Construction a House in Hyderabad a Step by Step Guide

                                      Sometime in Jan 2013, I was fed up of searching for Apartments , Plots to Invest and then one day we decided to demolish our present residence and construct here itself. Recently, in Oct 2011 the GO s changed and so there are lot of changes which I came to know when applying for the Building Approval Plan @ Moosapet Municipal Office.

Here goes the steps you follow:

1. Building Plan Approval
Things Needed: Construction Plan approved by a Authorized Civil Engineer/Architect
                         DD for the respective Amount &
                         Get ready to Bribe Ofcourse

You would also start your search for a building contractor (If you would like to give it completely to a contractor) or a Mason Contractor ( You would be supplying material and also you take responsibility of Electrician , Plumber)

2. Demolition of existing house if any
      Dont get into a Hurry and demolish as soon as you submit your application for the building construction approval. Since you never know it might even take months for the approval to be given. So until then, you might want to extend your rentals or any other happenings that are taking place in the premises. This is a caution.
     Sometimes, even the loans that you are trying for might also get delayed or the financial adjustments before you actually jump into the construction.

       So kindly make your financial calculations, basic architectural plans and building approvals ready before you go ahead with demolition

3. Borewell
      It is now an essential for water and the borewell. There are mandatory rules where in you need to get permission to get the borewell work done. Sometimes the Borewell guy will take care of this. You need to check with them about the same. Check about the different pipes, rate slabs on different depths before you go ahead.

4. Now that you are ready with water, building approvals, and ofcourse an empty and plain land right now. You will get to visualize the space and borders well. Now is the time, you get your mason contractor to lay the boundaries and mark them before they kickstart of the works. ( I chose Mason contract)

More to go....
                     

Tips during House Construction

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

A day @ Ramoji Film City

Attendees : Saideep, Vyshnavi

     After searching in various ways on what places to visit and spend our long weekend during Eid, we finally decided to book a package "Monsoon Masti -Stay" @ RFC on 17th Aug. After couple of calls with the marketing staff, I could get to a stage where I was told that there are rooms vacant for the asked dates (18th Aug - 20th Aug) and he promised to message me the reservation number by end of day. After waiting till evening 8pm, I called him back to which there was no response. Hence, decided to directly visit the place and see how it goes.

    Next day, we started around 8:30 AM and reached RFC (Exactly 46kms from our residence) at 9:45AM. With long weekend, there was hardly any traffic on the Hyderabad roads. Upon inquiring about the available day-tour packages, I have opted for the Monsoon-Masti day package costing 1750/- INR per Person which included A/C coach travels, welcome drink, snacks, lunch and dinner buffets. The Tour and shows remained the same with the normal package. An additional show during the dinner and few games before the dinner were added into this special package.

The first place he dropped us was near Eureka where we were given two complementary rides : Break dance and the Ranger.

 

      Post the Eureka, we walked around the Wild West, Cinema-Cinema, Filmi zone, Movie Magic show and the Ramoji Tower ( where you get to experience an earth quake and it is good). 

      

     We experienced a show which explains you what happens actually behind the scenes, there was this lady who volunteered to enact a scene as Basanthi (role) from Sholay movie. Later this scene was displayed with it pre-production, production and post-production editing. This experience was awesome. 

  

     By the time we have gone through the above it was 12Noon. As soon as we came out of the movie magic where we could see the film styles from 14 different countries, we were welcomed with a salsa dance by a team. 

Later around 12:40PM, we were guided to SuperStar Restaurant where lunch buffet and amicable staff was waiting for us. Food was delicious and worth the amount spent. 

     After the lunch session, We were welcomed by a guide in the coach.. This started our touring around the different parks and sets that were there in the Film city. There are many parks which are replicas of the monuments and public places, streets in India and across the globe. I got to visit the Taj, Gateway of India from Mumbai, Busy Princess street from London ;) all in one place.

     What was more interesting was the elevations that were brought in a single construction. We have seen a Church, Airport, Library and one another elevation, yes of-course in one building with four front and nothing inside :-). By this time post -lunch we were thinking what else is there to watch and how would our time in here (approximately 5.30hrs to spend) will go, but the later shows and places occupied our complete time and ensured we are busy with no time to be idle..

     

     The above is a picture from one of the actual sets that is opened to visitors since couple of years.

     The following is the Railway stn. where every hero/heroin enters from a city and reaches villages/cities 1000s of kms far away in no time .....

     After all the touring of the parks, caves, sets, kids-zone and must visit places, we were dropped at the Alampana theater where we watched a wonderful show of dances and entertaining shows.  By this time, it was already time for snacks ( we had @ Dil-se restaurant). 

