₦airaland Forum

folmus:
As a tax lawyer too?

As a Chartered CAC Agent. Tested and confirmed.

Beframia:
N3XT, where is you?

I’m very much around. I’m not just in Lagos at the moment to oversee the activities going on this project. Hence lack of updates.

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I’ll be in Lagos tomorrow to resume work on our Badore Mixed-Use Development Project. So I’d be using one stone to kill two birds.

Pic below.

[quote author=bixton post=104447094][/quote]I’m trying to understand your message.

This is my position though:

- AC is not a necessity in every room if the house design is functional.

- wraparound terrace is used in sun-drenched climate, to reduce the effects of heat. It performs same function as a brise soileil or sun breaker on glazed area.

Question

Patterned Rugs: Why are we no longer using it?

Dijita:
My two cents to this discussion is that you need good amount of space to do open floor concept. Indian and south American food smell as much as ours. Also be sure you are on ground to supervise it yourself or have a 3D design of the inner building. My architect design open concept kitchen/dinning/living room . when they build the house they wall it off. When I asked them to break it open they just cut a window. I had to asked them to let it be. The concept is not yet well understood by most builder/engineer in Nigeria.

The bolded part though.

Barrmary:
The building is in PHC sir. So it’s the Steel village in Port Harcourt.

Oh that’s five. I thought it was a Lagos project.

So you think he can’t get a new 40ft length 4inches new pipes in the market?

That thickness is not something you easily see around. Not to talk of the length.

Also please the first time you replied and said hope he’s not welding else I should go for the H-beam, please what do you mean by this?

It’s just a personal thing though. I’d rather prefer a welded H-Beam to a welded pipe

And should I put the Steel overhead tank into consideration instead of the GP tanks I instead to use?

You should be fine with GeePee Tanks. But if your budget allows it, Steel Overhead Tank is not bad either. You can even go for a Braithwaite Overhead Tank.

Thanks so much Boss and I appreciate your time you take in replying my questions.

You’re welcome!

Barrmary:
Thanks very much Boss for your response, so far the welder has informed me he’s getting a complete length of 40ft length of 4 inches pipe (10mm thickness) at Steel village and I will also ask someone to go with him to buy the materials, it cost 140k for each of the pipes. For me I like H-Beams and most people use them but he said it’s not advisable so if he can see the complete length then his advice is notable I guess. I plan to use 2500 litres(4 no’s) of water tanks.

This your picture please what type of tank is that? Do you advice I use GP tanks or is there something more reliable I can use instead like what you have on the picture ?

I guess that steel village will be Owode Onirin and the pipe will not be a new one.

Standard pipe is 18ft long. But you can get some industrial pipes in Owode that can span over 30ft.

If it’s H-Beam, you can get up to 38ft.

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The tank in the pics is Steel Overhead Tank.

Barrmary:
Goodmorning to our Able and wonderful Building Experts here,

Attached is my building plan and please you can give any advice as i just finished with the German floor since May this year. I intend to make the 2nd floor just for my family alone so it will be joint 4bedroom flat at the 2nd floor of the building.

Please I am building a 2-storey building with 3 bedroom flats on the right and 2 bedroom flats on the left side.

I am doe with my DPC (German floor) and I would please need advice for making my OVERHEAD TANK STAND.

My Engineer advises me to use 40ft length 4inches steel Pipes with 10mm thickness, that i shouldn't use H-Beam because it doesn't last.

Please is it true that H-Beam doesn't last for Overhead tank Stand? Please Gurus in the house help me out here and Guide me....Thanks

cc; n3xt

His recommendation is not bad but where he’d get a full 40ft length of 4 inches pipe (10mm thickness) is the only thing that bother me here. If he’s still going to weld, then I’d rather stay with H-Beam.

However, H-Beam Tank Tower last forever when installed by the Pros.

bixton:
Please can you explain what you mean by the bolded and how does walls in a house affect it.......
Thanks.

In 2012, I shared the information below. I think it’s still relevant

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Efficient Designs: Natural lighting or PHCN?

