Building House in India - Step by Step

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Building House in India step by
step
Sunday, August 25, 2013 Blog Archive
▼ 2013 (2)
Picking right Architect and Contractor ▼ August (1)
Picking right Architect and
Contractor
November 17, 2012 ► April (1)
Day 210
► 2012 (7)
I wanted to share our experience with a topic that I hope you find very relevant that of picking your
architect and contractor. You may wonder, why talk about that now.. Well, I couldn't have written
about this earlier even when I wanted to. There are things that we have learnt in hindsight for which About Me
we had no insight early on. It is only after being in the process for 69 months that I appreciate all
the parameters one should consider while picking an architect and a contractor. kaushal dalal
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So, let's go back about 24 months back in time, i.e. November 2010 when we started this process
of envisioning and designing the house. View my complete profile
For starters, there are a number of steps before you start to construct your house. It may not be
obvious how these steps are sequenced and time each would take. And therefore, we all endup
underestimating time and effort required to even start the process. Below is the typical
chronological sequence leading up to house construction.
Build your own vision of house House building is a very creative activity and like any new thing,
you want to indulge yourself fully to enjoy it. House building is as much about knowing yourself as
http://makingmyhouse.blogspot.in/ 1/33
about building a physical structure. That's where it becomes either fun for some folks or frustrating
chore for others. I have number of friends who would rather buy a prebuilt house and are perfectly
happy with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong in that! My first advice therefore is You
intrinsically want to build your own house to have fun doing it. Don't do it to compare or compete
with anyone.
Think about parameters that would influence your house. These could be external elevation of the
house, spaces within the house, budget, layout of the physical structure, levels within your house,
reselling or renting house partially or fully, daily habits or routines of folks who would live in the
house, and so on. While you do these, pay special attention to how you and folks who would live
conduct their daily lives what are their habits, what are their likes, dislikes or constraints, and how
these might change over time. All of the influencing factors above help build a vision for your house.
You may either document your vision through a document, or create a Google sketchup or anything
inbetween. Point is to have somewhat specific idea that describes personality of your house.
There is tons of material available on web and I'd suggest to make yourself familiar. You may also
refer to various house design magazines, or read newspaper columns, or blogs such as this to arm
yourself with experiences of others. The book that I found particularly helpful in our process
is Designing Your Perfect House as it clearly and comprehensively articulates the whole process.
It is hard to put a timelimit on this step and my advice would be to setaside time each week to
build your vision. It is easiest to lose pace on this activity, or postpone it to later stage and doing so
has the risk of either compromise, or having to start all over again after you have realized your own
vision.
During the process, you may either feel you have a perfect idea of the house, or you may feel
confused about what your house should look like. If you feel you have perfect idea, I would say stop
now and proceed to the next step. However, don't be rigid about your idea it will change. Allow for
changes as long as they fit within your vision for the house. If you feel confused, keep looking and
as you do research, jotdown items that you either really like, or really dislike. Over time you will
see a pattern in what you really like or dislike and that will help you create a picture of how your
house should look like.
Meet various architects It is important to meet different architects as they have different styles
and preferences. Some of the variations we have seen amongst architects were
1. Some architects build houses of contemporary style while others favor traditional style
2. Some architects have a good eye towards attractive elevation while others are better at
detailed planning of individual spaces.
3. Some architects are fixated towards a feature of the house such as stairs or floor levels
while others may be fixated towards earthy materials or concepts.
4. Architects that are well reputed may relegate most of house design work to their sub
ordinates while relatively young architects themselves design the house. On the flip side,
wellreputed architects have tons of design ideas and experience which very young architect
may not.
5. Some architects tend to design tens (if not hundreds) of houses in a year while others may
only do 510 in a year.
6. Some architects charge flat fee versus others that charge % of total house cost.
7. Some architects have designated contractor that they work with while others work with any
contractor of your choice.
I am sure there are other parameters as well but this hopefully provides rationale why it is important
to get to know the spectrum to make an informed decision. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong
decision, it is what you feel most comfortable with.
Next obvious question is how to get to know what type of architect you are dealing with Well, you
will never have 100% idea, but a few things that can help are
Look at houses they have built. Don't rush to conclusion based solely on pictures,
pictures can be very deceiving. It is important to visit the houses to get firsthand view
of houses. While picking the house, pick a combination of relatively new (< 1 year old)
house as well as somewhat older (25 years old) houses. Once you have seen 34
houses you might start to notice a pattern.
Provide your requirements and ask if architect would make a mock design. This will give
a sense of architects' vision in reference to your own.
Do reference check with house owners. Often, pointed questions elicit better insight than
a generic question.