    The stunt show that we have attended at 5pm was awesome. The team really performed very well with humor touch and the real fight sequences. At 5:30, the official closing event for the day was done and we were at the Eureka by 6pm to head towards the special programs and dinner planned for the special package teams.

    The dinner was planned opp. to Tara Hotel in a garden with beautiful greenery, fountains and light decorations. Here, the host accommodated us with games and bday/anniversary greetings to the visitors for a n hour before which the dinner and the live show started.

            It was 8:10PM we started back towards the main entrance of RFC, fearing the traffic, I had to quit the on-going show and start early. We reached our home by 10:30 PM including a stop @ Cream & Fudge on the way home.

All together, it was a good day, with pleasant staff and yes, with the feedback regarding the package reservation that I updated in one of the feedback forms, there was an immediate Apology letter in my mail box with-in 24hrs from the Hotel staff head where I planned to stay. I appreciate their immediate response and concerns addressing to my feedback.

Atlast, I have to thank one Mr. Rama Krishna who also visited with his family and helped us capturing our pictures whenever we needed one combined pic :-) . 

Heroku Tips

Following are the few points which might come helpful when installing and running heroku for the first time

1) Installed the heroku gem. Got stuckup with the following error when trying a "git push heroku master"

>> fatal: 'heroku' does not appear to be a git repository
>> fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

The following worked for me:

If you are in the rails directory type:
git remote -v

That will say where you are hooked up

Hopefully you will see an origin or heroku

If so, try again

If not:
Find out your git url:
heroku list
heroku info --app

Find the git: url

git remote add heroku

But, incase you see all the links and still unable to push then add the following to .git/config file

[remote "heroku"]

url = git@heroku.com:_repo name_.git

fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/heroku/*


(Replace the underscored variables with the values for your setup, of course.)

Founders @ Work!!

Last night was searching for some thing interesting on Start-ups and found this book. Introduction and the first interview with Founders of Pay-Pal made me eager to read more..I thought of to share some lines which I liked, motivated ... in that book

12/10/09
Big companies won’tbe able to do everything these startups do.
In big companies there’salways going to be more politics, and less scope for
individual decisions. But seeing what startups are really like will at least show
other organizations what to aim for. The time may soon be coming when
instead of startups trying to seem more corporate, corporations will try to seem
more like startups.

How to Setup IntegrityApp (A continuous integration tool for Ruby on Rails)

CI a buzz word in the latest technology has hit us too., and we started off to go with IntegrityApp for our Rails Application, but then there were few technical issues which on tweeking were solved and now is made available for you to make use and make it run for your projects in no time.

the git clone url for the integrityapp (After the changes being incorporated)

git clone git://github.com/wholly/integrity.git

Then follow these steps and go on installing the Integrity :

These are the detailed steps for your reference


1) Installing the Git from the git clone

git clone git://github.com/wholly/integrity.git

2) Now following the steps in the github, firstly installing the sinatra gem

(i) To Install sinatra, you need to have rack

gem install rack

(ii) Now go ahead to install the sinatra gem

gem install sinatra-sinatra -s http://gems.github.com

3) Next with thin and sqlite adapters (as mysql is not working with Integrity yet) and oauth

gem install thin do_sqlite3

gem install oauth

gem install -s http://gems.github.com jstewart-yammer4r (* if you would like to have notifiers to YAMMER)

4) Copy the sample configurations file as a config.ru

cp config/config.sample.ru config/config.ru

5) Now the db yml file as well and change the settings according to your needs and also the paths in the file for builds and logs

cp config/config.sample.yml config/config.yml

6) Db Migrate step

bin/integrity migrate_db

7) make sure these directories exist :
(i) :export_directory --> The directory path which you have specified in config.yml
(ii) /tmp/integrity-exports/cache

8) Starting the server

thin -C config/config.yml -R config/config.ru start

**This is what worked for me (make sure all path variables are added)
~/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin/thin -C config/config.yml -R config/config.ru start
(Add bin to your paths)

**NOTE: IN CASE IF THERE ARE ANY ERRORS AND YOU WISH TO DEBUG PLS GO AHEAD AND START THE SERVER AS

bin/integrity launch

9) starting with new Project

open localhost:3000 ( default port is 3000)

and create a new project and click on Manual Build. It doesn't give you any signs of the process being completed, upon returning to the projects page, you will find the details of the build

CurvyCorners and Coda-slider

The Problem:

Applying Rounded Corners to a web-page divs where in you also have a coda-slider inside the main div works not only in Firefox and other major browsers but also in MSIE-6 & > versions.
Upon Searching for rounded corners, I came across many plugins and css tricks like rounded-corners, corner, curvycorners to name a few, but none was giving what I expected to work in IE.
I was happy to see CurvyCorners working in IE when codaslider was not integrated, but it also bombed when slider was integrated, although the corners were getting rounded, the slider was not in place either in IE or in firefox.

