mistakes

Real life Rain lesson that I learned from Yesterday rain…

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Today at 10 Am, I came to my home office to start work.

I noticed something.

I called my Dad to discuss about it. We both went and verified the root cause of that issue.

Later, we learned that it had happened due to yesterday’s rain.

We went back to the first house to have breakfast. While my dad and I were discussing about the issue, my mom also listened to our conversation about the rain problem that we noticed recently.

She also shared something similar she noticed in one of our neighbour’s houses a few days back (as it’s raining now).

I updated my Rainy Days guide after noticing our and our neighbour’s issues.

If you have access, please download the latest version to learn from my and our neighbour’s mistakes.

I added images to explain the concept that happened in our house.

Regarding our neighbour’s mistake, I just shared a guide to avoid that mistake so you can be careful during your house construction.

The updated sections are in 2.7, Example 2, and 2.9 in the Rainy Days Guide.

No matter who you hire for your house construction work, it’s your responsibility to properly take care during house construction time.

Or else you are the one who pays the price later.

That’s why I’m sharing all my lessons inside my guides so smart people who invested in my guides can learn and avoid making my mistakes in their building.

Whatever problem we noticed in our building is mostly fixable… but in our neighbour’s case, it costs a lot to fix permanently. That’s why they do manual work every time it rains to prevent further damage to the building.

For saying “yes,” now I’m attending calls

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Yesterday, a tenant requested that I collect his Flipkart order, which was supposed to be delivered yesterday.

As he went to his home, I said I would collect it.

For saying “yes” to that request, now I’m attending all his customer support calls from Flipkart.

The WakeFit mattress that was supposed to be delivered yesterday has not yet been delivered.

The guy who ordered probably raised complaints after complaints sitting in his home.

Every time he raises complaints, the support team calls me. He probably shared my number on Flipkart, I guess.

Whenever I receive calls, I am told I’m not the right person to speak with about that order, but I still receive support calls.

That too in Malayalam language.

I told them I didn’t understand the Malayalam language, and the support team told sir it was a Malayalam support team kind of response.

Today is also over, and the product has not yet been delivered.

I’m still unsure how many complaints the guy has to go through and how many calls I need to attend to say Yes to help this guy.

The point is…

When constructing your house, you get similar help requests from a few labourers.

If you say yes to their request, they repeatedly ask such requests. Your helping nature can sometimes backfire on you.

So remember this before saying yes to any help request.

I remember a few labourers who collected cash from us, saying they would return in a few days… but that return never happened.

We also never bothered to ask those.

Never say yes to such requests if you are not ready to lose such an amount.

These are all small stuff. I’m fine losing a few here and there for labourers.

When you are constructing a house, many transactions happen in a day, and some transactions may go unnoticed. Which could potentially cause a loss someday.

You should maintain a proper system to track all such transactions to avoid such loss.

If you think an Excel sheet is fine… think again. Excel sheets are never the right system to track all of those. Especially in house construction time.

You will understand its issues if you start using Excel sheets in a real environment.

Excel sheets should be part of the system. Not a whole system.

If you want to keep a proper system to manage all the transactions, here is what I used to do in my second house construction.

I explained all the tools and how I used them during my second house construction in my House Construction Tracking System guide.

This is a guide that everyone should follow during their house construction time – for easier management of finances and protection from contractor issues.

The struggle that I witnessed during rain

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Today and yesterday, near my home, there were a two functions.

You might already be aware of the rain conditions currently in Bangalore. For the past few days, it has been raining heavily.

Both their functions are already scheduled. I got to witness owners struggle in making arrangements for the function.

For one function, they arranged a dinner facility inside the parking area. They kept all the other tables outside the gate, using only 4.

And the house is full of wet everywhere… They kept 4 or 6 mats outside before entering their house to prevent wetness inside the house.

A few guests who came for the function also stood in the parking to avoid the rain.

That’s a story of one function.

And another function that is scheduled today? They have a little different story…

This function is a little bigger than the one which happened yesterday. So, preparation for this function started with yesterday’s rain.

When the cook came, it was raining heavily.

The owner arranged an outside space to prepare food. Because of heavy rain, first owner diverted all the water entering the selected space by digging the earth.

