mufutau55:


Now with that sentence above, I am surely convinced that you have some personal vendetta with Spyder... may be one day it will all come out.

Hajji M.

spyder880:


I think we are comparing apples with oranges?

I have built at least 3 houses in Owerri environs and I am sure there is no way you can compare costs between Owerri and Port Harcourt. I have built a house after Egbu, so I know everything about your location. Things are very cheap there. A full load of sharp sand sells for around N10,000 for the one we dig from the burrow pit towards Mbaise. Real washed sand from the river is around N15,000.

In Port Harcourt we buy same sand for N24,000. Surprised?

Wait till I finish, granite chippings are much cheaper in Owerri than Port Harcourt. There is no way your house will not be very low cost to construct. Do we even talk of labour comparison? abeg leave market for market women

All I want is a detailed comparison. Or can you please, remember the total cost you had spent when your house was at this stage?

allen0000:
Dont worry about the cost but location East, but that 7m is high

spyder880:
This is the dangers of giving out cost updates, sometimes it might even derail the thread with arguments. But its all good, we are here to learn, and if anyone here can teach me a few more tricks, I will be happy to follow his tips.

I have been very careful with funds, I am always like that. What is the need of entering into a business if I cannot be transparent in my dealings. I had to endure a lot of conditions to deliver at the prices I give, while hoping for better deals ahead. But maybe some people know a better way of doing this more than me. So I will give them the chance to prove it and earn our respect.

This is a classroom, and so I will take a seat at the back of the class and invite our friend allen0000 to come forward and educate us. Please tell us how to make a better management of our financial resources without compromising on structural integrity. Let's start from the foundation and work our way upwards.

1. Allen0000, what will the foundation and DPC of this house cost?


2. List the materials and labour costs of building this foundation?
3. Looking at the pictures I attached, what would you have done differently?

If you can oblige us with your own pictures, it will be great. But if not, please explain so we can learn more. Thank you.

abbsilurd:

The documents you'll get include;
A duly executed purchase receipt
Deed of contract
Letter of plot allocation
Survey plan
Deed of sub-lease/Deed of assignment

spyder880:
Oga Mufutau and all my people here, as I was thinking, there is a miscalculation of amounts remitted to me as I was building this house. I forgot to add a particular amount. This whole house building, materials, labour and supervision cost us a total of N2.1m so far. Please lets correct the earlier impression that it cost N1.8 as I wrongly calculated day before yesterday. Thanks.

olabukola:
I want to do business in the east in the near future, how much is land in nsukka, do you sale to non igbos?

abbsilurd:
Still available

mufutau55:

Oga Ekoibile, your criticism is now becoming personal against Syper880. I welcome and like constructive criticism but not personal character assassination.

What do you classify as "Luxury Block of Flats" in your definition? That phrase alone is subjective, what you classify as luxury may not be what I classify as luxury. You don't know the budget agreed between the Builder and the Client, it may have changed or still constant.

We are talking about tiles installation, why can't you explain to us what you see wrong with the tiles installation from the unfinished/uncompleted project pictures posted by Spyder880. And personally I don't see anything wrong with those tiles.. but may be I have low class taste. Tell us what is not done properly then I will say you have a point.

You are talking about overly praising Spyder? Why don't you open an educative thread like Spyder does, show us what you can do better than Spyder880 and let's see if we will not shower praises on you too... Do I detect a jealous tone, I hope not? Please point me to one of your thread, please, so I can shower some praises on you too . I have learnt many things as a layman from Spyder's thread than I did with your criticism.

This is the first message since I joined Nairaland that I ever replied to a message in this tone... but if this is offensive to other people, I apologized.

Hajji Mufutau

Empiree: ekoibile, yes it's good to have criticism sometimes but do you think the owner complain?. If he doesn't, dont you think this could be a matter of budget...dont forget that. Truly, it is not that luxury but Yoruba people say "nkan ti a ni ni anani". Me dey forget Yoruba language small small. As for praises, I doubt spyder880 pay that attention. Anyways, i honestly 2nd your observation.