Resources:

Coda-slider
http://css-tricks.com/creating-a-slick-auto-playing-featured-content-slider/ (I have used this)
http://jqueryfordesigners.com/coda-slider-effect/
http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/featured-content-slider-with-jquery-ui/

Rounded Corners:
http://www.atblabs.com/jquery.corners.html
http://www.curvycorners.net/instructions/ (and Used this version 2.0.3)
http://www.aspcode.net/JQuery-Curvy-Corners.aspx
http://battletech.hopto.org/html_tutorials/rounded_css_borders/more_styles.html
http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/11/24/perfect-rounded-corners-with-css/
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/css-round-corners-boxes-curves/
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/
http://www.html.it/articoli/nifty/index.html
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64799

The Directory for rounded corners
http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000044.php#javascript


So, I have taken to the task of finding a solution to make it work when it is integrated too.

Now into the solution:

Step 1:

Applying rounded corners to an div having only content. I am using the Nifty Corners for the rounded corners (as a first test)

Changed my Mind: Proceeding with where I left... Starting with CuryCorners Plugin

Working Normally for a simpl,e div with text
Step 2:

Now applying Slider into the div:

When the slider is applied to the div, the corners are getting applied but the slider href are getting manipulated when the curvyCorners function is being called

Step 3:

Eliminate the Slider and only put a div with a href and the curvy corners js and its related functions

Working fine, but when when tested for the returning of the value of
$(this).parent().attr('href').slice(1) returns the whole url string instead of the last number or the last element
for suppose
this is the url:
file:///Users/saideep/Public/Problem-RoundedCorners/curvyCorners.html#6
Instead of giving 6 it returns the whole url after the curvycorners method is invoked only in IE6 & IE 7. For firefox it is working fine

Step 4:

Now debugging into the curvy corners Method in curvycorners.src.js

Step by step and function by function, at one point you see that in the above js file the author is taking a back-up of the whole content in the following syntax:

this.boxContent = this.box.innerHTML;

along with other properties and then he is doing the following

this.box.innerHTML = "";

And then re-assigning the content into another new div as follows:

var contentContainer = document.createElement("div");
contentContainer.innerHTML = this.boxContent;

This is where the problem persists. Actually when we the backup of the whole content is being done and re-assigned in IE 6 & 7 versions. the href attribute is getting stored with the complete base url.

And in the coda slider onclick functionality we have been using the following


theInterval($this.parent().attr('href').slice(1) - 1);

where in the attr('href') is returning the whole url and in the string format which is not getting sliced. To the above instead if you put the following syntax, and split the whole by "#" and get the number from the array, here you go you get what you are waiting for:::

theInterval($this.parent().attr('href').split("#").slice(-1)-1);


Step 5:

Integrate and look with the working version of Coda-Slider & the CurvyCorners in IE 6 & 7 as well.

Mysore Trip with 3.2 MP cam ( idhi pedda bokka guru)

20th June 6:45AM

Myself and Srikanth (Fren/My roomate/Jr @ MSIT) started off to Ghajini's (Sandeep) place where Sandeep and Sunil Satti were waiting along with cab eagerly for us. Srikanth as usual was busy with his work @ office last nite and returned home only at 12:30am and myself usually waiting for him, was watching movies till he came.

   Ok!! Back to the trip. we reached his place at around 7:15 and we finally started off at around 7:30 am

<---  On the way to Sandeep's place .. Covered with greenary

At about 50 kms from Bangalore you have Kamat Hotel which is famous for its good taste, which obviously was filled with rush and we had to proceed further to a restaurant and have our break fast. Finally, we reached Srirangapatna around 11:00 am.

The Ranganatha Temple is a famous temple. Apart from the temple,  there is this 

Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary about 5kms from Srirangapatna and believe me, it is an awesome place, where you get to watch birds all over from Syberia, Russia, Australia, Japan and many other places and these birds fly all the way to this place and stay here for 6months till September and fly back to their respective places. 

There for the boating to watch Crocodiles ( which I forgot to mention along with birds ;) ) and birds, each person is charged 25 Rs, or else if you would like to have a boat special trip it costs you 250/- and we went with this. One hour of wonder, it was like we are in a new island away from the computer world to greenary all over and beautiful birds and crocodiles as well, sleeping and swimming all around. 

