Our House construction experience

[girishd]

Ravi,

I haven't seen other houses how they are done so my knowledge is limited to what my structural engineer has provided me in drawings. Attaching the cranking strategy used in our roof.

From your picture I am not able to make out of the top rod is cranked. I can see double mat of rods upto L/3 in the roof. As long as your structural engineer has given OK for rod placement, there is no need to worry.

If you are going for on-site mixing, I would advise to buy Superplasticizer http://www.noblecorp.net/data/01-admixt ... 28G%29.pdf
Generally the Gang folks will not listen and put more water randomly and masons also want flowing concrete as its easier to spread. SP-430 is recommended by my structural engineer to improve workability without adding too much water.
We used 250-300ml per bag of cement. One 20Litre can costs close to Rs. 2500 and it is available at Fosroc outlets. We employed one labour from our side to keep adding this.

Good luck!

[ravivasudeva]

Hi girish,

Thanks for valuable inputs, please see below if these makes sense...ACC field officer, Structural engineer, bar bender and myself will be meeting before the concrete filling tomorrow, i will discuss about these again.

1. As the structural engineer informed me, cranking is not required if top reinforcement is done. So according to him this is not an issue.
2. Superplasticizer is something i haven't heard but what i read from the document you shared, the ACC Concrete plus cement that we have chosen has most of these properties. http://www.acchelp.in/acc_premium.html#acc-plus

Which cement did you use?

[girishd]

Good to know that you have clarified rod distribution with structural consultant.

My contractor used Birla Super 53 grade for first roof and switched to Zurai Primo 53 grade for next two roofs. Structural Engineer was OK with both of these.

If ACC consultant is mentioning that superplasticizer is not needed, then the cement should be good enough. Our structural engineer recommended this regardless of cement used.

[ravivasudeva]

Our ground floor slab was completed last Saturday, concrete filling started at 10 AM and finished by 3 PM. 15 People from gang and 5 from our side worked. As a practice, I arranged lunch for the gang. Frankly speaking gang members were lazy, slow working which pissed me off in the morning as the work which was suppose to start at 9 was delayed by an hour, in the end when it started, all went good without a glitch.

Our mastri was telling me that the concrete and slab have come our really well and to their satisfaction which didn't happen in few of the previous houses. Wondering what's the intention of his statement, when someone is spending lakh's of rupees on a project like house, there should not be any compromise on quality and workmanship. Tipped him few hundred rupees in the end.

Curing has stared since 6AM Sunday morning which will go on for a week (i.e. water filled 24*7), 1st floor columns would be raised after that. Curing will continue for total of 28 days along with work in parallel.

slab

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slab curing

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steps curing

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[ravi555]

Ravi,

For the roof slab i see carpet like (chaape in kannada) layer under the steel grills. I have seen in almost all constructions..
1. What is their purpose?
2. Are they left intact permanently during cementing the roof?

[ramki067]

The house is entering into critical stage and rain is playing hide and seek adding to my worry. All said, we have fixed tomorrow morning for the Ground floor slab concrete work. I have instructed to start as early as 7:30 and complete by 1:30 to be safe from rain. Sharing some pictures from Steel work, your suggestions are welcomed. Maddur Hole Maralu, ACC concrete plus cement and 20 mm jelly all arriving today. Electric work would be finished today.

As per design, here is no sunken slab anywhere as we going for core cutting.

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Hi Ravi,
Could you inform what is the size of the steel rods (mm) used in your roof for slab and for beams?

Thanks,
Ramki

[ravivasudeva]

Hi Ravi,
Could you inform what is the size of the steel rods (mm) used in your roof for slab and for beams?

Thanks,
Ramki

Hi Ramki,
Beams - rods of diameter 16 and 20 mm
Columns - rods of diameter 12 mm
Slab - rods of diameter 8 and 10 mm

We bought SK steel FE500D

[ravivasudeva]

Ravi,

For the roof slab i see carpet like (chaape in kannada) layer under the steel grills. I have seen in almost all constructions..
1. What is their purpose?
2. Are they left intact permanently during cementing the roof?

Chaape will avoid any oil and concrete leakages during roof construction, otherwise there are chances that liquid concrete may spill/fall all over the floor below between the gaps of steel slabs or sometimes the steel slab will have small holes too.

It will peal off from the ceiling after centring is removed, even if it sticks to the ceiling its easy to remove by sprinkling water. It should be removed since ceiling would be plastered.

[blrguy]

strawmats are used to ensure that the surface will remain rough after the centring sheets are removed. Any surface which need to be plastered should be rough enough so that cement/sand mixture (plastering compound) can stick to it properly.. being the ceiling, its better to use this material to ensure that u get a proper / adequately rough surface.. second advantage is that concrete will not stick to the iron sheets and removal of the centering sheets will be easier.. needless to say, it should be removed before plastering..


@Ravi: I suggest that no work is carried out for 14 days other than watering for curing.

[ardesarchitects]

Hi Ravi,
After i saw your plinth beam photos i wonder how did you manage to retain the filled soil to the plinth height .If you are retaining soil with cement block compound wall ,in future you will have issues .Retaining of soil can only be done with SSM .
Casting plinth beam and then filling the bottom with SSM is not a correct way to do.I suggest you recheck with your structural guy regarding soil retaining and if he has considered the loads accordingly.
Your slab steel details are absolutely fine ,you can either use crank or top rod steel design .IT depends up on your structural engineer design.

Regards
Ar.Praveen.N
Ardes Architects and Interior Designers
ardesarchitects@gmail.com
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