Case Study: Mr. Brown stayed in one of the serviced terraced apartments overlooking the Atlantic Beach in VI, Lagos. Of course, he enjoys natural light and fresh air in this vacation home.
At the same time, he was building a country-home in Nnewi, Anambra and had commissioned one of the best building firm in town to handle the designs and construction.

The design firm put up a nice structure for Mr Brown with state-of-the-art facilities (automatic gate opener, solar-powered ACs, voice-activated light, day/night sensing security lights, sprinkler etc). But Mr Brown still felt something is missing. Natural Light!!!

I love the designs and concepts of Haven Homes, Nigeria based on functionalities. Their daylighting concept offers natural light and effective illumination through windows, ventilators, skylights etc and not via ACs. It also reduces lighting/energy bills while maximizing visual comfort. Different things appeal to different people sha!

I wonder why windows must always be the standard 1500 x 1200, 1800 x 1200, 600 x 600, when we have extreme hot weather. Why doors must always be solid core? Why all rooms must have curtain? Why all houses must have an AC, when PHCN is yet to meet their 4000mw target? Why we must rely on artificial lighting when we require generators to power them? Too many questions begin for answers.

Daylighting provides freshness and enhances efficiency. It brings the outdoor inside and has direct impact on productivity.

Real life: I used to live in a rented flat with 4 units of 2hp ACs burning fuel and wasting money while trying to cool the building. But now I live in a house that has little or no need for fan talkless of power hungry ACs. Everything (air, lighting...) comes natural!

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To your question:

The properties and arrangements of walls (internal/external) affect both the thermal conditions (heat and cooling demand) of a building and the energy demand.
Our building designs are so flawed that we always put aesthetics, security, privacy etc over efficiency and functionality in our home design.

Most people don’t even understand why a particular size of window is chosen for their project. We always feel window sizing is all about clients preference or design requirement and not a technical decision.

For instance I have wraparound terrace in the area where I have my extremely large windows just to shade it during extremely hot weather.

Another reason for overheating in our climate is improper selection of area of glazed walls and partitions. Then there’s issue of placement/orientation. We use ACs to correct these design flaws.

The same applies to houses that requires artificial lighting to light up extremely dark areas.

Theyre design flaws and not a peculiar environmental issue or naija thing as we often think.

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Pic - Open Plan Living Design (Upcoming NextHome Project)

A lot of people just like having unnecessary walls and they keep crying about increasing energy cost.

My entry porch, dining and living room is an amazing 100sqm space with large windows overlooking a terrace. The only partition between the entrance porch/ante and the main lounge is the TV Wall which serves as a break point to redefine spaces.

I could use the same space to build a naija standard 2 bedroom apartment.
I just love great space with good work flow and air circulation.

toyeoye:
People will try and discourage you but go for it bro, I did and it makes sense. They will say it's not our culture, no privacy, they will have to offer visitors food when they want to eat, the heat will be overwhelming, the smell of food will be everywhere etc but it has turned out well.

1. Plan very well and be particular about where you want every item in the kitchen even during construction.
2. Make room for cross ventilation by adding extra windows to eliminate heat, include an a/c and in my case, heat extractor fans which is efficient and not bogus like the hooded vents.
3. You guys have to be neat people. In my case, madam is more obsessed with cleanliness and everywhere is always spotless.
4. Because the kitchen is like a show off, the equipments, pots and furniture must be solid and should ideally compliment the space e.g all the gadgets are black and chrome and some upper cupboards have no doors to arrange plates, pots, flower vases etc.

Best of luck bro.

Thanks for sharing. My takeaway from all these is “Plan Well”

Horlardorjah:
Is the partition not an enclosure either transparent or opaque? Or are u saying the divider is dwarf?
What's our definition of open plan then?

Go to most malls, they have open plan design but partitions are created as needed to suit customers need.

See this multifold glass door below shared by rmx. It’s introduced to redefine space and also secure the rooftop lounge at night when the lounge is closed but during the daytime it’s opened to create one very large rooftop lounge.

