spyder880:

Where is Oga Fhemmmy, baba show face na

He dey busy with madam! you no say na weekend or where him dey na mid night.

Nice

This is one of the most expensive fence I've seen in my whole life. Over 1 mill to fence a plot of land. (60x120),  I did my including a gate for around 670k and this is because I was not around when it was done. And this is with concrete pillars to support the fence and 2 big pillars that support the gate. I can see that you try to defend yourself with this statement  "This will mean that we need 84 planks of 1x12x12 to place on the front and back of each pillar, now we need 4 planks of 1x3x12 to use in each pillar to get the pillar to be 1ft square. All these add to the costs, but that is what the owner wants" You don't need to buy all these planks, you build a few pillars at a time.
And the 160k for labor is somehow on the high side PLUS THE "Gate standing/concrete mixing N40,000" and "Foundation and blinding of fence N34,500" COST, shouldn't this be part of the labor cost except the digging of the foundation,

Still learning

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@ ajileko, thank you for your points, well noted. What I have come to understand about building in the public view is that you have to show all works, there is nowhere to hide anything, including bad works. I will rather leave out a project and pass than accept a job and do a bad work, it is part of our continuous improvement efforts.

Did you say you did a fencing and Gate for 11/2 plots of land with N670k with a gate and 1ft concrete pillars? (Remember the client asked for a gate of N130k) That is fantastic, I love that and we here will like to learn from you, please post the pictures of your fence so we learn from you, anybody can teach anybody, expecting you pictures, thanks. Tell us how many blocks you used , how many planks you used and cement, sand etc.

I remember this last fence I did on this thread, the one with double gates, I made a budget of 3 trips of sand an 1 trip of stone, needless to say that the whole thing finished in front of me, and I had to dip my hands into my pocket to buy additional wheel barrows of sand plus a trip of gravel, I don't want that to happen to me again. So ajikeko, please teach us sir.

Let me expand more on that quotation and state the reasons for the figures, also I tell my clients to pick out any part of my quotes and ask me for defense of my plans or methods.

I made a provision of N135k for bricklayers and people serving them far all the block laying stages, turning the mortar and carrying the blocks to the bricklayers, this is done for the figure of 4200 blocks x N25 for laying one 6" solid block,please house, note that you cannot pay for only the blocks you brought from the block industry, you will need to pay for the halves that will be cut, the quarter blocks and the 3/4 blocks, so we are going to pay the bricklayers N25 x around 4600 blocks = N115,000. The remaining N20k will not even be enough for the serving mason who will be working with the masons when you consider they are paid between N1200 and N1500 per day, I don't know how many workers will work out the amount for the duration of the project but I have a strong feeling I have under quoted already!

Let us also look at the 40,000 allocated for mounting of the gate and concrete pillars, well for some of us who think this is easy, please go to a building site and watch a work in progress, to mount a gate does not mean to just lift it up and stand it! We are talking of using N40,000 to pay all the people that will be involved to do all the works associated with the gate standing. We shall start with the iron bender who will bend all the rods at the site, the whole pillars and the gate pillar, how much will you take to do all those work and place big baskets on the gate foundation. (Seems I forgot to budget for the iron bender to do the pillars for the rest of the 42 pillars?)
Okay, now we have to pay the boys digging the large gate foundation, mixing concrete and standing the pillar, only a mason can do this as it involves some technical detail which laborers cannot do. You have to also pay a mason for the gate standing, now the 4th set of people you pay are the boys that pour the concrete, let us assume we use 20 bags of cement for this stage, thick blinding, standing and then the tall pillar proper, we have to pay N500 for each bag mixed.

On the amount of N34,000 for foundation digging and blinding of all the 1 and half plots of land, well I think I have under quoted, just ask the laborers in your area the cost of digging a partition of 11/2 ft deep 11/2 ft deep x in the place I worked last they took N700 for a partition and from my calculations of the said plot, we are going to do up to 18 partitions x N700 = N12,600.
Add this to the cost of mixing concrete of around 30 bags of cement for the blinding, if I pay the normal N500 per bag, then another N15,000 has gone, then there are masons that will tap the concrete into place and ensure a level range with a gauge. We have to pay the masons, assume this work takes 2 days for the foundation blinding stage, we are talking of another N2000 x 2 masons x 2 days = N8,000. We just overspent our N34,500!

We all think this is easy, to stay there and shout "hey, we can get it cheaper!" But just come down and do the maths and you will see we on the field always save money for our clients. My focus in construction is to show that things could be done cheaper, but I can never compromise building standards as I do this.