The best time to visit and go boating is in the early hours of morning before its too hot, and spare your evening for Brindavan Gardens at Mysore. 

Little about the Bird Sanctuary: (collected) 

The Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary is located about 5 km away from Srirangapatna. It is spread in an 57 acres area. The sanctuary is a small island on the banks of river Kaveri. It is a place of interest to all bird lovers.

The sanctuary is a nesting and breeding center for all kinds of birds. One can see species like the herons, egrets, white ibis. Also little cormorants, dantes, open billed stork etc. are also some of the birds that can be seen in island when one takes a round by a boat.The best time of visit to the island is from June to October.

----

After enjoying the nature at the Bird Sanctuary, we drove to Chamundi hills., Where Goddess Chamudeswari killed Mahishasura, the king of Mysore ( Mysore came from the king name). After the darshan, while coming to Mysore we came across with Karnataka Police (nijamga police aa kadaa ani doubt) with speed sensors raping the commutators with money for over speeding by 1KM, 2KM...... and documents.. ( now i came to know why people here follow traffic rules). Unfortunately, we were made to wait for about 20 min.  for not having a insurance document. Atlast after serious phone calls to the travel owner and cold discussions with police we were freeed with 100/-  into the account of karnataka police :) its not a bribe, we were give a duplicate  token of receipt for the fee.

By now our sunil was dying of hunger, once we came back to Mysore city, we searched for hotels to have lunch., According to our Source Mr. Satti Sunil, Hotel RRR is pretty famous at Mysore and we on finding it filled with heavy rush after Kamat and have time constraints, we left to Mysore Palace directly.

Being a first visit to Mysore for 3 of us except Satti, I personally had great expectations for the palace and couldn't wait any longer to visit. But, after having a visit, I would only rate 2-2.5 on a scale of  5 to the Palace. Infact the Palace is being well maintained by the Govt. of Karnataka, but the designs and the architechture was not upto the mark when compared to the Nizams., Also, once you exit out of the palace, you are redirected to another building which is in the back side of the palace ( ppl call it as 2nd palace which is not listed anywhere) and where you will have to again buy a ticket for 25/- which goes not to the Govt. pocket, but to the Mysore Maharaja's family. Unfortunately, the items showcased in this are not well maintained. 

Apart from Mysore Palace, there is also Lalitha Mahal Palace in Mysore which is good, but turned into a 5-star Hotel now (we didnt visit this place). 

After the Palace, we had our lunch @ Pizza Corner ( heavy bill as usual, ok ok kinda stuff) . It was about 6pm by the time we finished our lunch (It may not be lunch but we called it as lunch ) and then we headed to the Last awaiting Brindavan Gardens.

I never expected Brindavan Gardens to be so cool, It is a beautiful place to spend time in the garden with all the fountains. It is completely filled with rush on weekends (more than the palace). Nice time to visit is the evenings. They say about the Musical Fountain which is not very interesting, but the lighting of the garden is very good. 

We stayed at the garden for hardly one hour and returned. In the night and car failed with the head lamps (thanks to the Cab driver for safe journey who blessed me to write this blog), we halted @ Kamat (hope you remember we missed the breakfast here ;) ) for a lite dinner (which was good, North Karnataka style) and reached Bangalore by 11:30 pm

Last words,

Four Persons with 1000/- each enjoyed the trip with comfort and good timings (if u can spare and skip pizza corner kinda hotel, you will cover the expenses around 800/-).. Saturday went off with the travel and sunday.. huh!!! sleep till 10:am , Breakfast @ 12... sleep sleep.. 

An awesome trip organized and accounted by our Ghajini (sandeep) :D ... We had a great and wonderful time last weekend. 

Officially Decided and anounced on returning to Bangalore that Ghajini will be our Tour Organizer/Accountant in Bangalore ;)

Thats it about Mysore... Be back with another exciting trip soon (Bandhipur Forests hopefully)..

Note: The above photo's were not captured by our a/c managers 3.2MP CAM

******THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO GHAJINI (SANDEEP AKA ORGANIZER/TOUR PLANNER/ ACCOUNT MANAGER AKA 5 Plans 1 Implementation)

Saideep :)

A trip to Lonavala & Khandala .. Awesome

huh!!! atlast I named the post... which i have been pushing since feb .. ;) .. post in progress.. :D

MY First Post

hello friends,
Iam Saideep from Hyderabad, India. I have just created my webpage and very excited to start with. Atlast I have a place of my own, hahaha..
I have completed my b.tech in EEE this year and am a fresher looking out for a job and many plans revolving around my MIND. So am a beginner in the game called LIFE. Hope to go on along with other participants and gain myself something tooo.