Things to Keep in Mind while Shifting Materails with Gang team

A few days back, a new construction building near my house shifted materials with a Gang/Machine to the 2nd floor RCC.

This method is what I recommend for 2nd-floor and above-floor construction.

They were shifting Concrete Blocks for the construction of the 3rd floor.

I remember once my dad and I roughly calculated the cost of material shifting with the Gang team and with manual labour. We noticed both costs are almost the same.

So, going with the Gang team, you lose nothing.

But with a gang team, you should know a few good and bad things.

Good things –

1) You don’t need to watch the gang team. They will shift whatever material they want to shift without monitoring

2) As they use machines, it’s a faster way to shift materials

3) If all construction materials are readily available, construction speed also increases

Bad things –

1) Blocks can get damaged

2) If you don’t plan properly, you will slow down construction work

3) Stress on RCC is something you should keep in mind

The good thing is there is some workaround to prevent those bad things.

The building, which was shifting blocks, made 2nd and 3rd mistakes. 1st mistake, I cannot see it from home, so I cannot confirm that.

After seeing those mistakes, I added a Material Shifting Tips at 4.69 section inside my Building Contractor Guide.

In this section, I shared a few things you should keep in mind before and while doing material shifting with the gang team.

Download the latest guide to see the updated content if you have access.

Ok my daughter came now. I need to play cartoon on my PC now.

Arun

My Consultation requests

Got the below email from one of my All-Access Pass customers few days back:


Hello Arun

In one of the post I saw that you have given guidance to one of the user on a physical meeting. I am also planning to build a house which is west and north corner plot and I got plan from an architect but I just want to show you the plan and take the recommendations. Kindly let me know if it’s possible for a meeting. You can charge for the consultation. Kindly let me know. I strongly believe that your recommendations will definitely help me.

Regards

Pratap Bxxxx


In one of the post I saw that you have given guidance to one of the user on a physical meeting.

Yes…. yes… 🙂

I remember that.

One guy did call me to take guidance physically… I informed them I would do it at a cost.

The guy immediately agreed and informed me in full Josh that he would happily pay more than what I asked. Seriously!

I Said okay and told him to prepare his questions and fix one day we would meet.

After that, I didn’t hear anything from that guy. I don’t follow up on such requests.

I guess the user probably dropped meeting me. We never met yet.

The good thing is, this guy didn’t waste my time that much. I guess we spoke for 5 to 10 minutes on a Phone call, and after that, we never communicated.

I had another similar incident happen a few days back.

One guy requested 1 hr of my time for consultation. This user has tried asking me twice already. Once, a few months before, I said no.

He contacted me again a few days back.

This time, I said yes.

I shared that my fee for 1 hr consultation is ₹5000. He also agreed, but he didn’t make payment after wasting some time.

This was also cancelled. I didn’t follow up as usual.

So, based on my previous experience and my personal preference, consultation is not something worth it to me at this moment.

Maybe it may also not be worth it to other party as well, based on my Fees.

I am also planning to build a house which is west and north corner plot and I got plan from an architect but I just want to show you the plan and take the recommendations.

Good, you consulted Architect.

I hope you already went through my guides. I’m sharing all my knowledge with my All-Access Pass. (still not yet completed)

I recommend you to go through those guides multiple times and apply them to avoid making many mistakes and save money in your house construction process.

Kindly let me know if a meeting is possible. You can charge for the consultation. Kindly let me know. I strongly believe that your recommendations will definitely help me.

Thanks for Trusting me.

It definitely means a lot. That, too, someone who paid for my product and asking for consultation is not something I take easily.

Based on my past consultation time-wasting request experience and my personal preference, I have to say no.

Moreover, My charges are quite high. I’m not sure I can deliver the valve for what I charge.

Charging less is also not worth considering as my personal time is involved, and it’s not scalable.

So, from both user’s points of view, I would say no for now.

A big fight for a silly reason

This Saturday, a big fight happened backside of my house.

This is because a guy parked his car on the main road… almost no 4-wheelers can pass.

The time was around 11… or 11.30 pm, I guess.

Another car from the same place came. He started pressing the horn repeatedly.

After 10 minutes, the guy who had parked his car on the main road came. Both started talking.

Talking went to talking bad words.

Soon, the fight between the two guys started to severe.

At 12 am, rain also started.

I was watching this scene from my bedroom’s backside window.

The scene looks exactly like a fight scene in a movie. Some neighbours came outside their house and started watching the scene.

To my surprise… none of them showed interest in stopping the fight. I felt a little bad seeing the situation.

The guy who parked the car on the road and that guy’s family members were also not in their home at that moment.

His wife came outside and tried to control him but failed. Then she called his sister, who is staying on the same road.

His sister and her husband came running but could not manage the fight immediately.

After almost 1.30 hr fight, it was somewhat controlled.

This guy never parks vehicles like that. But his road was blocked due to the Ganesha festival, so he parked on the road itself.

Just for a small reason… some big fight happens.

Luckily, this guy’s sister and her husband came and controlled the fight.

In house construction, most users face at least a few disputes during their construction time.

We had a big verbal fight with our electrical contractor in our first building.

In our second building, we had zero verbal fights.

The reason?

It could be a good time.

Or

We learned a lot of lessons in our first construction and never repeated any such mistakes in our second construction.

Multiple differences come between us and our contractors. However, all such differences have been handled successfully with the help of my house construction tracking system.

