Am looking for the slightest excuse to buy local and hold the view that some time in near future we should not import any finished product that goes to build a house. For say 99% of the people, the largest investment they will ever make is the roof over their head, or the roof over their tenants’ heads. It would make great sense to retain all this money here and create jobs with it.

You are talking about the present / past and to that extent you are correct. However am talking about possibilities in the future. Our problem in Africa is that we adopt whatever technology and standards the West comes up with. If we cannot manufacture steel competitively just because we do not have enough iron ore, then why can’t we make some Kenya Standard to the effect that roofing of houses should be in clay tiles and nothing else– We should build our houses with local material that are available here at home, just like our fore fathers used to. The west and the Chinese would rather do the same than import such finished goods from Africa - Please someone confirm if we ever export these clay tiles to the West / East? If only we can invest in smart technology and reduce the cost of doing business in Kenya and Africa at large– transportation costs, corruption, energy costs, etc, it should be possible to compete at par with china and manufacture some of these products right here. We can still import some raw materials that need to go into the mix.

I recently used the tactile roofing tiles for a recent project, we worked out a deal whereby I got a profile for around 650 inclusive VAT, and 2 profiles cover an area slightly over 1 square meter. So go and bargain. As I used the tile in a recent project I can't comment on the longevity of the color, but I don't think it should be a problem given their state of the art manufacturing process compared to roofing tile factory I visited in China. For now I can say that there is no shade variation between the tiles and they have all necessary accessories in stock. We used the MRM light weight steel roofing structure for the project and completion time for the entire process was very quick. I have used clay tiles with IT-4 sheets before and the result was beautiful classic Mediterranean look though the savings weren't considerable when compared to the coated steel tile roof.

The MRM roof structure came to about 2500 per square meter, I don't have the exact figures but we were paying around 250,000 more for the steel roof compared to a timber roof. As much as timber roofs will serve you well, the reason I choose steel over timber is due to the sagging of timber trusses when the roof leaks and it complicates the repair process, and the timber quality nowadays just isn't at par with that from the past, timber roofs from back in the day lasted without issues.

Wajenzi wenzangu: In the interest of sharing, I found chuma artisans on outer ring road (mutindwa area) that are making security doors that have the look and feel of those Israeli doors I mentioned earlier. The quoted price is 18,000/= for basic door and 30,000/= for a double door. They would not let me take a photo to post here, but I was pretty impressed. They have impressive gates too. Disclaimer: Not associated with them, but a big advocate of locally made products...