₦airaland Forum

cmonek:
Cool thread.. @OP, All the best bro.. The thread is really encouraging for me who is yet to start though, VERY SOON... Goodluck bro

Thanks.
Put your self in other immediately and start with block molding. I found that it was really encouraging as quiet moments are spent thinking of what next on the project. That's the draw-in in starting. Guys here are very helpful too. So stop further hesitations and get going please.
Thanks again

southniyikaye:
oga unless you are using stone dust to mix,this is a very wrong mixing ratio

Are you saying that the use or not of cement dust determines the number of blocks? Please expatiate.
Thanks

innocent1:
I will really learn a lot on this threand. By His grace I will be staring mine by May this year. This forum will be of help to me.

Good to hear that. You are welcome to ask you question anytime.

kenjava20:
for the 9inches block they should be able to get at least 45blocks per bag of cement. while for the 6inches should be around 50blocks per bag of cement. most of the time the reason why the number of 9inches reduces is because of the stress it takes in carrying it and getting it done. but the one your cousin produce would still be strong.

It seems there is wide variations on the number of this block moulding thing. Can other experts please shed more lights, Abdulwastecx if you still dey please!

We started doing 6" per bag. They started with 40 per bag but I told them following information to increase it to 45-48 per bag and the guys said that I would increase their money from N700 to N800 per bag if they have to increase the quantity per bag, I want to believe that they prefer to do less in other to maximise their bag count and as such tell you that you risk loosing blocks during packing as such number will not be solid enough.

Somebody need to help us here as I wouldn't want to increase the load on the house simply because the artisans wants to maximise their outputs. I would prefer to achieve quality with less if it is possible. That's the overall aim anyway. Somebody help please!!

tomdon:
followes

Welcome Tom!

PRODUTIM1:
Congrats OP, may ur dead body never be sent home. Am also doing mine and at finishing level. Hoping to move in before Easter by the grace of God.

Amen to this Ultimate Prayer.

Congrats and reserve our Palm wine as you mingle among local friends and families in celebration of your achievements. Surely one of the best Easter, Enjoy it and please share some of your costs with us.
Thanks again

Chukazu:
I did mine @45 tabs per bag.

I saw a lot guys here did between 30-35/bag, and I ask my architect and said 30-35 is OK. But I observe that in some cases they did up to 38/bag I don't know why that. But I observe that on average they did 36/bag going by the number they have achieved so far from the number of cements they used. I will update that later.

erico2k2:
Damn we are lucky at PH them I did mine for N90 Bore hole plus Pump inclussive.

Your dam too lucky. A friend told me earlier that it cost his about N400K inclusive at Kubwa but the interesting thing to me was that he said it was done under 2hrs with a drilling machine by an Indian company. I am like Waoh!

If only I was able to find one at that price around Onitsha, I wouldn't complain. You are lucky @90K. Welldone

Capital247:
@ Mayor u need to add the money you gave to your friend, it is an incidental charge to encourage purchase at low cost while maitaining quality and quick delivery

Thanks for that clarification, I will revise the figure to accommodate that in my next financial update coming soon.
Thanks again @Capital247.

erico2k2:
You are right.I did solid @30 to 35 per bag.

Eric You mean you did 9" solid blocks @30-35 per bag?

Isn't that too heavy to work with?

erico2k2:
Can I ask how many Bucket do you have per yip?
Mine was 5 buckets cost N28K

Oboy, I don't know of buckets ooo! The supply comes in tipper trips, perhaps that's what guys here call 5 tons I don't know. I dont know of buckets too. In my area in Anambra East, usuall tipper is Bedford and as I said the current cost of sharp sand is N8,500. Somebody here may help with further info or enquire from your suppliers and please share with us here.

erico2k2:
Ahaha baba you beat me to it
@Mayor welcome to the best thread on NL..This is the best we can do bear something in your heart. Put it on paper and make it go live. We are all here doing same from USA Canada to the UK and South Africa. There is wealth of expirience here to guide you through and mass savings tips as well.Ijebu guys are present here too** Runs quickly to hide from U know who**

Nothing is small, keep the guides coming Eric, am sure well able to tap from your experiences. Time has called to show Ijebu skills in a niceway though, Cheers!

nijabazaar:
reading this feels like reading a blog, its like i am looking over your shoulders as you punch that calculator and sigh as you worry about the cost....almost poetic.

