Another stall! Gives time to reconsider the design

After the first slab was done, only stairs portion was remaining to be cast. However, our masonry contractor started acting up again and wanted funds released even before the work was complete. He had totally lost interest in doing this project. Only because of the person he had appointed to do all the RCC framework who was immensely efficient and professional, we were tolerating his antiques.

However, we had had enough and decided to fire him from the job. We were hoping that the person that was doing the actual work would stay to complete the work, but this guy just didn't let him work. So, the entire team cleaned up the premises and left.

It took good 4 weeks before the new team started work! Yes, we have bags full of ice on our heads...

This time coincided with the visit of our architect. We looked at the design and started considering a couple of changes.

1. Moving the entry area out of the front door:

Once we saw how small the entry area will be, we thought of moving the door to the angled wall. This would make entry into the house very awkward. So, our architect suggested we move the entry area out of the front door. This allows for large entrance porch that can be decorated to give a very welcoming feeling. Something that looks like this:

Modern Entry by Cabin John Design-Build Firms Anthony Wilder Design/Build, Inc.

Contemporary Entry by Tucson Architects & Designers Soloway Designs Inc.

Our Ground Floor design was updated to accommodate this change. We brought the entrance door inwards next to the lift shaft.

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2.Open kitchen layout:

Once all the centering supports opened up, we saw how beautiful the helical staircase would look at the ground floor level if we opened up the kitchen. 

Pros: Entire ground floor great room layout opens up, gives very airy feeling to the kitchen, living, dining area. Allows for a large island that was on our original wishlist.

Cons: Lose lot of cabinet space and storage space. Also, as soon as you enter the house, you see the open kitchen. This is actually a big point going against this design.

All in all, we considered it, but decided against doing something like this and decided to go for the original closed kitchen design.

3.  Drawing room glass facade:

Here we had a real tough time finalizing details. Our architect felt that although they had given original design of glass facade with spider glazing, we should try and avoid it. We should have some different kind of facade where we do not use spider hardware. For reference, here is our original design:

Glass facade on the left looks very clean, giving perfect proportions to the elevation.
However, if we want to get rid of the spider design, we need a horizontal member to support glass on top. And make sure we get maximum possible size of glass above the member. New render looked something like this. We also incorporated wall till the sill level. 

 

Pros: New design gets rid of spider hardware that might be outdated in coming years.

Cons: Horizontal MS member compromises the clean look that we so desperately want in that area.

Final verdict is to stick to the spider design with glass going till about 8" above the ground level.

 

1st Slab Done!

It's 19th December 2013 and the first slab of our building is cast.

Process before casting involved lot of centering work and decision making regarding how the sunk slabs will look like so that we don't have weird steps in the ceilings. We put the sunk slab over the entire kitchen although we only needed sunk for the part of it that was going to be bathroom above the kitchen.

Slab casting itself was relatively simple process considering the amount of work that went into constructing the Steel framework. Miller came with a pump, and entire slab was cast in a matter of hours once everything was in place.

Of course, we had traditional food of "chavanu" and "ladu" for people doing the slab work. Some pictures from the casting process:

Solutions... Solutions....

From exact location and type of light to how the ceilings will look with respect to the sunken slabs, it is decision time before casting the first slab. Since we have decided for "No POP" project, lot has to be planned in terms of electrical and plumbing locations.

We decided to spend a bit more upfront and go for LED lights in ceilings for ambient lighting in the house. Which meant that we needed boxes to go in slabs for holding these lights. Conventionally, these lights would go into POP. It was a long search to identify a supplier that would give us boxes for casting in the slab. We did find one, thanks to connections of our connections, and ordered 80+ boxes.

Here is how they were placed in the slab:

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Boxes were welded with the slab bars so that they don't move at the time of pouring RMC.

This is how they looked once the slab was completed:

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This will be repeated throughout the house.

