₦airaland Forum

topsy23:
My brother not only you ooo... i visited abeokuta 3timed for a particular project not knowing that the client needed my quote to buy all the materials.. He has somebody on ground to do the job and he didn't tell me. i wasted money to Abeokuta to the extent that i help him carry submersible pump from his brother house in Lagos.

QS will surely collect money for their services.

waoh! This is unfair just imagine the risk of travelling alone, your time, cost of fuelling your car or transportation etc. It is well

Great job! the starting of this job take me to read very page line by line, I am impressed and also learn. Thumbs up, professionalism, nice equipment.
please I saw a red colour on your foundation please is it damp proof paint please share what you use, how effective and where we can get it. Thanks

twinskenny:
Get a quote from three Or four builders..

Bros understand that getting a quote for a building at least to carcass level from four builders is like getting 4 people to do a professional work for free. too bad. Many people online will collect this quotes and won't even acknowledged the mail and that would be last time u hear from them no even thank you. If you have really for once do a quote for a build extensively you will understand that it is a great task that is really mentally involving, a times you will use your credit to make contacts in oder for you to know current material price at the site locations, spend hours typing on excellent and at the end send it with your purchased data, only for the person to receive it and kept quiet.
The best practice is to engage one QS to do you a bill of quantity if you want to give out your job as contract or a material and labour schedule if you want to be involved, then the QS will provide a copy call blank copy (he would remove his rates leaving only quantities) then d client can contact as many contractor he deems fit capable of doing this work and ask them to fill their rate and then he would check their rates against his QS rate and final sum as well then he is at liberty to choose any one that is in d range of +/-5% from QS rates and final sum also couple with competence and the contractor antecedent (you don't choose base on figure only). Yet it of good manner to communicate with the other contractor appreciating their effort to fill the blank boq ( though this less tasking for a contractor to do and so he has no reason to fill bad if he doesn't get the job) and possibly tell them why they were not chosen for them to be well positioned against another opportunity. Please note that boq help you project flow apart from costing because it would also outline the work process on which you can build your programs of work and proactive purchase and sound project planning.
I am not QS but I know the importance and the key role they play in project but most client want free quote and also and they are quick to comment on the free quote as rip off without any respect for your effort.

just in addition, I have seen some of this mason that will refuse to do additional job on the same day, I have seen a case where I have to pleaded with the masons to please do extra after their normal day job despite I am going to pay them but they refused they just wanted to concentrate on their day job and do it perfectly well knowing fully well that at the end of the day if their portion is not done well they will not get paid. But in a case someone took a plastering as a contract without considering if the amount will deliver a good job the he would have to forced his workers to do more than a day job. In this case they won't allow the plaster to dry very well before rubbing and shiny, they won't take time to range well before rubbing, they won't take time to dress the angle properly, they won't use brush finishing, they will not set gauge, they won't sieve the plaster sand all these are the necessity to have good plastering job, but when the measure of work given to a mason per day is more than. normal he would jump most of this process because he would want to finish and get paid at the end of the day.

Marilo:
Skimanski, I don't think the question is about "chopping",it should be about fairness. If it's about chopping everybody and anybody can charge anything and that will be taken hook, line and sinker. How does the owner "chop" if it's about "chopping"?.

Again,why isn't there some sort of standard as to pricing. To tell you my experience,I have seen some kind of ridiculous quote that can only make me think/ask "does this guy think I am a fool?". Irrespective of professionalism involved, except there are some differences in materials to be bought, there should be some yardstick to standardise charges so that all parties are fair to one another.

There is standard, but most client wouldn't want to follow standard because it may not favour them, QS professional are the best to tell us applicable standard. But to my little knowledge if you come across good Cotonou guys (cos there are fakes now ooo) they will never accept a wholesome negotiations for you never, they prefer pay as you go. Now, for internal plastering they will count 14 blocks in a row by 12 courses of block with one window dressing as a day job. externally 12 blocks also there ways to charge for special dressings, decking is charged as 10 x 12 ft room as a day job. Also in some cases some charge per square meter and linear meter for dressing but only few do this.

best price please?

segzy14:
U no do "Use of English " abi.
GST

That is professional Grammar oooo, he uses it to correct quack engineers.

nifemiayoade:
Sorry pls am talking to a quack engineers, you can only talk if u know you one of them ok . This is a profession construction company with a group of qualified architect and structural engineers with a lot of experience thanks

Guy I like your post it makes my day.

nifemiayoade:
Sorry are u all a quack engineers ? Well there are many of you out there, no problem I we help u out when u need my help ARCHARAN CONSTRUCTION COMPANY is a register company with ARCON and NIA THANK

Honestly this fellow get me cracking seriously, aah aah aah aah aah. so professional see quack job you are posting you better go and learn and stop wasting your time and your free MB

EgunMogaji:
I wouldn't give you my dog kennel to design/supervise.