Best of luck, mr builder, you would build your magnficient Nollywood chateaux.

make sure your eyes is on the site manager, get updates from him almost every day

You can say that again, no be small, my calculator and notepads are running overdrive.
Thanks a lot, I need the luck my person.
Update is the key even when it cannot be 100% accurate, It often come handy to observing discrepancies from uncoordinated and inconsistent responses to accounting questions.
I look forward to the house being featured in Nollywood movies someday LOL!
Thanks Bazzar

Chukazu:
@mayor OP.

the trip of sand is a bit on high side, I bought mine for 8k which is quite cheaper compare with 12k you were giving.

and is the same eastern part.

Thanks Chuks, I followed immediately on that price at the onset by sending a friend to verify the cost and he came back with N8,500. Before then my cousin has bought 7 trips for N84K@12K/trip. But after that, I have been buying at N8,500.

Thanks a lot for that and please share the cost of other materials you know of here to help guide my negotiations.
Many thanks again Chuks.

3strike:
Mayor, first of all I want to congratulate you for taking a very bold step building from diaspora. Some of us did the same and so u can too. IMO case I dont even know where my building dey if they no take me there. I met the land seller on NL, builder on NL and a lot of good motivations here too.

Here are my 2cents

It is very important to negotiate well. Save all the $ u can cos u will surely need it.

As maverick said, avoid involving families and friends...you will thank us later.

Feel free to ask questions if you are ever in doubt and make sure u get more than 3 estimates before u go with anyone.

For the most part I havent seen anyone on nairaland property section claiming to be a high-roller tho other than people who claim they will import all the materials for their so call "building" from abroad yet they cant afford to pay 1500 for dangote cements..Trust me u will see people here who claim to be building but all they do is disturbing public peace with boring pictures of sand filling for months....they talk on how they want to import every thing from abroad including water..opening threads on how to import padlocks and other ridiculous stuffs... Its all talk and no action. Pls dont for one sec get carried away...just dont lose focus and use what u can conveniently source locally. #stimulatenaijaeconomy.





As for the person who commented above you.. here below is what we found out about him after all the bragados and am serious

My Chairman, God will bless you for your encouragements and words of wisdom. As for importation of materials, surely all materials I would use have to be sourced from Naij except the cash off course. As I am not building an estate (even if), the cost of importing (for individual use) is too enormous to comprehend. As we well knew starting with the cost of buying, hauling to port, consigning to Lagos Port, and indeed clearing, and hauling to site with the attendant risks, etc all are not ignorable.

Again the time to run around shopping for bargain in the industrial complexes, merchant outlets is not there. Even with the time, again remember that without Building Material Trade Licence you can not buy the materials at wholesale prices from merchant stores and bulk traders even during Clearance Sales, so you rarely buy at bargain price anyway.

Remember it is building materials (not mobile phones that you can hand-carry), so you essentially need at least a 20ft container indeed a 40 feeter to contain your building wares, toilet and kitchen sinks, baths, lister, Mechanical and electrical items, doors, windows, tiles, roofing sheets etc depending on the size of your project, But whether 20ft or 40ft, independent of other costs, the cost of shipping and clearing would be very close to if not more than N2m. Men! that's your roof done right there with that cash! I don't have that much cash for frivolities. By the way where will I stop importing, furniture's, electronics, home deco's, where?

Fair play to those that can afford them to. One of the joys of life is to do what keeps you happy in so far they are within a reasonable acceptable norm.

