Difference between RCC House and Panel House

If you are trying to construct a house in Nepal, you might be wondering whether to go for an expensive RCC house option or go for relatively cheaper Panel House option. However, panel house is not always cheap because some companies have been selling panel house in prices comparable to panel house.

In this article, we define some of the comparison points between RCC House and Panel house regarding the advantages and disadvantages of both RCC House and Panel House.

Bank Valuation between RCC House and Panel House

Bank Valuation is the value that a bank assigns to your property for the purpose of providing loans. Home is not just the place to live; it is your property where you will expect profit in the future.

Bank always gives more loan to the RCC House than Panel House. Panel House is rather considered a temporary structure because they are too light weight. Some of the panels cannot even handle a single blow and incur damage. Therefore, panel houses are not good for valuation purpose.

Earthquake Resistance

Comparing the earthquake resistance, RCC Houses have been guaranteed earthquake resistant by the DUDBC Nepal, an authoritative government body for determining the building design standard in Nepal. Panel Houses are also designed under similar government standard and relevant codes. You can’t say that any of these two types of houses are more earthquake resistant than another because both of them have been designed under the same standard, with same drift.

However, if you add a constraint like money, you might be able to compare between these two. This is a topic of research even for the Masters’ student of structural engineering.

Resistance to Fire

The panels used in panel house is made up of lightweight material. Because of their low density, they catch fire easily. On the other hand, Brick wall is used in RCC structure. Brick wall has high density, is made up of mud material and is far more resistant to fire than low weight panel walls. Therefore, RCC houses are seen to be more fire resistant.

Time of Construction

Considering the time of construction, panel housing is more superior than RCC House. If you are intending to build a temporary structure whose purpose will start immediately and end within a considerably small period of time, you can go for the panel housing. A small residential RCC House of 2.5 storey can take around 8 months to complete, if everything goes as planned.

Design Flexibility

If we compare RCC House and Panel House according to the flexibility of design, RCC House is much superior in design flexibility than the panel house. Panel house are lightweight, so they can’t just be used for generating various design that add weight to the building. The panels are thin and if you demand thick panels to carve some designs, they might not be available or you might not be able to carve them as well.

In RCC structures, you use cement plaster as finishing material. You can create any designs or projection with cement plasters. You can make protruding designs by adding brick wall and carving out design with cement plaster of appropriate mortar ratio.