Simple Questions To Make Your Prospective Building Contractor Edgy

These questions were sent to a friend who wants to engage a building contractor.
The project involves is a high networth project, so he is not ready to use an incompetent or inexperienced contractor, so I have to draft out simple questions that can make your contractor either edgy or keep him in check. Is good to know you aren't a complete dumb, when it comes to building your house, asking so much question will also make the contractor knows you won't accept a job not well done. In all this is just to start a conversation with your contractor by sheepishly asking everyday site questions.


(1) What are the types of foundation?
-strip, pad, raft and pile
(a)What are the advantages of one over others?. He should be able to explain a little.
-Strip is the common one that follows the path of walls, pad is also knowned as isolated foundation, raft is of concrete spread round the site often time in form of inverted T, also used for waterlogged or loose soil that is of moderate few floor height. Pile is concrete bored deep down the floor usually for multiple storeys.

(2)How do you assure or determine that the foundation is squared, what will you use?
- An instrument called square, details more
(3)Explain how to set out the building?
(4)What is the thickness of foundation concrete bed you will use, let him show you from the structural drawings. Could be 600mm(2ft)-1200(4ft)mm or more.
(5)What are the likely mixture ratio for the foundation concrete?
-1:2:4, i.e 1 bag of cement to 2 headpans of sand and 4 headpans of stones.
(6)Granite or gravel which are you going to use for the building, what are the differences?.
-Granite is fine neat and stronger but far costlier to gravel, granite bonds easily because of less impurities.
(7)The iron rods where are you going to buy them from?
They said imported iron rods are often stronger why?
-Some iron rods in Nigeria are recycled hence they are often not as strong, though the ones from factory in Delta are ok.
(8)Why do you put biscuits (small cubic concrete square around iron rods when laid in concrete mass during construction? What are biscuits anyway?
-To allow the iron rods to be properly buried inside concrete, if the rods are exposed to weather or climatic elements they may get rust and that will weaken them, apart from that the exposed one is not fully functioning optimally.
(9)What is oversite concrete? Let him explain
-German floor in lay man’s term
(10)What is the height or depth of groundfloor between the top of the adjoining road to the ground floor? What are the advantages of raising the ground floor higher.
-Of course it will help in case of flooding, you can easily slope the site to your drainage points.
(11)Load bearing walls, retaining walls, nonloadbearing walls, what are they and the differences in a building?
-Loadbearing walls as the name implies helps in carrying the load of the building, it also contributes as structural part of the building .
-Retaining walls are for supporting other structures in place, for example in arunoff of water, retaining walls can be used to protect the sands or earth from being washed away by your fence. It could also be used in basement.
-Non loadbearing walls are others in a building that aren’t really contributing structurally to the stability of the building, like the curtain walls, partition walls in a building.
(12)If the place is prone to flood what are measures you can use to check or forestall water from percolating through to the building.
-You can use dpc membrane (cellophane like stuff to prevent water from percolating thorough to the building.) What is DPC anyway?
(13)What are the advantages of using oversite concrete or german floor?
-It helps reduce water percolation from ground
-It enhances the strength of building
(14)The suspended floor slabs- first floor, second e.tc what mixture ratio is advisable to use.
-1:2:4
-thickness of suspended floor-150mm or 6”
What type of suspended floor are we using?
- Most likely solid- that can be seen from the structural drawing
(15)If you discover the roof leaking after building what are the possible causes and how can you remedy it.
-If the design is faulty
-Bad workmanship by installer
-To repair, relay the very terrible ones,
You may apply aluminium flashing for aluminium roof. Other areas close to wall you can use bitumen too.
(16)The roof, are you recommending aluminium or others, what are the advantages of aluminium over others.
-Is probably going to be aluminium and advantages-it is light, durable and aesthetically pleasing to others, you can choose any colour.
(17)Conduit wiring or surface which will you advocate?
-Conduit is when you have wires embedded in walls.
-Surface is when it is placed on surface of walls.
Conduit is preferable for office settings it is neater, though surface can be easily maintained.

Project 1: Serie A.The Diary of A Building Contractor.