Most essentially, remember I'm building a family home where I hope to where finances allows often bring my family for holidays, which connotes that I'm looking forward to quality times with my wife and children playing and running around the compound (as Spyder888 would say) in my village, in my country, in our home. I wouldn't jeopardise the chance of realising that dream by using my off-work periods to run around counties looking to load a container of building materials. I simply cannot afford the time to do that instead of attending to unending but essential domestic duties here (school runs, baby sitting and children home works, cutting grass, family outings, taking the boys to and from football training's and matches, our girl to ballet classes etc) and above all, relax and be 'married' with my wife LOL! I don't want to loose my wife and family before I finish the Naija house. Too old and ugly to re-marry and start-over LOL!

So to me, it makes quite a lot of sense economically, socially, and emotionally, to buy my materials in Naij. We have high quality materials for building in Naij, you just have to pay a little bit more getting guys to shop around and that's the deal.

Thanks again for your advise, please don't fail to keep them coming as I expect you would.

EgunMogaji:
My Chairman, softly softly with the negotiations o, before the alleged Nairalander high rollers accuse you of struggling too

I just can't bring myself to leave money on the table but it still happens.

I like your involvement on your project Sir, very well done.

Thanks,
I am learning from you guys.
Hope that building whey you see around your site no dey too close to your house, otherwise yahwaa don enter your courtyard adventure.

CertifiedSamuel:
Hmmmmmmm, am seriously abducting this negotiating skill. Thanks 'Oga Sir'.

Thanks man!
When money scarce, you need to apply many strategies especially when you are not on ground. This time it worked, I think! Goodluck.

spyder880:
Hello Samsamjaja,

It may be a little difficult to list everything accurately as many materials came from the remnants from the last stage. I think this list will do for the decking;

1. sand 5 trips
2. gravel 6 trips
3. 16mm 50 lengths
4. 12mm 240 lengths
5. 8mm 40 lengths
6. binding wire 1 roll
7. 1x12x12 wood 210
8. 1x6x12 wood 30
9. 2x3x12 wood 150
10. Bamboo 250


Cheers..........

Chei Prof.! Was that the amount of rods you used for your decking?

EgunMogaji:
I tell you brother, Nairaland and property section has quite a bit of nefarious characters on it.

I'm not busy this week so let me see what trouble I can cause for the character

It's really funny how cheats thinks they will go undiscovered for so long. I was actually the one that bumped into the site alistsdevelopers.ie and saw the abdulwastecx calculations on the guys site and requested abdulwasteteczx to clarify if he is the same person trading as alistdevelopers because the same calculations he did in his blogg was presented their verbatim. Suprised he got back to say that it was a different guy entirely.

It would be good to expose such professional cheats before serious damage is done. I doubt if the cheat is a qualified architect as he claimed, afterall advertising for services as the guy did in his site I learn't is against professional ethics of real Architects. #letsexposethecheats -alistdevelopers#.

Please how many iron rods on average would you expect to complete the decking of a 5 Bedroom duplex with floor slab measuring 16.684 x 15.924 meters. Am trying to work that out going by the 'Floor Slab details' in the Structural Drawings by calculating some of the figures on the drawing. E.g where it says 31-Y1217-200 c/c B; 21-Y1018-150 c/c T, I want to believe that it is talking about 31 pieces of Y12 on base and 21 pieces of Y10 on top.

How do I interpret the numbers above, and what are the the methods to calculate the number of rods required per given space

(Guys don't laugh too much on my ignorance here!). Look Abdul am trying to learn fast here, time is against me so need your help asap. LOL!

abdulwastecx:
The Guy copied my work here and some of my pictures ( some of the work I executed in Port Harcourt) all without referencing me. If not for your comment I will not even know about it

With your response Abdul, I doubt if you know the guy at all. Thats exactly the issue, while appreciating valuable information from this property section of Nairaland, one needs to be equally weary of cheats who are intent on using peoples work as their own, pose as architects, builders etc to lure unsuspecting victims into rackets of swindlers or arm robbery at the extreme. Scary!

