Almost always, the excitement in, and joy of building a house becloud the sense of prospective homeowners to a point where they fail to consider some critical steps that need to be taken to ensure that the building/ housing they want to erect is sustainable.
Building experts advise that before embarking on any building project, there is need to conduct site investigation to determine surface and sub-surface water condition of the site.
According to them, this is very critical especially with the high incidence of building collapse in major cities of Nigeria.
Akindele Apata, director, Engineering Services, Lagos State Materials Testing Laboratory, says that in order to erect a sustainable building, builders need to understand the behaviour of the soil, pointing out that moist clay is completely different from dry ones.
Apata explains that moist clay is a material of many moods, advising that builders should “understand the underlying structure more closely in the right way in which case it can be a faithful servant, while understanding the wrong clay and making wrong use of it can turn it into an exciting tyrant.”
He said at a housing fair in Lagos that a lot of money could be saved if explorations are made before a site is purchased, explaining that such explorations which could be made through visual inspection or geological survey may reveal foundations undesirable for the type of structure to be erected. “For a building to be sustainable, all the component materials have to be tested, explaining that the aim of the testing is to ensure that the workman does not fall below a certain specified standard thereby limiting the overall variation in the quality of the materials used,” he said.
The basic ingredient used in construction, he informed, is the concrete which is a combination of water, fine aggregate, coarse aggregate and cement, advising that “before mixing concrete, water should be tested for salinity, hardness, softness and purity; fine aggregate should equally be tested for salinity; coarse aggregate should also be tested for abrasion, compressive strength, and cement should be tested for initial and final setting time and also for fitness”.
This year’s edition of the Lagos Housing Fair, which opened Monday, April 30 with strong emphasis on home-grown technology for the manufacturing of building materials, had as theme ‘Indigenous Technology and Housing Delivery’. It was jointly orgainsed by Eko Radio FM and Beachland Resources Limited.
Also, in her speech at the fair, Apata explained that the fair was intended to direct the nation’s attention to the need to promote technologies that are home-made.
“We are convinced that Nigeria should look inwards and take advantage of its rich natural resources, adding that the Fair is also meant to allow stakeholders take stock of all issues of housing development, particularly as they relate to indigenous technology. Among such critical issues are construction methodology, building design, usage of materials, human capital development, and research and development,” she said.
