Factors that Contributes to Cost of Building Projects in Nigeria
By Emmanuel Omion
(1) Location
The location of a building inadvently contributes a lot to the high/low cost of
building. The Nigerian case for class has a long way of affecting cost of
building generally, especially Lagos.
What happens in our urban areas is class segregation, a case whereby you were
once poor and fits for the slums and outskirts or other areas that are less
prime, and suddenly your economic purse changes, the first thing that happens to
an average Nigerian is to relocate. Why? because he believes that is where is
class is, the only place fits for his children's education, his business e.t.c
There is the general belief that when you move among the high and mighty
yourself, you get more connected to where money is, and the probability of
getting contracts is there. But people fail to realise that you can connect to
anybody and makes friend more easily in today's ICT age without relocating.
Hence you see when a place is designated as Government Reserved Area, what
usually happens is the influx of the rich and this turns even a terrible and
non-developed land atimes to prime lands overnight just because of class and
oppressive nature of the rich. The building artesans/workers ends up charging
more when you are building in those area because of the influx of moneybags. So
you will end up spending more money and you won't get the land cheap either.
(2) Type or Nature of Soil
This is where a lot of people gets it wrong and shoots themselves on the foot
when planning on building projects. Soil types, strong, mild or very strong
generally affects the overall costs of the building.
soils are classified under five main headings.
1) Rocks, which include igneous rocks, limestones and sandstones
2) Cohesive soils, such as clays where the constituent particles are closely
integrated and stick together.
3) Non-cohesive soils, such as gravels and sands, whose strength is largely
dependent on the grading and closeness of the particles.
4) Peat which is decayed vegetable matter of low strength with a high moisture
and acidic content.
5) Dump site or made ground which may contain waste of one kind or another and
can cause settlement or stability problem.
When building your house the nature of soil on your site will go a long way in
affecting your purse. Find out if the land is the good loadbearing type and you
will cut cost. People digging your foundation will not need to dig so far, and
foundation concrete you will also use will be minimal in comparison to weaker
soils. Dump site is the worst place to use because you will need to remove the
debris, else your foundation will be affected and this will cost you more. The
stronger your type of soil the lesser the amount of money you will spend.
The topography or level of your land also is very important for you to spend
less, in a case where one portion of your site is very low to the other, surely
this will take you more money to manage in terms of either block or split-level
constructions.
Make sure you get to the exact portion of the land you are being proposed to,
because if you by oversight or carelessness buy a damp site, you will need to
effectively drain the water to increase the stability of the ground, to avoid
surface flooding, and to avoid dampness of the surface of the inner walls and
basements, and also to remove humidity in the immediate vicinity of the
building.
I have fallen into a mistake like this before so I know what it may cost you if
you do same. Firstly, you may have to fill the land and spend more money, though
when you were buying the land in question you paid so less and you were given
the impression, that you won’t spend more. But you will regret unless you are so
rich, I have seen a first hand experience on this, that is why when buying a
land is better you buy in the rainning season to give you the opportunity of
accessing the site in question. A client once bought a land so cheap but in a
very low area, which makes his land a runway for water drainage, you need to
witness it when rain is falling yourself, then you might appreciate what I am
talking about, strong water currents mind you can overturn a house.
A waterlogged ground will also require reinforcement or iron and concrete which
ordinary bungalow in a strong and clear area will not need.
(3) Access to infrastructure
Proximity of land to good infrastructures like road, water, electricity and
others goes a long way in affecting the cost of building a house. You may not
know, if a tipper can not get access to your site, you will spend 50% of the
money you could have used in bringing materials to your site on labour that will
carry them. For instance carrying blocks to the site where is actually needed.
If water is close that is also an advantage. But this also have is own negative
effect on cost of land, but at the long run it is better to buy where all these
amenities are in place.
Note: consider the cost of running your own pipe, electric poles and grading or
clearing the road.
(4) Traffic Access
The human and vehicular access just as explained above can be of great benefit
and the influx of people to places like that can also leads to high cost of
construction.
(5) Taste, type and Size of Design
High taste demands high cost, your class or status may most likely reflects on
the kind of building you want, the type of electrical fittings you want in your
house to cater for your utilities, air-conditioner, e.t.c your plumbing fittings
to cater for jacuzzi, spas, bathtub, swimming pool e.t.c and other fittings for
your comfort and convenience may cause your building cost to rise.
