₦airaland Forum

Increase my investment portfolio

Raise money to buy all the landed properties those running away are selling at distress value.

Complete my risk management course.

Move my business to pernament site.

Start planning for retirement.

n3xt:
That's a very good one sir. Continue to use your curiosity to understand what is happening and what is going to happen and not just what has happened.

The bottomline is to get more involved. Don't use your construction inexperience as an excuse!
Ask questions. Take charge!

Let everyone know you're in it together and there's a win for everyone.

This is why I get extremely angry when he does not respond on time when I ask him some questions or ask him what he intend doing for the day, the next day or for the week on the project.

Most times I get blanket response. All in all, if I employ you as my contractor, you should not expect me to still be doing a contractor's job. .

I have tired, taking my leave.

n3xt:
On any of his project, there are over 30 contractors and subcontractors. Everyone from Civil Engineers to IPTV installers attend our meetings.

Even me mysef, I engage engineers for my personal build. As a matter of fact, most of my personal builds are done in my absence

Contractor is the word.

Being a contractor does not mean you won't be needing engineers and the likes.

If you want to learn everything about driving like

signs reading
distance between cars
What to do in terrible situations
The emotions of driving

Go to a driving school.

Our lack of drivers learning professionally is one of the reasons we have madness on our roads.

n3xt:


The set of homeowners I'm talking for are those who do more than writing cheques.

I'm talking about those who take up the role of supervising the big picture, getting the funds and managing the professionals as well (directly or indirectly) all stakeholders.

I'm actually representing those homeowners who understands that long before there is a contractor, he/she makes what may be the most vital decisions on the construction project: what contractor, architect, engineer, consultants... to use.

_________

This explains why I loved the man I learnt from.

Late Dr Alex Ekwueme despite his status and experience in construction would never go to sleep on any project. He meets every contractor every forthnight in a roundtable session to discuss deliverables, dependencies and change order requests. He never go to sleep assuming he has engaged professionals. He play his role as the project director (owner).

The difference here is that he's a professional who understands what it costs to build a solid house and the role of the owner.

Despite the multibillion naira projects handled for the late vice president and the former president of the Nigeria Institute of Architect, he will always visit the site every forthnight.

_________

Good night!

Because it's his line and also experienced in construction even though I visit my site especially when the contractor is on site, ask questions too and chat him up almost everyday for updates.

While I don't know up to what he knows when it comes to construction, I still ask questions to understand why he's doing what he's doing.

If i have such experience and knowledge, I wouldn't employ any "contractor" since I can do the job of the contractor.

By 2023, all those agitating will mellow.

It's Buhari they are against, not really one Nigeria.

The set of homeowners I am talking for aren't those who turned contractors /engineers overnight o.

Not those who doubles as the architect and structural engineer.

Only talking for those who employed certified builders/contractors.

n3xt:
What will happen to the owner who bought the land with his own money? Rent it out to tenants? Put his family members there?

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There's one person I will forever respect here. He paid over 1m to conduct soil test for a land in Ogombo in 2011 just to be sure it's worth it. When we gave him the soil report, he decided to walk away from the land and went to buy land in Agbowa where he does not need raft and Baba lati can successfully deliver a good house for him without breaking bank.

How many clients here will do this?

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I have a client who got 24m depth in his report. He still went ahead with the project.

Let me give you ideas of how deep 24m is, It's like 7 stories building or length of 2 and half Dangote Truck.

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If you say professional should walk out, may I ask at what point? At the beginning of the project, when he's just meeting the client?
Or when the building has gone up only to realize how stubborn his client is?

I believe you'd agree with me that no builder has x-ray vision to know difficult clients neither can he force him/her to pay for what he didnt plan for. He can only advice.

Such should either pay through his or her teeth for a standard building or abandon the land but we know quacks will jump on the job because of what to eat.

It's not impossible to build on water but the person must be ready to spend by contracting professionals.

n3xt:


How come you're not getting the environmental factor part sir? This is a major reason for building collapse in recent times.

Do you mean I should blame my builder/engineer for waters percolating round my building as a result of my next door neighbours refusal to install proper drainage?

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I recently cleared about 3 acres of land behind my plot. Just last week, I got a report that all my roof eaves have almost fallen off. Should I blame the roof installer for doing poor job? A roofing job that was done over 1 decade ago without issues until we cut off some trees

Even action has a consequence. You need to understand and play your part and stop looking for someone else to blame.

