10 Basic tips to note when building your first home

Building a home is an important investment and requires basic skill and tips that can help one to minimize cost during the construction processes

Many individual have fall victims of jumping into building their homes without proper planning simply because they thought they can do it without the support of any other professional.

The building project comprises of different professional coming together to achieve a common goal.

Before building your first home it is advisable to put into consideration the following tips.

1. The land you are about to build on.

Base on experience many individual have fall victims of acquiring land that is not legit, only for them to discover that the land they want to build on is in dispute. This is a common mistake in Nigeria and most time it discourages people from acquiring land for building purpose.

Before you make payment for your land always ensure that the land in question is not in dispute. You can do this by involving a third person outside the agent and the land owner to investigate the legitimacy of the land.

if you are still not satisfy you can offer to pay part of the money and commence work at the site and make the remaining payment after a month if no one interfere with the work process. Avoid the mistake of preparing your floor plan when you are not really sure of the land.

2. The surveyor plan

The next thing you need to do is to engage your surveyor to carry out site survey on the land. it is always better to use your own surveyor instead of using the land owner’s own.

Avoid using road side survey because there this tendency that your land might not be register with the appropriate authority. Take time to protect your site to avoid someone encroaching or reselling of the land.

If you are not ready yet to develop you can carry out perimeter fencing or protect the four angles with a clearly visible sign. Be sure to always check your site once every two months.

3. The floor plan

The floor plan is the number three consideration when planning your first home. Most people find it to be a waste of resources contacting an architect to design an ideal floor plan for them. They prefer to give it to an unprofessional person; sometime they do the draft them self. Remember the cost of correcting a mistake on the floor plan after the erection of building is always higher than the initial cost of plan.

Make sure you check and understand the position of your windows, doors, electronics, rooms, kitchen and others relevant features in the floor plan before the site work. Your architect will be of great help in achieving best result.

Check out the workability of the plan. I mean try to find out if the movement from one position to another will obstruct the position of another feature in the apartment.

Avoid bogus floor plan for a start, always go for floor plan that are moderate and of commercial value, since this is your first plan there is always the opportunity of building another.

4. Understanding the cost estimate of the building

In Africa today most people carry out a building project without actually knowing the estimated cost of the project. This is a very common practice but the problem with it is that you might end up not completing the project.

It will be a wise decision if you can pay for the services of a quantity surveyor to give you an estimate of the building or better still your can contact me for that information or ask your builder or engineer to provide you information about the numbers of blocks, sand and chippings that will be required for the project.

5. The building process

The site work is the practical aspect of the building projects and it involves a lot of technicalities. Be sure to employ the service of an engineer or a builder depending on the complexity of the floor plan.

Avoid the use of Manson because most mason don’t really follow specify details of the floor plan. Remember to provide provision for storage hall and others working materials like water tank, generator wheel barrow, shovels and head pans.

Avoid the idea of buying materials without following the engineer’s advice, you might end up buying substandard materials or even placing them in a wrong location that may affect the actual position of the building and this will lead you to extra cost.

Others areas to consider when building your first house are:

6. Use Low or Maintenance-Free Building Components and materials but not substandard materials.

7. Make provision for Extra Conduit behind Walls for Future Electrical.

8. The height of your ceiling from ground level should be at least 9 feet.

9. Be flexible with your builder and take time to Build It right

10. Let your D.P.C level be at least two blocks high from ground level.