Finalize an architect No matter how many architects and how much analysis you do, there will
never be surety while finalizing an architect. The point really is you want to have reasonably good
idea of architect's style and should feel excited at the prospect of him building your house. For us, it
was this intuitive sense when we finalized the architect who designed our house.
As you may have already guessed, above process does take few weeks to few months depending
on your situation and there is always cost of overanalyzing. It is not unreasonable to expect 46
months to finalize an architect. Not that I recommend this approach, but we also know of friends
who picked an architect and had to change their mind midway through their house design. While
you'd lose retraining amount, it is better to cut your losses than to compromise on your dream
house.
Some of the things that we learnt about our architect and why we feel very excited about him even
today
1. Coincidentally, our tastes matched much more than we originally thought. Our choices
matched in picking materials, traditional design of the house, attention to detail, and
standards of quality.
2. Accessibility We never had to struggle to get his time. He has been intimately involved in
design. He is our direct contact and has always been very responsive.
3. Flexibility Whatever requirement we have had he has designed creative ways to incorporate
them. In rare instances where we were not excited about design, he has shown flexibility to
incorporate our input and revise design.
House building is a long and intimate process where architect and contractors are your trusted
partners. As the owner, you should take initiative to build such a relationship as that will result in
final product that everyone will feel proud to attach themselves to.
Iterate over design You would typically meet architect to provide your requirements. Depending
on architect, this meeting is either freeform or more structured. There are quite a few
questionnaires available on web for design of spaces. Here is an example of questionnaire for
House overall or for specific room such as Kitchen. Find one that you are most comfortable with
and fill that out. This will help clarify your thoughts even if you didn't share with your architect. We
did both independently brainstormed our preferences and then followedup with similar
questionnaire list to refine our thoughts. Some of our preferences are listed below
Open floor plan – No kitchen
door, Large windows
Vastu compliant
Sunny in living areas
Good air circulation
Porous boundary between
outdoor and indoor living
spaces
Environment friendly –
rainwater harvesting, solar
energy, composting pit,
recycle water for gardening, toilets, etc.
...
End result was when we met architect he got pretty clear picture of our likes and dislikes, our
personality and that helped him build the design. As you can see from image, initial concept plan
very much was in line with our requirements. We certainly were very excited seeing such a concept
plan. The courtyard feature for example has been both unique as well as one that meets our
expectations.
Once you have concept plan, you want to internalize it for few days. Observe how you and others
who would live in the house live daily and how your house would fitin with those habits. Note down
refinements. This is also great time to relook at those magazines, newspapers, web, for design
ideas. Don't be influenced by the fancy materials and color combinations those will come for later.
Right now, you want to think about spaces and ensure your current and future needs are
incorporated within them. Also, pay attention to how spaces transition from one to other to make
sure it is natural. You also want to ensure that space is oriented and sized appropriately. This is the
phase where structure of your house is defined and more you can glean from your research to
validate or refine ideas, less you will be surprised later. This phase can take anywhere from 26
months depending on how many iterations it takes to finalize.
Submit plan for approvals Once your design is finalized, architect creates plans that have to be
approved by your city municipality. Depending on your state and country, requirements, process and
schedule for city approval would vary. Suffice it is to say this process takes times and is easy to be
overlooked. For us, it took nearly 9 months and unfortunately there is not a whole lot that one can
do to make it faster.
You may want to check with your municipality, architect, contractor or any 3rd party if there are
avenues to start the approval process in parallel with previous stage of house design. For example,
out of 9 months, we could easily have overlapped 23 months had we paid some of the fees up
front. Any way, in the whole endtoend process of house building, I found this stage to be most idle
and frustrating, both because it causes break in momentum and because you have no direct
control. Like they say, best to not fret over things for which you can't do anything!
Meet various contractors Depending on architect you pick, this step may or may not be
necessary. When you do have the pleasure of picking a contractor, you do want to start about 3
months prior to anticipated start data of construction. That will give sufficient time to assess various
contractors and also not delay construction start. Like architects, there are a number of parameters
to consider
1. Quality Contractor is the one who will realize paperplan into realstructure. You don't want
water leakage in the house after mere couple of monsoons, for example. It is critical to
observe in detail houses that contractor would have built. Older the house give you better
sense of durability. Newer house give you sense of attractiveness of construction.
2. Speed Some contractors tend to be fast while others can be real slow. Fast is generally
good as long as that doesn't result in compromise. Contractors that are slow or have break in
continuity of construction are best avoided.
3. Communication A critical factor is being able to communicate with contractor and his
workers. Some contractors, especially fast ones, have number of houses going on in parallel
and delegate daytoday activities to their "managers" and workers. If these folks either don't
understand the language or are not able to relate to incorporate guidance it often results in
frustration and stress. It is also of great benefit if contractor is email savvy as often you
may just suggest your requirement through web link or pictures and it is much easier to send
link rather than bring him a printout.