Thank God for the understanding of my client whom I did the last fence for. (The one with double gates) when he came back and looked at the work, I appealed to him that I overspent by more than 20,000, he sent N20,000 to my account the next day. You never know these things cost money till you venture out.

ajileko:

This is one of the most expensive fence I've seen in my whole life. Over 1 mill to fence a plot of land. (60x120),  I did my including a gate for around 670k and this is because I was not around when it was done. And this is with concrete pillars to support the fence and 2 big pillars that support the gate. I can see that you try to defend yourself with this statement  "This will mean that we need 84 planks of 1x12x12 to place on the front and back of each pillar, now we need 4 planks of 1x3x12 to use in each pillar to get the pillar to be 1ft square. All these add to the costs, but that is what the owner wants" You don't need to buy all these planks, you build a few pillars at a time.
And the 160k for labor is somehow on the high side PLUS THE "Gate standing/concrete mixing N40,000" and "Foundation and blinding of fence N34,500" COST, shouldn't this be part of the labor cost except the digging of the foundation,

This is the mistake people make, they just fly off and comment without reading a post very well. That plot was a 60 x 150 ft size and not 60 x 120 as you thought. So, you threw away the costs for 30ft x 30 ft into the bush! We are still waiting for your breakdown and pictures, at least I show mine here.

spyder: how did you arrive at 60 x 150 sq.ft. for a 20m by 50m plot?

The plot is more like 66 x 164 sq.ft., (or 60 x ~ 180 sq. ft) not 60 x150 sq.ft.

Yet, this does not explain the N670K vs. about N1.5m

In any case, a picture of Ajileko's gate (plus some deatils) could help clarify.

.

^^^ ha! Which means I under calculated? I was using 3ft per meter? You see! Anyway we are waiting for Oga Ajileko to teach us, me am always humble and ready to learn.

I am at this my fencing site, we topped the remaining blocks on top of the fence and now we have locked the gate. Work will start there anytime soon. Still processing the approvals with the Local govts. More pictures later today.

spyder880:

^^^ ha! Which means I under calculated? I was using 3ft per meter? You see! Anyway we are waiting for Oga Ajileko to teach us, me am always humble and ready to learn.

Exactly: your fence is cheaper than you made it appear.

But: these numbers work out to N1861/ft (for Ajileko) vs N3125/ft (spyder) : same height assumed

This is a large difference, and it's almost immediately obvious the reason would be due to design/quality/materials, or perhaps a gross underestimation or some other 'mstake' . . .

^^^ thank you Nimshi, what I think is that Ajileko didn't study the type of fence before replying. I stated earlier that this client gave me a set of instructions that sets this job apart from other fences.
1. He requested for 6" solid blocks, increasing the blocks cost by about N105k or more, as against those that will use 6" hollow to do their own fence.
2. He told me he wanted 1ft square concrete pillars used on 6" blocks, which will increase the costs by the type of wood needed on each pillar, yes we can reuse wood but note that not all woods are reusable, the reusable ones are more expensive, if you buy some softwood and tie it with strong binding wire, bye-bye to that wood as it cannot be reused.
3. This Oga wants 11 blocks above ground level, this will mean that there will be 12 blocks standing on the 13th block that started from the ground, remember that.
The owner of the fence asked for 2ft square concrete pillars, not the normal 1ft or 1.6ft. And this will mean extra concrete to be poured.

Really, should a 1979 Peugeot 504 working as cab on Nigerian roads be the same cost with a 2010 model Mercedes E230? Fence get level my people!

Lest I forget, one more point that added to the cost, this Oga asked that I space the pillars by 10ft apart from each other, this will increase the number of pillars, and with this revealation from Nimshi, I think there should be an increase in the number of materials, pillars and labour. Another point is that the gate he wanted should be N130,000 out of the money I quoted, let's all remember that.
Please, can somebody else give us a counter quote to compare with mine, taking the above points and choices of the owner into consideration.

@Ajileko pls we are waiting for the pics of ur fence, we are all here to learn.Thanks

updated pictures of the completed fence.

more

Yeah man, I can see that good old spyder man here is a contractor not a journeyman. First all, the guy that build my fence is a brick layer journeyman. He is part of the worker and he hired other skilled labor as needed. Sometimes he worked alone and sometimes he will bring additional help. I use all 9 inches block for the 10 coches from the ground level and since this is only a fence, I did care much.  I just need a solid fence to secure my land. And again, mine was build in 2008 so I will give you a break and adjust for inflation.  You said the gate is included in this estimate but I did not see it in the quote. I just can not imagine spending over a million naira on a fence when some of this cash can be use building the actual house. Ok now let us take a step back and ask for a quotation for a standard fence of 60x120 plot using 9 inches block and a fairly decent gate. How much will you charge?  These Pix may not be very clear but it will give you an idea of what me fence looks like,

^^^ you said you didn't see the N130k in my quote, please kindly look again at the quote. Please tell us how much you bought cement as at 2008. Can we have a complete breakdown because metioning one amount without justifying it will not teach us anything here.

Another thing to note is that you used 9" pillars on a 60 x120 plot, I am quoting for 1" pillars on a 66 x 188 ft land, are they the same?
But just give us your breakdown so we can learn, we are waiting.

@ all, I think we may just be comparing apples and tomatoes here, or are there any similarities between my quote and the fence Ajileko did? This seems like wasting time to me and I will chose to stop reacting to his posts till I see any similarity with his work and my quote, this is a very unfair comment by him, we should be fair before making critical comments.

@Spyder

Your attempts to defend yourself is becoming a distraction to this thread you started

I would prefer if you continue sharing information with members of the forum which is the main reason you started the thread

people can always use these information to figure out their build options and how pricing would apply in their different locales

St. Anthony of Padua

^^^ be sure I will pick the images as soon as I find anything worthwhile.

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