While we were clearing the land, it never occured to me I was removing the wind breakers and exposing the roof/building to extreme weather.

Na who I go blame bayi o! The person who cut the trees or the roofer who didnt think of when the trees would be cut down in the future or the owner who gave the order to remove the trees without considering the consequences.

If you host a 200 person party inside your building, will you still blame the contractor for any eventuality?

I believe this is why a professional builder consider all factors before starting a building.

A professional building company I believe have a team of various professionals to consider every factor that may jeopardize the end-product.

Except the client refused to listen to advises, then you can assign appropriate blames to him /her.

Let each party be responsible for the parts they played in any failed project.

To balantly blame house owner for all the woes is what I will never agree with.

Hosting parties in an unfit building still goes back to the builder.

If the building is fit, then it's another story all together.
If such building collapses, then we cant see it as any of the factors we have been debating on since morning.

The phrase that homeowners are rushing, hence the demolition, collapsing and flooding of their buildings and should be held 100% responsible is what started this discussion in the first place.

Before any professional takes up a project, all factors must be considered and if not safe, the professional should reject the offer or find acceptable ways to litigate these factors.

Even if the owner wants such professional to continue like that, he or she should walk out to save both the owner and the community from disaster.

Woke the dead?

Never heard, seen such before.

FarahAideed:
He used to wake the dead in this same place and now nobody to wake him up ..this life no just balance ..Rest On Sir

This is why professionals must be professionals and not try to push their responsibilities to their ignorant clients (If clients were pros in construction, they wouldn't need any professional to handle their builds.)

In summary, people should always take responsibility once they have been paid to carry out a project.

n3xt:
This construction stage is even more critical.

A number of factors might cause engineering to go south if you’re not paying attention to important stuffs.

Most times plain negligence or thinking about form over function is a major cause of building collapse.

I’ve seen a building collapsed in Lagos Mainland due to overloading (rooftop party).

Likewise, I’ve seen a building collapse due to roof design. It wasn’t well designed to handle extreme weather condition.

Baba I wan rest

n3xt:
I guess incompetent contractor built the miami collapsed building. Maybe he also used substandard materials from Nigeria

I always laugh when I read stuffs here. The only thing we know about is cutting corners, corruption, substandard materials blah blah. We often dont think of environmental influence as a major cause of collapse.

When building regulations request for 9m setback for certain building, we often half it or even do whatever we like on site. For us, it is a waste of space. Those who requested for it must be stupid. They don't know how much they sell land in Lekki....

I have nothing less than 9m setback on 3 sides in my personal abode. Do you think I'd suffer same catastrophe as someone who had lesser setback? If there's fire outbreak, would I have issues like someone who manage to fit his building in 10m plot. What about vibrations? Think about standing waters - it can never get to my building. What about land subsidence? Is that a case of lack of competence?

I think you should read up more on causes of building collapse sir.

Miami building collapse: What could have caused it? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57651025


__________

All I can say is that if my building collapse, hold me responsible because I don't take chances. Where there are no standards, I become the standard.

___________

Pics from The Contractor (Miami Building Collapse)

How old is the building you're quoting?

You know the collapse we are talking about. We saw the images EgunMogaji2 posted a while back.

Buildings collapse everywhere in the world when they become old and fragile without necessary renovations.

When it becomes an issue is if the building is newly built or ungoing.

Whoever is building around waterlogged areas should contract true professionals who wouldn't sell beans to them just to get money from them.

Professionals that won't skip soil test, skip using the right materials or even changing the design of the building to fit the strength of the soil.

We can see that there are other houses around the collapsed Miami buildings.

It's the job of every professional to advise their client accurately and if such client won't listen, they should walk out!

If you accept to build in a place not worth building on, you as the professional must pay for it and be jailed forever!

This is why you're the professional and not the landowner.

n3xt:
I can't really say more than I've shared above. Don't be in a rush to do anything in Lagos state (especially in all those mushroom estates).

I'm not happy sharing this anyway because it's still fresh and the affected owners are still in deep shock but one thing I can tell is I have first hand information about all that happened and the clients are to be blamed for listening to the omo-oniles and choosing not to do the right thing at the right time.

I designed one of the building that made the incident go viral on social media (instablog). I was also in Alausa while appealing the action. I did the remedial work on the partly demolished structures but all I can say is "Don't get yourself in a situation where you wished you have taken it slow."