The next challenge is… arranging a shamiyana tent to protect against wind and rain.

As it’s raining, they have to arrange a special waterproof tent.

This is the first time I saw a waterproof tent being used. This waterproof tent did a wonderful job protecting the cook from rain. I was seeing all these from my house.

Somehow, both owners managed and finished the function.

These are all the headaches you will face if you arrange your housewarming function during rainy times. Make sure you keep functioning in the non-rainy seasons.

Or else, on those function days, you will face a hell of a lot of problems for sure.

Suppose you are still in the construction phase. In that case, I have one important suggestion you should implement to have a better experience in your house during the rainy season.

Which I explained in my Rainy Days guide. (no dedicated sales page or more infomation, sorry!)

If it’s raining in your area, I recommend reading this guide today so you can experience the feeling and avoid making similar mistakes in your construction building.

When constructing for the first time, these points are easy to ignore. That’s why I’m writing these guides so others can be aware of them and avoid making mistakes.

I have written this email while sipping hot coffee and listening to the rain sound outside my home. What better topic should I talk about apart from Rain, isn’t it?

Repainting work going on in rental property

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Today, I was handling one of our rental property repainting tasks.

Feeling a little tired going and coming from the 3rd floor to the 1st floor. Luckily, I got a good painter who handled all the tasks from cleaning to painting.

All we need to do is show the work, bring the painting materials and remember if he missing some task. Thats all.

He handles the rest of the work.

Anytime repainting work comes, I check if any small pending work is left during construction time and execute such work now.

When you’re doing construction, it’s really difficult to notice small things. Because you’re quite busy with a lot of work already…

You should also be thinking about finishing as soon as possible. So, any small stuff goes unnoticed.

That’s why when repair tasks come in rental property, I check small things I couldn’t give attention to during construction and ask my painter to fix such issues.

When verifying such small attention to detail, I noticed Our Painting Contractors didn’t paint any outside window grill.

Which we cannot easily identify…

I need to put my mobile or any mirror outside the window to see if the outside window grill painting is done.

I didn’t notice that at construction time. Now I see that.

It’s difficult to paint the outside grill without a painter’s rope. But still, I asked my painter to do that painting from inside the house as much as possible.

No matter what, some mistakes always happen.

Another issue I’m actively watching in all my rental property is shared inside my Electrical Work Guide at 5.63.

I also got that issue in this unit as well. Once my brother comes, we will go and fix that issue.

It’s an important thing many electricians don’t care… but you have to.

I have a few things to share about rental property construction. I will write a guide (paid) once I’m in the mood.

Arun

Contractors are not ready to sign the Agreement

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Today, I was chatting with one of my customers on WhatsApp. The customer questioned me…

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In my experience, no contractor signs an agreement before the work is assigned to him, do you agree?

And how can this situation be handled?

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I was a little confused about what this customer was saying. So I suggested:

First, have an oral discussion. Once You and the Contractors agree to the Contract Terms, Both sign the Written Agreement and Start the Work as I suggested.

To which the customer replied:

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They don’t sign after verbal discussion and refuse to take that work

They are okay working without written agreement

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A clear RED FLAG.

Now, I clearly understood what my customer was saying. None of the contractors are ready to sign a written agreement before starting work.

After listening, I was shocked to see the fact.

At least I never got such a contractor here. Moreover, the customer I was chatting with has done good research and is aware of a few scams and how they work.

Based on a chat discussion I had with this customer, he is quite knowledgeable.

Because of his knowledge, he is struggling to find an ideal contractor for his house construction. (When you know some facts its difficult to cheat/scam and red flag contractors also shows less interest in such projects).

Most contractors he encountered were not ready to sign the agreement before starting the work. (He knew what would happen if he started work without proper written agreement).

Now he said… “Then hunting contractors is a big pain.”

If you pick the right contractors in the beginning, the rest of the construction job becomes much easier.

Really… even if you took 2 or 3 months to find the right contractors, it’s still worth it.

Reason? You won’t face headaches, verbal fights or issues while at the time of construction. Speak to someone who has gone through it so you will understand better.

If you also come across similar situations, don’t work with contractors who are not ready to sign before starting work.

