As construction cost
rises due to attendant rise in prices of building materials, the trend of
building houses directly on plain ground has been observed to be on the increase
especially by unscrupulous developers and contractors. Having carried out an
independent monitoring of construction activities in some areas in the Ajah
axis of Lagos lately, it became obvious that in order to save cost people have
resorted to constructing buildings directly on plain grounds.
The awkward idea been adopted
in most of the cases under study is to sand-fill the land, level and compact it
with the use of machines and the construct a reinforced concrete strip
foundation directly over it without recourse to minimum
construction/engineering standards.
They do so very quickly so that before any
of the regulatory bodies saddled with the responsibility of building control
gets wind of their ill act, they are already on super-structure level at which
point it is burdensome to ascertain how the foundation was actually built.
On a
particular site, using this vague method the entire foundation including the
ground floor slab was put up in one week and by the next week, they were
already building up the walls and frame. Dishonest developers thrive in such
indecent acts and sell or lease these buildings to unsuspecting prospective
buyers who in-turn occupy them or cause others to do so by way of lease/rent
too. There is no consideration for lives and properties put at risk of an
imminent collapse even as some of the buildings observed are already exhibiting
symptoms of instability and sick building syndrome pre-occupancy.
Five years
post-occupancy, the building over-settles (or sink) and then tilt in a
particular direction. When asked, some of these developers claim that before
there will be any major issue with the building they would have recouped the
returns on their investment and its left to the new owner to do a repair by way
of underpinning as the need arises. To know that some greedy professionals have
joined the bandwagon of quacks in delivering such poor structures is
condemnable. This act should not be encouraged in any form.
Here are some structural
considerations; normally after leveling and compacting operation has been
carried out on a sand-filled land it still remains a made-up ground. Although the
land becomes stiff at sub-surface levels, this doesn’t in anyway erase the fact
that the underlying bad soil (or peat) remains intact and retains its poor
attributes. Peats are highly compressible soils and will naturally compress
upon the impact of load. As this happen, the building will settle
indifferentially, especially during seasonal changes and mass movement of the
earth; which occurs at various times of the year. Such structural anomaly often leads to poor
stability of the building and eventually a collapse if unable to bear the load,
especially for single or multi-storied structures.
Rising cost of building materials should not be a yardstick to adopt poor construction methods in the construction of buildings and estate infrastructure anywhere. The authorities should not turn a blind eye to such activities that jeopardizes or threatens the lives of people as well as the overall health of the built environment. Project owners and developers should not connive with contractors or builders to manipulate well established engineering prinicples. It is important to select a good contractor for your projects. Yes, there is room for adopting cost-saving methodologies like the use of dry construction methods, cold brick construction, etc but bad construction methods is never the way to go.