I’ll try share one of my open plan pad plan here. It’s just a rectangular shape but if I share the pictures here, you’d think I’m inside 4 rooms. There were movable partitions

bixton:
With a frameless glass partition it no longer becomes an open kitchen.

The glass partition or any other creative divider introduced to break space doesn’t mean it’s no longer an open plan living. It’s just a creative way to redefine your space minus the walls.

Like I shared, I don’t have time to share stuffs I’d have shown lot of great examples from projects done here in Nigeria.

I have an open plan design overlooking a lap pool with about 8m wide glass wall. Because there’s a sliding glass door doesn’t mean it’s not open plan living. I can open all the glass and turn the space into one big space.

Valuepaints20:
You are very correct

There was a day we delivered goods to site and the customer insists we must take the paints upstair and it was just me and the driver
Talking about like 200 drums of emulsion paints
I decided to look for two aboki to help us out
You can’t believe the aboki is charging me 20k last
I was like for what nah but my brother at the end I later up paying them 10k
It’s sad this days everybody just need small job big pay.
May God help us out.

The aboki’s will still give you some value for your money.
Go to almost every major street (I repeat almost every street) in Lagos, there’s always one or more area boys/agberos or land urchins collecting monies for every materials that is moved into the construction site in the area.

Those guys are mostly Indian hemp smoking Yorubas agberos.

What do you make of that?

Suppliers always factor in their cost into every purchases we make.

RIP Eke!!

bixton:
Please can you tell us more on such sacrifices to mitigate aromas arising from cooked meals especially those done during frying,etc,etc.......

Smiles.

There are kitchens and there’s well planned cooking space. What we have mostly in naija builds is a room with furnitures, cooking wares and sink.

A well planned kitchen must satisfy the following space planning requirements during design stage:

- cleaning/washing
- food preparation
- meal cooking/frying
- storage
- service area

Regardless of the design, your kitchen can only be successful when it is organized in a way to optimize performance and efficiency.
Your cooking/frying space must be equipped with hood and your design layout must allow for good ventilation.

If big restaurants can have open plan kitchen, I don’t see why we can’t have it at home.

_________

Unfortunately I don’t have pics but there’s a lovely concept I’ve seen in Oniru. The cooking/frying area of the well-spacious kitchen was at the far end corner of the room. The break-point has a frameless glass partition which protects the smelly odors from getting into the living area.

I wish I can do more but I’d try share the layout later here or on kobocity.com

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Lastly don’t do this if your wife didn’t recommend or approve of it. Don’t do this for a village bae!

rotecch77:
Den no dey tell person, I’m sure they will later turn the kitchen to dining and create another kitchen.
“ No be naija we dey.
Not all American design works here. But if you tell them at design stage they will not agreed

It’ll work though BUT not without huge sacrifices

I know quite a number of ppl who have this. I also have it in one of my recent designs - a complete open plan living.

folmus:
Your enquiries are not complete.

What is the size of the land? The measurements differ.

@N3XT, could Kobocity calculator help this person?

Yes. I almost wanted to recommend same before I saw your post.

@Abubarakat, Visit https://www.kobocity.com/p/1-blocks-cement-qty-estimator to use our free construction calculator.

Should you require further assistance, use the private messaging function to chat up the admin.

KolaShangOne:
I've used Sherwin Williams white matte and I didn't like it. At all.

One man’s meat...

diordaves:
So this type of hardground you use ONE hand and get the job done in no time without drama?

I know you hardly read before you comment.

Here’s my post once again. Take note of the use of the following:

- workers not worker
- a good number of handy men not one man.
- set of diggers not one digger
- they not he/she
- them not him/her

diordaves:
I have never used less than FOUR hands in digging soakaways. No site abandonment and the Job done in about four hours with pure water breaks and chit chat in-between. The attached photo was done by four men for 60k.

This ain’t digging. This is excavation.

The ground shown in the image you shared is as soft as Lekki/Ajah Ground where we use shovel to excavate up to 5m.

I think you need to see hard ground in Abeokuta or Ibadan where you need to blast rocks or soak the ground for days before digging. That’s exactly the type of ground we are talking about.

