IMAGINE a building material that could withstand 350 kilometre an hour winds, was fire resistant, stronger but lighter than double brick, and completely recyclable.
IMAGINE a building material that could withstand 350 kilometre an hour winds, was fire resistant, stronger but lighter than double brick, and completely recyclable.
Add ‘usability’ to that list – it takes just 2.5 days to erect a 320 square metre home (for just $150/sqm making it 30 per cent cheaper than existing building materials) – and you’ve got a pretty revolutionary product.
Eight months ago this composite building material was just a conceptual design that Jerome Naidoo pitched to his manager, Patrick Ng.
Within two weeks the pair had quit their old jobs and, $300,000 of research, design and prototypes later, their new company FBM Corporation, formed with silent partner Richard Barbarich, is on the verge of launching this product to the Australian housing market.
The product is called R9 for its energy efficiency rating, which is well above the recommended six-star rating.
Manufactured from a dual polyurethane core layered between three cement fibreboard skins, and locked together with steel tracking, the panels have been put under the most rigorous testing processes at the University of WA, and survived.
“We’ve basically just given it to these agents and we’ve said, ‘look just (try to) break it and it’s actually ended up breaking a lot of their machines at the university,” Mr Naidoo told WA Business News.
Mr Naidoo has been responsible for the conceptual designs, the calculations, and the extensive research that has gone into the product, while Mr Ng did the initial research to find a suitable manufacturer in Malaysia.
Mr Naidoo said he wanted families to benefit from the product, as it was a very practical solution to the issue of housing affordability and sustainability and could reduce the cost of electricity bills.
“The walls don’t conduct any heat from the outside to the inside [so] it’s actually a thermal block instead of a reduction in thermal,” he said.
The company has been involved in discussions with Boral and Pricewaterhouse Coopers and expects negotiations will be finalised before the end of the financial year.
“A lot of great, great inventions have been stuffed up because people want to hold on to them, where we’re sort of realistic enough to know that this really does need to be brought out to a mass market and to build the infrastructure to get it out there it would take us maybe 10, 15 years,” Mr Naidoo said.