Kindly do us the favour by sending a warning to the guy to desist from using ur work if he is not going to reference you. Most importantly, using your pictures as one of his site. Dont allow cheats to malign your integrity.

Following cost of water at N4,000 per thousand litres of water, and considering that we would require loads through the course of this project, I reluctantly sought the services of some artisans for orthodox borehole digging. It was strange what happened during the negotiating stage as I did that directly with them without them realising where I was calling from. My cousin invited three groups from Awka, Oba, and Asaba to come and give quote. The ones from Awka were the first to arrive early morning last Friday, and after inspecting the site, I asked that he put them on phone. So we entered into negotiations.

Here is the excerpts from our negotiation;

Me: Heelo what is your name?

Negotiator: Oga na Akpan

Me: (I quickly remove my pants on fire and told him) I no be Oga, Oga's dey Abuja I dey Ihiala LGA here where I dey work for Oga's)

Negotiator: OK sorry sir

Me: You be Calabar man

Negotiator: Yes sir

I went in to settle him first to feel somewhat close to home

Me: OK, that's good because we already have a very good Calabar guy leaving and working for years for my in-law very close to the site their.

Negotiator: That's good sir!

Then try placing him in anxious mode to defend his handwork.

Me: So Na you go do the job abi you be contractor?

Negotiator: Nooo! I no be contractor, na me go do the job with some boys I go call whey we don dey work together before.

Me: OK! You don dey work for how long?

Negotiator: Oga, I don dey work for like 5 years oooh!

Me: 5years dey work for somebody or what?

Negotiator: No 5 years working for my selfoooo!

Me: So you wan tell me say you sabi work and you fit do the work well well with 5 years working experience?

Negotiator: Yes Oga I sabi work , we go do am well well, no problem, we don work many places, I show your brother pictures of our work sir.

Me: OK make I take am say you sabi and say you go do am well well for me now.

Negotiator: Yes Oga

Despite warnings the guy can't stop using Oga - artisans negotiating strategy consciously placing your status above theirs. Anyway, I continued, allowing little sigh of relief, I proceed to the main issue.

Me: You don see the place you go do the work?

Negotiator: Yes, your brother don show me the corner, its good their oga. We go do am there, no problem.

Me: OK, so how much you go take do the work?

Negotiator: Oga na N900,000 we go take do am, complete am.

Disillusioning exclamation aimed at lowering expectation following the bombshell

Me: Whaaaat!!! (loudly exclaimed) 900 whaaaat?

Negotiator: Oga na N900,000 because we go dig a, cast am and we go pay workers, rent generator, buy tipper trip of shipping, buy 50 bags cements, buy 90 pieces Y12 iron rod, pay welder to construct casting model, do the casting!

Me: Are you joking?

Negotiator: Oga Nooo!! the work too much and we go do am well well, na so we dey do am.

Me : You think say if you begin to beat me, you fit get N900,000 for borehole, you no get brother whey be government worker?

Negotiator: I get sir.

Negotiator: Him tell you say dey dem pay N900,000 in month working a Local government?

Negotiator: No sir, Oga.

Me: You think say he go save N900,000 after a year for him work?

Negotiator: I no think so Oga

Me: So why you wan make I pay you N900,000, come! how many months you go take do the job?

Negotiator: Oga months ke, - I go take gbatagbata 1month.

Me: You see am so, na one month work you wan charge me N900K whey go take me more than a year to get for where I dey work, you wan make I owe you when you finish working for me?

Negotiator: Oga Nooo!!! Oga tell me wetin you wan pay.

Me: No na you go tell me wetin you go take work for me, then I go shake if I go fit pay you when you finish as you no wan make I owe you.

Negotiator: OK Oga, make u pay N750k sir because we go buy materials, rent generator, pay workers, do am well well, I no charge you Oga.