4. Experience Thumb rule here is of course more the better. That would have exposed them to
variety of styles, materials, architects, and owners. Each of those will help them mature and
therefore be a lot more effective partner to work with.
5. Resourcefulness There are a number of functions that your contractor manages civil,
electrical, painting, carpenter, and several more. Given that these folks tend to be laborer
type, there would be an ongoing churn that contractor deals with. On top of that, depending
on specific requirements of the house, contractor will need to procure specialized workers
and materials. You want contractor who has alternative plans for every situation without
compromising architect's vision.
6. Accessibility Contractors that delegate their job are always going to be handsoff. They also
would have number of parallel construction going on and would always be time constrained.
Depending on their attitude, some times we have seen they interpret architect's drawings
themselves not bothering to checkin with the owner and architect. There are others who do
only few houses but are thoroughly engaged in daytoday activities.
7. Estimation and planning Contractors have to upfront estimate the cost and timeline of the
project. Then, on an ongoing basis, they have to schedule mobilize material, mobilize
resources, and sequence daytoday activities, all within that highlevel schedule. This skill
doesn't come easily to most folks and I have yet to meet a houseowner whose house was
delivered without his "micromanagement". Obviously, a contractor who is able to do as
much independently will offload you.
Like with picking an architect, it is difficult to find contractor that excels in all of the areas. What you
want to do is identify the ones that you are willing to make compromise on and ones that you want
contractor to be really strong in. Following things help you in revealing contractor's strengths and
weaknesses.
Visit as many houses that contractor built Add combination of houses that were
constructed a few years ago, to the ones that recently completed, to the ones that are
under construction. Visit the house under construction few times in a week will provide
snapshot their workers' daytoday behavior.
Talk to the houseowners whose house were recently completed or better yet are under
construction. They are likely to share "horror" stories if there were any.
Engage with contractor on detailed design and construction planning Ask him about
where he would procure material, workers, what are the specific milestones he'd shoot
for, how you and him would track progress and so on.
Finalize a contractor Most of the criteria to pick a contractor are also described above. The main
point I want to stress here is the dynamics between contractor and architect. Again, look at house
building as an exercise where you, architect, and contractor have to have the right dynamics.
Architect and contractor have to communicate and trust each other as much as their equations with
you.
The most important aspect is for contractor to realize that his role is that of implementer and
architect has to realize his role is that of designer and inspector. Contractor therefore focuses on
building good quality house within time and estimates of cost provided. Contractor can make
suggestions to you and the architect but ultimately has to execute on decisions given to him.
Thankfully, we have had that equations set from day 1 and therefore it has not been as stressful
experience as it could otherwise have been. I urge you to set that equation as early in the process
as possible.
Start construction Aha, finally, the day arrives when you can see some real action. It takes good
24 months from building first vision till you start construction. By now, you have accomplished huge
part of housebuilding assembling your team and establishing plans! You have already come half
way, believe it or not. You will soon be able to see your abstract dreams taking shape. It is start of
an exciting phase in housebuilding. Celebrate accomplishment of this milestone !
Some bestpractices to keep in mind going forward
1. Visit your site every other day if not every day to track progress and compliance to plan
2. Keep a payment chart that tracks when you made the payment, to whom, and what it was
for.
3. Track schedule very closely. Like any project, devil is in the details. More questions you ask
architect and contractor of immediate milestones, dependency, inspection schedule,
decisions that you have to make, more informed you would be.
4. Ensure that you, architect and contractors meet at least once a month. Quite a few finer
details get ironed out through these conversations. Preferably, these meetings should occur
at the site itself.
That's all for now.. It has been a long post, but hopefully worth it. Feel free to point out any details
you would have liked to see and I will see if I can incorporate it.
Posted by kaushal dalal at 4:53 PM 60 comments:
Friday, April 19, 2013
Ground Floor Roof
Day 210
November 17, 2012
Ground Floor Roof !
While walls comeup quickly and show visible progress, it takes a bit of time to get roof completed.
For starters, it is advisable that all walls progress at more or less equal pace as roof construction
can not start till all walls are up.
In our house, we have wirecut bricks in certain areas and as I mentioned in my earlier post they
take a while to procure and once procured take further time to lay them in place. One of the reasons
for delay is it requires specially skilled mason to handle cementing of wirecut bricks.
Additionally, we had specific pattern to arrange them in. A couple of
the patterns are shown here. Patterns make the wall come alive; they
however cost a bit more both in terms of quantity of bricks as well as
time taken to lay them so they are appropriately aligned.
As a layman, these delays were not obvious to us at the start.
