Our House construction experience

[ravivasudeva]

Hi Praveen,
Its a option which the structural engineer shared with us and he designed plinths accordingly after we gave go ahead. The soil load on compound wall is also considered which is why the compound wall columns are connected to plinth beam of the house through a horizontal beam. But i personally felt having SSM was better.

[mcneha]

Hi ravivasudeva!

Connecting the compound columns to main building's plinth beam will not help in retaining the earth. I posted my view to you on 1st October for which you had replied. Please, please, please take care of construction. Never hurry up certain works.

Regards.

CHANDRASEKAR

[ravivasudeva]

Hi Chandrasekar, I value your concern but my structural engineer is confident that nothing with happen. And I recollected that we constructed our house 18 years back on the same concept of No SSM which I incidentally observed only last week. We have taken care to use good soil and it has settled slowly. The only concern area was in the back side where 5 feet high * 40 feet wide SSM wall is constructed in a U-shape (which is sitting below the plinth beam of the compound wall) because there is a variation in the height on my site and the private property. On the front side there is a staircase and Sump wall which will withstand the load. The problem could on the either sides but nothing else can be done now.

[ravivasudeva]

Wall construction

Its has been 2 weeks now that Ground floor mould is completed, After the first 5 days of mould, we stopped water storage for a day and first floor columns were raised upto 7 feet. Then the curing commenced and gunny bags were covered to the columns.

The water storage is stopped yesterday and ONE course of brick wall was built as per floor plan. Now I start sensing how the rooms feel like and how spacious they would be. I checked each room and walked thought it, did adjustments in bathroom layout since I felt it was not spacious for glass partition. Not happy with living room size as it seems smaller than I imagined and hence we need to rework a bit on TV wall unit and inside stairs design. Kitchen is to my expectation and bedroom is spacious.
I also had big challenge in the utility area since beginning where I planned a integrated utility,i.e. washing machine and a storage to keep soiled cloths, big sink for washing utensils and a place to stock washed utensils for draining, a rough stone for washing cloths with cloths drying area. Racks to keep washing equipments and cleaning materials. All these should be accessible for the cleaning lady without entering house . Finally we achieved all of it during my inspection for which we should extend the utility roof a bit by 3*3 feet.

Brick wall construction will commence from tomorrow now that no changes in floor plan. Centring is still not removed as the workers said they will remove it only when first floor lintel is ready so that they just move the equipments from GF to FF. It doesn't really bother me as it is their convenience.

[ardesarchitects]

Hi,
I do accept with chandrasekar .
Ravi you might face the similar problem of settlement if you don't take care of retain soil and consolidation of filled soil .Try working out with structural engineer to reconsider the compound wall ssm to be raised till plinth height .since your plinth looks like more than 3' there will substantial amount of load on the compound wall.

http://www.mybdasites.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=6603


Regards
Ar.Praveen.N
Ardes Architects and Interior Designers
ardesarchitects@gmail.com
http://www.ardesarchitects.com
https://www.facebook.com/ardes.architects

[ravivasudeva]

Hi Praveen,

I will have another round of discussion with SE soon and share the discussion outcome here.

[ravivasudeva]

The brick wall construction is going on slowly due to labour shortage which should be sorted in 2 days, the brick wall has raised 3 feet as of now. There are two obstacles during construction of 1st floor.

1. Coconut tree - This is in my rear set back area bending towards the house which is clearly obstructing the bathroom brick wall construction. My wish is to retain it as we believe that coconut tree is Kalpavruksha and it should not be cut. So i am checking all possibilities to retain it. In the worst case it would be cut.

2. BESCOM lines are running very close to the house, infact the neutral line is touching site. I visited the area BESCOM office and spoke to Assistant engineer who immediately came for spot inspection. He suggested to move the pole farther way towards the road by 4 feet and also add brackets. This way the lines will be way farther from my house. He explained the process as below

Spot inspection by AE - Done
Submit a letter requesting the pole shifting and provide a copy of sale deed- Done
Estimate to be prepared by AE which i will collect - To be collected tomorrow
Handover the estimate to AEE (sits in a different office) who would issue the Work Order
Work order would be ready and will be approved by JE, only then shifting will happen.

Turn around time is 7 working days and estimation/govt fees is about 3,500 rupees.

[girishd]

Ravi,

As usual there is always going to be surprises coming up. Need to just work towards solving each problem and move on.

In fact your contractor could have mentioned about this issue even before roof concreting. That way you would done all this earlier and some time could have been saved.

[ravivasudeva]

Yes Girish, surprises keep coming and each surprise adds tension and consume money
Though we knew about these problems since beginning but it was under low priority, finding time to solve them only now

[ravivasudeva]

Brick work is going on and we are close to lintel which is due tomorrow.

Indian styp

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Bedroom and corner window

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Balcony in Bedroom

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