This is a serie of projects written in stages to help you have an idea of what to expect or experience when you are executing your next project. This serie is stage one of a 4 bedroom project designed and built by me for a moderate income earner.
Other projects will also be brought to you susequently. Enjoy my diary and
I hope you'll be able to learn from my personal experience and mistakes. The other series will be posted in due time.

DAY 1
My client,his friend and I went to meet their former neighbour today
that also has a building around where we are to buy land.
Infact he introduced us to someone close to the "Baale" (traditional king
of the area).He is popularly called "Baba Legba"

We met the "Baale" and he pegged the price of the land at
1.2million but we were able to negotiate it to 1million naira. We promised
to pay N700,000 as installments the next working day. After that we had
pep talk and word of advice from 'Baba Pamilerin' our contact man and his
wife.

Another issue was raised by me concerning Government stand on the land but
the Baale wade in that practically all lands in lagos at one point or the
other were Government acquired, but they do sell some of these lands based
on the facts that the moment the entire space is built, then is easy for
them to request for excision (given out back the land to the villagers)
from government, so the onus was left to us to go ahead or stop for
further investigations, but we went ahead because the area is built up.

But we later discovered that the area was not part of the exempted portion
from the government.

lesson no. 1- when you are ready to buy a land it won't cost you anything to contact a good land surveyor to accompany you to the site, let him come back the next day with his compass to double check.
Though we had a feeling of the plot being in Govt acq. area but we weren't 100% sure,
probably that may have influenced our decisions wether to still go ahead
or take our time or bit down the price of the land e.t.c

DAY 2
Client sent N700,000 to pay for the initial deposit, hence early in the
morning next day tuesday, myself and "Akeem" -(clients friend) went to pay
the money. We went there with "Baba Pamilerin'-our contact man. Tried to
still negotiate the price down but met stone wall."The baale-(traditional
ruler) called the owner of the plot of land if he will agree for N700,000
as the installment and for us to pay the balance by end of october the
seller agreeed for end of semptember.
Prayer were made we signed and collected the receipt from Baale. He made us to realise nobody sells the land in their domain without their knowledge, obviously so that they would continually collect commission on any exchange of properties from one hand to the other, this was also expressly stated in the receipt they gave us.

DAY 3
We organised for the clearing of site, gave "Baba Legba" N6,000 to pay
Hausa people to cut the overgrown grasses.

DAY 4
I went to the site measured the existing foundation with "Baba Sunday"-my
bricklayer. We used his bike to the site and we both made suggestions on
how best to carry out the project and how we can adjust the structure on
ground to blend with what we have in mind.

Surveyor Kayode came to site to look at it, we went round and I asked him
if the site is not probably in Government Acquired Area. He brought out a
gazzete (government publication that shows that parts of the village has
been given back to the villagers but for now he can't really determine the
exact space, so he may need to come back to measure and use GPS -Compass to determine that, asides that he can't
guarantee us for now but advised that people do appeal to government
concerning some areas where you may have plenty of buildings around.

DAY 5
I called in Baba Sunday our bricklayer to look at the site with the sketch
plan I gave him and take inventory of what is on site vis a vis what we
are trying to achieve. Then I asked him to go through and tell me what he
will take for his fees to lay the entire blocks of the building.

DAY 6
Baba Sunday came with a quotation reflecting N115,000 to get the structure
to dpc level, that is the level before you have the ground floor.
The initial thinking from me was for him to estimate for all but I think
he smelled a fish and decided to make it piecemeal, well this has both its

advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages--
i, I can afford to terminate his contract after the DPC level (ground
floor level-foundation)

ii,This can also give me room to once again study the expertise of the
bricklayer with possiblities of terminating his appointment.

iii,We can afford to suspend the construction at that stage untill economy
improves without any obligation to anybody.

Disadvantages
i,The bricklayer has the right to also reject and stop working after
completion of the first phase.

ii,Negotiating in piecemeal may make the overall cost of building to be
higher.
So after much deliberation we settled for N75,000 fee to get the building
to dpc level (ground floor level).

Day 7
The client gave me N500,000 to pay for material to kickstart the project.

