topsy23:


Nigeria cable is one of the best cable. Most of nigerian consultant don't specify imported cables.

Not true and true
Not true because Nigerian cables (original) are competing with chinese made cables branded as UK and US made.

True, because Nigerian electrical cable manufactures are doing a good job in proving they are the best. This has helped them. Create a niche here in nigeria and west africa most especially.

topsy23:


Am not saying Nigeria is unique but we should be proud of father land . It means the output of your generator will be 110V as well. All the electronics must be 110V AC supply. But in future and things change for best for our dear country and you want to connect to public supply, u need to pull out all the cables and re-run another cables because 110V cables might not withstand 220V supply voltage

That is not going to be a problem. Have u ever wondered how high tension wires not thicker than 20mm can carry 30,000volts?
The simple answer is in how electricity works. The higher the voltage, the lesser the resistance the current experiences in moving through a material. The lower the resistance, the lower the energy lose due to heating of the wires.
That is why electricity is transmitted at high voltages through thin wires. This means the house wiring for a 110v setup is actually thicker than that needed for a 220v setup. Hope you understand me sir?
So that won't be a problem when he has to switch to 220v. But it is dangerous to switch to a lower voltage using the same wires.

Let me explain.
Electrical power is IV, I for current V for voltage
If you plug a load of 1000w to a 110v source, then your load will pull a current of 1000w divided by 110v which gives you 9.09A current passing though
But if it is a 220v source only 4.5A current would pass through the wires.
NOTE. It is the current that causes heating and danger or fire outbreak.
So a wiring for 110v is designed to handle double the current 220v wiring can handle.
But don't try using the wiring of 220v on a 110v setup.

This post is a convenient growing collection of links to other topics I'll need later... just putting this here as place holder, so I don't have to bookmark on multiple browsers. This also allows me to add details to the bookmarks, which browsers aren't really good at.

Low cost examples of 1 and 2-bedrooms by oga spyder880. In both cases I don't see German floor, mesh in the floor, or concrete columns in the house corners (there's a pair of concrete columns in the front of the 2-bedroom house, but there's none supporting the house walls).
https://www.nairaland.com/1817286/low-cost-housing-case-study 1 bedroom, no cost or time listed
https://www.nairaland.com/1809270/low-cost-housing-case-study 2 bedroom, N 2.5M (adjusted to 2.6M for waterlogged foundation), 60 days
List of building materials in Nigeria and their costs, as of September 2014, by gistmelove
https://www.nairaland.com/1916167/list-building-materials-nigeria-price

Calculations by abdulwastecx in Cost Of laying a bungalow Foundation gives a price of N3700 per meter in foundation. See below for calculations:
https://www.nairaland.com/2162299/cost-laying-bungalow-foundation#31004622


Soak away:
https://www.nairaland.com/1904839/cost-soakaway-septic-tank 9" blocks, N 425k (for 2 tanks?), be sure to use columns
https://www.nairaland.com/2550211/off-topic-thread-discuss-anything-everything/18#37651045 biofil toilet digester, N 300k estimated 07056137600
https://www.nairaland.com/2138981/biofil-toilet-digester-alternative-septic#41707594 examples of biofil installations 08035207445

Doors and windows:
https://www.nairaland.com/1410552/security-armored-doors-burglary-proofs/25 Muyesky

Solar packages:
http://solyntaenergy.com/solar-packages/for-homes/ Really like their simplified 5-tier packages that makes it really easy to understand what you can power and how much. They provide all the pieces and will install. Very well done @ Barcholder


Galvanized steel cladding and insulation, as illustrated by Dominionng:
https://www.nairaland.com/2113514/false-ceiling-galvanized-steel-cladding#32062876

i-beams
aluminum L-shaped: https://www.nairaland.com/2280646/get-these-l-beams-nigeria#33240919 5700 ea for 18ft

Tiles:
nice collection of tiles by spyder880 https://www.nairaland.com/2275826/sample-collection-tiles-home/1#39538292

topsy23:


Am not saying Nigeria is unique but we should be proud of father land . It means the output of your generator will be 110V as well. All the electronics must be 110V AC supply. But in future and things change for best for our dear country and you want to connect to public supply, u need to pull out all the cables and re-run another cables because 110V cables might not withstand 220V supply voltage

How more proud can I be than bringing my loot home to roost? Think about that for a sec.

