We are still filling this foundation with sand.

About two rooms remaining as at this evening.....

From the drilling of the borehole yesterday, there are different types of sand under the ground in every location, I was watching them work, and at each pipe they inserted into the ground, they removed the sand that was coming out from the borehole.
From the first from the left, labelled '1' is the first pipe, till number 11 (11th pipe) is where they found good water.

We have different activities lined up for tomorrow, they include;

1. completing the sand filling
2. getting the borehole pumping water
3. flooding the foundation with water to sink in the sand
4. fitting the rods that will form the foundation perimeter framing
5. fitting plumbing materials for conduit waste system
6. so help us oh lord

Nice one. Following you closely at the back

megainvest: Watching closely and learning. I think some of us have treated all4naija unfairly. To be honest, his concerns are valid at least from his layman's point of view. Lets learn to take advantage of criticism as an opportunity for learning and improvement.

The expectation is that Oga Spyder should educate him (for the benefit of everyone and assurance of his client who I guess is watching this thread) on how those concerns have been addressed.

For everyone's benefit, here are the issues we need to discuss:

1. Was a geotechnical investigation (soil test) carried out to Determine the safe bearing capacity, HHWL and LLWL ie highest and lowest soil water level, settlement limits etc?

2. In view of the above, how did the engineer determine the width of foundation footing, depth of foundation, elevation of floor etc. Beware of the most notorious differential settlement.

All4naija's concern also has to do with ensuring your foundation does not rely on the blocks that may be subjected to alternate wetting and drying due to variation in groundwater levels.

From the pictures, I can see some answers to some questions (but not all) here posed but it will be nice if oga Spyder or other professionals can educate us further.

Over to you

Thank you my people, first I must commend everybody in this forum for all your comments, suggestions, advice, criticisms and even knocks you give us, it has helped in no small way to strengthen our resolve towards serving you better. Honestly, I don't think I could have done well if not for your valuable inputs.

I try to do things differently, at first most of you that have met me in person will be surprised at my "unsharpness" in real life. I take a long time to consider my answers and actions before I talk or act, but when I have convinced myself that an action is the right thing to do, I always try to fight it till the end.

In building, I think the first consideration should be on the safety of the structure, this concern ranks highest in my scale of importance on any project. If I think my building project cannot be properly constructed, (either because of cost or conditions) I will bow out of the job and live my life in peace, with my conscience clear.

There was a soil test investigation done for this location.

The recommendations from the report are that the land was made up of soft to firm sandy clay strata. It recommended that the level of the land with the highest bearing capacity is at the top, not deeper than 2 meters. Our foundation trench in this project is 900x900mm, well within the recommended depth for the highest bearing capacity.

We also took additional measures, we did the blinding of this house by preparing a stronger concrete mix (poured dry) for a height of 300mmx900mm from the foundation floor. The ground beam was an additional safety measure to ensure a stronger pad for the entire building. The ground beam was also reinforced with iron rods. It was poured with moist concrete and has a size of 300x300mm on top of the concrete blinding.

The effect of this is that the blocks are sitting on very hard beams, remember also that each of the column bases in this house has a prior thickness of 300mm below the concrete blinding level, also reinforced with 12mm iron mats, (column baskets) for the entire 27 columns that will bear this house.

Thank you all once again for all your support and encouragement, for all the calls I got today, for all the lively discussions from all parts of this world, (from 3 different continents) I thank you all and look forward to working with you in future.

Well done oga spyder, the Lord is your strength.

chinosxl: Well done oga spyder, the Lord is your strength.

And those good workers he's got are also contributing to his strength. Good dedicated hard working workers.

Hajji Mufutau

There was a soil test investigation done for this location.

Well said. But I am afraid u seem to confuse me. what i was able to gather so far(from this thread) is that u decided to do ground beam later 'on site' having seen the level of water. That ur client did review d bill for this additional expenses Now, the question: Is ur Geophysics(Soil test investigator)concluded on pure block work from his report?
OR Can we conclude that u carried out the Soil test later having discover the water lever.

segcy.moor:


There was a soil test investigation done for this location.

Well said. But I am afraid u seem to confuse me. what i was able to gather so far(from this thread) is that u decided to do ground beam later 'on site' having seen the level of water. That ur client did review d bill for this additional expenses Now, the question: Is ur Geophysics(Soil test investigator)concluded on pure block work from his report?
OR Can we conclude that u carried out the Soil test later having discover the water lever.

oga spyder. stop responding to these people so they dont confuse you. i do what am convinced to do after exploring all necessary precautions.

this thread is really tempting. heading to ministry of lands for my building apprval...

weldone oga spyder... carry on

Some people build with reference to book while others build with years of experience without any theoretical or formal education. My uncle built and is still building several 3, 4 and 5 storey buildings in Onitsha but he never had any formal education.

So, soil test or no soil test, good builders know when to reinforce building and by how much.

okpara ugo:

oga spyder. stop responding to these people so they dont confuse you. i do what am convinced to do after exploring all necessary precautions.

In the first place, Is this question addressing to u? Even, if u are the client for this particular project, I don't care. I just demand for clarification and u said he should not respond. Does Spyder told u he does't know what he is doing? pls mind ur business

Demain_man: Some people build with reference to book while others build with years of experience without any theoretical or formal education. My uncle built and is still building several 3, 4 and 5 storey buildings in Onitsha but he never had any formal education.

So, soil test or no soil test, good builders know when to reinforce building and by how much.

Exactly sir. I ve the feeling Spyder use his discretion to do Ground beam before blockwork. But what confuse me is when he 'spyder' affirmed that they do soil test...hence clarification, is it later?

Oga Spyder, which is best practice? To do concrete flooring after the foundation or to do concrete flooring after building?

Its a one storey house and the ground is dry land.