There was one more problem with the contractor before casting the slab. He did not want to use the centering material we had agreed upon. He had no intention of continuing the business after our house was done and wanted to cut corners in terms of using the material for supporting the slab.

After lengthy discussions and persuasions, we managed to get him to rent better quality material to finish the project.

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Centering the helical stair was the biggest challenge of this stage. It took them 3 full days to try and get each step right!

Plinth Level Done!

Plinth level is done. PCC completed for the plinth. Compared to the traditional construction, this is additional layer that gives a major benefit in terms of the stability of our structure.

Since we have opted for the frame construction, having this weight added to the ground floor along with ground beams at the ground floor and foundation structure underground lowers the center of gravity of the entire structure. This helps make our structure very stable in the event of an earthquake.

From the foundation level, we have following layers:

• PCC plates for column pedestals of M15 grade RMC
• Column pedestal RCC structure with M25 grade RMC
• Column RCC with M25 grade RMC
• Ground beams RCC tying all the columns with M25 grade RMC
• Brick masonry from ground beams to Plinth level - 2.5ft
• Coping and PCC at Plinth level with M25 grade RMC

We used 15 truck loads of sand (550 cu.ft. X 15 = 8250 cu. ft.) for filling up to plinth level after back-filling the excavated earth. Added about 7 tankers full of water to make this settle down. All this should've been done by September 2013. So, we are two months late compared to the original schedule. But the project is picking up pace now!

Added benefits of M25 grade PCC and sand filling at plinth level is improved termite protection. We however did do the necessary termite treatment at foundation and plinth level before doing PCC work.

Both the water tanks are also complete with slab. Only thing pending is the plaster on interior for these tanks.

We now get some idea of the room sizes. It feels a bit small at this point. But I guess it is the case with almost all constructions until the rooms are finished.

Off to getting the first slab cast! I must commend our team for coordinating work so far. We can not order the batch of RMC that is less than 4 CuMtr. It becomes commercially nonviable. So, adjusting quantities and scheduling work such that that much quantity is utilized without any wastage is not-so-straight forward.

Electrical planning is also complete before we cast the first slab. More on that and slab casting work later...
Here are some of the pictures of work  towards the finished Plinth.

Compacted Sand finished till plinth level

RMC pumped for Plinth PCC

PCC curing with water

House footprint visible from the vantage point

We are out of the ground, finally...

Between the rains, Navaratri & Diwali, the work continued at breakneck speed, but we were not able to achieve our goal of finishing the plinth before Diwali break.

Diwali this year was quiet nice, knowing this most like was our last Diwali in our current home. By next Diwali, the goal is to move into Utsav!

So, there it is... the deadline... Move-in by Diwali 2014. What's the plan to get there?

1. First thing's first, we need to finish ALL masonry work by February 2014. 
2. Windows, plumbing, A/C & AV ducting, electrical & flooring done by March 2014. Since we are going to go for UPVC windows, this does not seem like a major problem. Our electrical plans for all slabs are out and looks like they will need very little tweaking as usual.
3. That leaves six months for interior furniture, kitchen, glass, and systems installation. Doable, right?

Here are some of the latest pictures of how much the work has progressed before Diwali break. Ground beams are cast perfectly and water tanks are also done. We are going to fill up the remaining portion by sand instead of earth. There will be brick masonry work on top of the beams till the plinth level after which there will be plinth coping covering the entire ground floor.

New post after a long long while

Rains of September 25th stalled work for quiet some time. Here are some of the images of the conditions on the ground after rain.

Thankfully, the foundation work was done, column RCC done till the ground level. But, filling excavated earth back in was quiet painful since everything was soaked in too much of water.

We lost good two to three weeks of work due to rains of 3 days.

Oh well, all is well that ends well... but when???

3D Rendering of the expected outcome

Move over scale models... It's CGI time!

Thanks to the hard working folks at our Architect's office, we have a beautiful 3D render of our project.

Here it is...

Hope the actual outcome is as beautiful as this one...