Having gone through the process we now know that laying
wirecut bricks takes twice as long and laying wirecut
patterns takes thrice as long as the normal bricks. For us,
these added 34 weeks to overall schedule.
Obvious advice is to be paranoid about each task ask
stupid questions as that'd uncover potential surprises that
can be avoided.
Roof height
Unless a house has tall ceilings, most people don't pay attention to how high the ceiling should be.
They usually go with the standard 10 or 10.5 feet height. And so did we. Our architect, however, had
designed drawings with 11 feet height. As the walls were getting constructed, I actually felt 11 feet
looked too monstrous in some rooms and was reluctant to go with that. Being the firsttime house
builder it is very hard to know whether to stamp your opinion, or go along with architect's design. Do
some research on advantages and disadvantages to find an answer that is right for you. Here is a
quick summary of pros and cons of 10 feet vs 11 feet.
Taller ceilings give feeling of spaciousness. Rooms look a lot more elegant.
Taller ceilings cost more and take longer to build.
Taller ceilings in a multilevel house mean more stairs to climb.
Taller ceilings help with keeping room cooler as hotair stays at or near the roof.
Taller ceilings provide larger storage space should you construct wall cabinets.
We decided to go with 11 feet and after the roof was casted, I was thankful to have listened to
architect and contractors' advice. 1 feet makes a huge difference in feeling of spaciousness and
elegance.
Electrical design
As soon as the roof is cast, a number
of activities electrical, window frames
and shutters, plastering, etc. can
happen in parallel. By now, your
architect should already have finalized
furniture layout and should be talking to
you in terms of electrical layout. It is
critical for homeowners to freeze both
these items at this stage as without
them none of the other work would
proceed.
For example of electrical drawings, here
are a couple of samples from our
house. Undoubtedly, there will be a few
iterations to get these right. So, allow
yourself a bit of time on how you'd live
around your new house. That'd
determine number and type of lighting
you'd need. Lighting is one of the
crucial aspect to set ambiance so you
want to make sure to not rush it.
A couple of rules that we followed for electrical layout
Be liberal with points I have observed that more often than not after the house is done
you realize need for additional plugpoints. While this costs a bit extra upfront, I'd much
rather not have to openup electrical (or avoid having power strip everywhere) after house
is done
One open plugpoint per wall is a thumb rule Again, calibrate according to needs of
each room
Avoid too many types of lights,
we picked a type (e.g. wall mount)
and repeated that across the
house.
Avoid more than 6 switches in a
switchboard Hard to remember
which switch is for what and looks
kinda ugly.
Roof construction:
1) Order materials While this is an obvious thing, some times procurement adds delays. In our
case, we needed longenough "bamboos" for 11 feet ceiling and those were not readily available.
Ensure that contractor orders steel, cement, sand, aggregate, etc enough in advance so that it
arrives in time.
2) Setup centering This is where maximum time is spent. Workers setup metal sheets supported
by the bamboos. Depending on roof area this can stretch over in days or weeks. Thumb rule is to
expect 1 room per day. If you have stairs, those are also done at this stage. This is because they
need to ensure the leveling of stairs occurs at the same time as centering is set up.
3) Do formwork Once centering is setup, they layout steel rods that will hold the roof together.
This is done in usual mesh pattern. For about 1000 square feet roof, it took 1week to set this up.
4) Layout electrical conduits Contractor will identify electrical drop points in each room. These are
essentially points from which electricity flows into the room. It is good to have electrical layout
finalized at this point although if it is not, contractor will identify a few default points.
5) Structural inspection One final step is to get structural engineer to approve construction.
Structural engineer is the one your architect would have consulted to structurally build your house.
His approval is critical to ensure house meets the safety standards he'd have set in place during
design.
6) Pour cement Pretty straightforward step. I was surprised that this takes usually 46 hours. My
contractor suggested to manually make cement so as to have better control over proportion of
cement, aggregate and sand. However, market is also full of readytopour cement mixes as well.
Go with whichever you (or rather your contractor) feels comfortable with. It is important that whole
roof is done in a day to allow roof to solidify at once.
7) Remove centering Once cement is poured, make sure it is cured regularly. This allows cement
to bind really well. Curing happens for few (24) weeks. Typically, centering stays for support for
about 6 weeks.
8) Payment My contractor insisted to have fewer but bigger payments and that model worked very
well for us. My second payment was when ground floor roof was casted (first was when plinth level
had reached). My BOQ (bill of quantity) is also structured for each phase (Plinth, Ground floor roof,
First floor roof, etc.) This model allows me to easily verify actual versus estimate in BOQ much
more easily. Every time bill is raised, architect also needs to verify quantity of material used vs
estimated and doing it less frequently makes his task also easier and more efficient. Any way, point
of this bullet is to verify how you are tracking with respect to estimated cost and justify any
deviations.