Any repercussions?

spyder880:

Thank you my people, first I must commend everybody in this forum for all your comments, suggestions, advice, criticisms and even knocks you give us, it has helped in no small way to strengthen our resolve towards serving you better. Honestly, I don't think I could have done well if not for your valuable inputs.

I try to do things differently, at first most of you that have met me in person will be surprised at my "unsharpness" in real life. I take a long time to consider my answers and actions before I talk or act, but when I have convinced myself that an action is the right thing to do, I always try to fight it till the end.

In building, I think the first consideration should be on the safety of the structure, this concern ranks highest in my scale of importance on any project. If I think my building project cannot be properly constructed, (either because of cost or conditions) I will bow out of the job and live my life in peace, with my conscience clear.

There was a soil test investigation done for this location.

The recommendations from the report are that the land was made up of soft to firm sandy clay strata. It recommended that the level of the land with the highest bearing capacity is at the top, not deeper than 2 meters. Our foundation trench in this project is 900x900mm, well within the recommended depth for the highest bearing capacity.

We also took additional measures, we did the blinding of this house by preparing a stronger concrete mix (poured dry) for a height of 300mmx900mm from the foundation floor. The ground beam was an additional safety measure to ensure a stronger pad for the entire building. The ground beam was also reinforced with iron rods. It was poured with moist concrete and has a size of 300x300mm on top of the concrete blinding.

The effect of this is that the blocks are sitting on very hard beams, remember also that each of the column bases in this house has a prior thickness of 300mm below the concrete blinding level, also reinforced with 12mm iron mats, (column baskets) for the entire 27 columns that will bear this house.

Thank you all once again for all your support and encouragement, for all the calls I got today, for all the lively discussions from all parts of this world, (from 3 different continents) I thank you all and look forward to working with you in future.

Just as I said he would. See you soon, bro.

I am always amazed and dumbfounded by some people's ignorance. If a question is thrown to Spyder, why are some people
dismissing the question and insulting those that are asking the question? From my little encounter of Spyder's thread,
he's obviously an intelligent person who can defend his actions robustly without the help of these ignoramuses.

mufutau55:

And those good workers he's got are also contributing to his strength. Good dedicated hard working workers.

Hajji Mufutau

yes oh

esoorita: I am always amazed and dumbfounded by some people's ignorance. If a question is thrown to Spyder, why are some people
dismissing the question and insulting those that are asking the question? From my little encounter of Spyder's thread,
he's obviously an intelligent person who can defend his actions robustly without the help of these ignoramuses.

The truth of the matter is that whatever answer (s) Spyder gives here will surely lead to another question(s) and so on, and so on. I personally believe that the objective of all these threads he is opening here on Nairaland is to help potential homeowners see the stages and breakdown of the cost of building so that when dealing with builders/contractors one can add/subtract when necessary.

Now, we all know that there is something called soil test ( i surely did know this before coming to the property session). It should be left to the individual home owners to ask for this to be done and be ready to pay for it. One thing i know is that most medical laboratories in Naija cannot even differentiate between typhoid fever and malaria. They tend to blame on manner of sicknesses on 'Typhoid'. I have my doubt about those soil test anyway apart from it being another avenue for the contractor to 'chop' money

Anyway what do i know sef? I am just a learner who have gained a vast knowledge of experience from Professor Sypder to know that building a house should not cost 'an arm and a leg'.

esoorita: I am always amazed and dumbfounded by some people's ignorance. If a question is thrown to Spyder, why are some people
dismissing the question and insulting those that are asking the question? From my little encounter of Spyder's thread,
he's obviously an intelligent person who can defend his actions robustly without the help of these ignoramuses.

I think this happens when a question is asked in a rude manner. We/Nl need to be polite when asking questions in threads like this. We are all here to learn.

@Deman_man God bless you, for those of us that being around here for some year an far way from Nigeria, our thinking it deferent from those young men that just left school and joint this forum and start writing rubbish. Anyway can't blame then sha. Because many of them are still behind in many things they never see and will to know on till they have opportunity to come to west and see things for them self, or live here for sometime them they will now learn how to listen when people that live and have experience talking in public place like this forum. I for one, I don't know if many of these people even knew that there is a lab that test concrete stress to determine how long will it live. Just to say few !!!!!!

Today, the rains came down hard from the morning hours, but it did not stop us from showing up on site early and attempting to get things working, even if its only from under the umbrella

All attempts to get our usual type of filling sand failed as trucks could not access the sites from where the sand is lifted. However we kept moving, making arrangement after arrangement till we decided to go out and buy another colour of soil, though a little more costly but we just had to work today.

The picture below shows the foundation framing beam rods. This is to be used only at the perimeter of the foundation walls to add a chain effect and hold the foundation together. This is another additional safety measure.

So we now have water! This means we can water our foundation as much as we want, soak it, flood it, pond it or drench it, wharever

Pour the waters.......

The foundation needs to drink some water too

The first trip of filling sand for today had just offloaded and left this evening, around 5.30pm. But I kept boys waiting since afternoon, they didn't wait for the truck to leave before they started packing the sand with wheel barrows, the foundation must get filled, by fire by force.

Minutes later, the second truck arrived with more sand

The water continued to soak the foundation till late in the evening.

When the English premier league is at off-season like this, Mr Frank Lampard comes to Nigeria to do some work to earn some money

How did we perform today? Although activities started only around 1pm due to the rains, we were able to achieve the following;

1. completing the sand filling We could not complete it, even as we got some sand late
2. getting the borehole pumping water Done
3. flooding the foundation with water to sink in the sand 50% done, ongoing.
4. fitting the rods that will form the foundation perimeter framing Done
5. fitting plumbing materials for conduit waste system Not done
6. so help us oh lord The lord was there all through and his help is very visible