The type of building entails either it is a simple 2,3 or 4 bedroom bungalow or
it has to be a duplex/manssionnete. Generally, it costs more to build storey
buildings because of the cost of completing concrete floors to just acquiring
more lands and building on them for the same numbers of room.
In terms of size the rooms size, the kitchen and other purpose area sizes may
even make an ordinary 2 bedroom flat for you to be costlier than another man's 4
bedroom flat. Then talk of additional utility rooms like study, game rooms,
prayer room, extra living e.t.c.
(6) The Menace of Omo Onile (Land Owners)
There are cases of “Omo Onile” trying to outstretch the buyer even when you have
paid them their illegal entitlements. Some can go as high as making you
repurchase your land again altogether. What of the selling of Government
acquired Lands to unsuspecting buyers, this is very, very common in Lagos, God
saves you if the Government wakes up one day and decides to ask for their land,
you will count yourself lucky if they only ask you to pay or repurchase the
land. What if they ask you to evacuate altogether and your building completely
bulldozed.
(7) Proximity to Institutions
Educational, Health and Religious institutions dots our landscape but what most
don’t realize is that they invariably raises the cost of getting lands in their
localities, because of influx of people going in and out of these various
institutions, commercial activities are always affected positively, thereby
bringing business opportunities to those in the locality. An obvious example is
Canaanland Ota in Ogun State. You can see the visible increase of properties in
this once a forest suddenly turned to haven of investors, and buildings of all
manners springing out.
(8) Commercial Viability of the Area in which Building is Constructed
(9) Quality of the priofessionals and artesans involved
If you use quacks for your building project,yes at presence you will spend less
but be aware that before the house is completed or after ,you will spend much
more if you refused to use a professional. Talk of the cost of maintaining your
house after parking in,the quality of the design that an architect could have
easily given to you cheaply ,what of the structural disposition of the building
that a civil or structural engineer could have given you for extra peanuts or a
quantity surveyor that will cost your building and knows if you are heading for
the rock ,or the builder that would have made sure your drawing plans is
properly represented or executed and standards are not compromised .Get a
professional in the field and let him recommend an artesan –bricklayer carpenter
e.t.c to you or you get one by yourself or one that was recommended for you .you
then must make sure you check his old jobs and confirm that it is good’or tell
your professional to follow you and access the persons past job, he should be
able to point to one.
(10) Materials
building materials also contribute immensely to the quality and cost of house
immensely ;from what you used in foundation to the materials of roofing ;there
is always an array of prices . Even cement bags are of different prices ;What of
the blocks ;they also depends on quality; some can sell theirs #10 to#20
difference from others because of the rich cement mixture ratio and the type of
sound, while others could just double the price of lower quality ones. For
example "BECO BLOCKS" price is usually double the common ones around in Lagos.
I guess you know even in roof there are categories also from the ordinary
asbestors roof to the modern aluminium the prices always varies.
(11) Quality of finishes
there are different types of finishing which also raises an issue of taste and
money to be spent .Even painting atimes can cost more than what is required to
buy major materials in another persons building. With the advent of more
technological breakthrough in building accessories, where you can now have
bullet proof doors and windows with metal detectors, with furniture companies
coming out each day with new innovations, there is bound to take into serious
considerations the cost of finishes in overall costing of your house.
(12) Aesthetics
The beauty atimes goes along with the complexity of a design, this you may not
know affects the cost of building a lot, especially when the walls of building
are not aligning and the roof are also complex this may raise the overall cost
of the building.
(13) Time or Duration
When a building is taking long time to complete, there is the tendency of
spending more at the long run. Consider materials that would have gotten spoilt
due to long delay of use on site, what about woods that are left for rain to be
beaten, cement that have gone bad, there may be need for some replacements on
site anytime you go back to continue after a long lay off.
(14) Inflation
Unstable economic conditions and rise in fuel products also affects building
indirectly by multiplier effects. Remember vehicles that uses fuel are needed to
bring materials to site.
(15) Security
When the place is close to a police station or is noted to be generally very
secured, houses in this area will always go high up.
Omion Emmanuel is an architect that has great passion for online marketing, He
uses the medium to teach young Nigerians on how to effectively build,manage and
supervise their building projects. He is more at home with construction industry
of his native country Nigeria. He specializes in Residentials and Bank building
design and Construction.He is best called Nigerian online building management
pro.http://www.buildingcontractorsecrets.com