Eeeh! the guys really came with cutlass to shop off my head. Anyway after listing the things to buy and sensing that he may not have costed them I quickly went for the jugular question,

Me: So how much is your workmanship?

Negotiator: Oga na N450 sir.

Note the double Oga, and Sir, money matter, he condescends to the last aiming for a below the belt punch for an ego junkie. Well, not me. As soon as he mentioned N450k, I knew I had him because a rough mental calculation of the material may not reach N300K. My target is to do the work within N350-400K. Then I remembered the Ijebu man Egunmogaji and his avowed negotiating skills, and we resumed;

Me: I would provide every materials and pay N50K cash in full.

Negotiator: Aaaah Oga! (the guy shout!) that one no go do am now Oga!

Me: Check am now materials too expensive and the things to buy many well well, I provide that and pay N50K.

Negotiator: Oga e no reach, make you pay N300K.

Me: N300K dey too much for one month job, would you do the job at N100K.

Negotiator: No Oga I no charge you, make you pay us N280K.

Me: Look I get friends whey dey build around the area whey still need borehole jobs, if we settle and you do the job well well I go tell them to give you the job, and since you can finish one job in one month, I have about six other people which means you are sure of being busy around here in the next six months.

Negotiator: OK Oga make you pay us N250K.

Me: Well you still dey high, just let me know your final quote, we do already invite some Hausa groups coming this morning to quote for the job and they don do work for one man not far from here in the past. Their work is good and fast. If they come give better quote we go give them the job.

Negotiator: Oga we wan do the work for you make we show you our handwork, we go do the work finally with N200K just to show you.

Me: Is that your final final?

Negotiator: Oga I go carry 4 people come work and we go do the job well make we leave am at N200 abeg.

Me: Let me talk to my cousin.

After talking to my cousin, he agreed that we give them the job as the picture they showed him was a neat job and they are the ones in the pictures.

Me: Akpan, Its OK I have decided to give you a trial. If you do the work well, you will get other works.

Negotiator: That's OK Oga but abeg when you tell your friends add something for me abeg Oga.

Me: What price?

Negotiator: Oga N350K dey good abeg.

Me: OK, do mine well first and we will see. When are you starting?

Negotiator: Today, we will continue work now and go home in the evening to bring more people and the rest of tools Oga.

Me: That sounds nice, go ahead then, my cousin will discuss mobilisation with you and the materials would be ready for you.

So finally, borehole job out at N200K. If I do that within N400K, I would be happy as a guy close to me did his with N650K, and one other did his at N750K. I would consider N400K a bargain provided the standard is quality. We will see.

abdulwastecx:
mix ratio for foundation footing for bungalow should either be 1:3:6 or 1:2:4 for normal soil.
i prefer 1:2:4 ( 1 bag of cement : 4 head pan of sand or 1 wheel barrow of sand : 8 head pan of gravel or 2 wheel barrow of gravel). reason been that the foundation of bungalow is very important because it help to distributes the wall load to foundation adequately.
A typical foundations supporting a three bedroom flat or its equivalent should have the following features

1. minimum thickness of 100mm ( 4'') and should not more than 225mm (9'') thick on a strong soil for economy reason.
2. the sharp sand should not be too smooth and free from clay and other dirt which may reduce the strength of concrete
3. the gravel should be preferably 3/4 ( 20mm) thick and must be free from dust.
4. the water for mixing should be drinkable and free from salt and other chemical contamination
5. the water-cement ratio must not be greater than 0.6.