I have the right and thank god the ability to make sound choices for my family.

I don't compromise on safety and convenience. At my age I have done life lessons that benefits me.

What voltage left Kanji? What voltage left neighborhood substation? What voltage arrives at your house? The simplicity of this is that you can always step down voltage.

My house will be on 110 volts with all US wiring, connectors, junctions and switches.

The site of the experiment on the available land...

I thank the person who brought out this topic. Keep it up. And please let us all join hands and fight lack of sufficient power in Nigeria.

The revised floorplan, with appropriate placement of windows. It would be interesting to see if the entire building and interior walls could be done with galvanized steel cladding and insulation, as illustrated by Dominionng:
https://www.nairaland.com/2113514/false-ceiling-galvanized-steel-cladding#32062876

It seems the Biofil digester can be 30 times smaller than the equivalent soak away, reducing land use and eliminating the hazard of caving in. I found these usage examples from their prospectus, which can result in a mostly hidden digester: https://www.biofilcom.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/biofil-toilet-system.pdf

For a system cost of N300k (my estimate), it seems like a very good idea. Apparently you only need to empty out solid waste, which is completely broken down, every two years, and use it to fertilize a lawn or trees on the property.

Looks like we'd also need to discharge the excess water (which I'm not entirely sure is decomposed), into a discharge pond or (small) soakaway.

See some video explanations here: https://www.biofilcom.org/our-work/how-it-works/

Very innovative, and I like the reuse of water from handwashing to flush.

Great calculations by abdulwastecx in Cost Of laying a bungalow Foundation:
https://www.nairaland.com/2162299/cost-laying-bungalow-foundation#31004622

He uses DPC of 75mm thick (not German floor), 6" blocks, and cement mixing ratio of 1:3:6 (which I'll express as 2:6:12 to mean 2 bags of cement, 6 pans of gravel, and 12 pans of sand to avoid confusing me), strip footing of 100mm (4" ) depth and 450mm (18" ) width.

Price is approximately N3700/meter of wall in a foundation that's 2 feet high (600mm, 3 courses) using 6" blocks. This includes cement, gravel, sand, boards, DPM, workmanship, in short all that goes into making a foundation. So for our project we can expect to be in the ballpark of:

6 walls x 6 meters/wall x N3700/meter = N133200.

Of course things will vary, but the final cost should not change by too much, given the specs above.

Here's another snapshot of the elevations... this time, we're planning to use casement windows, for the kitchen and back walls. The small windows in the rooms should be at a good level for somebody to look out when they're in the bunk bed.

What do you think about this very simple foundation? It looks like just a single pour of concrete slab directly on the ground. There's some formwork, rebar, and a DPM, but t doesn't look like they did anything to the ground other than leveling it. Unlike the usual 3-4 coaches, sharp sand, etc, this might save even more money as long as you know the ground is never waterlogged. The site we have planned has a very deep water table, and in fact, it's very difficult to reach it with a borehole. It's also on relatively high ground, and during the rains, water flows away. Why use foundation techniques designed for Lekki and PH when we can put the foundation right on the ground? Especially when the slab size is planned to be only 6m x 6m. I can't find it right now, but I thought someone on Nairaland did something similar...

Images from: http://www.sturmsoft.com/House/pictures.htm

Anyways, any thoughts?

nextstep:
What do you think about this very simple foundation? It looks like just a single pour of concrete slab directly on the ground. There's some formwork, rebar, and a DPM, but t doesn't look like they did anything to the ground other than leveling it. Unlike the usual 3-4 coaches, sharp sand, etc, this might save even more money as long as you know the ground is never waterlogged. The site we have planned has a very deep water table, and in fact, it's very difficult to reach it with a borehole. It's also on relatively high ground, and during the rains, water flows away. Why use foundation techniques designed for Lekki and PH when we can put the foundation right on the ground? Especially when the slab size is planned to be only 6m x 6m. I can't find it right now, but I thought someone on Nairaland did something similar...

