With a very minor exposure in the construction and right now getting my house constructed, I felt the following tips will help other owners who are planning to get a house ( which is a Big Dream ever irrespective of the size of the house ) Constructed. I am based from Hyderabad and so, if any places are mentioned will be in and around Andhra Pradesh.
- Sand is the requisite without which your project (house) skeleton cannot be completed. At various stages, you will need different variety of sand. Lets talk :
- For Slab Construction, you will need Rough Sand. Too rough sand (fat) is also not Good for slab construction. Usually, the proportion is 1:6:7 ( 1 for Cement bag, 6 for Sand Gampas, 7 for 20mm metal stone gampas). I got the sand from Bodhan, Karimnagar, Kurnool loads. Bhodhan was Good most of the times
- For Brick Work, lesser rough sand when compared to Slab is used
- For Plastering, Soft sand is used which is so soft and not as soft as a talcom powder (if that is what you observe, then that might be filtered sand which is not good for construction)
- For 2nd Coating of Plastering, sand should be filtered for any stones and other similar stuff
- Beware, during Sand load Weighment, ensure that all the tyres of the truck are on the weighing bridge, According to my experience, a 12 tyre empty lorry or truck is about 10500kgs and can be higher.
- Make sure that mud presence in sand is minimal or nothing. Mud presence will weaken the slabs which causes to leak and so same with the brick walls
- Centring is related to Steel rods organizing before slab construction
- Make sure the rods are locked as L shaped at the corners, this usually the labor does not do, but at later stage it allows cracks to form in the walls
- There are (ohms symbol) representing couplings which are put in between two layers of rods. These two layers are usually seen in the corridor and balcony places and the coupling are put so that they two layers are having gap between each other, else the purpose is not solved.
- Ensure no mud or any other waste particles are left in the gaps.
- Ensure that there are no gaps for water to leak between the joins and under the rods. You will find tapes to cover the centring boxes gaps.
- Overlapping of Rods will have a specific calculated size that the rods to be overlapped.
- Curing for the construction is very much needed. The more water curing you do the better and strong house you build and the less chances for leakages too.
- Bricks as we think is not a easy task to count or order. The brick sample you see might not be same as what you get. It is very much good for you to calculate or count the number of bricks as the labor is unloading the load. Else the gaps between the bricks and the rows might make you fall into a trap that you are given with promised number or even more. In the first load I lost about 800 bricks (approx. 5600 INR). Thanks to my Mason contractor who gave me the tricks and showed me all the tricks the labor could play. Brick counting is fun game
more later