#hardground

somehow:
Maybe we should start employing hausas, cotonue and Togolese boys since some Nigerians artisans have chosen to be useless.

Everywhere you turn, you’d almost hit a brick.

- Hausas now ride Okada instead of doing labour work. The hausa labourers you‘d see today are inexperienced and very lazy Hausas. The first thing you’ll hear from them is “How mush I go pay?”
- Because of the increase in demand for their service, Togolese & Cotonou artisans now use apprentice for their jobs.
- Yorubas now do Yahoo+ and Cultism
- Igbo artisans would rather do jobs that pays more.

N2,500 per day is really not cutting it anymore for most of these guys.

dapotemi:
About a week ago, i ask this question and got a positive feedback that its ok... Well, the guy strated work on tuesday, he was paid 20k at d end of the day, to balance 25k at d end of his work, got a guy beside my site to help monitor him and i paid him 5k, just to monitor.. My digger no show face since he finish work on tuesday.. Hes not picking his call.. Someone saw him and they ask him why he has not gone to finish his work, he told them the ground is too hard... I gave this guy d job because i saw d work he did for some people, just about 10 mins walk from my site... I am saying this to let you know that artisan and nigerians generally are increasingly having this mindset of NOTHING GO HAPPEN... We need them (i cant dig soakaway even if you give me one year), we must devise a new method to face this new challenge, its increasingly worrisome.

This is where a contractor/manager with good working relationship with his/her workers is mostly needed.

I have a good number of handy men that I can put on projects that won’t even request for a dime before they complete the job BUT they’d have scope the project and be sure they can handle it before jumping right on it.

5 years ago, I used 4 sets of diggers to dig one soakaway. They all ran away because the ground was too hard. In all honesty, the ground was hard.

I didn’t condemn or blame them. I had to find a way to solve the problem in case we encounter a similar problem on another project.

I recently bought a jackhammer to help my diggers work on hard grounds.

_________

Once again, it’s not always about money but how we manage our workmen.

Most client always think money. “I’ve paid. I’ve paid!!”

Once I see a very active worker lagging or slowing down, I’m not always in a rush to condemn them but try to find out how I can make his job easier.

dapotemi:
Its practucally a TRUST issues.. Trust deficit is on the rise, especially or in relation to owner/contractor/engineer... We dont trust, even ourselves.... If you quote 100k to finish a job and youre paid, ENSURE you finish it! Most especially if its a small project that can be done with within a very short time, maybe in big proj we might have to consider some kind of variations.. What about labor charges...my bricklayer quoted 200k for labor, i told him to charge me based on d number of blocks, which is d standard around the area, he insisted that he doesn't do that, well i paid him, did d job to about 90% and started asking for more money, unfortunately have paid 100%, na so e abandon job o.. So my job wont suffer, had to pay extra. The tin pain me sha.... The problem is TRUST.

I agree with your submission.

Some even deliberately underquote to get the job. You can’t trust most contractors/artisans completely with your money.

I asked someone to get me 10 bags of cement last week. He bought 4 bags and brought stories

I asked another guy to estimate the quantity of paving stones we need to buy for a small backyard project. He told me 9sqm. I gave him money for 4sqm. We still have almost 1 sqm left.

Unfortunately, you can’t do everything by yourself!

When we talk about managing a very good construction project, it’s actually about managing people and the processes.

—————

This is one of the reasons I’m not really in for rental properties (at least not in naija for now). I can’t imagine going through all these stress and someone somewhere still decide to owe me or mess up your building.

gbadexy:
I have had my paint substituted with behr and another American paint at different times by contractors without any noticeable difference but it satisfies some that only something packaged by the white man can be better or excessively costly to be good.

Smiles

The only paint that I’ve used that has given me total satisfaction was locally made. Most of the imported paints I’ve used are sparingly used to creat accent and original effects.

Question for Painters

If I may ask, how long should a paint last before it’d need a retouch/repainting?

I’d also like to ask “Are there paints that lasts forever?”

Jasobry:
95k? If that paint spill by mistake nko?