Innovator90:


Great point. It's no longer a surprise that most developed countries know that the Igbos are very industrious people and remain the driving factor of Nigeria. These people would love to deal directly with us especially Chinese since we account for 90% of their transactions with Nigerians. But we need to do the basics! This goes back to my point that Enugu most build a functional airport. Anything short of this will set Igboland development back to 20 yrs and I'll personally blame Chime for this....how he allowed that nonsense, below mediocre of remodelling at his watch still baffles me for someone of his caliber with sheer taste for quality. He has to monitor closely whatever Federal Aviation is building, if it's short what he has in mind to attract investors, tourists and people in general to the state and region, he should take Federal Aviation court and force them to hands off the project to him to build it as he wishes for the interest of Enugu and SE region. A functional airport attracts airline companies and people to it...you rarely need to plead, convince or lobby for them to have direct flight out of Enugu. They will be the ones begging you to use your airport. I don't know how big this airport is, why are they hiding the plan from us? As I speak now, there is virtually no 3d plan of this new on-going airport they are building for us....if you have one, pls post it here! Why is the Federal Aviation hiding the plan from the public? You can hide it as you want but don't build us nonsense like the raggedy remodeled work done and expect it to attract investors and people. Show us the plan now so we can assess, critique it and tell the government what needs to be added or improved. Entire SE region is now on overdrive in development; I have never witnessed such massive development going on in SE particularly in Enugu and Anambra; it's unprecedented. We don't need nobody to delay us any further.

The spine of my message is the on-going Enugu International Airport is supposed to be a regional airport, and must, I repeat must rival or best Lagos and Abuja...this is common sense. If you are not thinking along these lines, then certainly you are not looking at the future of SE region. We need a very functional, international-standard airport to boast the growth of a people(Ndigbo) that controls the wealth of this country. As I have mentioned before, it must have capability for flight connections, house multiple airline companies, aircraft hangers, cargo, e.t.c., these are what airline companies look for to use your facility. We sometimes ignore all these things and don't realize how indispensable these are for an airport to function to its full capacity and ability. Most of us who fly internationally; rarely seldom pause to think, why is it that these Western, Asian, or even some African airports are well organized, your luggage are out of the carousel in no long time; everything is in condition as you had it when checked in. We never bother to think the size and complexity of work these people are doing in the logistical arm of the airport operation...it's critical, just as important as the passenger arm, and most Nigerian airports score 1/10 on a scale of 10 with respect to logistics. I know some people are wondering why I harp on this some much; I do because I expect another deja vu...build us another mediocre airport that looks barely 20% of the cost appropriated for it.

I hope Enugu government is reading this; this airport is just as strategic as the new Gulf City going on and requires similar and more oversight attention. I close by saying, the biggest legacy Chime has is the Enugu International Airport. If he fails to deliver something of international standard at this current yr of 2014, most people will be very unhappy with him, and certainly, will cheapen the good works he has done.

plasgidy: @ekoibile, why are you over floging this unespected occurrence? i dont think you do follow all the projects this gentle man called spyder is handling. this guys has built more than 15 up stays on this forum, from clearing of grass to completion.

did you see the port harcourt mansion which after foundation the pit become flooded, immediately this spyder swoped into action and intruduced a raft foundation, today that building is standing firm. this down stay project at enugu is a very small thing to this guy, he has really proved him self with better and more defficult building techinology than this slum if i may be allowed to down grade this enugu f.m.a,f,u.

ekobile, pls simplly see this as an unforseen circumstance, pit can be dug any where within the compound so far as is well fortified, after all patients do die in theater after quolified doctors finish surgical oppresions, if you need to build in the south east zone as i guess you are an engineer simplly go and make friend with spyder he will always sub contract some of his contracts to you than exbiting your envy on the WEB you dont know who is reading all this your exbition, not every body will read this your crap and ignore it. pls dont insult our intelligence here. thank you

spyder880: If I continue to ignore some comments made in this thread, they may start to look like the commenter knows anything about what he is saying.

So I have decided to spend a few minutes to explain how we built this house. I usually spend a whole lot of time planning a project, I am not the one to dive into a building project without considering a lot of variables about the environment, and trying to mitigate them. I usually ask questions, review processes and procedures and when in doubt, I will retreat to learn about the step or consult a superior in the field. At every point in time, I have at least a couple of trained professionals in my sites so we put heads together to execute projects.

I am so confident of my methods that I put up pictures of everything I do for public scrutiny, each step, each action is always captured on camera and placed in the public domain, for other competent eyes to look and make comments. I always love to remain transparent. You never know who is reading from any part of the world, so I am always careful to do the right things always. I am not the type to cut corners, I am not poor, never has been, so I am not desperate and looking for money.

It might interest us to know that I have personally built these types of multiple room houses, I own at least four of these houses in Enugu state in different locations now, over 100 rooms combined, all are still solid after so many years. The first one I built was in 1998. Nothing wrong with it in any way at all. I will go around and snap some of my houses which I started life with. It might also interest us to know that I have never used reinforcements in any of my previous multi rooms like this one before, no pillars, just short beams in door and window positions as lintels, no chaining, nothing else.

Many people stopped and questioned me over my decision to use reinforcements in this project in the center of the dry season, and I told them that I dont like the texture of the soil I found there, I was taking extra measures which people considered "wasting money" but I will rather waste materials and money than do a bad work.