9) Schedule and Quality review Final checkpoint at the end of this phase is to review schedule
and quality with your architect and contractor. This must be not just at the macrolevel analysis of
bigpicture items, but rather a finerlevel analysis.. For example, what factors contributed to delays,
what compromises led to aesthetics or structural inadequacies. By now, you'd also have had a good
rapport with both architect and contractor to unequivocally communicate action plan going forward.
My advice is actively ensure that mistakes are not repeated, don't assume that someone once told
will henceforth do the right thing.
Ground Floor Roof
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Ground Floor Walls
Day 132
September 1, 2012
Walls come up !
Best way to
describe progress
is to show some
visuals. So, here
they are..
A number of our
Overall house perspective Living Room
rooms have
exposed bricks.
Seeing them in
real is very
different than
seeing them in
architecture
elevation. One
obvious piece of
advice on
Ground floor Bedroom deciding on Patio
elevation
materials is therefore to look at more houses than blueprints. Even seeing pictures like this is not a
replacement for actual visits to the house. Actual visit gives a real sense of the space How does
the space gel with rest of the surroundings, Likes and dislikes about material texture and finer
details, and so on.
We had seen these "Balyapatnam" bricks at a few houses and while bricks themselves were not
that much of a surprise it indeed is exciting to visualize how bricks add character to various spaces.
Walls Come up
As mentioned earlier, once markings are
done and inspection has validated them, protruding walls is a pretty straightforward task. This video
shows workers as they were building these walls.
A few things to keep in mind
Your contractor should have planned detailed supplies and preordered them. These are
things like sticks, bricks, aggregate, water, etc. Make sure these don't add to delays.
Laying expose bricks requires skills. Also, it usually takes longer to lay these than the
normal bricks. More masons that can lay them in parallel, faster progress it'd make.
Exposed Bricks
Exposed brick walls have to be planned
upfront to avoid rework later on. Specifically,
Niches Position, height and width of each niche that would be placed in the wall.
Electrical layout If any ducts have to pass through this wall these need to be planned
and performed while these walls come up. (Note: From aesthetics perspective, it is
advisable to not have any electrical points in the brick wall itself.)
Brick patterns To avoid monotonous look, border brick patterns can be added on a wall.
Typically, these are added a few rows above the lintel. These have to be decided and
upfront planned with mason. Some times, masons may not know how to lay patterns
(especially if they tend to be difficult) and it is wise to allow time for these. There are a
number of patterns available on the net.. Some tend to be dominating while others tend
to be too big and are better suited for bigger buildings than houses. Do a bit of research
to identify ones that best suit dimension and style of your room.
It is important that adjacent walls comeup together. This provides uniformity to spaces as well as
allows workers to connect edges as they come up.
Lintel beam
Lintel beam
To refresh, lintel beam serves the purpose of binding various spaces in the house together as well
as providing foundation to host brick layers extending to roof. Lintel beam is placed typically on top
of window and door spaces.
This video talks about process of constructing lintel beam. Process is very similar to laying any
slab. Put reinforcement in the form of wooden sticks. Then, lay wooden sheets on top of window or
door space. Do the form work (i.e. laydown the steel rods that provides the core of the beam).
Provide shape by reinforcing wooden planks on both sides. Pour the concrete and allow it to dry for
a few days. Remove the wooden planks on the side as well as wooden sticks. That's pretty much it.
While it does sound simple, this process does take time and a lot of this progress is not visible
(unlike when walls come up). Our philosophy for construction has been to ensure daily progress but
not judge the quantum of progress. We believe this works better to ensure quality.
Stairs
Stairs
Last piece in this segment is the stairs. As mentioned above, all parts of the house needs to come
up together. Stairs in the house have to blend with the connecting walls and hence it is about time
to start working on them.
This video covers baseline work for stairs. It is similar in concept to laying down a beam. It is a bit
more work because before laying the concrete they need to provide exact shape of stairs through
wooden planks.
While planning stairs, ensure that each step is not more than 7" tall. Also, typical depth of each
step is about 1112". These are little things that are important to get right (You don't want people to
think where to put their step while climbing stairs :)).
Once lintel beam is done, workers continue process of laying further bricks that extend walls to roof.
Next post will talk about laying ground floor roof.
Posted by kaushal dalal at 2:04 AM 6 comments:
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Ground Floor Plan
Day 98
July 28, 2012
Foundation wrapup:
It is almost 100 days and foundation work is complete. We are on to ground floor now. Before we
get started on ground floor there are a couple of things to finish on foundation
1. Foundation inspection If architect has not inspected foundation level be sure to schedule
and ensure it gets done now. Purpose of inspection is to:
Ensure height of foundation is in accordance to the drawing
Ensure house does not have unintended height differences across various spaces
Build an opinion on the quality of construction
Ensure setbacks are appropriately marked.