A tried and tested method to control any disputes between you and any contractor.

If you need to learn that skill yourself, head to:

https://houseconstructionguide.com/house-construction-tracking-system/

Engineer measurement to easy to understand way

When your engineer gives your building plan, they give it on paper containing dimensions, which usually cannot be felt in most cases.

If you want to experience room dimensions live practically, what I recommend is…

Ask labourers to build one course of masonry (one bricklayer) according to the engineer’s plan during construction time. Now, go and walk and feel physically to experience the room’s size live.

If you find something you need to change, make changes and experience first. If you feel good, then proceed with the remaining construction/masonry work.

Don’t make changes too much after construction work is already done.

It’s simply a waste of materials and labour charges.

Keep in mind you cannot make changes however you need. You can only change in some areas, not all the places.

The reason is that the engineer plans pillars and beams where required. You cannot move walls randomly…

If you are in doubt, you can always ask the building contractor or engineer before making changes. They will tell if it can be done without issue or not.

When we checked the room size like this, we made our hall a little bigger than the engineer’s plan without affecting any load issues.

Not only that…

We made some minor alterations here and there without affecting the engineering plan too much.

If you need to get such ideas, you must do this one brick construction and experience and think in that spot.

The more family members, contractors, friends present on that day, better the idea you can get.

There is no better suggestion than this tip to experience room sizes.

Most important, valuable, and common mistakes realted to construction are shared in my building contractor guide.

These mistakes are like make once, and suffer longer time kind of…

Arun

Think rental income before planning

One thing that I like apart from my online business is collecting rent.

Although it comes with its own risk. But if you ask me, the reward always overtakes the risk in the rental business.

Every month, by the 10th, all rent is automatically deposited in my bank account without fail.

People who fail to send rent are charged extra for late payment. So again, there will be a reward for that.

I still remember when we first rented our property, which was around 5500rs.

Now we collect rent up to ₹8500 based on how many persons (students) stay (not PG).

Rent actively rises every year. Ours is the student market. That, too, out-of-state students studying in college means you can expect good rent.

So it’s really a good income you can depend on.

If your site is also located in such an area, do think about rental property and its income.

It’s really a good source to depend on.

If you are tight on budget, just inform the engineer in future you will build another 2 or 3 floors and ask him to give a plan accordingly.

Once you get the budget, you can reconstruct & add more floors on the same building.

That’s what we did in our first building. First, we built the ground and first floor. After seeing rental returns, we added the 2nd and 3rd floors again.

We are able to add more floors because we planned for the G+3 floor at the time of planning itself.

If you are good at marketing & technology, you can also reduce the vacancy period.

That means more ₹₹₹₹.

I follow my own system to keep my rental units full always. I will share all my experiments and learning at IndianLandlord.com.

I’m not very active there yet.

I will soon when I have something to share.

If you plan to start or already have rental properties in India, join me at IndianLandlord.com to receive landlording tips.

Arun

a shady laptop battery seller

The day before yesterday, my brother and I ordered a laptop battery for his laptop.

We ordered from a nearby local shop as no proper battery was available on the Amazon site.

Most don’t keep stock of the exact laptop battery model, so we need to book to get a product by paying in advance.

We booked by paying a full advance of ₹3,000, and the battery was delivered the next day.

Went and collected the battery.

When we returned home and tried charging it, it was not working.

When we properly checked the box and battery, we found that it was a very old and rejected battery they gave in a box.

No proper seal… they closed the battery box with brown tape instead of a company sticker.

The manually written date on the battery shows 6 months before the date.

We got suspicious, so we immediately went to the shop and enquired. The shop owner is arguing with us and telling some random story.

No issues.

Our main complaint is the battery is not charging and not working.

We showed him.

He also tried a few things and told sometimes the laptop may have issues. I will order a replacement battery tomorrow; if that also doesn’t work, you need to check your laptop for any issues, as he started telling me.

We… who had already paid in full advance, started feeling like something was wrong.

Luckily, we have another laptop (mine) battery that fits the laptop, and its laptop is charging well.

Without informing him, we took that laptop battery to show him if he said it was a laptop issue.

This time, the replacement battery came with all original seals and the latest date on the battery.

As soon as we saw it, we learned that it was going to work. When we installed it, it started working.

No more drama in the shop. Thankfully, our issue was solved easily.

We didn’t bother arguing with the shop owner about the first battery being rejected one.

This is the first time we tried buying a laptop battery. So, we learned some lessons, and we will not make the same mistake again.

Similarly, while doing your house construction the first time, home builders make many more mistakes unknowingly…

I shared all my learnings, mistakes, suggestions, etc., inside my guides.

If this interests you, then my HCG All-Access Pass is something you can learn from my mistakes.

Arun

1 more floor on 20 year old building, is it ok?

Yesterday, I got the following question from one of my customers:

Hi Arun, my house is a 20 year old constructed property. It’s a 2bhk independent house with 1200 sq. ft in ground floor. 

Do you think it wise to construct the 1st floor and terrace with a pent house now and give the ground floor for rent?

I am going through all your materials and it’s really helpful.

Regards,
Dileep

Read more

how to plan during rainy days

Today it’s raining here…

If you are constructing your house during rain, it causes a lot of disturbance, especially during plastering time.

I remembered one of my personal incidents during rain. Due to limited knowledge, we did not plan properly during the construction of our first building. 

We were simply going with the standard construction flow.

Read more