MeineMutter:


Thank God you are buttressing my point. People don’t know the reason why TOWER is expensive in Nigeria. It is because of cost of manufacturing, locally.

It is cheaper to import and sell those thick ones than locally made ones.
Just get an experienced fabricator. That’s all.

I read somewhere here that this practice should not be tried on wiring. The more better way to tackle that is to let the electricians give you their quotations and mention the exact type you must buy. After this, go out there to authorized dealer or even directly from factory and buy.
Must an installer buy materials for me?

More so, our c.ut-throat artisans are waiting to bamboos you with their gimmicks on how to scrape your head.

Truly, fishes eat fishes. Nigeria is a damn jungle.

While some of your statements are true as per artisans cheating client and vice versa.
I will still maintaining my point of view based on experience that homeowners should let professionals handle purchase, installation and inspection of majority of the finishing part of a building. If you don't trust your artisans then involve your QS, Engineers to do the vetting. Tower aluminum is not expensive because it is finer than imported but because of the thickness which you can't decipher by merely looking at the windows except you're a fabricator. Same thing is applicable to welders, they have thick and light pipes and varying specifications of materials.
If you can afford premium materials, pls go for it and make sure you got what you paid for. The electrical aspect is not my field but I know substandard wire can easily cause fire outbreak when loaded. I'm typing all this so that those paying for quality/premium won't feel they are being cheated or just wasting money cos you claimed there is no difference.
May God provide for us all struggling to complete one project or the other.

I can see the litium batteries are speedily being patronized by home owners.

If i might ask...

Switching from 4 220A tubular (for a 3.5KVA) to the lithium of similar capacity will likely cost how much now?

twinskenny:
Did this upgrade yesterday…
From 4 tubular batteries to 7.5kw lithium more juices


For your solar inverter solution let’s talk…

08035153923
08051355133

ceelog:
I can see the litium batteries are speedily being patronized by home owners.

If i might ask...

Switching from 4 220A tubular (for a 3.5KVA) to the lithium of similar capacity will likely cost how much now?

That will be 5kw lithium…. Prices ranges from 1.1m to 1.650m. Depending on the produc

adeememman:

While some of your statements are true as per artisans cheating client and vice versa.
I will still maintaining my point of view based on experience that homeowners should let professionals handle purchase, installation and inspection of majority of the finishing part of a building. If you don't trust your artisans then involve your QS, Engineers to do the vetting. Tower aluminum is not expensive because it is finer than imported but because of the thickness which you can't decipher by merely looking at the windows except you're a fabricator. Same thing is applicable to welders, they have thick and light pipes and varying specifications of materials.
If you can afford premium materials, pls go for it and make sure you got what you paid for. The electrical aspect is not my field but I know substandard wire can easily cause fire outbreak when loaded. I'm typing all this so that those paying for quality/premium won't feel they are being cheated or just wasting money cos you claimed there is no difference.
May God provide for us all struggling to complete one project or the other.

some arguments in this thread are coming from point of ignorance.


The idea that all materials are the same is the reason our buildings fall here in the absence of natural disaster. Some prices you see on the Internet about stuff have been there for several months. Currently I adjust prices as the day goes by.


And if you as a client can not trust your artisan to supply the materials for your job, give the job to someone else. There's nothing as good as peace and quiet while you focus on other things like doubling down on what gave you the money for the project

MeineMutter:


Exactly. Research! Don’t just do a few ‘negotiation’ with them and see yourself as a macho-man negotiator.
The carpenter guy is ready to swi.ndle you.

Don’t just throw your money at those people, except May be you didn’t sweat for the money.

ALLOW ME SUMMARIZE EVERYTHING YOU'VE SAID in your various post.

1. He shdnt trust the aluminium man, because artisans are out to Swindle (in your words)

2. There is no difference and infact we can't know the difference between Tower aluminium and other brands, they all look the same.

3. He shd go and buy himself to avoid being cheated by someone he knows (obviously he's not giving the work to sm1 he met on the street, he must have known him somehow)

Now... My reasoning.