We got a geepee 3000liters tank for N30,000 plus N1,000 accesories and we
were lucky to use the hilux jeep from surveyor Kayode to carry it to site,
this could have caused another N2,500-N3,000.
The surveyor took dimension with his ball boy and placed the beacon round
the building. The building is a cornerpiece so we had 5 beacons (concrete
element used for marking out building plots) . Each beacon costs N100 to
buy.

DAY 8

Myself, Akeem( client's friend) went to site one Mrs Chikwe approached us
that she supplies sand so we asked her to supply us sharp sand
"kasabubu"-20 tonnes at N36,000, other quotations we got were higher.
Gravel Sharp sand Soft sand
Baba Sunday's friend- 45,000 38,000 25,000
Mrs Kema- 36,000 23,000
Alhaja- 19,000 38,000 22,000
"Alhaja" gave us 5 tonnes gravel for N19,000 and we also asked her to supply
soft sand.

The next day sharp sand of 10 tonnes and gravel of 5 tonnes were delivered
to site. Additional 10 tonnes from Baba Sunday's friend was delivered a
day after.

We went to see Baale to pay for for "omo onile foundation money" we were
asked to pay N25,000 but we went back to give him N20,000 which he still
insists we must pay the remaining N5,000. We also went along with 2
bottles of schnapps one for Baale, the other for "Olori ebi" an elder to
the baale. The most senior man or the eldest among the baale's family(
though we haven't giving him his own at the time of writing this report).

We met the owner of the house beside site to help connect the tank to his
borehole which he agreed to, so we called plumber to help do the
connection, and he was paid N2,000 to buy the accessories and for the
labour.

DAY 9

Work commences , we just discovered that the building on site was not
"squared" it wasn't properly set out so the blocks have to be removed and we have to dig a new foundation all round retaining just one straight wall by the right side of site to serve as our point line. Every other line
were dug 600mm or 3ft. The stumps on site was removed by Hausas for N4,000
"Baba Sunday"-my bricklayer accompany me home around 2pm to collect
money for the suppliers of sand. I was to pay him N38,000 for sharp sand
and N25,000 for soft. But on getting home we took his okada and when I
asked him how much I am to give him he said N70,000-N45,000 for sharp sand
and N25,000 for soft sand. I gave him the money quickly without thinking
(the sharp sand was supposed to be N38,000 as formerly priced) . Why? you
may ask, I was very hungry I only discovered this mistake after I had
eaten so I quickly called him I was only able to get back N5,000 out of the
money.

Lesson no. 2-Don't negotiate a business when you are hungry.Don't give out money when you are hungry as well.

DAY 10
Casting of concrete -14 bags were expended, this is quite short of
ordinary calculation for a standard construction which you were expected
to cast 150mm or 6 inches thick concrete slab. We could have used more
cement and gravel with this.
This area is another place local bricklayers will cheat you if left to do
everything on their own the average thickness of the foundation we did was
100mm or 4 inches thick 50mm less than the normal paper design.

We couldn't get the next door neighbour concerning water issue , it was on
monday and everybody have left home . so someone had to fetch the water we used in drums for us at the rate of N250/drum.
I took 10 liters of diesel down to power the neighbours generator so that water can
be pumped into our tank for the next assignment.

DAY 11
Block work started destination to foundation or dpc level.
Stacking permit guys came with okada and I was told they've been around
before. So we chatted and they said with N20,000 they will help out( this
is an area that is still under government acquisition) I gave them N1,000
which I called okada money and I agreed to pay N10,000 ,that is definitely
a topic for another day.

In conclusion to the ground floor level stage for the plan above we have
expended N650,000. Though some blocks were still left which we used to
raise some portion up -(pictures will be added later).

However do not let your heart be troubled because of this amount, the
foundation area is one of the most money consuming part, apart from that
for the low earners there are still more you can do , you can build yours
piecemeal, I mean you can decide to raise up just one room and a kitchen
but you have the plan of the entire structure mapped out, this you can
seek the advice of your architect friend,if you don't have one, look for a
draftsman.
Also notes that the plan shown above can be the bogus type for
an average low income earner, you may have to reduce yours and streamline
your budget.