₦airaland Forum

muskham:
Hi, I will like to do a property of my own as well in Ghana, I will like to you help me with these questions. I met a mason who gave me a workmanship of 5000ghs to lay blocks for a five bedroom to lintel level, do you think it is a ripped off? how much do they normally charge. thanks. the foundation is already done. the land is in amashiama in accra

Ashiaman in Accra. unfortunately i am no an expert in these things so i wouldn't be able to tell. i'm building mine at a very slow pace and did not contract anyone. i pay 70GHC (1mason, 1Labourer) for laying 70-80 blocks with 2 bags of cement. my site is also in Accra.

dgitrader:
When it comes to plumbing, especially when piping the entire structure, whether you are buying the items personally or not, the plumbers overquot the it excessively. If he goes to buy it, he will only bring the needed quantity, if you buy it, he will only use the needed quantity and the rest will disappear into his holdings. Imaging quoting 7 Venus Guage valves and only using 4. Each cost about 1k2.
Also, quoting kaka materials only to buy cheap pvc stuffs in place at half the price.
Recently my plumber quoted over 140 units various piping items, I brought in 91 and still had left overs after the job.
This is just one aspect of plumbing! Imagine.

my plumber is a specialist in this area and now has a shop full of stolen plumbing materials. lol

spyder880:
Its everywhere, and as you rightly put it, many people are not even aware of this. Thanks for educating us about the Ghananian angle. How is real estate faring generally in Ghana?

real estate is a booming business and mad rush for land is the hottest thing going on right now in Ghana but, the locals/average workers are unable to acquire any property sold by these real estate developers due the high cost of the houses being sold. they are very very very expensive! Mortgage is a no-go area for most people here. starting your own project as an average income earner is much better choice as am doing right now. i'm not a building contractor just an ordinary guy trying to build a decent house for myself. one funny observation, average income earners who are bent on getting real estate property here in Ghana only end up with a one bedroom semi-detached house and a small space for future expansion which is laughable. they pay over a period of 5-10 years in dollars. so just imagine, if the local currency drops in value they suffer for it. Some end up losing their properties if they fail to pay within the stipulated time.

anyway, your posts and this forum actually helped in shaping my house.

spyder880:
SCAM 2

How sound are your cement bags, do you know a sound cement bag when you see one? I can spot a tampered bag a mile away, watch those cement sellers, they may be removing some quantities of cement from the factory measure and sell to you.

Scam 2 is here in Ghana as well. our major producer of cement is ghacem and re-bagging of ghacem is done in some areas of the country but not too common. it started recently, people complained and authorities are currently dealing with the issue.

spyder880:
SCAM 1

Just when you thought you have heard it all, when you thought you have seen every possible way you could be cheated while you build your house or manage a building project, then comes this. The measurement of a block is supposed to be 225x225mm in height and width, but imagine a situation whereby your block maker is making blocks of only 200mm height? This is pure cheating, do you know the effect of this? You lay a block line of 9 blocks and get the height of 8! You have been scammed of 1 block in 9. Be guided.
http://amazingviewpoints..com/

Thoughtful of you to start this thread. I'm a Ghanaian living in Ghana and i must say this is also evident in Ghana. most people here build using 5 inches solid block measuring 18 inches by 9 inches but has been reduced to 16 inches by 7-8 inches in recent times. majority (local builders) or some are not aware of this except the masons. i once queried the boss of the block factory we normally buy from about this development and he claimed the new block moulding machines were imported from Europe with European/international standard and that the old machine/system has be discontinued. lol. i can confidently say 90% of block factories in Ghana are now producing the smaller blocks.

the masons are extremely happy about this because more bags of cement means more money. in terms of laying the blocks. hmmm

Nice One but if you are lazy just go with this site below. simple and straight to the point.

http://www.calctool.org/CALC/other/fun/bricks

Interesting forum. first time here and i'm loving the discussions. so whatsup with the Oluwa project any updates?