mode of calculating the volume of concrete for foundation footings ( strip foundation).
1. get the sum of the total gird of the substructure, let say 'P' = 50 ( example)
2. get the width of the foundation, say 450mm (18'') for 150mm ( 6" wall and 675mm ( 27" ) for 225mm (9" wall
3. Assume a thickness of say 150mm for 6" wall and or 225mm for 9" wall.
4. convert all your dimension to 'm'
5. hence volume, v =50x 0.45 x 0.15 = 3.375m3
6. increase the volume by 25% to cater for shrinkage and wastage. =1.25 x 3.375= 4.05m3

using mix ratio 1:2:4
part of cement = 1/7 x4.05 =0.58m3
since the density of ordinary Portland cement s 1506kg/m3
and i bag = 50kg
hence, no of bags = 0.58 x 1506/50 =17.4bags ( 18 bags aprox.)

part of sand = 2/7 x 4.05 =1.16m3
since the density of sharp sand is 1600kg/m3 and a tonne of sharp sand is 1000kg
hence, 1.16 x 1600/1000 = 1.856tonnes ( 2 tonnes aprox.)

part of gravel = 2 x 1.16 = 2.32m3
since the density of gravel is 2400kg/m3 and a tonne of gravel weight 1000kg
hence, 2.32 x 2.4 =5.57tonnes ( 6 tonnes )

part of water using water cement ratio of 0.6
weight of water = 0.6 weight of cement = 0.6 x 18 x 50 =540kg
volume of water required, from density = mass/volume
making volume subject, volume = mass/density
where density of water = 1000kg/m3
hence, volume of water required = 540/1000= 0.54m3
since,1m3 = 1000liters
volume of water required = 540 liters

Abdul, Are the calculations above from a textbook such that they are repeated exactly in this blog http://alistdevelopers..ie/ Or are you the same company as alistdevelopers? I wouldn't want to believe that somebody is plagiarising here. I really detest plagiarism. It can be classified among cheating's' of the highest order. The integrity of any professional engaging in them creates ambiguous credibility concern. Please clarify. Thanks.

Barka da aiki Mallam, mu na godia da ilimi da kake nunamamu. Allah akawo chingaba duka mmu.

Nwunne, roof nkenu wuyaooo!!! Ibu Odogwu karaka na Nome Nara Unateze. Ana Nome gbagi gi ume nwunne m.

4nobody4every1:
......l agree, l wish those on the travel section and new migrants to the West will read and abide by this great counsel, when they see some of us working our ass out, they sometimes laugh at us thinking we are fools, some of them want the short cut to success which ultimately leads to doom, nothing l enjoy most in life than to have peace of mind anywhere l live on planet earth, l dont want to be looking at my back, living in fear or peeping through my door when l hear a knock, peace is one thing l cherish so much so it is better to keep your hands clean, all those doing 19 runs never end well eventually, easy come and easy go

Good advise brother. When you are here, you have a choice - Go it fast and be ready to eventually spend a 10years in 'college' without your family, your freedom or PHD before getting your self in MMA LOS if you haven't sought your immigration before then. Or you fall in line, follow the tide for the long haul, spend your 10years in College, with your freedom, your family, improving your knowledge, and end up with Doctor of Philosophy (if you choose that route), or established business person, or employee. The choice is yours bruv. But from all indications, 95% of the time, you can't go wrong with the 'turtle approach'. Slow and steady will eventually win the race. New immigrants BEWARE!

EgunMogaji:
Don't laugh, na so we dey manage our thing for Ibadan

Its true, we are in one world. Cant you see the similarities of the language used to Italian language. I did. My wife can't stop laughing. Please make sure the guy won the contract no matter the difference with other quotes, so far he can do the job. Leave wetin dey for motor, make you enter motor jari. Ekun Igbadu contractor!

Prof. Thanks for the update on total cost of roofing. Encouraging. Was the price settled before the current exchange or did it affect the cost in any way.

