₦airaland Forum

Hello my people, I am creating this thread to document pictures of how me and my team remodelled and rebuilt a very old building, a town hall which has been standing without a roof for over 35 years. The hall is owned by a community of progressive minded people who wants the best for the town. The details of the project is as follows.

Project: Remodeling and reconstruction of a multi purpose town hall.
Location: Enugu state
Clients: The Town General Assembly
Duration: 1 year
Budget: To be revealed later.

We thank you for staying tuned to our projects and thank you for all your support. For contact and enquiries, call or WhatsApp 0803 335 0750. God bless you all.

When we arrived at the town hall, we took note of the state of the building, with a special interest on the previous works done, and the general state of the building as at now.

From our inspection, we noted that there were a lot of this work that was done according to good engineering standards, even as far back as 35 years ago or more, a lot of care was taken to ensure that this building meets very high standards.

Following

But we still identified areas where we needed to rebuild, knock down some pillars that were not well built,

I then contacted an architect to give us a design of how the town council wants the hall to look like, this will be the reference design we will work to create.........

Wow. 35 years!
If it was built with hollow blocks, it would need to be demolished by now.
The expertise that went into this building was top notch though.
Didn't look like its even 10 years old.

whirlwind7:
Wow. 35 years!
If it was built with hollow blocks, it would need to be demolished by now.
The expertise that went into this building was top notch though.
Didn't look like its even 10 years old.

Yes I think the solid blocks helped the house survive this long. Some people even said the house was stated in the late 70s or early 80s. Most of the people who started this building are now deceased, but their children needs to see this hall completed. The people that built this house were not even literate, a few masons and other workmen but you can see how solid their work looks.

spyder880:
Yes I think the solid blocks helped the house survive this long. Some people even said the house was stated in the late 70s or early 80s. Most of the people who started this building are now deceased, but their children needs to see this hall completed. The people that built this house were not even literate, a few masons and other workmen but you can see how solid their work looks.

Very impressive!
In those days, if a block moulder tells his client that a bag of cement will be used to mould, say 30 blocks, the client would ask, can you make it 20 blocks instead? I want the blocks strong as a rock!
Times were relatively good then, and most people won't cut costs.

My father's house in the village, you will suffer before you can drive a nail through it's walls to hang something. We have to use concrete nails to penetrate the blocks. Even at that, some poor quality concrete nails still bend before you can hammer it halfway into the wall.

We identified that this hall is shorter than the current building specifications, so we recommend that blocks should be added to the top of this hall to add to the head room of the hall, this will also be necessary because of the types of ceilings we use now.

So we bought trips of sand, called in a block maker to start producing solid blocks to be used on the top of this hall.......

Another thing we needed to do immediately was to start building a scaffolding around this town hall. This scaffolding will be needed by masons who will lay the blocks on the top of the hall, as well as many other works which we planned.

More updates on this work loading.......

@ spyder880

I have one question because I intend to embark on a commercial building that will house about 30 shops and within Enugu metropolis from next year.

The question here is in the east, most blocks used for building are not 'hole' blocks. What are the advantages and disadvantages of hole and non hole blocks and does it depend on soil for preferences?

AdaoraNK:
@ spyder880

I have one question because I intend to embark on a commercial building that will house about 30 shops and within Enugu metropolis from next year.

The question here is in the east, most blocks used for building are not 'hole' blocks. What are the advantages and disadvantages of hole and non hole blocks and does it depend on soil for preferences?

Point of correction sister, 90% of blocks used in building construction in Enugu are actually hollow blocks. If we can agree on this then we can go on to the next question. Welcome.

hope to see you next time o.. well done sir..

twinskenny:
hope to see you next time o.. well done sir..

I hope so too, thanks.

We have started to knock down some lintels, columns and all wrongly mounted pillars that are shaky in this hall, we will want to rebuild a lot of things in the hall to modernise the whole work and make the hall safe for human habitation.

Pulling out some pillars we knocked out from the ground.......

spyder880:
Point of correction sister, 90% of blocks used in building construction in Enugu are actually hollow blocks. If we can agree on this then we can go on to the next question. Welcome.

And why the popular use or preferences for hallow blocks? I'm not an engineer but I'm just curious because of the weight of those blocks and which is more better to use, hole or hallow?

AdaoraNK:
And why the popular use or preferences for hallow blocks? I'm not an engineer but I'm just curious because of the weight of those blocks and which is more better to use, hole or hallow?

The preference is because of engineering specifications. Weight calculations is also a part of it. The better one is determined by what you want to achieve and what the building professionals advise.

Remember that it's not good to make these decisions yourself if you don't have the experience to do so.

As the blocks become dry enough, we started to use them to build the stage areas, and top all the walls, two blocks on top of the existing blocks...........

My masons are here and very busy............

We have laid the blocks on the top of the old lines to increase the headroom of the hall.

More of the new blocks......

To strengthen these old structural members, we have to introduce new, bigger cylindrical columns at these points I marked with red.

What this hall needs is a new spine.

spyder880:
To strengthen these old structural members, we have to introduce new, bigger cylindrical columns at these points I marked with red.

Correct. Necessary and advisable

We chose a side room in this hall which was supposed to be one of the 4 offices or stores, we cut it into 4 small rooms and we are going to use them as restrooms.

Then we raised the walls of the newly introduced rest rooms (convenience)

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B3ACHSIDE:
Why not use a block making machine? makes it faster and you can complete the House in 2 weeks !

It looks very cool.