You're telling him not to trust someone he knows But he shd trust someone he doesn't know (the seller) to give him the original aluminum that he CANNOT differentiate?

If I am a novice who has read all your statements, I'll quickly give it to the aluminium man and rest.

What's the guarantee that the seller would not swindle you, or that he wld give you the original product, or that he won't even cut corners?

Bro..... If man decides to do everything himself because he no wan lose money, he wld leave that money behind and another person go spend am..... He won't even save more than 2k per window by buying himself .... All this wahala on top 20k if he has 10 windows ?

I'm sorry, but I won't take your advice but offcourse I respect that, that's your opinion.

Goodluck.

saydfact:


ALLOW ME SUMMARIZE EVERYTHING YOU'VE SAID in your various post.

1. He shdnt trust the aluminium man, because artisans are out to Swindle (in your words)

2. There is no difference and infact we can't know the difference between Tower aluminium and other brands, they all look the same.

3. He shd go and buy himself to avoid being cheated by someone he knows (obviously he's not giving the work to sm1 he met on the street, he must have known him somehow)

Now... My reasoning.

You're telling him not to trust someone he knows But he shd trust someone he doesn't know (the seller) to give him the original aluminum that he CANNOT differentiate?

If I am a novice who has read all your statements, I'll quickly give it to the aluminium man and rest.

What's the guarantee that the seller would not swindle you, or that he wld give you the original product, or that he won't even cut corners?

Bro..... If man decides to do everything himself because he no wan lose money, he wld leave that money behind and another person go spend am..... He won't even save more than 2k per window by buying himself .... All this wahala on top 20k if he has 10 windows ?

I'm sorry, but I won't take your advice but offcourse I respect that, that's your opinion.

Goodluck.

you nailed it!

Good morning

Awka project update

IP cctv cameras installed
32 channels NVR
Remote phone view
Clear night vision

Let’s talk
08035153923
08051355133

MeineMutter:


Exactly. Research! Don’t just do a few ‘negotiation’ with them and see yourself as a macho-man negotiator.
The carpenter guy is ready to swi.ndle you.

Don’t just throw your money at those people, except May be you didn’t sweat for the money.

I knew they would come after that post.
Few years ago I negotiated price for the installation of aluminium window in a project in Kajola, I was surprised with the quality of frame that they used for me. Unfortunately I had to start afresh.

During lintel I provided 12mm rod and allowed the so called engineer to continue with his work. After lintel, I was lucky to be there when they wanted to put additional blocks after the lintel.

Immediately they put blocks on the lintel, everything collapsed and threw the mason on the floor. After medical attention, we checked and behold no iron rod was used for the lintel. That was how we brought down the entire lintel not so surprising, they stole the iron rod and did my lintel without iron because I was not there and I had no one to supervise them.


With my two projects ongoing in the East,I only negotiate labour with them and buy my materials. It is better I spend more money and get quality than to give the so called artisans money to buy materials for me.

As always they will condemn what I bought but I will always tell them to use it or they should go.

I learned in a hard way and I can't trust them again with buying of materials for me.

nwigwemark:


I knew they would come after that post.
Few years ago I negotiated price for the installation of aluminium window in a project in Kajola, I was surprised with the quality of frame that they used for me. Unfortunately I had to start afresh.

During lintel I provided 12mm rod and allowed the so called engineer to continue with his work. After lintel, I was lucky to be there when they wanted to put additional blocks after the lintel.

Immediately they put blocks on the lintel, everything collapsed and threw the mason on the floor. After medical attention, we checked and behold no iron rod was used for the lintel. That was how we brought down the entire lintel not so surprising, they stole the iron rod and did my lintel without iron because I was not there and I had no one to supervise them.


With my two projects ongoing in the East,I only negotiate labour with them and buy my materials. It is better I spend more money and get quality than to give the so called artisans money to buy materials for me.

As always they will condemn what I bought but I will always tell them to use it or they should go.

I learned in a hard way and I can't trust them again with buying of materials for me.

