Avoiding rip-offs and how not to get cheated

administrator

Question: I want to buy a pre-finished house. What do I need to do? Are there any construction standards in Nigeria and do all private deevelopers follow them?

Answer:
There are regulations and laws in Nigeria but little or no enforcement, it is basically a buyer beware country. I was lucky enough, from an education perspective, to see a lot of corner cutters at work while building houses in various parts of the country. This made me think, the only way I would ever recommend or buy a pre-finished house is to have something like a photo journal of the construction processes, along with a list of materials and methods used and a list of others satisfied owners that had bought houses from the building for references.

administrator

Question: Why do contractors and even owner-builders cut corners?

Answer:
Corner cutting is having a builder do something that saves him a little bit which might later cause a big problem in the future.
From site visits, preliminary structural investigations and making observations myself, I would say that most builders in the lower price range around are the chief corner cutters. This is a very sad thing because they finish houses in a very low quality standard just to save a few bucks.

administrator

Question: Can you give some example of corner cutting?

Answer:
I can share few here which includes:

Using low quality cement suitable for wall building, on concrete works.
Most unsuspecting homeowner cannot really differentiate between the two. Cement is cement!
Inadequate foundation depth, insufficient concrete in the base of the foundation column, using a very thin layer of cement on the subfloor.
Using wire mesh instead of the heavier hand tied reinforcement on the slabs.
Using inadequate iron rod sizes in the foundation columns and ground beams (using 12mm iron rods instead of 16mm).
Using woods instead of iron to provider support on lintels.
Ungrounded electrical connection.
Having a circuit breaker but running all the wires to one station.
Use of low quality paints that wash off with water and a lot more.

administrator

Question: How can we identify a corner cutting?

Answer:
To a trained eyes, some things can be spotted and some cannot without tearing the walls or performing a laboratory test. A close follow-up during construction phase can really help identify corner cuttings area because most of the really important things cannot be determined after the house is already complete.

For example, the depth of the floor slab cannot be determined after plastering has been concluded and tiles installed. Also, the size of the foundation column, the richness of the concrete poured etc.

administrator

Question: What are the real causes of substandard works?

Answer:
There is a good rise in the number of people looking for lower cost housing. This is the area where corner cutters are filling. It is just too bad most contractors cannot be satisfied with little gains. I mean they bring together everything needed to do a really good house and then for a little bit of greed they build a low quality house.

administrator

Question: Just because a builder or contractor doesn’t cut corners, does it mean they will do a good job?

Answer:
Good question. There are a lot of skilled construction workers, builders and contractors in Nigeria. You will always have some that aren’t very good or just aren’t interested in customer satisfaction. You can reduce the risk of ending up with a bad team by being sure to get references first.

micgray100

Supervision is the key element in building construction.. Everyone in building industry are ready to cut corners… even the owners of building do cut corners when he sees something cheap…
My own idea of cutting corners is wide… it can be done by any of the stakeholders in building projects, clients, contractor, consultant etc..

bds

micgray100

Some homeowners encourage this.