I can't stop laughing. This OP is very funny and lack professional etiquette

diordaves:
Thanks for this useful information. This could be very helpful. I'm just going through documentation for a property in Ikorodu, so this is so timely. This will need follow up but for our immediate use, do you know if the indemnity answers the following questions:

What's the purpose of the indemnity given the fact that the structural drawings may be signed off by a COREN certified engineer and approved at Alausa possibly again by a COREN certified engineer?

Hypothetically, if the structural drawings are signed off by a Senior COREN engineer, for example an associate, does one still need the indemnity? If yes, who issues the indemnity? Any COREN certified engineer? If yes, so a "small boy or girl" who left school "yesterday" wrote COREN and pass will now indemnify structural drawings signed off by a seasoned COREN Associate?

At what level of structure does one needs an indemnity? Do I need an indemnity if I'm building a boys' quatre, or is it at bungalow level or a 10 storeys structure?

Indemnity is a form of insurance, so if things go wrong, the COREN engineer pay's compensation (tort) ?

The COREN Engineer that certify your structural drawings, can only be held responsible if there is an error in the design he certified, and God forbid there is a mishap due to this error. In most cases design may be perfect but not followed or strictly adhered to during construction that is why in cover letter that goes with the structural drawing the engineer will write in there that he is not liable or responsible if he is not involved in the supervision. But in the case of this letter of indemnity it is expected to be written by whosoever you engage to ensure compliance to the structural design and standard construction practices. a boy or girl who left school yesterday must have spent minimum of four years as tutelage period under a registered engineer.

You do not need this letter for bungalow or boy's quatre except your bungalow has a structural design.

This indemnity is not as applicable in the insurance but to identify a scape goat to be punished in the event of any structural failure of the structure. The fall guy risk forfeiture of his certificate and jail term.

mufutau55:
@Aventures
Thank you for this useful information.
Please post the content of the letter.

Hajji M.

Letter of Involvement and Supervision on the ongoing construction of .... (Project description and location)

This is to notify you that i am the supervising Engineer on this above mentioned project. It is part of my responsibility to ensure that all relevant code of conduct, ethics and standard construction practices are strictly adhered to during the construction of this project. Hence i accept full responsibility of the structural integrity of this project.

This document is submitted for record and reference purpose. I shall also notify the agency of all construction activities going on this project as at when due.

Attached with this letter of involvement and indemnity is a copy of my COREN certificate.

Signature and date
COREN Seal
COREN Security Seal
...........

Dear All,

I consider this thread to be the best way to reach most people on NL Property forum in respect to the information i am about to pass across to prospective people who is planning to start a new building project in Lagos.
Of course this info may not be new to most people on here, but for the sake of others i want to share about the New Lagos building control policy.

The new management of Lagos State Building control Agency has made it compulsory for every project to have a COREN certified Engineer that will issue a Letter of indemnity in respect to such project. Irrespective of your building approval status the letter of indemnity is given a high priority. The implication is that the project will be stopped by the LABSCA Task force until letter is presented.

What is the ultimate point in this message? Do not be caught off guard. The content of the letter is very powerful and such you may have to pay unnecessary high fee for someone that has not rendered you any service.. How do i mean? if after stopping your work you now need a COREN engineer to come and certified the project for you the such engineer is about to take up full responsibility for the project he can not actually vouch for its integrity irrespective of how sound and rigid the structure may look like and then he may tends to charge higher base on the fact that the higher the risk to be taken the more you have to pay him.

My advise: During your preliminaries, choose your builder wisely and ensure that in discussion of professional fee the cost of this indemnity is inclusive (Ensure that your builder has the person that can do this for him if he can not do it by himself) Alternatively outsource for your COREN Engineer that will do that and at the same time render a service of overseeing your builder to ensure that the integrity of the project is intact and he can take full responsibility.

The Content of the indemnity Letter: I do not want to bother you with long epistle but on request i can post it on here later on.

Available for rent/lease:

Location Arepo

For Enquiry: check my signature

abdulwastecx:
Thank you my oga.

Chaining the lintel round for this type of structures give the house more robustness and make it more solid. Here are some of the advantages of chain lintel.

1. Distribute load to columns by avoiding over stressing the partition walls below the lintel and closer to doors and Windows openings. This ultimately help to prevent wall cracking closer to openings.

2. It make the house withstand vibration due to earth movement and serve as horizontal tie to the columns thereby improving the slenderness ratios of the column.