You are absolutely correct. Leave them to trust those guys at their own peril.

nwigwemark:


I knew they would come after that post.
Few years ago I negotiated price for the installation of aluminium window in a project in Kajola, I was surprised with the quality of frame that they used for me. Unfortunately I had to start afresh.

During lintel I provided 12mm rod and allowed the so called engineer to continue with his work. After lintel, I was lucky to be there when they wanted to put additional blocks after the lintel.

Immediately they put blocks on the lintel, everything collapsed and threw the mason on the floor. After medical attention, we checked and behold no iron rod was used for the lintel. That was how we brought down the entire lintel not so surprising, they stole the iron rod and did my lintel without iron because I was not there and I had no one to supervise them.


With my two projects ongoing in the East,I only negotiate labour with them and buy my materials. It is better I spend more money and get quality than to give the so called artisans money to buy materials for me.

As always they will condemn what I bought but I will always tell them to use it or they should go.

I learned in a hard way and I can't trust them again with buying of materials for me.

If you bought the iron rod yourself sir it doesn't mean the engineer won't still act the way he acted.

No one is saying sourcing materials yourself is bad it's only bad when you cant identify the difference in those materials

It's fine for you to have an idea of the cost price in the market

But the best option in MY OWN OPINION O is still allowing your engineer source the materials not just anyhow engineer and above all SUPERVISOR as well

Am sure you can't enter ladipo to purchase a car spare spart simply because u don't want ur engineer to scam you knowing fully well you can't identify the original from the fake

I have been doing project supervision for some years and I say it here that Engineers and Artisans make extra cash from procurement of materials aside their supervision fee and Labour cost.

Iriruaga100:
I have been doing project supervision for some years and I say it here that Engineers and Artisans make extra cash from procurement of materials aside their supervision fee and Labour cost.

Factual

BIGGIE121:


Factual

Provided he buy better things

Iriruaga100:
I have been doing project supervision for some years and I say it here that Engineers and Artisans make extra cash from procurement of materials aside their supervision fee and Labour cost.

That’s exactly what I am saying. Buy why? Why must they build some slacks into cost of materials, after they have charged for logistics/transportation, labour fee?

One bad thing about them is that : they won’t add as low as N500 per piece that one can easily forego. Some start adding from N10k per piece of material, depending on that type of material.

I have seen where a product of N4k per piece was written (quoted) as N44k per piece. Yes. I mean it. And the artisan was to supply 40,000 pieces of those chemicals.
Why did we think most multinationals are leaving Nigeria? They are not leaving only due bad economic conditions. They are leaving because the way we procure.

Lots of our procurement managers roll in multi-million, stolen through padding, under-harm dealing in material procurements.

Same thing by our sales and marketing people in their sales and ads campaign.

I witnessed when P&G sacked the whole Finance and Procurement Teams in Agbara in 2016/2017.
It’s one of the reasons P&G left Nigeria. Its COGS and Opex were always higher than normal.

Engineers at companies and factories do their own.

Go and see what’s happening in 7up and other Indian, Lebanese, Nigerian companies.
Our people are not truthful. We blame everything on government.

My advocacy is to always go out and have updated info on quality and price of whatever they are buying for us.

Those that are buying it for us don’t have 2 heads. Some are even dul.ller than most people here. They could have some experiences in identifying materials. We too can identify them if we pay attention and find out more.

But with some little researches here and there and discreet information gathering, one would stay afloat of their tricks, may be not 100% but one would not sink.

Some of us form too busy or that I AM SENDING MONEY ON ERRAND.

A building project that costed someone N25 million, could not have probably costed more than N18million, if the project owner had paid due attention to material procurement by these people we talk about.

MeineMutter:


That’s exactly what I am saying. Buy why? Why must they build some slacks into cost of materials, after they have charged for logistics/transportation, labour fee?

One bad thing about them is that : they won’t add as low as N500 per piece that one can easily forego. Some start adding from N10k per piece of material, depending on that type of material.