Once they start work without proper agreement, it’s really difficult to deal with when issues happen.

One my good suggestions to all first-time house construction users is to implement what I shared inside my House Construction Tracking System Guide to easily deal with contractors when any issue happens.

Arun

Things to Keep in Mind while Shifting Materails with Gang team

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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

A big fight for a silly reason

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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/

₹2,78,760 Saved by Following this One Tip

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Today, I got up at 5:30 Am, which rarely happens.

I read one chapter on a copywriting book and turned on my desktop to start my regular online work.

As it’s an early morning without any disturbance, I decided to create a few simple image ads to start advertising my Building Contractor Guide.

I took one important tip and created a Facebook image ad.

It’s a very valuable tip, but in that guide, I explained that concept in only a few lines.

Which buyers can easily ignore, or that point may go unnoticed.

I don’t want that to happen.

Because, if they properly implement that tip… They could save a lot.

Which is what I needed.

I need to help as many customers as possible by guiding them correctly as much as possible.

So, I decided to do something about that tip.

From this afternoon onwards, I was working on expanding the concept so readers can understand it and its importance easily.

Just understanding is not enough…

They need to implement this in their building to actually save.

So, to take them seriously, I took our second building’s real details and showed all the calculations of how this tip helped save money in our case.

After some calculations, it came to around ₹2,78,760.

Your savings could change depending on your construction budget.

I believe showing the actual number with real data calculation helps users take that tip seriously.

If you have access to the Building Contractor Guide, please download the updated guide (I keep updating, sorry!) to see the tip with real calculation at #3.13.

I also added another tip to safeguard yourself from accidents at 3.16.

If you don’t have access, read more details about my Building Contractor Guide here. If it makes sense, you can purchase it.

Get products delivered fast without any follow-up

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The last rice bag also getting over…

We needed to order a few rice bags. Because the older the rice, the better it is.

We usually buy a few rations from a nearby provision store rest of them my brother order online.

Every time I order a rice bag, I always pay first so when he delivers to our house, I don’t need to go to pay him.

I used to follow this method many times…

Whenever I pay him the full amount upfront, he used to deliver after 1 week. That too after multiple followups only he used to deliver…

I don’t have any trust issues with the shop.

But we used to waste our time following up with the shop owner to get the product we paid for.

This time, I decided to do something else.

I ordered 3 bags of rice and didn’t pay anything in advance.

To my surprise, this time, he delivered the rice bag the next day itself.

This is the first time he has delivered so fast.

Same way…

When you pay the amount in advance, be aware that sometimes, paying in advance can actually slow the product delivery.

I got stuck similarly when we ordered tiles.

I already paid 50% of the amount upfront. The seller is not ready to deliver the product.

He always told me some reasons and kept postponing the delivery date.

I used to follow up with the shop guy almost 30 to 40 times just to get the products that we paid for.

I decided I would never go back to that guy again.

More such tips from real construction experience are shared in my guides.

Arun

how this owner wasted almost 3K by assuming himself

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Today, RCC molding work is scheduled in a nearby construction building.

The owner properly arranged all the molding required materials a few days back.

That’s a good practice.

But…

He made a mistake. That mistake cost him ₹2K to 3K.

What was that mistake?

The owner assumed where materials needed to be, and he dumped msand and jelly in the previous spot where he used to keep them.

It was the same spot where the previous few molding items were kept. So, the owner assumed he dumped all the materials in the same spot.

The Gang team (labourers who do concrete work) came this morning. They noticed they could not set up their ladder and asked different places to have msand and jelly.

What does the owner need to do now?

So the owner called JCB, and with the help of JCB, they shifted Msand and Jelly to the place they suggested by the Gang team.

It’s simply a time and money waste for the owner.

I recommend always asking Gang team members, not even your building contractor, to know where they need molding materials before starting RCC molding work.

They will suggest where they can install the machine, where they need msand, where they need jelly properly.

After that only keep materials as they suggest to avoid extra time and money wastage.

I have an important thing I need to share regarding molding if ground floor molding is not yet done. I shared that tip in my During Moding Time guide.

I highly recommend that you strictly follow what I shared in the guide.