Images from: http://www.sturmsoft.com/House/pictures.htm

Anyways, any thoughts?

This is how foundations are done where I reside in the Carolinas. I have seen foundations done here with 3ft walls on four sides and no demarcation in the middle or any part of the foundation. Just 4 wide walls and concrete top.


My question to engineers in the house: why do we always have foundations done with blocks as demarcations in-between and then slap a 6 inch concrete German floor on it? What happens if four wall foundation is done without any demarcation in-between and then concrete top on the foundation?

Similar to my descriptions below:

@ op - still reading through but turning out to be the most exciting thread have read this year. Thanks a bunch

Very exciting topic. It is nice to see people think outside the box. The panels can't make up the structure of the roof. They are not designed as load bearing structures. Solar shingles are more common place. In the United States this works because the shingles sit on a wood board. Nigerians construct roofs differently.
Please keep the conversation going. The reference to the friend in California would work if Nigeria had a feed in tariff and our infrastructure could handle all that extra power going back into it.

Modification of plans: now it's a 1 storey buuilding (picture and plans later)

So we finally broke ground on this project, on November 3. We just poured a strip foundation since this was dry land, and by the next day, were able to start putting up some blocks. The inside floor is going to get filled in much later, because there are some things that we're planning to place under the floor like batteries and plumbing. We're using 6" solid blocks to maximize available space on such a tight floorplan.

The house is taking shape by the 3rd day after we broke ground. Interesting how they're casting the columns in stages... bottom, middle, top. I assume it's best to cast the entire length of column at once so it bonds together well, but the site engineer seems to be comfortable with this. Any arguments for/against casting in sections?

Finally, I got to walk inside the building and get a feel for the space... it's a little tight but not too cramped...

Got to the site and encountered this sad state of affairs: some people had come in at night to vandalize the building!

There is significant damage to all external walls, and I'm sure that without the columns and lintel, the whole thing could have
collapsed...

We must carry on, even as we try and find out who was responsible and why.

DPM and iron works before decking

After iron works but before decking is poured. I went offsite for about 1 hour to buy more materials, then came back to see the plumber cutting reinforcement bars. He had already broken the lintel, cut 2 out of 6 reinforcing bars, and was about to do more damage before we stopped him. He said he needed to make space for the 4-inch toilet piping.

When I challenged him, he insisted that we could patch the damage with concrete, proving he didn't really understand anything about loading, structure, and the possible future damage he could have caused. That point of the wall would have been resting entirely on blocks (which are not load bearing in this building), and somebody could die when that section failed. He still didn't get it. I was so furious, so I paid him for work so far, and asked him to leave the site that moment.

Even if you don't have space because of the small blocks we used, please use your common sense and ask the site engineer before you damage such an important part of the building. To make matters worse, the site engineer said he approved the cut! Can you imagine!
Well, I'm watching him more carefully now.

The waste pipe will now be external, and we may cover it with some design down the line.

Thank God we found out before he made more cuts, or worse covered it up with un-reinforced concrete. The plan is to tie more bars to bridge the cut. Not perfect, but the lintel has already been cast. The picture shows the sink and shower drain pipe; the toilet drain didn't fit.

Finally got to this stage, Dec 12. Pictures are in this order:
- back, showing 4 small window in the bedroom
- front, showing doors. Damage still being patched
- left, sitting room window
- right, with bathroom window showing

The theme is minimalist, with very simple features and uniformity; time will tell how this design ends up

The rooms face East, so they should be relatively cool by night time. The front face West and gets a lot of sunshine later in the day. To minimize heat windows are tall and thin and should be tinted. We might pursue options that reduce heat gain: vines on that side of the building, insulating foam, or an overhanging extension to the roof.

The solar panels (not yet installed) will tilt West, high on the back, where the rooms are, and lower in the front, where kitchen and living room are.

I've received feedback as to why we're bothering to make a 1-storey building when a bungalow would suffice (i.e. why waste so much money on the decking?) The footprint of the building is determined by the number of panels we plan to install, and panels are more expensive per square foot than decking.