I have seen where a product of N4k per piece was written (quoted) as N44k per piece. Yes. I mean it. And the artisan was to supply 40,000 pieces of those chemicals.
Why did we think most multinationals are leaving Nigeria? They are not leaving only due bad economic conditions. They are leaving because the way we procure.

Lots of our procurement managers roll in multi-million, stolen through padding, under-harm dealing in material procurements.

Same thing by our sales and marking people in their sales and ads campaign.

I witnessed when P&G sacked the whole Finance and Procurement Teams in Agbara in 2016/2017.
It’s one of the reasons P&G left Nigeria. Its COGS and Opex were always here than normal.

Engineers at companies and factories do their own.

Go and see what’s happening in 7up and other Indian, Lebanese, Nigerian companies.
Our people are not truthful. We blame everything on government.

My advocacy is to always go out and have updated info on quality and price of whatever they are buying for us.

Those that are buying it for us don’t have 2 heads. Some are even dul.ller than most people here. They could have some experiences in identifying materials. We too can identify them if we pay attention and find out more.

But with some little researches here and there and discreet information gathering, one would stay afloat of their tricks, may be not 100% but one would not sink.

Some of us form too busy or that I AM SENDING MONEY ON ERRAND.

A building project that costed someone N25 million, could not have probably costed more than N18million, if the project owner had paid due attention to material procurement by these people we talk about.

Even if you know the price of materials or buy them yourself, a fraudulent artisan can still swindle you by padding the quantities estimated. In fact the smart ones do not even pad price because that can be easily verified. They pad quantities because most clients can't estimate quantities themselves and hardly ever engage Quantity Surveyors. And when you're not around to supervise them, the extra materials are diverted and sold off or used on other projects.

For electricians they will observe to see if there will be anyone around to monitor. If yes they will still go ahead to quote excess material with hope of stealing some. They usually bury under the soil or look hide inside the bush around you once u sleep on it. I know how to catch them.

Bricklayers target ur cement more now that prices v gone up . They look out for criminals like them around especially block industries. They steal & sell to them at half price. Even ur blocks are not safe. If u leave block supplier with ur bricklayer.they will finish you. They like to work together to suck a project owner.


Plumber lol this one na werey- excess material & even overloading price. They steal &take back to seller. They don’t like the bulky items . They like the smaller ones with high value.

Tiler this one no get joy cos all tiles are heavy for them to carry out of site. So they deal is with the supplier. They quote excess & tell Omo Igbo to remove 20 cartons which they will get paid for later.

I have worked as a project manager for 6 years now. I know all their games. Just pretend to be a site manager u will see all the games. The poverty mentality messed their sense of reasoning up. That is why they hardly achieve anything good in life. Talking about the bad ones.

Rany4all:
Even if you know the price of materials or buy them yourself, a fraudulent artisan can still swindle you by padding the quantities estimated. In fact the smart ones do not even pad price because that can be easily verified. They pad quantities because most clients can't estimate quantities themselves and hardly ever engage Quantity Surveyors. And when you're not around to supervise them, the extra materials are diverted and sold off or used on other projects.

Hello house,
Please can a 9 by 11 be considered a standard room size especially in Abuja?

Secondly, is it advisable to use 6" blocks for the inner walls of a storey building 4units semi-detached blocks of flats to maximize space or I should use the 9" ?

Thanking y'all for what you doing.

abuuthmaan:
Hello house,
Please can a 9 by 11 be considered a standard room size especially in Abuja?

Secondly, is it advisable to use 6" blocks for the inner walls of a storey building 4units semi-detached blocks of flats to maximize space or I should use the 9" ?

Thanking y'all for what you doing.

9 by 11 is not considered a standard room, the least dimension you should have on a wing of a room is 10ft, the reasons are not far fetched consider the furniture, bedsize and Mobility /circulation in the room

6” blocks can be used as partition blocks

twinskenny:
Did this upgrade yesterday…
From 4 tubular batteries to 7.5kw lithium more juices


For your solar inverter solution let’s talk…

08035153923
08051355133

Do you offer solar Pump installation??

