Ground Floor Plan

Day 98
July 28, 2012

Foundation wrap-up: 
It is almost 100 days and foundation work is complete. We are on to ground floor now. Before we get started on ground floor there are a couple of things to finish on foundation

1. Foundation inspection - If architect has not inspected foundation level be sure to schedule and ensure it gets done now. Purpose of inspection is to:
• Ensure height of foundation is in accordance to the drawing
• Ensure house does not have unintended height differences across various spaces
• Build an opinion on the quality of construction
• Ensure setbacks are appropriately marked.
2. Receipt verification - Before ground floor construction starts, it is a good idea to assess planned vs actual cost to construct foundation. Contractors typically provide a Bill of Quantity (BOQ) that lays out estimated material required for each work item and corresponding cost. This is the time to verify overage or underage of quantities and actual cost. A good way to cross-check this is to have your contractor provide receipts of materials used and have your architect measure the quantity of material used in the house. Depending on individual arrangements, a % of estimated payment can be released earlier but final settlement for foundation level should only be done after receipt verification.

This is also the time to apply for the "Commencement certificate" (CC) that municipality often recommends. CC, as I understand, is often a requirement to procure "Occupation certificate" (OC) when your house completes and before it can be occupied. For Bangalore anyway, CC *seems* an optional thing for residential construction. Although I was planning to procure CC, I dropped that plan based on architect and contractor's advice. 

Ok, let's get on with the ground floor plan. 

Working drawings:

Here is complete set of drawings architect will provide to you and the contractor to construct ground floor. The actual number of drawings may vary depending on complexity of the house. Here is the types of drawings you should expect

• Wall schedule - Shows what kind of wall, such as plastered, exposed brick, or claddings
• Detailed working drawing - Shows detailed width of each edge within room, height and positioning of windows and doors, and position and dimensions of niches within walls
• Chejja details - For houses that have sloping roof, this one shows position, width and slope of the chejjas. 
• Lintel details - Shows internal structure of the lintel beam, width, height, and measurements on top of each window and doors. 
• Electrical layout - Shows detailed marking of electrical points and switches. This one requires thinking through lifestyle habits and therefore may require a few iterations to settle. 
• Roof slab marking - Shows the height of roof slab, construction markings for laying the beams, and materials to be used for making roof slab. 

Ground floor plan:

Ravi explains process of constructing ground floor. Basically, there are 4 stages: 

1. Lay-down bricks till lintel level

2. Construct lintel beam

3. Lay-down bricks till roof level

4. Lay-down roof

The two new terms I learnt were sill and lintel. For those not from civil engineering background, sill essentially is the bottom-edge of the window and lintel is the top-edge of the window. 

Constructing walls is typically easy as it amounts to laying down bricks (or blocks if you were using cement blocks). The only complexity arises as a result of windows and doors. Hence, contractors first need to clearly mark position for each window and door including their sill and lintel positions. For doors, sill is 0 and typical lintel level is at 7'. For window obviously these vary depending on individual requirements. 

Make sure these markings are clearly visible and do not get washed away. 

Upon completing markings usually next step is to lay down first-course brickwork. What this means is laying down first-layer of brick on plinth across the house. The video below shows first-layer brickwork laid out in the house. When first-course brickwork is completed it is critical to schedule "first course brickwork" inspection. This allows architect to validate width of each wall within house to ensure it is according to the spec. This is the last stage before wall start to build-up and so important to double-check as mistake here can be expensive. 

Wire-cut bricks

In our house we have identified a few areas to have exposed bricks. These are special bricks in a few ways

• They cost more - about 4-5 times more than the average bricks
• They require special skills to lay them down 
• Since these bricks are always exposed (unlike standard bricks which gets plastered upon) these bricks should be handled with extreme care and should not get chipped while laying down. 
• Any electrical points on walls that have wire-cut bricks have to be established and planned for upfront. 
• Any niches within the walls that have wire-cut bricks have to be planned upfront. 

This video shows a glimpse of character wire-cut bricks add. I wasn't a big believer in them initially but seeing them in real has certainly turned me over :-)

Once architect inspects first course brickwork, workers simply repeat the pattern of first-course brickwork by laying further courses of brickwork. Of course they have to keep in mind door and window positions and respective sill levels. However, it is more or less a mundane task and walls actually come-up quite fast. 

This also actually first real exciting stage as spaces come alive and as you walk around the house you start to develop the feel of the house. House is no more an abstract concept or a mere plan on the paper. It is real and alive ! We did notice increased drive within ourselves to go and visit the site everyday to observe every little progress and be a part of action. Following blog posts will share some of the pictures from ground floor construction.