I hope you enjoyed my previous
post on the processes involved in getting approval for your building plan? Well,
today we will be taking a deep look into the various factors greatly affecting
the cost of construction. This is important especially for clients who’d always
ask funny questions regarding the price of building materials in the market.
After reading this, I am sure
your eyes will be opened to the various reasons why it costs a lot to develop a
nice building for yourself and wonderful family. Please stay tuned as I list
these below.
1. Use Of Foreign Materials In Construction
The first thing I want to mention
is our taste for the adoption of foreign materials in the construction process.
By this you’ll understand that imported materials will always have a higher
price since our importers would always want to make a lot of profit from their
investments. This does not mean you should rely on local building material. It all
depends on your pocket and taste and what you want people to say about your
construction.
2. Lack of Adequate Security On Site
Everybody understands the important of building materials
and their cost value in the market and for this reason it is very important that
agile and sufficient security be provided on-site to put a halt to pilfering
and loss if construction materials. Just imagine a construction site where all
Granite needed for concrete works are exposed with no site protection. This probably
means a lot of thieves will cause a shortage to the available material needed
for a job by taking away or steal a part of the granite on site. Apart from
granite, cement is another material that needs adequate security. A loss of
any of these construction materials will only but result to an extra cost on
the part of the client or contractor.
3. Unstable Market Price Of Materials
As at (October 2016)when this
article was written, A 50kg bag of OPC (Ordinary Portland Cement) is currently
sold at N2200 (Wholesale Price) and N2300 (Retail Price) in warri and its
environs. This is a bag of cement that sold for N1350 around May 2016. This
means that a client who may have executed a project around May 2016 when cement
was sold at N1350 would be stunned to discover the same bag of Cement He’d
Bought for N1350 by May will now be sold for over 2x the former price. This equally
means the price for all concrete works will be doubled.
4. Use of Quacks for An advanced
Project
Quacks are very important in the
engineering profession. Why do I say so? I said this because over 65 percent of
the beautiful homes you’ll see in Nigeria were constructed by either an
unregistered Engineer or an experienced Craftsman. Quacks may have experience
in the field of construction but may not be able to provide the actual volume
of materials needed for a particular project and this results to wastes. Just imagine
loosing over 5 headpan of mixed concrete during the foundation stage of a
project. When this 5 headpan would have been used to blind an extra 2 feet
length if it hadn’t been wasted.
5. Climatic Factors
Climate is another determinant of
the cost of construction. At favorable weather, construction is usually less
expensive since everybody will be willing to work with the weather. The reverse
is the case when the weather is harsh. Workmen will want to charge a little
higher than they would during the favorable weather. For slabs and beams,
columns, much water will be needed to attain a proper mix, more water will be
needed for curing and other processes that would be necessary in order to reach
a quality product.
6. The Use Of Family Members
This is another important aspect
of construction. Look! you’re using family labor and thinking it’s the cheapest
way to go about your project right? well, you may want to have a rethink
because if you get to discover what these trusted fellows would do with
suppliers of building materials, you’ll never want to see them close to your
project. The truth is that a close relative would always want to cut corners in
order to fill his own pocket. This means he might add a little to the actual
price of the materials or cut-corners just to have some of these materials for
a later sale. Now with this habit, you’ll discover that where 10 bags of cement
is supposed to be used, 8 will be provided with the remaining 2 used for only
God Knows what.
7. Buying Your Materials In Small Sizes
For clients on their first
building project, they’ll require their cement or Timber or Steel to be
supplied by a church member of a nearby sales shop. But this would only result
in paying more for the same quantity and quality of material you’ll buy if you
had to buy from the dealer or wholesaler. If you’re on the construction stage
for slabs, you’ll be saving more if you bought your 100 bags of cement from Dangote
or any Elephant Cement Sales depot and have these supplied to your site.
8. Varying Rates For Labor.
Another yet important reason why
you’ll be spending more than you’re supposed to on a project is the fluctuating
cost of labor or changes in cost of labor. The thing is the cost of mixing a
bag of cement may be N1200 in Banana Estate but N1450 in Victoria Island, Lagos
state. This means the cost of executing a building project in Banana Estate
will always be lower than it would be in Victoria Island.
I could go on and on but I cannot
explain everything here on this page.
You can use the contact button on
this page to contact the admin and get a lot more details about this.
No comments:
Post a comment