Cost saving tips for conventional construction method

  • Decide on your budget – You can categorize a property either as an economy house, average house, and the premium house. Low budget construction will correspond with the economy housing category. It features basic design and include the minimal features and architectural design.
  • Choose the perfect plot – Your house will be as good as the plot you are building on and hence you must select the right plot for your house.
  • Select the plot that is near to public transport areas. Select the ones that have clear access to your house.
  • If the house plot does not have an access road to it, then you might have to spend additional money to create the required access to your home and this will be an added cost for your construction.
  • While selecting the plot also take into consideration the availability of utility services like municipal water supply, electricity, gas connection, drainage facilities, garbage disposal, etc.
  • The plot must be square or rectangle in size so that you can make use of the entire area of the plot to build your house.
  • Select the plot that has no steep slopes or other natural anomalies that have to be corrected before commencing the construction.
  • Take into account the level of the plot concerning the plots on all sides.
  • Select the plot with a stable sub-soil structure.
  • Go with the Perfect Design – Your new construction must be based on a good plan and a well-laid outbuilding design.
  • The building plan must be the basis for your construction and hence it must be prepared by well experienced Civil Engineer or an Architect so that the plan covers every aspect of your house construction.
  • When your construction is handled by an experienced professional he will be able to procure the materials at best prices and help with your low-cost house construction.
  • Apart from this, design your floor plan in a rectangular or square form so that it has a lesser perimeter and consumes up to 20 to 30 % lesser building materials.
  • It will be wise to opt for the traditional designs as it will enable you to escape the challenges of extravagant expenses that you will have to incur for executing trendy plans.
  • Choose house orientation according to wind direction and sunlight availability
  • Build rooms which are necessary
  • Build minimalistic kitchen and bathroom
  • Reduce plinth area by using thinner wall concept.Ex.15 cms thick solid concrete block wall.
  • Use locally available material in an innovative form like soil cement blocks in place of burnt brick.
  • Use energy efficiency materials which consume less energy like concrete block in place of burnt brick.
  • Use environmentally friendly materials which are substitute for conventional building components like use R.C.C. Door and window frames in place of wooden frames.
  • Pre-plan every component of a house and rationalize the design procedure for reducing the size of the component in the building.
  • By planning each and every component of a house the wastage of materials due to demolition of the unplanned component of the house can be avoided.
  • Each component of the house shall be checked whether if it’s necessary, if it is not necessary, then that component should not be used.
  • Select the method of construction and construction materials being wise and considerate.
  • Foundation of a building is 3-4 feet deep in the soil, but we can alternatively make it up to 2 feet in depth for normal soils. This saves a large amount of total cost. In other delicate or soft soils, such a cost reduction cannot be executed very well.
  • It is suggested to adopt 1 ft. height above ground level for the plinth and may be constructed with a cement mortar of 1:6. The plinth slab of 12cm can be adopted instead of 15cm.
  • Walling can be construct using wire cut bricks which are immersed in water for 24 hours and then shall be used for the walls
  • By adopting Rat trap bonding of brick masonry compared to traditional English or Flemish bond masonry, it is possible to reduce in the material cost of bricks by 25% and about 10to 15% in the masonry cost. By adopting rattrap bond method one can create aesthetically pleasing wall surface and plastering can be avoided.
  • By using concrete block masonry the wall thickness can be reduced from 20 cms to 15 Cms. Concrete block masonry saves mortar consumption, speedy construction of wall resulting in higher output of labour.
  • It is suggested not to use wood for doors and windows and in its place concrete or steel section frames shall be used for achieving saving in cost up to 30 to 40%.
  • For shutters commercially available Aluminum, steel, fiber or wooden practical boards etc., shall be used for reducing the cost by about 25%.
  • By adopting brick jelly work and precast components effective ventilation could be provided to the building and also the construction cost could be saved up to 50% over the window components.
  • Plastering can be avoided for AAC block, wire cut brick, Porotherm block.
  • Normally a (12.5 cms) thick R.C.C. slab is used for roofing of residential buildings. By adopting filler slab the construction cost of roofing can be reduced by about 20 to 25%. But there occur leakage in future