Good morning to this beautiful family, I want to add that some clients also have the habit of holding on to artisans balance even after successful execution of job which is quite unfair. The cheating is a two way thing. Nigeria will be a better place when we all learn to be truthful in all we do.
Please before you part with your hard earned money, make arrangement for someone to monitor or supervise to make sure every work done is in line with the standard agreed on.

Charisdesigns:

9 by 11 is not considered a standard room, the least dimension you should have on a wing of a room is 10ft, the reasons are not far fetched consider the furniture, bedsize and Mobility /circulation in the room

6” blocks can be used as partition blocks

Thanks

The DPC has been done based on the size and I don't think it can be changed or what do you advise?

MeineMutter:


That’s exactly what I am saying. Buy why? Why must they build some slacks into cost of materials, after they have charged for logistics/transportation, labour fee?

One bad thing about them is that : they won’t add as low as N500 per piece that one can easily forego. Some start adding from N10k per piece of material, depending on that type of material.

I have seen where a product of N4k per piece was written (quoted) as N44k per piece. Yes. I mean it. And the artisan was to supply 40,000 pieces of those chemicals.
Why did we think most multinationals are leaving Nigeria? They are not leaving only due bad economic conditions. They are leaving because the way we procure.

Lots of our procurement managers roll in multi-million, stolen through padding, under-harm dealing in material procurements.

Same thing by our sales and marking people in their sales and ads campaign.

I witnessed when P&G sacked the whole Finance and Procurement Teams in Agbara in 2016/2017.
It’s one of the reasons P&G left Nigeria. Its COGS and Opex were always here than normal.

Engineers at companies and factories do their own.

Go and see what’s happening in 7up and other Indian, Lebanese, Nigerian companies.
Our people are not truthful. We blame everything on government.

My advocacy is to always go out and have updated info on quality and price of whatever they are buying for us.

Those that are buying it for us don’t have 2 heads. Some are even dul.ller than most people here. They could have some experiences in identifying materials. We too can identify them if we pay attention and find out more.

But with some little researches here and there and discreet information gathering, one would stay afloat of their tricks, may be not 100% but one would not sink.

Some of us form too busy or that I AM SENDING MONEY ON ERRAND.

A building project that costed someone N25 million, could not have probably costed more than N18million, if the project owner had paid due attention to material procurement by these people we talk about.

This debate will never end.

It’s a matter of trust vs convenience.

I would advise if you can buy materials yourself please do it.

If you want to know the original , pay the artisans to take you on a market tour to know the real suppliers/importers + original vs fake (note: do not buy anything on that day) etc

Now the question is , can you visit every market? Again convenience vs trust!

I always wonder why artisans will inflate material qty, inflate price then add Labor/workmanship then inflate transport too. Is that not greed?

Few tips & tricks
- When you send anyone to buy anything, always insists on receipt. Prices on receipts can be inflated, but the phone number of the seller will be there. Call after 2 days and ask for the same material on the receipt, you will know the truth!

- When an artisan request a certain quantity, you can buy 2/3 of the qty then make sure you monitor usage. If more is needed buy accordingly.

- when tilers are done tiling, measure the sqm tiled and pay for Labor accordingly vs the sqm quoted.

PrimeQuay:


This debate will never end.

It’s a matter of trust vs convenience.

I would advise if you can buy materials yourself please do it.

If you want to know the original , pay the artisans to take you on a market tour to know the real suppliers/importers + original vs fake (note: do not buy anything on that day) etc

Now the question is , can you visit every market? Again convenience vs trust!

I always wonder why artisans will inflate material qty, inflate price then add Labor/workmanship then inflate transport too. Is that not greed?

Few tips & tricks
- When you send anyone to buy anything, always insists on receipt. Prices on receipts can be inflated, but the phone number of the seller will be there. Call after 2 days and ask for the same material on the receipt, you will know the truth!

- When an artisan request a certain quantity, you can buy 2/3 of the qty then make sure you monitor usage. If more is needed buy accordingly.

- when tilers are done tiling, measure the sqm tiled and pay for Labor accordingly vs the sqm quoted.