3.it enable future openings to be possible, you may want to open doors or Windows where there is non in future, this ring lintel will make it easier.

It doesn't necessarily increase the dead weight of the structure considering the fact that a 225mm thick lintel will only generate a dead load of about = 0.225 x24kN/m3 = 5.4kN/m which is considerably low and this load will be carried by the columns.

For cost, I think the advantages override whatever financial gain using the other type of lintel

Nice concept bro, please permit me to disagree with some of your point.

The load is actually 0.225*0.225*24= 1.215kN/M. so the load multiply by the entire length covered with lintel if course could amount to some considerable weight. Since you will have beam at floor slab level.

Then with 225*225 column at 3m high, you will still highly acceptable slenderness ratio and robustness needed .

So I want to agree that this cost more and additional load, though I believe your foundation design can tolerate this load for sure.

Meanwhile I support your point no 3, it is a lot sensible and highly futuristic. Thumps up.

Anyways truth be told Good job.

Chekitaut:
When he speak i am scared. Oga i beg come to our level as u speak structural term illustrate in practical terms, two most respected structural engineer at fundamental junction.

I do not mean to scare you with technical terms, I am here to brush up as well. I worked not too distant from that place most build around there are pile or soil improvement and deep raft so when I saw this, the site physical condition look alike and I just wish to have some ideas......

kopell:
@Aventures, what exactly do U mean. Vibrate the ground beam, in lay man term?

I mean using of poker vibrator to vibrate the concrete during pouring to ensure a good compacted concrete

Nice Job my brother, honestly I salute your in depth knowledge of structural design and ability to transmit it to physical construction. I took time to run thru the thread page by page Good job so far.

Just few questions, did you vibrate the ground beam, form work at 1.8m and almost no bulging as far I can see, using our local planks seems a miracle to me, if vibrated then your carpenters are superb and your supervision awesome.

Please did you supervise the independent soil engineer that conducted the geophysical test, can you share the lithology of the soil just want to have the idea of what the land in that area look alike.

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amanikondo:
I even sent Aventure the screenshot of his subsequent messages about the work Aventure did. He has PHD (Pull Him Down).

I got the screen shot, and I was surprised,. The roofer claiming that the foundation determine the roof. It is well!

segzy14:
Ha, May God have mercy on him.

Amen o

Chekitaut:
In a place where filling was done on the top soil, Engineer Aventure can the structure go on it...?

Filling in a top soil can cause a differential settlement, it is better to first evacuate the top soil and vegetations, also to ensure that there is no peat lying beneath. when there is no top soil, vegetation and peat, you are good to go ahead with the filling and after proper compaction and consolidation a geotechnical test is highly advisable before commencing your foundation design and construction.

Here is another thread of a job done on sandy soil. The Geo-technical investigation informed us that the upper part of the soil is loosed and the bearing capacity is low, we were also informed that the bearing capacity that can withstand the pressure of the proposed build is at 900mm down and so we took the excavation down their. Geotecnical-investigation is very key in foundation design. https://www.nairaland.com/2522848/construction-medium-high-rise-multi/2

Horlawoomey:
If from your soil investigation, raft foundation is recommended for your building (mostly when it's not more than a storey building) and if the soil type is a sandy soil like that of Lekki axis, you can go ahead to construct your foundation beams after proper remover of vegetative cover, sand filling with sharp sandand proper compaction.

But in a situation where we have loamy or clayey soil, it is recommended to dig to a point where the soil is compact enough as required by the structural engineer before the foundation work, either raft or strip foundation.

What I know quite well is that settlement is very minimal in a well compacted sandy soil especially when raft foundation is adopted.

Oga abdulwastecx and
Aventures can shed more light on this

i have shed the light oo (LOL) the picture was even stolen from my thread, please can i sue for copy right? Just joking.

frank043:
There's absolutely nothing wrong with building on sand or made ground!!! If you are referring to the picture as a reinforced concrete strip foundation, you are most definitely wrong and ill-informed. The picture shows a raft (ground beam and slab system) foundation on well blinded and stabilised level. Sand is a very friendly material, which consolidates almost immediately, and does not settle or heave. On the contrary, clay, silty clay, peat and others are very poor materials that are often removed and replaced with sand.
In designing foundations (solid slab raft, beam and slab raft, cellular and buoyancy raft etc) on made ground, the governing parameters are settlement, differential settlement, bearing pressure, punching shear etc. These are most of the time not considered by engineers, due to lack of proper understanding of soil-foundation-superstructure interaction. Settlement is never a problem, the real and most dangerous challenge is excessive and differential settlement! These can undermine the structural integrity of a building or structure, and consequently result to failure.
Due to the level of corruption in Nigeria, developers, building professionals, quacks and government officials etc, in fact, all hands are seriously on deck, encouraging sharp practices in the industry and the country at large. Collapse of buildings will continue to occur until such a time where it is passed and a criminal offence with capital punishment. Certain people in certain quarters ought to be jailed or summarily executed.

