Top on the life goals list of every adult is the goal of building their own dream house. You cannot beat the joy and fulfillment that comes with living in your own house. So without any doubt, the desire to build your own dream house is a goal worth pursuing.

In helping you achieve this very important life goal, I want to open your eyes to some residential building construction mistakes in Nigeria you need to avoid.

6 Residential Building Construction Mistakes in Nigeria You Need to Avoid

In all our 8 years experience as a construction company, we’ve repeatedly encountered these residential building construction mistakes and advice clients against them.


1. Poor Budget Planning
This is the most recurring residential building construction mistake in Nigeria. People begin their dream house construction from a design perspective, rather than from a financial [budget] perspective.

The erroneous assumption is to design the best dream house for yourself and then look for the money to build it. While this may sound nice in theory, experience has shown us over and over again that this approach to building your own dream house doesn’t work.

Rather, statistics shows that this is the number one reason for most abandoned or uncompleted residential building construction projects in Nigeria. Instead of looking for money to implement your dream house design, we advise clients to design their dream house based on their budget.

In other words, we take a budget-to-design approach to construction rather than the popular design-to-budgetapproach that increasingly leads to project abandonment. For us, our goal is to see that your dream house project is completed with the available budget within the agreed timeline.


2. Choosing the Wrong Building Contractor
So many factors determine the kind of dream house you end up building, we’ve just identified poor budget planning. Following poor budget planning is the choice of a building contractor.

A contractor is like a medical doctor, making a wrong decision is costly both in cash and in kind. What is lost is nothing compared to what you think you might be saving. Apart from the very obvious headache that comes with hiring an unprofessional building contractor for your dream house project, the future potential loss of lives and properties that follow in the event of a building collapse is unimaginable.

So what are the things to look out for when considering a building contractor?

A proven track record: their business must be an open book. You should be able to talk with their past customers when necessary, look at their previous works/portfolio, look at the caliber of clients they’ve worked for and check out their reputation.

Expert teamwork: constructing your dream house is no child’s play and will require the expertise of more than one person. So you do need to look out if there is a solid network of staff, subcontractors and suppliers behind the contractor you are considering. They all must be available and ready to go to work on your dream house.

Expert Opinion: a good contractor knows their stuff in and out largely because of their training and years of industry experience. You need to ascertain this through your initial interaction with the contractor. And a good way to know if they have got this is the quality of advice you are given pre-project and not during or after the project has begun.


3. Deciding to Do It Yourself
For some people, hiring a building contractor is considered a waste of money and so they decide to handle the whole construction of their dream house by themselves. After all, they will simply hire the specialized labour they need for every phase of the project and acquire all the materials needed.

It doesn’t take long for many who have made this residential building construction mistake to realize that they are unqualified for the role they are trying to play. Besides the obvious fact that you have to be an idle person who doesn’t have a job or business to attend to, you also must be very knowledgeable about project management and civil engineering.

So before you head out on your own to handle the entire construction of your dream house, here are some practical questions you seriously have to answer;

Experience: How much personal experience do you have to be competent in the construction process?
* Do you have the ability to recognize and stop potential problem areas as they occur?
* Can you devote 3 to 4 months of “daytime” supervision that is required on the job? Will your own job suffer?
* What is your personal knowledge of the Residential Building Code?

Job Costing

* Do you have the final completed price guaranteed in writing before starting?
* How do you handle cost over-runs?

Liability

* How prepared are you for the unexpected?
* Are you insured against injuries on your job site?
* Do you have a Health, Safety, and Environment [HSE] policy in place to minimize accidents?
* Do you have fire and damage coverage?


4. Ignoring Necessary Residential Building Construction Laws
Building your dream house in the Nigeria of today, especially in the urban areas is no longer a joke in terms of laws.

Gone are the days when you can just buy a land and start erecting any kind of structure you like without acquiring necessary permits and conforming to building regulation laws. Many residential buildings have been marked for demolition as a result of ignoring these laws.

And here’s the interesting part, this laws are not uniform across the country. There are different laws guiding the construction of residential buildings in different states of the country as well as national laws that equally apply.

This is where a good building contractor comes in handy. They are aware of these laws and its part of their contract to comply with them from start to finish.

5. Poor Space Planning
Have you ever been to some personally owned houses and wondered if they were rented apartments?

This is often because of the tightness or smallness of the house. From the sitting room, to the placement of the bedroom and the kitchen, everything seems choked. Little or no space is structurally provided for.

This is what you get with poor space planning when designing your dream house. Except your idea of a dream house is a boys-quarters, I really don’t see why you shouldn’t provide for space in your house. The structural layout of your dream house must be spacious to allow the rooms to be fully utilized.


