ABSTRACT
Cuba is the Latin American country that more installations for prefabrication of buildings elements for foundations, structures and covers has got in relation to the number of inhabitants.
At 60’ s, looking to solve the habitational social problem, various prefabrication systems were adopted as the only way to obtain a great quantity of livings spaces in a relative short time. Different systems were used and continued been in function: Novoa’s (know as Sandino’s too) with small dimensions panels that allow to build a house in 24 hours; S AE and GIRON (the solution of country schools buildings) and others from East Europe: GPS, GPP, IMS, etc. The durability of the elements composing this system is affected by the climatic and geographic conditions, low quality of buildings materials used for covers and floors, negative builders operations and defective maintenance planning. Among them, the problem of impermeabilization is the most critical.
The city of Santiago de Cuba was used as a representative sample to get the information about durability of the buildings elements, the study of the principal causes of this problem and offers solutions. So we arrived to an order of priority and a cost assessment of the inversion.