You are apt.

Rany4all:
Even if you know the price of materials or buy them yourself, a fraudulent artisan can still swindle you by padding the quantities estimated. In fact the smart ones do not even pad price because that can be easily verified. They pad quantities because most clients can't estimate quantities themselves and hardly ever engage Quantity Surveyors. And when you're not around to supervise them, the extra materials are diverted and sold off or used on other projects.

Yes. You are right. And some people are saying we shouldn’t be wary of those guys.

They make building in Nigeria to look super-expensive. Meanwhile, an average Nigerian should be able to afford something small to be called a home.

abuuthmaan:


Thanks

The DPC has been done based on the size and I don't think it can be changed or what do you advise?

Please proceed if it’s can’t be changed

I am just primarily concerned about the occupant mobility, not feeling restricted or cramped up.

Good luck in your build

9/11 u dey condemn like this x let the tenant go & build his own house. All my rooms na 3m / 3m if e small go & build ur own house.
I will not build so you go forget to go build ur own. I don’t build for married people with kids. Best investment is hostels / guesthouses / self cons / just boy & girl stay

abuuthmaan:


Thanks

The DPC has been done based on the size and I don't think it can be changed or what do you advise?

nwigwemark:


I knew they would come after that post.
Few years ago I negotiated price for the installation of aluminium window in a project in Kajola, I was surprised with the quality of frame that they used for me. Unfortunately I had to start afresh.

During lintel I provided 12mm rod and allowed the so called engineer to continue with his work. After lintel, I was lucky to be there when they wanted to put additional blocks after the lintel.

Immediately they put blocks on the lintel, everything collapsed and threw the mason on the floor. After medical attention, we checked and behold no iron rod was used for the lintel. That was how we brought down the entire lintel not so surprising, they stole the iron rod and did my lintel without iron because I was not there and I had no one to supervise them.


With my two projects ongoing in the East,I only negotiate labour with them and buy my materials. It is better I spend more money and get quality than to give the so called artisans money to buy materials for me.

As always they will condemn what I bought but I will always tell them to use it or they should go.

I learned in a hard way and I can't trust them again with buying of materials for me.

This is terrible.
I will advise everyone goes for engineers or project managers who have names to protect.

justcallmenuel:
Good morning guys, pls I need contact of someone in alausa that can help me with labsca and lassppa wahala.

Have you gotten one?
If not you can contact me on 08108408732.
I know of 2 guys there, builder Yusuf and another engineer.

uncleteeh:

This is terrible.
I will advise everyone goes for engineers or project managers who have names to protect.

You are very correct. Even with the many confusing aspects of the open market environment, there are still people that have integrity and name to protect. They will never sell fake or substandard products. They have standard prices for different categories of customers; final consumers, retailers and wholesalers. Anything from them is as it such be. They even take pride in guiding their client through the materials sorting process.

gentlesoul83:
Matured and long bamboo from us delivered to sangotedo at affordable price. @Rawgold300 thank you for your patronage sir. More blessings to you.

We are still your sure plug for your ROOFING WOODS, DECKING WOODS, BAMBOO. call us on 08032339807. Your satisfaction is guaranteed.

Gentlesoul83, thank you so much for a job well done. My transaction with you is worth mentioning here. This is to let other potential customers know that business vendors like yourself are still abound on nairaland. Quality product, timekeeping, good customer service, and willingness to deliver to the site before payment are some of the qualities I noticed in you. Thank you once again, and keep up the good work.

The same cannot be said of a particular interior designer on here who collected money from me and gave excuses upon excuses without rendering the services he was paid for. I am going to keep his name anonymous for now due to the claim he made that he lost his job.

I am giving him a few more days or weeks to pay up; otherwise, I am going to teach him lessons he will never forget in a hurry. I’m sure people will be eager to know this person’s name, but I want to believe he is telling the truth about the loss of his job, and I wouldn’t want to contribute to his trouble at this time, so let’s give him some time to pay up.

Chikebrain:

Do you offer solar Pump installation??

No boss