2. Receipt verification Before ground floor construction starts, it is a good idea to assess
planned vs actual cost to construct foundation. Contractors typically provide a Bill of
Quantity (BOQ) that lays out estimated material required for each work item and
corresponding cost. This is the time to verify overage or underage of quantities and actual
cost. A good way to crosscheck this is to have your contractor provide receipts of materials
used and have your architect measure the quantity of material used in the house. Depending
on individual arrangements, a % of estimated payment can be released earlier but final
settlement for foundation level should only be done after receipt verification.
This is also the time to apply for the "Commencement certificate" (CC) that municipality often
recommends. CC, as I understand, is often a requirement to procure "Occupation certificate" (OC)
when your house completes and before it can be occupied. For Bangalore anyway, CC *seems* an
optional thing for residential construction. Although I was planning to procure CC, I dropped that plan
based on architect and contractor's advice.
Ok, let's get on with the ground floor plan.
Working drawings:
Here is complete set of drawings architect will provide to you and the contractor to construct ground
floor. The actual number of drawings may vary depending on complexity of the house. Here is the
types of drawings you should expect
Wall schedule Shows what kind of wall, such as plastered, exposed brick, or claddings
Detailed working drawing Shows detailed width of each edge within room, height and
positioning of windows and doors, and position and dimensions of niches within walls
Chejja details For houses that have sloping roof, this one shows position, width and
slope of the chejjas.
Lintel details Shows internal structure of the lintel beam, width, height, and
measurements on top of each window and doors.
Electrical layout Shows detailed marking of electrical points and switches. This one
requires thinking through lifestyle habits and therefore may require a few iterations to
settle.
Roof slab marking Shows the height of roof slab, construction markings for laying the
beams, and materials to be used for making roof slab.
Ground floor plan:
Ravi explains process of constructing ground floor. Basically, there are 4 stages:
1. Laydown bricks till lintel level
2. Construct lintel beam
3. Laydown bricks till roof level
4. Laydown roof
The two new terms I learnt were sill and lintel. For those not from civil engineering background, sill
essentially is the bottomedge of the window and lintel is the topedge of the window.
Ground ퟢ�oor plan
Constructing walls is typically easy as it
amounts to laying down bricks (or blocks if you were using cement blocks). The only complexity
arises as a result of windows and doors. Hence, contractors first need to clearly mark position for
each window and door including their sill and lintel positions. For doors, sill is 0 and typical lintel
level is at 7'. For window obviously these vary depending on individual requirements.
Make sure these markings are clearly visible and do not get washed away.
Upon completing markings usually next step is to lay down firstcourse brickwork. What this means
is laying down firstlayer of brick on plinth across the house. The video below shows firstlayer
brickwork laid out in the house. When firstcourse brickwork is completed it is critical to schedule
"first course brickwork" inspection. This allows architect to validate width of each wall within house
to ensure it is according to the spec. This is the last stage before wall start to buildup and so
important to doublecheck as mistake here can be expensive.
Wirecut bricks
In our house we have identified a few areas to have exposed bricks. These are special bricks in a
few ways
First course brickwork
They cost more about 45 times more than the average bricks
They require special skills to lay them down
Since these bricks are always exposed (unlike standard bricks which gets plastered
upon) these bricks should be handled with extreme care and should not get chipped
while laying down.
Any electrical points on walls that have wirecut bricks have to be established and
planned for upfront.
Any niches within the walls that have wirecut bricks have to be planned upfront.
This video shows a glimpse of character wirecut bricks add. I wasn't a big believer in them initially
but seeing them in real has certainly turned me over :)
Once architect inspects first course brickwork, workers simply repeat the pattern of firstcourse
brickwork by laying further courses of brickwork. Of course they have to keep in mind door and
window positions and respective sill levels. However, it is more or less a mundane task and walls
actually comeup quite fast.
This also actually first real exciting stage as spaces come alive and as you walk around the house
you start to develop the feel of the house. House is no more an abstract concept or a mere plan on
the paper. It is real and alive ! We did notice increased drive within ourselves to go and visit the site
everyday to observe every little progress and be a part of action. Following blog posts will share
some of the pictures from ground floor construction.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Day 83
July 13th, 2012
This post will cover on 2 topics 1) Plinth beam casting and 2) Retrospective of Foundation
Plinth Beam Casting
Plinth beam is the horizontal cement beam across the house perphery laid on top of foundation.
This picture shows how the finished plinth beam looks.