Smiles.

I understand you though. If it accidentally spills, it spills. Nothing happen.

That’s why I no fit mention name and price of paints

If you buy a multi-million dollar car and it skid off the road, what happens? You’ll kill the driver or sue the carmaker?

Even with best effort, there are inevitable constants in construction.

That’s the risk we bear in construction.

————-

I’ve shared here that I asked a painter to supply me some paint and he did but I ended up not liking the colour when he finished painting. I had to buy another paint and asked him to keep the one I rejected in my store

I was on a project and I had to buy 3 circular saw machine to cut boards on the project when the one I had broke down. I didn’t go into the project with a mindset that things won’t break.

If it breaks/spills/damage, we fix it and the project continues.

I’ve had to remove a whole roof because of misalignment.

Baba, you know these things na.

Jasobry:
Which other one bros, even the colour centre sef I dey fear.. have you used betek by wichtech?

No. I’ve not.
___________

There are so many quality imported paints out there.

I don’t limit myself to the common paints that flood the market. It’s easier to buy a fake.

Jasobry:
Which paint maker is advised to use between Dulux, Berger,capl,csi etc and what's there coverage

I guess these are the only ones you know.
I only use Dulux for internal walls.

If you’re going for Dulux, just ensure you buy directly from their ColorCentre near you.

Why is it that we hardly see a client ask their contractor/subcontractor/artisans “Is money the problem?”

I know I’ve had to deal with issues where the client tell his contractor “Shebi, you saw it before you gave me estimate?” “I paid you what you asked me!” “That’s my budget.”

Let’s reflect on this.

________

If you buy iron rod at N100k per ton last month and the same cost N200k this month, would you buy it or tell the supplier that’s what you budgeted for the project and you’re not paying more?

If you DIY your project and one of your tool of trade got faulty in the process, will you spend additional cost to repair the faulty equipment/tool or chose not to shift ground until the equipment maybe fixed itself?

Why then do we dramatically hold different standards for owner-managed projects and contractor-managed projects?

_________

Before you say contractors/professionals should know, “How many of us knew the cost of steel will go up by almost 80% in just 6 months?”

How many of us knew the price of 9 inches block will increase to N300 + in less than 8 months?

Let’s stop fighting each other and start dealing with the harsh realities of the Naija economy.

__________

Happy New Month!

micgray100:
THIS FORUM SHOULD PLEASE HELP RESOLVE THIS ISSUE.... NOT POLICE THAT WILL TAKE YEARS DOING A CASE...
THIS IS A LITMUS TEST FOR US ALL HERE ON THIS FORUM BEFORE SCAMMERS START REFERAL SCAMS ON THIS FORUM

Good morning Bro!

Once again, it’s quite unfortunate that you both have to go through all these brouhaha.

Here’s one thing I’ve learnt in this trade, in order to have a worry-free experience when working on your building project, patience, tolerance and understanding must co-exist.

To be honest, you’re not impatient, delusional, or unrealistic to feel extremely frustrated right now but just like I’ve been preaching here - be the matured one on this.
Every construction project will always come with lot of ups and downs and periods where it seems like nothing is happening. Things will take longer than expected. Mistakes will be made. Communication will be poor.
Be prepared to make some concession and keep rocking your boat amidst the storm. At the end it will all be worth.

____________

There’s no perfect project but you can chose to have a great experience by making few concession.

It’s not always a money matter!

twinskenny:
The case as been entered at police HQ already..

35k to track

I hope you know the police can’t keep him for more than 24 hours.

Maybe the guy would spend another 20k to bail himself. Has this solved the problem? Maybe or maybe not?

___________

To think the guy is asking for balance of N50k...

ceelog:
Please experts how does one remove dried mortar from a metal door? and what's the most effective way to clean your tiles after screed and painting?
Spyder880
Next
Diodarves
Dominionng etc...

I have a 3000psi pressure washer that I use for stuffs like this in the house.

As for the mortar on door and windows, get a professional cleaner to handle it for you.
Don’t try DIY or use chemicals as you may end up messing up your door.