This one is demolition. It could be flooding or partial collapse in other situations.

Hopefully we will get to hear the main reason for the demolition.

As for collapse and flooding. I believe a competent contractor /builder should be able to handle any project that wouldn't lead to such.

n3xt:
Grills, Fins, Pergola Shades we love.

Are these part of the building?

n3xt:
Baba, remember I said don't take me too serious.

This is the way I'd just be sharing my stuff. You're not compelled to take me serious.

Some of us are shaped by the experience we gather from other people's mistake and then there are others who chose to be the other people we learn from. The owners of those demolished structures I shared above are here with us and I pray we never had to go through a situation where all we worked for will go down right in from of us and we will now be asked to come and explain how it happened for knowledge purpose.

Do you have the details of why they got demolished so that others can compare and see if they are heading that path or safe?

n3xt:
Ok.

These happened to some folks here..... they'd be able to give better counsel.

They should let us know the stage at which this happened and the activities that went on before then if they see it fit for knowledge purposes.

n3xt:
I got this from someone here yesterday. I think experience shaped him.

That’s why he decided to take it slow!

It all depends on the circumstances surrounding why approval is delayed or not given.

Then the area in question.

n3xt:
For those who want to take on me, I'd recommend you go through this thread Building Collapse, Construction Failures - Who's To Blame? https://www.nairaland.com/3149390/building-collapse-construction-failures-whos#46319667
I released that hit album in 2016


I will take full responsibility if my house collapse because I am the one who picked all the pieces including the supposed 'professional.'

So a professional that is trained on building construction should be let go but a homeowner who entrusted his money and efforts on him/her due to the fact that the professional proved that he's a professional should be blamed?

The homeowner who isn't the professional but followed all the advises, supplied the funds,
didn't underfund, did not cut corners etc gets the blame?

hmmm interesting way of thinking.

Why then do you blame government or any politician as you often do on the state of affairs of the country?

Why even blame Buhari for anything?

n3xt:


Failure is inevitable sir if we continue to do thing the wrong way. The roads will still get flooded when we chose to block the drain instead of building proper slab over the drains built by government.

Obviously, you dont follow most of my builds here. We discussed most of these challenges many years ago.

I was even found culpable in one of my threads. I blocked the drain with sand.

Guess why?

We were in a rush to get materials on site that we cant wait to build proper slab over drainage provided by the government. So we (myself and the client) agreed to block the drain.

Shebi na temporary thing ni? Thats how flooding start.


We are always in a rush that we no longer care about consequences of our actions.

People build when they have the power, to wait for Govt before building is setting yourself up for homelessness except you're not interested in living under your own roof.

Within 5 months, building materials went almost 40% up.

What you should be clamoring for in my own word is for every individual building to check and study the town planning of the areas they chose to build in. Follow the dos and don't and ensure they don't flaunt their regulations. And also contract a responsible contractor /engineer that won't cut corners and then shift blames.

Not to tell people to wait till eternity for a reactive Govt before they decide to put a roof over their heads.

You will apply for approval, months later, you still wouldn't get approved. Just approval o.

n3xt:
That the government is wrong or slow to act doesn't make doing wrong right.

Should people not move to Ikorodu because government is yet to build major infrastructures?

Should people not live in Ibeju because government is yet to complete major infrastructures?

People are also indigenes of these areas, maybe they should have waited for government before settling there.

One thing though, Nigerian government (state, LG etc) won't spend a dime on infrastructure on an area if the area is not inhabited and are facing huge infrastructural challenges unless they plan to turn it to an elicit habitat for their cronies.

Kindly reply my chats outside here.

n3xt:
1996 - date should be about 25 years ago.

Lekki Scheme II was conceived 25 years ago and there has been infrastructure development there since over one and half decade. I mean solid road and drainage to individual plots.

I did several projects there (several years ago) that I've showcased here. It's not a fix-along-as-you-build type of development.

People have been moving and living there before govt moved one tractor there.

They still have flood issues.

I am telling you 1st hand information from one of the residents, not story story.

The man is even building an estates inside Abijo as we speak but moved away from that area.

n3xt:
Exactly my point above!

The approach is what we call “fix-along-as-you-build” approach.

So you don’t expect such approach to fix anything. There’ll always be flooding, building collapse and failures because we failed to do things the right way.

