Trades & Labor Best Posts in Thread: Master Builder (Qualified)

BTW, do some research on rice hulls for insulation, it is a perfectly acceptable method, the one big problem with SS walls is; they act a bit like resonating panels and have a hollow ring to them, but the rice Hulls cures that problem, one bag required for 16inch of wall at 8ft high with a 4inch cavity, cost P60.

 

On many occasions I have posted here and said, you can have a good house built here if you do a bit of research and then to supervise all of the work yourself, now I think I am wrong to have said that? I am now of the opinion that you would have to build 3 houses to get the final one as you would really want it, House 1 would have many mistakes, house 2 would be an improvement over the first, by the time you build house 3 you will have it all sussed out and have the tools and knowledge to build that exactly to your satisfaction.

 

Yes I can give you an idea of the costs involved, I had 25cube of Ready Mix at a strength of 4000PSI a bit of overkill I know, but I wanted to make sure at the very least I would get 3000 PSI, the company recommended that 2500 was enough and it cost me 12K extra for the higher grade, with a pump to spread it the cost was P123K the hire of the Pump Truck was 10K 30mtrs was a close as the cement trucks could get to the work site 25 cube is equal to around 200 1 bag batches of concrete from a mixer, unless the area was small and only a thin slab required for say a motorbike, it is always better to use a mixer. hand mixing never gives consistent results, having said that mine had come in three batches=3 truck loads but the second mix was slightly more wet than the first and the last. This big slab was all poured in 2hrs.

One crap builder here gave me a recommendation to use a dozen guys and two mixers the cost of the materials alone worked out at just over P83K, it would take 10hrs to mix all this, with two mixers running at fast speed.

 

This seems to be standard procedure here for the filler blocks and other non structural features. (One can argue that the wall filler blocks serve a structural purpose for shear in support of two + story buildings.)
I believe (hope) the locals use proper sand in the structural posts and beams.