6. Not Using Quality Building Materials
Buildings are essentially supposed to be built to last. And a major part of achieving this fundamental objective is the quality of material used in the construction of the building. Cutting corners with building materials will affect the lifespan of your dream house.

Again, working with a good contractor is a guaranteed way of ensuring the materials used are of high quality. They know the right combination of materials to use and have a network of trusted suppliers to work with.

http://nigerianpropertymarket.com/ng/residential-building-construction-mistakes-in-nigeria-you-need-to-avoid/

Lalasticlala, mynd44, dominique

Interesting

Good info

You can your own other mistakes

This is enlightening

Those guy ahead dont sleepnairlander watchman.
I target front page before the end of this year.
So help me God.

keep it up op

Noted

Insightful.

I just feel like ..... cuz most Nairalanders will not click on this thread cuz it's not boob related, La-la will set up a committee to look into it cuz it's not snake related, Vaseline crew will avoid this thread like disaster cuz it's not afrocandy related, lazy readers like me will demand for summary cuz it's not cuz it's more than 3 lines.


.....
Nice one op

www.nairaland.com/attachments/6381301_nps_jpegb9ec8de8dfc2001e31b67df9e36ae131

Nice post I hope they read this

Choosing the wrong contractor, is the worse thing that will happen to you. The house that I'm staying in now is a case study. The contractor used the most inferior materials, using 9m to build one of the most substandard bungalow I've ever seen. But thank God his mistake gave me a free 3 bedroom apartment, all in suit.

Nice article. Thanks op

No 6 is the major point.

Budget will always be overshot from my personal experience.


As for Do-It-Yourself, well I'm guilty of that. I used DIY for supervision. It was only the first project I used contractor for. Others, my wife (and I) did the supervision. Didn't hire any contractor.

TenPassfour:
Those guy ahead dont sleepnairlander watchman.
I target front page before the end of this year.
So help me God.

So you dont have a better ambition?
Your papa don waste money.
I weep for you.

Hmm! Okay.

yadda yadda

Jarus:
Budget will always be overshot from my personal experience.


As for Do-It-Yourself, well I'm guilty of that. I used DIY for supervision. It was only the first project I used contractor for. Others, my wife (and I) did the supervision. Didn't hire any contractor.

You took the best approach. There is dearth of professionalism in Nigeria. From lawyers that cannot draft basic contracts to so-called contractors that don't know their onion. Anyone with zeal for details should bypass all the charlatans operating in the highly unregulated and uncertified building construction. The overlooked artisans may end up doing better jobs with close supervision than the ogas that rarely show up at site.

From my experience, name means nothing as it could only be mere "packaging". I am more interested in values for my money.

/

[quote author=havillaplus post=63081749]

I presume you are the original author of the article.
You have spoken from the gold standard point of view and as if the dream house you talk about is always some complex edifice.

However, some people know enough about building construction to hire an experienced builder, not necessarily a contractor, they can supervise to erect their average residential house.

In my own view, one big mistake people make is to want to build as others have built because it is the vogue.They do not consider cost and functionality. Everybody is talking about stone coated roofing tiles, Polystyrene and concrete parapet. What about the cheaper and easier-to-maintain regular soffit fascia.

Some contractors want to showcase their work at the expense of the client so they make expensive estimates for expensive materials. Prospective house owners should bear this in mind.

i supervised my own project myself.Trust one supervisor wey go collude with Biola,Chinedu,Aminu to rip u off/steal ur cement,iron,sand etc.

Nice info.

Good points................

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Nice one

Nice write up. I couldn't agree less with the OP

I remember when I started my construction firm, I'd come to Nairaland to spam most post with my adverts and I would get one or two clients at the end of the day. ThankGod the story is different today and I stand bold to say that I get multiple jobs through clients whose jobs I have diligently and honestly executed.

Building projects are not complex @ all, trust me! The kind of joy you'll experience when working with a skillful and honest BUILDING CONTRACTOR/ENGINEER has no bounds. Time, money and resources will be saved.

For many who are planning on embarking on a building project soon, whether you're in Nigeria or abroad, here's my advice for you; always engage a competent engineer to handle your project and plan/design your building according to your budget.

Finally, learn to trust some Engineers on Nairaland. I sincerely for personal gratification, but some Nairaland engineers are the best you'll find in the country who'll give you maximum value for each penny. Have a great weekend.
For further enquiries on building projects please send me a WhatsApp message

Engr. E.U. Daniel(07037629947)
TerraStone Shelters

Nice piece