Concrete roofing tiles in Kenya

In Kenya, concrete roofing tiles are mainly manufactured by Mareba at Industrial Area and Manson Hart in Nairobi.

Makiga engineering, also in industrial area, sells machines that can be used to produce concrete tiles at a small scale.

There has not been new technological advancement in Kenyan concrete roof tile. Advancements such as a wider range of colours, texture and light weight concrete , would enable a new entrant into the Kenyan market gain traction.
Both Mareba and Manson Hart are household names in Kenyan roof tile market, having been around for over 40 years.

Cost.
large tile size 16inch/400mm by 13 inch/330mm

This size costs kes 450 per m2, add overlap to bring to approximately kes 600 per m2.

This cost is more or less same to clay roof tiles.

2m gauge 30 steel roofing sheet 470.
This translates to around kes 300 per m2 net, without allowance for overlap.

Concrete roofing tiles are more expensive than plain roofing sheet gauge 30 but cheaper than stone coated steel roof tiles at kes 2,100 per m2 and bituminous felt at kes 2000 per m2.

Production process.
Concrete roofing tiles are made from concrete, a mixture of water, cement, sand and aggregate.

The mixture is poured into a mould when wet and vibrated in place then cured for several days in moist condition.

Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.