The golden rules of lowering building costs for new home

Whether you are putting up a residential house or building a multi storey-commercial estate, cutting back on expenses in your construction project is a key consideration you should bear in mind.

Also worth noting is that as you make adjustments to cut costs in the face of today’s hard economic realities, hiring highly skilled experts will reduce time, mistakes, and unexpected overheads, thus saving you money, and also ensuring delivery of a high quality job, besides getting your returns on investments much earlier.

Getting qualified people for the job will also ensure that you avoid being penalised by relevant authorities for not meeting certain expectations.

We talked to Mr Mungeria Kirimania, Director, Kiri Consult Ltd. (www.kiriconsult.co.ke) an engineer who has been in the construction industry for 26 years.

What are the advantages of contracting experienced professionals?

The benefits of using a professional registered with an agency is that they are reliable.

These are people with established and well organised firms plus a reputation to keep, therefore they will endeavour to offer the best solutions.

As professionals, they are expected to demonstrate high standards of professionalism in their practices, otherwise they can be penalised by the governing bodies they are registered with. As a result, they will give you a better design, an economic design which optimises your investments, in addition to meeting the market demand.

What are some of the crucial skills that such a professional should have?

First and foremost, they should have a degree in either engineering or architecture. Secondly, they should be registered by their respective bodies and should be able to show their work experience in their area of practice.

Competence is also a crucial skill, whereby the expert should show you some of the works he has done before.

Are there specific designs that cut building costs?

Designs such as concrete and pre-fabricated panels are very economical.

Though concrete may not cut costs in terms of direct expenditure invested construction, it is quite time saving, therefore you will be able to save cost of overhead management time, or rather, you will be able to finish your work faster and start getting your returns earlier.

However, if you are building many units or a bungalow, you could use pre-fabricated panels. This kind of technology is much faster and cheaper for repetitive work.

 How can one go about getting hold of these professionals?

Before engaging the services of a professional engineer, you need to sign an agreement form. These forms are already prepared and are available from governing bodies such as the Association of Consulting Engineers of Kenya. The forms give you all the roles to be played by the engineer so that you get your value for money as builder.

If you’re dealing with  architects, you can find the forms at the Board of Registration of Architects & Quantity Surveyors of Kenya  or at the Ministry of Works. Because the contract form enlists all the roles to be played by the constructors, it enables the clients to maximise the use of professionals, thereby reducing the costs.

The important factors listed are for instance the roles to be performed by the site engineer, for example carrying out checks on the ground conditions and giving a report on that, also when he is supervising, he needs to ensure that the building under construction is strong enough to withstand the load it is meant to carry.

Architects on the other hand will give you a concept where you can review, then you have the chance to see the preliminary designs. If you get all this, your product will be very clear, so you will not be doing changes often.

Changes come with costs since the constructors will charge you whenever you  present any further changes.

The forms also document roles of every expert, so their roles will not clash.

COMPETITIVE BIDDING: How do you go about this and how do you decide which contractor to settle for apart from one who offers the best cost?

Engage a professional to go through the document before presenting it for advertisement. Come up with a pre-qualification to match the capacity of the constructor; if it is a Sh1bn job, you do not want to engage  someone who has done a job of Sh200 million.

Capacity and experience of the bidders are also important. Also check whether they are registered and at what category.

You can also use references, from your friends to identify the best contractor.

 Finishing: What are the hall marks of good finishing? Finishing depends on the location of the building as well as the client you are tragetting. Your finishing should match your clientele’s needs and expectations. You cannot afford low quality finishing in a high-end clientele area because you will not get clients.

Should you have a foreman, and what are the qualities of a good one?

You should have somebody called the clerk of works. He is in charge of the day-to-day running of the site.

Most of the times, the professionals are not always in the field to check the construction; they come only once in a while to check if the reinforcement is well done properly.

If he is an architect, he will check if the tiles bought are what he recommended, but he might not be there when laying of the tiles is being sone, so the clerks of works must have the right academic qualification and experience.

He monitors the constructor’s activities, who could be engaging in activities which are against the law.

You need somebody who will be your eyes on the ground. If carrying out a big project like a multi-storey however, you will need a resident engineer.

***

FYI

HOW TO CALCULATE THE COST

Martin Tairo, the managing director of Architect Kenya Ltd, a property consulting firm, gives basic guidelines on calculating the basic construction  cost.

“The amount it will cost to construct a building depends on a number of factors which, typically, include location, the type of house one is interested in, the finishing, fittings, quality of the building materials, site geography, among other factors,” he says.

However, Mr Tairo, an architect, notes that the most basic factor that one should take into consideration is the size (area) of space to be built on. “The easiest way that one can estimate how much their building will cost is by consulting someone who has recently built a similar house in the area. It is easy to find such a coincidence in housing projects since they are all similar in size, space provision and finishes are also similar.”

To get a rough figure of the cost, take the price of the home, deduct the price of the land and divide that amount by the size of the house (measured in square feet).

It is advisable to use several recently built homes in the area that are similar to the one you wish to build to ensure that you get a fairly accurate estimate of the cost of construction.

“The point here is that if a house is selling for Sh2 million while the price of land it is built on is Sh1 million, then the construction cost will be approximately Sh1 million,” says Mr Tairo.

However, for other types of buildings whose designs differ from those in the vicinity, the Institute of Quantity Surveyors of Kenya has developed guidelines for the major towns by picking recently completed projects, measuring their sizes in square metres and establishing their actual construction costs.

—By Silas Apollo