SOME CHALLENGES IN CONSTRUCTION 1. When a wall is more than 8m in length, without breaking it with a column or a partition wall, the mortar joint ( which is the main structural member) is overwhelmed.

SOME CHALLENGES IN CONSTRUCTION

1. When a wall is more than 8m in length, without breaking it with a column or a partition wall, the mortar joint ( which is the main structural member) is overwhelmed. Thus the the wall will respond with a crack. This is common in Halls of worship, large rooms like board rooms or lounges.

Solution: Brace long/lengthy walls with reinforced concrete columns, ground beams, steel girders/columns. Basically, contract an engineer to design and supervise your construction.

2. Quality of cement, cement with a high setting time requires proper curing, so that the heat action is reduced. During setting and hardening of cement, some amount of heat is liberated due to hydration and the chemical reactions that occur. As the release of heat takes place. This heat release in the setting up of cement is known as an exothermic reaction.

3.POORLY DONE FOUNDATIONS THAT RESULT IN SETTLEMENT HENCE CRACKING. Just like a rope, a wall is ‘strongest at its weakest link’. Foundation defects like unevenness, settling/sinking of certain parts of the foundation, Heaving of slabs on the ground floor (the action where there is contraction or expansion of concrete that is unstable due to inadequate, improper or lack of a tensioner like a slab mesh (what in Kenya is called BRC. BRC is the name of a company called British Reinforcement Company Ltd which was the first company globally to first manufacture a wire mesh fabric to be used in the construction industry.

Solution: Do a geotechnical study and get a report that your engineer can base their designs and assumptions from.

4. Walling not plumb/ not ‘kabiru’: In your endevours to cut costs and undercut your foreman/contractor while you keep your consultants at bay, your labourers will likely be the locals. The forces acting on a building are many and unpredictable and if loading of these forces are not loaded as per how the construction materials are designed to come together, then you may suffer the same fate.

Solution: Before you commence construction, let your architect visit sites that your proposed foreman/contractor has handled (at your cost of course). If you ‘save’ on this ‘expense’, you shall pay it many times over in your construction. So don’t try be smart about this.

5. Poor workmanship: This is the biggest challenge of all. Poor workmanship is heavily created by competing on cost, to see how you can build cheaper than everyone else while outfoxing your consultants and contractor. Well trained artisans charge more than unskilled labourers who have ‘learnt on the job’. These labourers have a general understanding of what members of what size go where. That’s why you will find most fundis telling developers that engineers have ‘over designed’ based on observations of what other people have done ‘and their buildings have not fallen’. In such a scenario, I always ask them to show me the calculations and assumptions they have used to arrive at that decision. How structures work is pure mathematics.

#designandbuild #designandconstruct #building #design #construction #dreamhome #dreamhouse #designandlive #designbuild #build #sitevisit #roofing #interior #interiordecor #interiordesign #settingout #groundbreaking #roofingexperts #entrepreneur #business #marketing #interiorstyling #floor #flooringdesign #buildwithradicon #kenya #architecture #architecturedesign