SO, WHY DO WE BUILD THE WAY WE DO IN ENUGU?

Most of the lands in Enugu state are sitting on a rock crust which is more stony than sandy. This land is usually very hard to cut through, you cannot attempt to do a foundation excavation in Enugu without pick axe. We are confident about the soil bearing capacity of the land in most of Enugu metropolis. But I still build in Enugu like they do in Port Harcourt, no need to economize.

SO, WHAT REALLY WENT WRONG?

The seller of this land, who is also a neighbor, refused to explain to us the nature of this land, he was still feeling annoyed after I refused to give him the contract of supplying blocks, as a consequence, he hid the fact that he sold a river bed to us, not a land. I though there might be some swamp in the land after the first dig, but this is a full blown stream, flowing with some surprising speed, of course the foundation was not prepared for this, a full ground beam would have been more adequate, but has anyone else done a ground beam for a bungalow in Enugu? In fact, most upstairs in Enugu does not have ground beams, so I wonder who will blame me for not putting the type of foundation done in SOME Lagos buildings in a row of rooms, note that I said "SOME"

SOAKAWAY PITS

Since we dont have sandy soil in Enugu, its perfectly safe to site toilet pits close to the house, please look at pictures of all the houses we have built everywhere and measure the distance from the foundation walls, Port Harcourt, Owerri, even Lagos, Soak away tanks are built like houses, columns, beams, even a decking on top of it.

Have we not seen those who covered their toilet soak away and built their house on top of it?

Have we not seen cars parked on top of toilet soak away pits?

Na me build all those ones?

Someone even mentioned in this property section that his septic tank is under his living room!

SOLUTION

I chose to bring this up and attach the pictures on the thread, nobody forced me, its part of my determination to remain honest and transparent, and that's how I will always be. Its also a way to educate the people who read my posts, if we have enjoyed some fantastic victories in the wonderful buildings we have built here in the past, lets know that life is not a straight walk, there must be ups and downs. But our ups must be much longer and better than our few downs.

Some actions are being taken, but I don't want to rush the corrections as the land is still flooded, this is not an overly big problem, we have seen worse attacks, we shall win at the end like we always do, coming out stronger with more experience, this is one thing I am very sure of.

I will not comment on these anymore.

Have a good day everyone, whatever you do, remain focused and give your best, always. IT SHALL BE WELL!

gabbytabby: Ekoibile thank you for your contribution to this thread my only wish was that you had something constructive to suggest as a remedy. While l am not a structural engineer there are practical remedies that would work. The rains teaches us how to better protect our property especially the one of this year.

It is not so much a problem with the building per say since the fortifications are adequate. My belief is that what is needed is to better prepare the surrounding with concrete such that water flows away from it.

We do not need to make mountain out of a mole hill.

spyder880: I remember we had foundation beams in the affected areas, columns and all round chain beams and lintels (for a downstairs apartment that will not bear any decking?)

Demainman1: I am of the opinion that those cracks are as a result of all these knocking down walls to expand the rooms. The owner should have just left the rooms the way the were. I hope these can be remedied o.

spyder880: We have noticed some cracks in the walls of this house.

esoorita:
Ekoibile, I don't know how you arrived at 1.2 Million Naira to build this type of house. I guessed you left Nigeria long time ago hence you've lost track of the cost of things. 1.2 Million Naira will not buy you a 12 year old banger car in Nigeria of today not to talk of building a house. In any case, if the cost of building a one bedroom house is 1.2 Million Naira, every piece of land in Nigeria would have been built up by now.

mufutau55:

BAN you ke? Why Ban you! We are all here for discussions... We are all entitled to our opinions here because we should be adults.. and even small pickins who respect himself/herself can join the discussions. So we will discuss as an adult... and NO BANNING THREATS.

But I am sure Oga Spyder will elaborate on this later.. I know the N1.2m is not a small money at all.. I just meant for building that type of house, it may not be enough. Let's wait and hear from our Oga Spyder.

Hajji M.

mufutau55:

Oga Ekoibile, if nah for only N1.2m everybody for Nigeria for don get house oh! No, that money is too small.. But no need to rush, Oga Spyder always give us the finishing cost. He used to give us cost as he goes along but too many projects and those who always criticized him made him stop doing that. He is the most open guy on this forum. So just stay tuned.

Hajji M.

Fhemmmy: MY Chairman sir . . . Cost effect oh.

Onuokwu:

Okay. Finished product will turn out ok. It does look however that the row of rooms will have different designs. I guess functionality is the key thing.

ddooskie: Omoluabi leekan si. Aregbe till 2018