The Construction Agreement

The Holy Text of Construction

When you go for a construction of flat or independent house, every builder will insist on a construction agreement. Typically the agreement will list the various things associated with the building. There are a few areas where we missed and got cheated, so keep a watch out of it.

Building Foundations : 

 Make sure that the agreement has the various specifications listed, depth of the foundation, pillar dimensions, concrete mix ratio, basement wall thickness

Inner and Outer walls: 

The agreement should mention what is the thickness of the walls, 9" or 4.5" if using traditional bricks.

Doors and Windows : 

The agreement should mention, what type of material for door and window frames and also the thickness, Price, brand and type of glass to be used. The mistake we made was, when we asked for Saint Gobain Plain glass, the builder insisted it is not in his scope and got 3000 Rs extra for the variety.

Steel and Cement :

Your building is only as strong as the quality of materials used, make sure your agreement reflects this properly, there are different kinds of TMT bars available, write clearly only one brand of TMT bar, if the agreement says two or three choices, the builder will choose the cheapest one, which is not a trusted brand.

In our case we allowed the agreement to have 3 choices and he insisted that vizag steel is very costly and billed us 3000 extra for each ton of steel used.

Concrete :

Concrete is used in various important areas, roof , floor and sunshades, there are different strengths of concrete available for each application. Consult an independent engineer and get the ideal thickness and variety of concrete and  include in your agreement. If you are going for Ready-mix concrete, add the trusted suppliers name also.

In our case we didn't look into all of this, and a local company came and supplied the concrete.

Electrical wiring:

This is  one area where you have to be very much observant, list all your requirements in the agreement. make a clear list of how many light points you require , what provisions you need for each room. Whether you require a solar water heater or geyser in the bathroom. Also make the builder state the price of wires,electrical switches and switchgear to be installed. Also include free installation of lights and fans for the entire house. Make sure Proper earthing facility is also mentioned in the agreement.

Our mistake was allowing the electrician to add on the standard points for the rooms, we ended up with a lot of unwanted ceiling light points. and also we asked for some concealed channelling for cameras and sound system, for which they added inflated pricing. In our agreement  there was no mention of earthing rod and the electrician insisted that it is not in his contract so we ended up hiring our own electrician. 

Parapet wall

Many builders insist on a 4.5" parapet wall, it is not that safe always insist on 9" thick parapet wall

also while building the wall itself make them insert the pipes required for plumbing so that the wall is not damaged unnecessarily.

Plumbing:

Make sure your builder specifies the cost for each fitting and the brands he is going to use, if you are not satisfied pay the difference amount and get what you like. Keep in mind most builders get extra discount so use it .

Flooring:

Every builder will have their own standard rates for tiles, make sure you check the price and brands available and decide on what kind of flooring you want. Also include a clause that you can buy flooring materials on your own if you are not satisfied with the suggested brands.

A tip, go for the same size of tiles throughout the house, it will minimize wastage and also help you optimize the costs.

Also include in your construction agreement, that every section of work, masonry, carpentry, plumbing and electrician should come for one final testing of the home before handover. Also if you are constructing an individual house insist on adding a clause on cleaning the entire surrounding areas of your building which they might have used for storing building materials.

Hope it helps will add more as we remember

The Plan - Think thrice before you start constructing

This is one of the most important decision you will be making, How do you want your house to be.
Our approach to plan was we needed 2 master bedroom and one kids bedroom. there was plenty of mistakes we made hope you avoid it.

Our entire decision on Floor Plan was based on reducing the construction cost by minimising the total build-up area. So let me show how the plan drastically changed .

 What we planned -ground floor

What we built - ground floor

 What we planned -first floor

 What we built - first floor

so what happened and why we changed?

That is the important learning you can have. lets us explain. Builders have a great concept of  swindling us of money. They say portico and rooms have same construction cost. We argued with our builder saying you don't need to build walls on 3 sides , so bricks and cement is saved, no electrical conduit is needed on walls and painting 3 surfaces is eliminated so reduce the rate for portico. He was adamant that he cant reduce and the margin he gets from portico is his profit. So that is no1 reason for eliminating portico. We might have saved some costs in portico, but we lost a lot in changing the stairs from living room to dining room.

Stairs design:

So we went for designing a stair, we wanted to reduce the space utilized by stair and increase the area of lounge. Enter the builders with their brilliant ideas, and our first mistake.

What we wanted

 What we built

  So how it changed like this, The mason who built was a lazy ass, he did not want extra work, so he convinced us it is difficult to build. When we showed some pictures enter the builder who said it would cost more and made us back track.

What we lost nearly 50 Sqft of floor area was lost. Because we were convinced by the people that it was not worth extra 10000 rs for the stairs we decided.

Lesson : Never compromise on your initial idea and always ask how much each design will impact your building area

Welcome to our Blog

Dear Fellow House Owner / potential owner, this blog is for you, the idea behind this blog is to share our experiences in building a house. there is this saying in Tamil "வீட்டை  கட்டி   பார் " it means build a house and see. The hidden meaning is that you will learn a lot by constructing a house.

So you have decided that you will need a house on your own, good decision. What more to decide, I will list some check lists for you to go through.

• Apartment or Individual House?
• Suburb or within city limits?
• Big or Small?
• How much can I Invest?
• Construction through Builder or Labour contract?
• Flashy or simple?
• How much to spend on each component of the building?

 These are some basic decisions you have to make before plunging in. So in the following posts we will try to say some of the mistakes and ideas of ours so that you can learn and get benefitted out of it. please post your queries and ideas so we can share it. Our experiences is purely based on Coimbatore region only so please do check with local practices before you take our posts learnings.