God bless people like this who has a good and deep knowledge of their profession. Thumbs up.

@OP I will like to call your attention and other readers to the blog site where you shared this info from. The blog owner is nothing but a liar who sat at he corner of his room and fabricated this write up that has no engineering basis, he claimed he went round to observed the trend of building process and people are building directly on sand (is that actually wrong? i will talk about that later) i expected him to have a loads of pictures to back his investigation up but nope! Alas only a pictures he stole from my thread (https://www.nairaland.com/1584575/construction-2-storey-building-osapa-lekki) this pictures was a picture of a foundation i did about five years ago. I am a trained civil/structural Engineer and i did this project under a well grounded civil engineer with abt 30 years of experience and 25 yrs of registration with COREN this same engineer is the structural consultant for Property Mart (property Mart is the owner Greenadines Estate, chevy view etc and to those who know property mart well you will agree with me that they have partnership with foreign investors who brings in their expatriate in during construction process). This very site was in Osapa London on a sandfilled land left for several years for natural compaction and a test was carried out prior to construction and the test result gave adequate soil bearing capacity almost at the top level, mind you the site level was lower to the road level, so why do we need to go down and spent so huge amount in bringing the foundation out higher to be higher than the road. Please check out the completed carcass of the build and some finishing on this thread https://www.nairaland.com/2265534/construction-duplex-attached-flats-osapa/2

Chekitaut:
If your project is not with Aventure, hmmmm i pity you.

@checkiaut baba aka bambam load I appreciate your compliment but there are several other good hands, trustworthy and hardworking guys on NL, @ Segcymoore, @ spyder, @ skimanski and several others by they are great guys.

FastShipping:
I've been building same house for four years and I keep changing Nairalander like oil change. Too many incompetents on this forum. They are only into making money and not delivering quality work. Sometimes I keep blaming myself why I dare build in Nigeria. These Nigerians can frustrate you. They like to argue certain things can't be done because "this is Nigeria and not America sir". They are not willing to do things differently. Look at everywhere with boring home designs. SMH.

Sir you are right| Getting a quality house finishing is 9ja is quite a challenge, but it is achievable. There are two sides of the coins to this matter. 1. Finishing supervision requires 10 times of the attention you need to supervise a carcass, most client are not ready to pay for finishing supervision that will keep their supervisor on site, the question is why do i have to pay you so much? and the guy that does not want to loose the job will come down in order to get the Job (most of us are found of jumping around running multiple site to make ends meet) and also right equipment and skill required is a challenge as well. 2. Second side of the coins is this; even when client is ready to pay good fee believe me i still can vouch for our builders/engineers including myself that we will spend quality time to achieve a desirable finishing, i think the problem is this 'jump around syndrome'. Apology to my coleaguues i mean no harm but truth be told so that we can find a way out to satisfy our clients.
My Opinion on a way out:
1. Client should please have a vivid finishing taste needed, if possible get a photo realistic 3D that has been toned and reviewed to your taste.
2. Engineers/Builders should take integrity and customer's satisfaction a top priority irrespective of the payment
3. Area of specialization: I build the carcass so i must do the finishing should not be, know your area of strength, capitalize on it and also invest in it , if you are creative by nature and you are in build industry don't husstle for building carcass specialize on finishing, if you are some one that can not stay all day on site please stick to carcass building. (honestly i will rather prefer to do 5 carcass than one whole finishing).

I hope in a short while, some clients will come here and give good appraisal of some of our finishing.

STRATEK:
This is not raft foundation...i think u can call this reinforced concrete deep strip depending on the depth of the ground beam..

We have three type of raft foundation & this doesn't fall into any...

I concur with you but I really want to see the end before sharing my view. unless there is a capping beam and ground floor reinforcements and the block wall filled solid with concrete then this is far from raft foundation and it cannot function as raft. This is the type of foundation somebody did for Mr QC1 if my memory serves me right, in this case the possibility of uneven settlement could be higher.
If this is not closed as raft, a reinforced strip footing and pad foundation would have been ideal.

Nice one

DenikeAsolewa:
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Nice training institute

kopell:
I thought that was just a design on regular block.

Yes you are right sir, It was a painting design on regular block wall. I will post a closer shot soon