So people should pulse their lives and dreams hoping on a Govt (at all levels) that only act when there are issues?

n3xt:
Lekki Scheme II with 3,095 residential plots, 64 commercial plots, 47 mixed development plots, 26 institutional plots and 17 recreational plots; Abijo GRA and the likes.

It has everything in place

So you are saying government built infrastructure before people started building there?

The same Lekki scheme 2 and Abijo?

Knowing the number of plots and their destination is not the definition of building infrastructure.

Some areas in these places you just mentioned still suffer flood and traffic issues. One of my wife's bosses have a house around there.

Had to move closer to escape the stress he was facing.

Like I said, there is no area in Lagos in the past 20 years that Govt developed the infrastructures before people moved there.

Not even a government known to be reactive than proactive.

I rest my case.

As for the blaming of home owners for building collapse, I will leave that to others to take you on.

It's like blaming a patient outrightly for dying in the hands of a doctor who's supposed to be a professional after following all the advises of the doctor on an illness that's not supposed to lead to death.

n3xt:
There are several of them in Lagos. I’ve shared many of them here.

Areas like?

n3xt:
There’s no need to preach “Wait and Patience” to anyone sir.

When the time comes, they’d pack to areas where there are no flooding issues in Mainland and Ogun state.

Those who know knows when it’s rainy season in Lekki, we move to our 2nd homes.

Unfortunately, no one can control this no matter how rich!
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The areas you're talking about didn't start existing 10yrs ago, they have been existing for as old as Lagos itself, so I am still trying to understand the 'rush",' patience', and "wait" comment.

Up till now, alot of places on the mainland still get flooded during rainy season, this is a known fact, maybe they were also in a rush to build.

I am at a loss here but I move.

n3xt:
This is just my random thought. Don’t take me too serious o.

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Building don’t collapse because of substandard materials or greedy developers alone, your next door neighbour, government or developments happening around you can bring down your building unknowingly.

Take for instance you’re building in an estate that’s largely undeveloped and someone building close to you decided to bring a D9 dozer into the estate to do earthwork. If your house didn’t fall, it’d experience some real vibrations which can affect your building.

There are basic environmental factors to consider before, during and after we build our houses. This include but not limited to our immediate environment, the weather condition, direction of wind, the development pattern (if you have a 4 floor building amidst bungalows, you should know what to expect during torrential rainfall).

Some beautifully designed and developed estates in Lekki, Lagos are currently submerged and on the brink of collapse not because they didn’t use good materials but because of our development pattern.
Another developer may just feel like Sandfilling his estate higher than every other estates around without considering the consequence.

A lot of projects on Lekki/Epe axis are going to have serious issues with the ongoing road construction.
The new road is way higher than most of the developments happening around the area. With the rising sea level, most developments in and around Lekki are right looking like they’re in a valley.

You might want to check VGC and the popular Ikota shopping complex out during the rains.
They weren’t developed to be under water.
OPIC Isheri and some other estates on the Lagos/Ibadan express had the same thing in common.

The major question right now is to ask ourselves “What are the city planners doing?”

We are in a rush to build houses but extremely slow to fix infrastructure later. The fix-along-as-you-build approach is very wrong.

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About a decade ago, I remembered the recommendation we always give to people here is to secure their property with a fence, sandfill it and leave for about 2 years before they start construction.



We no longer do this. We just want to build and fix all other sh*ts along.

In a nutshell, you're saying those who need roofs over their heads in some areas should wait until government comes to fix infrastructures around before they build even if it take 30 years?

How old is the average lifespan in Nigeria again?

Your analysis to me is sounding somehow.

I believe this is why homeowners employ professionals to handle their builds. Professionals should know the dos and don't before, during and after completing the project (s).

I am still trying to find an area in Nigeria that was developed by government before people started building there.

diordaves:
You probably forgot to also ask him what he meant by jailing homeowners for building collapse.

E be like say @Next smoke Omo detergent because I'm not understanding. Abi na me smoke Omo? Why am I not understanding.

One after the other, it's good as you have asked the second question

I believe there are more people waiting to ask more questions from his writeups

EgunMogaji2:
A house is the sum of all it's parts. Whats in yours?

https://www.nairaland.com/6639981/24-escape-death-two-buildings

n3xt:
I shared this 9 years ago. Still very relevant!



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Why are most homeowners in a rush to build these days?

What do you mean by 'in a rush to build these days'?

malel1:
Because my head is correct and urs is filled with sand

Birds of same feather...