Some updates....
The guys have exhausted some 50 bags of cement yielding in total 1,812 blocks
Following quotes from my cousin and from my friend, I decided to go with my cousin's as they will deliver for payment all materials at site. They deliverered the following;

100 pieces y16@1870 - N187,000
150 pieces Y12@1040 - N156,000
50 pieces Y8@680 - N34,000
1 bag of 3" nail - N6000
1 bag of 2" nail - N6000
2 bundles peg - N2000
8 pieces Headpan/trowel - N8,000
1 Bundle binding wire - N5,500
2 Block Mollers - N12,000
Total - N416,000

The cement guy also supplied 100 bags@N145,000 and
Another 5 trips of sand was supplied@N42,500

Total N416,000+N145,000+42,000 =N603,000

This bring the total so far to N240,600 + N603,000 = N844,100

mavverick:
Oga

I very much salute your courage, I was in your shoes a few months ago and whilst the thought could be daunting at first, its the best thing to have ever happened I can tell you that. As previously pointed out, get a smart phone and use whatapp a lot, from here you can even use whatapp web. Allows you to type faster and easier, you also get free calls.

*Very key - you need someone that you can trust on site, to count deliveries (materials, sand anything), ensure your workers are not stealing your materials, get you first hand info on what is happening on site, get you workers/suppliers if necessary. If you can get someone who lives on site or closeby, that would even be better.

* Encourage your workers to have a smartphone etc whith whatapp. You can be keeping tabs on this and track whats happening on site, if its not the way you want it, you can highlight it ASAP. Not so important, if you have a site engineer with whatsapp etc.


Try to go on ground if possible to see yourself, a deadly mistake was averted on my foundation because I was there. No matter how much money you send, some people will always be greedy.

When shopping around for prices, get people to get you the number of like 3 suppliers and then you can compare your own prices.
Try to keep family away from your house builds, limit their involvement.

I dont know how close you are to your family etc, but my own preference is to limit involvement and deal with people only on a professional basis, you cant pick and choose family, but if the relationship is professional you can hire and fire anytime for people who are not performing up to expectation.

Wish you all the best, and remember dont let it stress you too much. Good health is better than riches.

Lastly, watch out for my blog called " BUILDING FROM THE DIASPORA"

Well said Maverick, thanks a million with this experienced advises. They are quite appreciated my man. Money no easy, and the thought of how well people will handle your things knowing that you are not there is something else. I plan to be there during the foundation till setting of first blocks, than during decking, and perhaps roofing. I felt that those are critical stages in the construction phase. May God help us all brov!

princejones:
Thanks for commending on our effort,wichtech stonetiles like in this case has it own treated nails which is not a screw nut but we use screw specifically when handling an iron roofing

That's good enough, but what of the woods, any chance of using screws. I am emphasizing screws because I felt it will be more fast and maintenance friendly in future. You rarely see people here using nails. How about using nail guns to speed up work. Time is money I guess and besides, your workers would be in better shape after their daily shifts. I am doing a project at the moment and would only employ people capable of apply new methods at woodwork as above. I would be prepared to provide the needed tools, generator etc.

idris4r83:
35pcs of blocks per bag of cement? That's outrageous. It's damn too dare o. If it's 35pcs it's better to buy engine compressed blocks cos the price will even b cheaper. Anything short of 50pcs of 9inches blocks per bag is a loss. At least 50 should b target point per bag if not then no gain si[/b]r.

idris4r83:
lolz! We even work with some of the blocks in site today. When preparing blocks, mixture ratio and watering is the topmost priority.[b] U can mold 25pcs of blocks and I mould 50 with the same one bag of cement it might interest you to know that with proper watering the 50 can be stronger than 25. The key factor is to use the appropriate sand and water the blocks for like good 3 to 4 days morning and evening. And again dangote cement is not as good as bua cement when moulding blocks. Am moulding like 2000blocks may be before this week runs out I will try to create a thread with pictures and share it to d house.

My son would ask, Are you joking me Dad?,
@idris, are you joking me. I was even worried that the 35bags is just too much just as @Dieumerci was wondering, I'm too!. We are using Elephant, does it make any difference, and what is your mixture ratio. Share further as Imimplore others with experience to share with us . Off 50pcs/bag can do the job, what's the point wasting cement.