Purpose of the plinth beam is to:
1. Prevent leaking of water into foundation To prevent
a house from settling it is critical that no water be
leaked into foundation. Being made of cement, plinth
beam is impervious and therefore prevents water
from rain, flooding, etc. from leaking into foundation.
2. Provides support for walls For load bearing houses,
walls carry the weight of the house. Plinth beam
provides solid footing to raise those walls.
3. Holds house together Since plinth beam sits across
the periphery of the house, it provides binding force across rooms. For example, without
plinth beam it is possible for one of the rooms to settle thus creating uneven floor level.
Plinth beam prevents that from happening.
Basic process to construct plinth beam is as follows:
1. Markup width Usually width of plinth is half that of
the foundation. In this case, foundation is about 18"
wide and so plinth is 9" aligning with the outer edge of
the foundation. Inner 9" of foundation meshes into the
floor level of the house.
2. Lay down the steel beam As the adjacent picture
shows beams are the core of the plinth
beam. Beams have a loop every 6" that holds it
together.
3. Setup reinforcement Before concrete is poured, re
inforcement has to be established to provide
rectangular shape to the beam. This takes majority of
effort as planks have to be nailed properly in place
and once concrete is poured they need to be
removed.
4. Pour the concrete Next step is to pour the concrete.
As concrete is poured, mason ensures that it is
evenly spread and smoothens out any edges. He
also needs to ensure the height of the beam is
consistent throughout the periphery.
5. Remove reinforcement Concrete turns solid within
24hour and final step is to remove the planks leaving
the beam intact.
This short video explains this process in action.
Plinth Casting
Foundation Redone:
To give background context, ground level at living room area is 1' higher than that at the guest
bedroom level. Typical height of plinth level is 2.5' that includes 1' of plinth beam and 1.5' of
foundation masonry. Turns out though that foundation masonry was 2.5' at living room and 3.5' at
guest bedroom. What this meant was plinth height would be 3.5' from natural ground level. This was
realized only when plinth beam casting was about to start. To add to misery, by then Rainwater tank
was already done to align with 3.5' of plinth !
My architect was clear that plinth level can be no taller than 2.5' or else house would look place
oddly high. What followed was no fun We endedup undoing a few days of work. Specifically
Reduce Rainwater tank height by 1' by chipping away at justfinished concrete tank
Remove 1layer of foundation stone masonry from across the house periphery to reduce
the foundation height by 1'.
Foundation Redone
Here is the clip of work being undone. It
could have been worse had plinth beam been built. Good news was we caught it at a time that cost
us about a week and some cost in material and labor. Having said that, there were key lessons
learnt
1. Trust your gut instinct Even though as homeowners we may not be in construction
business, you have a feel for what's going on. I certainly did feel that foundation was looking
tall. While "plinth" was a new term and I didn't know that it was 1' in height I concluded I
knew no better. That was the critical mistake. No question is a dumb question especially
when you are new to the domain. Had I had surfaced my instinct more strongly or did some
research things could have been different.
2. Working drawing consultation I independently found my architect and contractor. So they
had no prior relationship between them. When architect released drawings there was no
consultation that occurred between the two. So, architect didn't get a chance to explain the
nittygritty and contractor felt drawings were clearenough. A big nono ! It is critical that
drawings are released to contractor only after architect has had a chance to explain them to
the contractor. It is best to have such meetings at the site to relate paper drawings to the
actual mapping onsite. Often times, what looks right on paper doesn't feel right to the eye. If
that's not possible, have them meet at architect's office.
3. Inspection schedule Identify stages at which architect would come and inspect the site to
validate it is built according to the specifications. In this case, architect mentioned a couple
of times need to schedule inspection. However, given that this was first or second inspection
we were not as diligent as needed.
Again, in retrospect, it was not a terrible setback.. Like many other things in life, none of the
lessons were new; rather they were reinforcement of what you would learn at many other times.
Lessons learnt were critical and have since been put in practice. There is now tighter collaboration
between me or my wife, architect and the contractor and crisper conversation about respective point
of view. So, in the end it definitely had a silver lining !
Saturday, July 14, 2012
July 2nd
Day 72
RainWater (RWH) Tank:
Masonry layers
Last blog talked about centermarking pillars.. You would notice in this video a number of such
pillars are now set up to mark various edges. Also, various rooms are now filled with sand (aka
earth material). Once foundation masonry layers are completed they will start consolidating earth
material in each of the rooms. This process is equivalent to making dough. The volume of dough
shrinks as it absorbs water.. Similarly, they alternate process of adding earth material and water so
that rooms themselves are flush with dense earth material. The idea behind this is more dense the
earth material, less chances of air bubbles within that and therefore less chances of house settling
in ground.
