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1. Often, common walls of the houses are a common cause of tiff between two house owners. Wherever the bylaws don’t allow a common wall, this situation is avoided. Otherwise the one who has built his house earlier of the two is the sufferer. Though the second house builder pays 50% of the cost of the wall to the first, the chasings made in the wall to provide bearing to the slabs often leave scope for ingress of moisture in the first house. Curing of slabs further adds to the first house owners’ woes. Moisture may damage the inner plaster [...]

1. Bricks used in masonry work should be fully soaked in water. In general, water is sprinkled over the stacks of bricks just before their use and moist bricks are used by the masons. Such sprinkling of water just before the use of bricks brings no benefit. Identify the stacks of bricks to be used next day and prefer to spray water over them a day earlier in the evening. Bricks should retain moisture and look wet before their use by the masons. These bricks will not draw water from the cement mortar and cement will have more moisture available [...]

1.  It is always convenient if some line-and-level pillars, popularly called burjis are created at site along the centerlines of the walls. These help in accurate layout1, fixing of plinth level2 and right-angled3 Keep these pillars at least 5 feet away from the excavation lines so that these are not disturbed by the construction work. Take their footings about 1 foot below ground to avoid their displacement. Apply some cement plaster on these pillars and mark the centerlines of walls on them. 2. A standard reference pillar should be created and the ground level and plinth level should be marked [...]

1.   Always insist for Earthquake resistant building design. To make a building Earthquake resistant, first check the seismic zone in which it falls. Zone V is most earthquake prone zone while Zone II is least seismic zone. Recently Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) that issues various ISI Codes, has merged Zone I with Zone II. Get the building designed as per IS 1893 guidelines. This code has undergone significant changes after Bhuj Earthquake and design methodology has been revised. Ask your structural engineer to use the new code instead of adopting the old design methods. 2.   In general, [...]

1. If you plan to use some of Vaastu tips in your house, perform bhoomipujan in northeast or center of the plot. Begin excavation from northwest side and laying of the foundation from southwest side. Leave more space around the house on North and East sides and less on South and West sides. Keep garage in Northwest or Southeast corner. Keep Puja room in Northeast corner of house. In it, keep the deity facing west. Keep bedrooms in Southwest or Southeast direction. Keep bathrooms in Southwest and kitchen in Southeast corner. Keep dining room in the West and study room [...]

1. While deciding where to buy a plot, keep three things in mind: location, location and location. This is one factor that is really governing. Of course the location is to be decided as per your budget and your home and work circumstances yet try to find your piece of land in or around a city that is really progressive and with clean environment. 2.   Buying a residential plot is often once-in-a-lifetime investment. So take care of a few important points. Take care that the plot lies in an Urban Estate of a development authority, an improvement trust or [...]

1. Quality of the reinforcement steel plays a very important role in determining the life of the building. Visually, all steel lots may look the same but quality wise, these may be a lot different. The first thing to be checked while buying steel is that it must be produced by a reputed manufacturer such as Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) or Tata Steel Company (TISCO) or Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL). These manufacturers have inbuilt laboratory arrangements where stringent quality control checks are carried out before passing of steel for sale. Reputed manufacturers also put their trademarks on [...]

1. Always use fresh cement for construction work. Check the date of manufacture and don’t accept cement bags more than two months old. Manufacturers attach tags to cement bags and these tags carry the week and year of manufacture. Don’t confuse the week with the month. A tag with a 12/07 stamp means 12th week of year 2007. Don’t read it as December, 2007.   Remember that cement absorbs moisture from air. Cement more than two months old may generally lose 30 to 40 % of its strength if not stored properly. Try to get as fresh cement as possible. 2. [...]