Emperoh:

Nwanne o nwelo ihe n'eme!!
Otolo gbagbuo expensive!

Bring it on

spyder880: I must commend my client here, he gave us all the support we needed by approving several suggestions we made, and even going forward to introduce some new ideas. The learning point here is that clients should please be very close to their builders, this will make it possible that issues are attended to in time and decisions are taken to chart the pace of the project. If we succeeded in doing anything good here, we should thank our host for being there whenever we needed his attention.

spyder880: Let me start this summary for the first stage by re affirming my earlier dedication to lower costs in home building. I will really love to see ways to reduce the cost and wherever I could do that in this project, I did. I can remember people asking me on site, "are you the owner of the house?"
They ask this because I usually haggle to the last possible price before I pay for any material or labour.

There were so many factors that shot up the cost of building this foundation to as much as it is now. Chief among these are;

1. The cost of fortifications for the foundation
2. Underestimation for material cost. (filling sand, granite etc)
3. Increase in height of the foundation.



There was no plans to build the ground beams as at the time we started this house, as the ground water started to come out, we made some consultations and came up with solution, many time even going ahead to add additional safety measures to make sure the house is sound and built with utmost attention to details and specifications/recommendations.

I must commend my client here, he gave us all the support we needed by approving several suggestions we made, and even going forward to introduce some new ideas. The learning point here is that clients should please be very close to their builders, this will make it possible that issues are attended to in time and decisions are taken to chart the pace of the project. If we succeeded in doing anything good here, we should thank our host for being there whenever we needed his attention.

spyder880: Let me start this summary for the first stage by re affirming my earlier dedication to lower costs in home building. I will really love to see ways to reduce the cost and wherever I could do that in this project, I did. I can remember people asking me on site, "are you the owner of the house?"
They ask this because I usually haggle to the last possible price before I pay for any material or labour.

There were so many factors that shot up the cost of building this foundation to as much as it is now. Chief among these are;

1. The cost of fortifications for the foundation
2. Underestimation for material cost. (filling sand, granite etc)
3. Increase in height of the foundation.



There was no plans to build the ground beams as at the time we started this house, as the ground water started to come out, we made some consultations and came up with solution, many time even going ahead to add additional safety measures to make sure the house is sound and built with utmost attention to details and specifications/recommendations.

I must commend my client here, he gave us all the support we needed by approving several suggestions we made, and even going forward to introduce some new ideas. The learning point here is that clients should please be very close to their builders, this will make it possible that issues are attended to in time and decisions are taken to chart the pace of the project. If we succeeded in doing anything good here, we should thank our host for being there whenever we needed his attention.

blank: I don't mean to sound confrontational. Hope you can take some constructive criticism.

I guess this what people meant when they said your budget was near impossible. Cutting cost is good but over prudence is not.

I may not be a "builder" but I have had first hand knowledge of a mini estate built in PH. Foundation will have to be reinforced cos of ground water and you now know the cost. Enugu doesn't have such issues but PH and Lagos always need such consideration.

No need for insults cos I just expressed an opinion. We are all learning and I enjoy following his threads.

CHESSBOARD: OK finally after two weeks of absence, i met this thread where i want it....Oga spyder, if ur oga at the top is not a NLer pls can u tell us the total cost at this level

sayso:

I will not answer for Spyder but your asked the most bothering question(Cost) and that is exactly why Spyder gets his clients.Transperency in costing.
I still think he will hit his target though but that is left for the class to accept bearing in mind some additions where made.

OilSubsidy: @Spyder, Here is a suggestion. Never reveal your budgeted amount for any building until the end. This will serve to avoid all the scrutiny by experienced and not so experienced builders and of course they may well have valid points where a huge differential is likely to occur.

Just teach us and show us cost implication and at the end you can have something like this

Initial Agreed Amount to build house = X Million
Actual Amount to build house = Y million


We, your student are here to learn about the 'costing' and 'bill of materials' required to build a house and not necessarily the 'Agreed' budget of a particular building. This way you are not under unnecessary pressure to satisfy us even if it is at your own cost. Transparency is what matters.

blank: I don't mean to sound confrontational. Hope you can take some constructive criticism.

I guess this what people meant when they said your budget was near impossible. Cutting cost is good but over prudence is not.

I may not be a "builder" but I have had first hand knowledge of a mini estate built in PH. Foundation will have to be reinforced cos of ground water and you now know the cost. Enugu doesn't have such issues but PH and Lagos always need such consideration.

No need for insults cos I just expressed an opinion. We are all learning and I enjoy following his threads.

spyder880: I must commend all of you for your genuine comments and contributions. There is some truth to what you all are saying, for one thing, I feel sad that I could not keep it within budget, at a point in the foundation stage, I felt very annoyed with myself and was working almost 21 hours just to work out possible ways to save cost.

The raising of the foundation height was a good decision but it was achieved at a very huge cost, the filling sand alone was massive, it took us 20 double axle lorries of sand at an average cost of N19k to fill the foundation. For each of the trips, boys tranfered it into the foundation at a cost of N4k each.

There was a lot of unplanned spending, but we have gone past that stage now. It has been a very tough experience for me, but thats the way I like life, facing the tough tasks head on. If I win or lose, it will add to my experiences, but I am confident of success. With your prayers and encouragement, difficult tasks will look simple.

The total time duration we alloted for this past stage was 10 days, but we cast it on the 14th day, we have lost 4 days already and we are not happy,(although the added fortifications are to blame for the delays) but we still hope to recover the lost days as we push forward, thank you all once again.