! TV set is radioactive too, but we know what the allowed quantity of radioactivity is. Ash is a type of clay, so that it is the most similar to the material that was used earlier for construction of old Serbian houses - says the engineer from Požarevac.