Building our dream house

[ramki067]

Ours is west phasing site. Do you think it will help you?
We stay in Bangalore north.which part of Bangalore you stay ? You need a contractor from your local area or at least near by areas.

Ours is South facing and near EC. So will not be of much help. But thanks.

[Visualizer]

We finalized electrical contract at 1710 rs per chadra. AC,CCTV, earth works for grounding and sump water level regulator connection will be charged extra. Got the contact from reliable friend of ours. Also he had done electrical work for lot of near by homes. Hence we immediately finalized it.

As you have fixed electrician check if he understands the work for modern homes.
Few litmus tests

Can he do current rating calculations for your home give him all the appliances , lights and fans in wattage for house and ask If he will put 63Amps MCN or 100Amps ?
Most of the electrician working on chadra basis think higher is better so even on single phase domestic connection (max 7.5 HP ) they put 100 Amps main MCB and this means the MCB won't trip in overload case.

Also check if he knows how many RCCB and of what sensitivity should be put in mains circuit will he put MCB first or RCCB first after meter or how he will do chemical earthing.

To save costs to client they put one RCCB at the meter but with 30mA trip sensitivity there will be numerous spurious trips so they recommend 100mA. The thing is 100mA is for fire protection and human being will still get electric shock for homes 30mA multiple RCCB are required.

These few questions will tell you if he has some good understanding or just knows to pull wires in conduits.

Also you can guide him in these things provided he has attitude to listen. Most of the workman have very high ego and they do what they have been doing for years learning from their seniors on job since teenage.

Tell him to strictly follow color code for wires and don't worry about cost of wires.

[ramki067]

We finalized electrical contract at 1710 rs per chadra. AC,CCTV, earth works for grounding and sump water level regulator connection will be charged extra. Got the contact from reliable friend of ours. Also he had done electrical work for lot of near by homes. Hence we immediately finalized it.

As you have fixed electrician check if he understands the work for modern homes.
Few litmus tests

Can he do current rating calculations for your home give him all the appliances , lights and fans in wattage for house and ask If he will put 63Amps MCN or 100Amps ?
Most of the electrician working on chadra basis think higher is better so even on single phase domestic connection (max 7.5 HP ) they put 100 Amps main MCB and this means the MCB won't trip in overload case.

Also check if he knows how many RCCB and of what sensitivity should be put in mains circuit will he put MCB first or RCCB first after meter or how he will do chemical earthing.

To save costs to client they put one RCCB at the meter but with 30mA trip sensitivity there will be numerous spurious trips so they recommend 100mA. The thing is 100mA is for fire protection and human being will still get electric shock for homes 30mA multiple RCCB are required.

These few questions will tell you if he has some good understanding or just knows to pull wires in conduits.

Also you can guide him in these things provided he has attitude to listen. Most of the workman have very high ego and they do what they have been doing for years learning from their seniors on job since teenage.

Tell him to strictly follow color code for wires and don't worry about cost of wires.

Hey Visualizer, I"m zero in these electrical know how things. How to learn and know about what and where to use?
Thanks.

[RashmiL]

Long time since I wrote on this thread. We complete construction till plinth beam and we had our fair share of mistakes committed.

We ended doing one mistake which coated nearly 40 thousand to rectify. Please find the attached photo of we doing earth work.will write in detail of mistake in next post.

[RashmiL]

So we did receive the drawings for footings and we did proceed with work. We had got JCB guys and they did pretty neat work. We had given contract for 8 rs per sq ft where JCB guys had do digging, finishing the edges manually by labourers and later transport the soil to near empty site in tractor. Here are the pictures attached of the footings excavated.

[RashmiL]

Coming back to the mistake we committed, we were asked to dig all pillar footings and sump footings till 5ft by engineer. Off course of the width of pillar footings varied as per column placements. We had pillar footings as wide as 6.5 feet x 6.5 feet for some pillars. When we were digging for sump, the sump guy asked if we can figure 2 feet more for sump as it can hold more water capacity. As our site was already 1.5 feet below ground level and we planned for 1.5 feet plinth level, plan was to create 8 ft sump spanning 10x10. However while digging ,we digger 2 ft below the other pillar footings. We did this without the knowledge or engineer. As engineer checked he said,this was a mistake and would result in settlement issues . So after checking various options we decided to fill the sump base with concrete jelly with chain box.a entire 2 feet base bed for sump.approximately 40k extra cost considering the jelly, cement ,msand and additional 2 feet steel.

So Never ever dig sump footings or any other footings unequally which could cost settlement issues later. We realised and rectified mistake. Sometimes it could be too late which is not uncommon in constructions

[RashmiL]

There is lot more to add. Will add it in course of today time.

[kumark2k]

Hi Rashmi,

I am not sure about the technicality in your situation.
But it's not uncommon to have footings depth varying. The depth factor depends on the bearing capacity formula and geotechnical principles.
We have a couple of column footings deeper than others at our site.

[RashmiL]

I did read my post again and probably I wasn't that clear.

Yes , we can have footings of varied height. But not the ones which are adjacent. If you observe carefully in the first photo, The four pillar footings were connected to sump with no wall to separate.

[Visualizer]

Rashmi if your sump walls are not constructed consider option of FRP sump instead of RCC once more. I asked question on FRP vs RCC here got good advise and even my architect suggested FRP but somehow listened to contractor. A lot.of care needs to be taken in RCC sump for leakage prevention since big sump can not be cast in single casting.

Both from cost and performance point of view FRP works better.

I later got to know in the layout ahere my house is there are 15+ year old FRP sumps working perfectly.