Your panels should face North and you might decide to angle them up to 30 degrees.

chris81964:
Your panels should face North and you might decide to angle them up to 30 degrees.

You're right, and that is the conventional wisdom, but this is being put up to debate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/why-more-solar-panels-should-be-pointing-west-not-south.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomkonrad/2013/11/22/your-solar-panels-arent-facing-the-wrong-way

The gist is, yes, you may get less overall production, but you'll generate more energy when you need it most. Granted these articles discussed grid-tied systems, but I think it still applies to off-grid. In our case, as the Sun heads West and heats up the living room, it will also provide more power to the air conditioners. Ideally we won't need to use the AC at all during the night (and thus drain the batteries) since we've kept the building from heating up significantly. Also, since we also want to explore cooking with solar (using an induction cooker), we thought that because the greatest insolation at West (4-6pm) roughly coincides with when dinner is prepared, it would be best to generate the most power at that time.

Since this is an experiment, we are prepared to make real-world measurements and realign as needed. Will keep you posted.

nextstep:


You're right, and that is the conventional wisdom, but this is being put up to debate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/why-more-solar-panels-should-be-pointing-west-not-south.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomkonrad/2013/11/22/your-solar-panels-arent-facing-the-wrong-way



Since this is an experiment, we are prepared to make real-world measurements and realign as needed. Will keep you posted.

I am from the show me state. I will like to see your results. A very small sample that is statistically insignificant as per the article would not suddenly wipe away decades of research. Grid ties systems are a relatively new development in solar. The original installations were off grid.

Interesting

Wow, I see a future for this country with the kind of mind set in this thread. Keep the good work up.

One of the disadvantages of using aluminium and steel in a roof is that, unlike wood, it's much more expensive and harder to attach to. For instance, if this was a wooden roof, we could have easily banged on a wood fascia or even light-weight parapet, but as it is we're having a hard time deciding how to close the space between roof and wall.

Hi, very nice project. I think that a light weight parapet will work. The only obstacle will be that the panels will have to be removed to allow for the parapet crown around the perimeter of the wall, then the panels can be lay inward by sitting on the top of the wall, not the top of the parapet.

Here's the under-floor area that will house the batteries. This will eventually be covered by a false floor (made of plywood or even reinforced cement) that can be removed once a year for maintenance and remove the batteries. There is a small hole leading from this space to the outside to diffuse gases that may be created during battery charging. Note the conduits on the wall that will connect the batteries to the panels and the rest of the house.

We put batteries underground for three reasons:
- the primary being that the building is rather small, and the batteries take up a significant amount of space
- underground is the coolest place in the house, best to keep batteries cool while charging
- in case of chemical leaks, nothing will be above ground and should be easier to contain

Finishing up the soakaway... we dug deep enough so it won't be visible once it's complete since I'm a big fan of hidden utilities.

I'm thinking we'll cover it with a 4-inch layer of sand so we can also put a small flower bed on it.

My biggest worry is will the top weaken over time as rainfall collects under the soil, since it cannot run off as normal. Any thoughts? I'm wondering if I should use a layer of DPM to protect the cement or will that make matters worse. Also any side effects of plant roots growing into the cement over time?

Preparing the h-beams that will support the panels. Each of the 5 beams is supported by 6" legs that will be put into the hollow blocks. Then we pour cement mix into these holes to hold the beams solidly. The beams are all angled 5 degrees from the front of the building to the back, which aids in water runoff.

Installing aluminium bars that span the h-beams and better support the panels. The square brackets are our own design, and have two bolts on either side. Although it's a cool design, and seems to hold very well, I think this step can be better accomplished with only binding wire. The steel and bolts are quite heavy and added cost to the project.

The second picture shows the first row of panels being placed (at the same time as plastering over the plumbing side of the building)

I'm proud of the team for making this roof very straight at the first try: it took a lot of measurements, preparations and rechecking, but by the time the panels were placed, everything was just straight. (the apparent curve you see in the third picture is mostly due to the curve in the camera lens... it's really straight)

The last picture shows the use of flashing and silicone to seal the gaps between panels. It's still leaking a bit so we have to revisit this issue.