Best way to describe RWH tank is
through pictures that describe various
phases. As a reminder, tank has a
capacity of about 60,000 litres. For
more description on how I arrived at
60,000, refer to <>. Tank area was
excavated about 7' below the natural
ground level. Further, tank is builtup to
be about 2.5' above ground level in
line with the plinth beam.
Next step is to to setup steel re
inforcements to provide structural
support. At the base of the tank, they
crisscross steel rods and tie them
together with hooks. Then, vertical rods
are tied at the edge with the flooring.
Finally, similar crisscross pattern is
setup at the walls of the RWH tank. It
is important to excavate tank about 1'
wider than the required capacity so as
to allow workers to perform their work.
Although the structure looks a bit
daunting actual work didn't take more
than 67 days.
Once steel structure is established,
pouring concrete on the floor is fairly straightforward. Doing the walls is more complicated though.
Essentially, they splitup wall into 3layers, each 2.5' tall. Then, across the boundary of RWH tank,
both sides of vertical steel rods are "bound" with wooden planks. As the picture shows, wooden
planks themselves are supported with wooden rods. Finally, concrete is poured in to them. All said
and done, each layer takes about 4 days, and it took about 12 days to get the tank done.
Final step involves a few minor, but
important activities
1. Sloping at the floor pointing
towards the manhole. The intent
being while cleaning the tank all
water should accumulate near
the manhole.
2. Water the concrete to allow it to
strengthen. Plaster the walls and
floor for nice and consistent
finish.
3. Apply chemical treatment on
walls to make them water proof.
Test for leakages by spraying
water and checking for
dampness on the outside.
4. Fill the outside of RWH tank with
earth material. Allow them to
consolidate to form completely
immersed structure.
All said and done, it took about 30 days
to complete this tank. Besides cost,
this delayed the project a bit.. I am
hopeful though this investment will
some day prove worth it.
Completed tank:
Completed RainWater tank
Next post will cover plinth beam casting.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Foundation Masonry Layers
Rain Water Harvesting excavation
May 10, 2012
Day 20: Foundation Masonry layers
Last post talked about components that make up foundation of the house. This post focuses mostly
on masonry work. First, it may be obvious, but just to be explicit, house construction requires a
LOT of water. Till the superstructure is completed, almost every activity, starting from excavation,
making cement, watering foundation and walls, compacting earth metal, and many more that I will
only realize in due course. On an average, expect to use up 20,000 litres each month i.e. about Rs
2,000 on an average.
Masonry work is done with a set of cement
concrete blocks that are "glued" together with
cement mortar. You might recall that
excavation was about 900mm deep. Each
block is about 150175mm tall and including
mortar height of each block would roughly be
200mm. Foundation of a house is typically up
till plinth which generally is 450mm above the
ground level. This implies several layers of
foundation masonry.
In our house, ground at the rearend of the
house is 300mm lower than that at the entranceend.
Hence, plinthlevel will be 900 + 450 + 300 = 1650mm from the excavation level. Considering each
layer of masonry is 200mm, total number of masonry layer at rearend is about 8 and at the
entranceend is about 7.
The section view of cement blocks is
sketched here. As is evident each
layer of cement block works its way
towards the center. Space on the outer
periphery is filled with earth metal
whereas the space between cement
blocks is filled with cement mortar. I
was surprised at the speed with which
this work got done.. It took workers
just a little over one week to do about
4 layers across most of the house.
Columns: There are 4 columns to bear the load of the
first floor balcony and the family room areas.
Excavation for columns is about 1500mm. Base of the
column is filled with mortar. Then a steel column of
about 3000mm is erected as shown in sketch here.
Rings are tied approx 150mm from each other to hold
the column together. Finally, they'd pour cement
concrete around it to create the actual column
structure.
Centerline marking pillars: Towards 4minute mark in the video is
description of centerline marking pillars. Centerline marking is to mark
centerline for all the edges. Picture shows marking of centerline for
window. Blue squares are centerlines that were already marked for
main edges of the room. Those were the basis for excavation to occur.
Additionally, a new centerline is now marked (shown with red
rectangle) for where the window edge on ground floor would be
established. The centerline is marked with pillars (refer to the video)
that will remain placed until ground floor actually comes up. These
centerlines are marked throughout the house wherever a nook
changes the direction of the primary edge of the room.
Finally, this video shows the actual work to build that column described above.
Plinth plan
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Ground Floor Roof

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First course brickwork

Completed RainWater tank

Rain Water Harvesting excavation

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Building House in India - Step by Step

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Building House in India - Step by Step

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Ground Floor Roof

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First course brickwork

Completed RainWater tank

Rain Water Harvesting excavation

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1/11/2018 Building House in India step by step