With the cost of roofing materials like terracotta tiles, aluminum roofing sheets and corrugated galvanized metal sheet getting beyond the reach of the average homeowner in Africa, turning to the use of organic sustainable materials is fast becoming a better alternative.
Thatch can be beautiful, durable, safe,modern and does not only have to appear on rudimentary traditional African huts or Granaries.
Treating thatch with fire retarding chemicals makes them less flamable and with the drop in cost of fire and smoke detection systems fires can be detected and extinguisted, so it is probably time that African architects started to incorporate thatch into modern African buildings as it is already being done in parts of Southern Africa already.
Africa Roofing website says "... Established in 1994, is the export division of our group of companies. After informally trading for 5 years, our first company, Redruth Thatching cc saw the light in 1979.
Demand started growing from abroad for our products, and it was decided to develop a product range specifically for export purposes. From this, Africa Roofing was born ! We are proud to announce that in October 2000 with Safari Thatch & Bamboo Inc. in the USA we founded Africa Roofing Inc. in the state of Florida in the USA..."
Indeed one of the best options, traditional materials - tried and tested and mostly freely available.
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