Best wishes to all Nairalanders and visitors in your pursuit to acquire property as a way of investment (which is quite okay) or for personal use. I wish to use this tread to further enlightened ourselves on other investigation needed to be carried out before buying any property.

I am being prompted to put up this write up due to some of my observation as a structural engineer in the course of my duty to do integrity report on some property. I discover that some structures built in some time past were not actually built adhering to construction standard that could made the structure to last a lifetime. some of this structures are already showing major structural failure, therefore some owners would just do some cosmetic cover up and put such for sale.This is not applicable to old building alone, it is happening in new houses as well, i know of a newly building in one of the renown estate in lekki axis that the buyer had to quit quickly when the house was showing some failure and non functionality.

What do i do?

As a matter of fact property business is the most juicy for now, so we are not to fret investing in real estate sector but just for us to be careful and reduce the risk to the nearest minimum .

Besides normal investigation to ensure you are not dealing with 419, or buying a property under acquisition or litigation or dispute etc, the integrity of the structures should also be investigated.

1. Conduct a physical sighting/investigation do not buy photographs (LOL) I know of a man in Lekki who bought a property he saw on a flyer for about 40m, when he got to see the site he could not believe his eyes as his village was even more developed than the site.
2.In the course of conducting physical investigation, ensure the level of the house is far above the road, not just the road but the major road that connect the axis (go to osapa London, and learn from the experience of house owners in this axis), observe the bottom part of the house for dampness and possibly unacceptable settlement, when you enter into the house observe either you are stepping down into the house or up, look out for cracks observe the types of crack they are. Check the fence as well because fence give way easily if not well built as this can tell as well the possibility of the competence of the builder. Well many things to look at during physical investigation you may need a help of an expert in this field. DO NOT BE BLINDFOLDED WITH AESTHETICS AS THIS SHOULD BE 2ND IN UR PRIORITY LIST SAFE GUARDING YOUR INVESTMENT SHOULD BE THE MOST IMPORTANT!!!
3. if for one reason or the other you can not come to a reasonable conclusion by the physical investigation, and you are so interested in the property because of the commercial viability, them go for INTEGRITY TEST. This entails carrying out some test such as Smicth hammer test, PUNDT test, to investigate the strength of the concrete as built design vis-a-vis supposed designed, odeo meter test that will revealed the reinforcement arrangement, spacing and sizes. After all these the investigation engineer would now come up with a report called Integrity report that will contain his final recommendation.

Just to write a few lines and not to bore you with long stories. I am believing all other expert in the house will lend some more advice. Thanks for reading!

Nice write up. I hope something like this makes Front page other than Tonto Dike

Sprumbaba: Nice write up. I hope something like this makes Front page other than Tonto Dike

Thanks

CAUSES OF BUILDING FAILURE
Introduction
Structural failures in buildings have always occurred all over the world for a variety of reasons, or a combination of reasons. Whilst in other parts of the world structural failure can be traced to wrong engineering calculations, most failures in Nigeria can be traced to very poor construction, non-compliance with code or specifications or cutting corners on materials.
Buildings are designed to meet certain defined functions and to support certain loads without deforming excessively. The loads are the weights of people, objects, rain and wind which are called live loads and the weight of the building itself which is called dead load. For buildings that are mainly a few floors, the structural design is not as challenging as for multi-storey buildings.

1.0 The Major Causes Of Building Collapse
The major causes of building collapse are: -
i.
Bad design
ii.
Poor or faulty construction
iii.
Sub-structure failure
iv.
Super-structure failure
v.
Failure to comply with specifications
vi.
Use of sub-standard materials
vii.
Conversion and Change of use
viii.
Combination of causes

Read and learn!!!

So unfortunate many house are falling, many are dying! may The Lord God keep us safe.

Aventures: So unfortunate many house are falling, many are dying! may The Lord God keep us safe.

Hello, are you a builder?

Here is one of our job tread https://www.nairaland.com/738678/buildng-block-4-flat-framed
and our contact is abidoyventures@gmail.com 08023142108