Building a house is a commendable and rewarding endeavour but it can also be a stressful one. The home building process requires a considerable investment of time, energy, money and materials in order to be successful. This process is a combination of various stages, some of which are explained below:
Buy Land
Get a suitable piece of land for your building project. When doing this, make sure you avoid flood-prone areas and get a piece of land that is easily accessible and close to infrastructural facilities. Make sure the land was allocated for residential purposes by the government and also consider relevant building codes in order to determine if the land is suitable for building or not. Consult building experts on the best land to buy before putting pen to paper.
Building Plan Design
Engage the services of an architect to create a building design plan for your building project. This will be done in line with your preferences and applicable building codes. Other designs like electrical designs might be needed at this stage; work in concert with an Engineer to achieve this. Take into account weather conditions, budget and all other conditions that might affect the plan in order to make sure that most suitable plan is generated.
Prepare Plot For Building
This stage involves clearing the land of any growth or obstruction and flattening the land in preparation for building construction. This should be done in line with your building plan and it might require the use of heavy machinery like Bulldozers if there is heavy forestation.
Buy Building Materials and Get Labour
Based on the building estimate and cost analysis generated from the building plan, purchase relevant materials for your building project. These might include but not limited to, cement, sandcrete blocks, iron rods, sand and gravel stones.
When buying these materials, makes sure they are of standard quality and in compliance with relevant building standards. It is advisable to buy materials just before they are needed in order to avoid clogging the building site with materials that won’t needed for a while and risk damaging them in the process.
Construct the Base and Foundation of The Building
This is the first stage of the actual building construction process. The building foundation is very important as it determines the building stability and the type of building that can be constructed. For instance, the foundation for a 3 bedroom bungalow is different from the foundation for a 5 bedroom duplex.
Care must be taken when doing this in order to avoid compromising the structural integrity of the building. When building in a swampy area, you might need to construct reinforced foundations and this might cost a tidy sum. Generally, the bigger, taller and heavier the building, the deeper the foundations need to be to keep the building in place and stop it sinking, tilting or moving. No matter the size of your budget, do not compromise on the quality of the foundation or rush through the process. This is necessary in order to avoid a major structural defect or worse, a building collapse.
Building The Walls
This involves erecting the walls of the home using appropriate building materials. You can decide to use bricks, sandcrete hollow blocks or sandcrete compact blocks depending on your preference and the type of building being constructed. Most builders prefer using hollow sandcrete blocks due to their insulating nature and the ease of placing electrical and plumbing fixtures in them.
Landscaping
Landscaping involves modifying the visible features of the building’s exterior. At this stage flowers are planted and driveways, parking areas and perimeter fences are constructed. To get the most out of this, it is advisable to seek expert advice before embarking on landscaping.
The above steps are not necessarily arranged in any particular order and they are not the only steps involved in the building construction process.
