Improving the Overall Construction Quality

This page describes general tips and tricks, on how to improve your overall building quality. The following picture galleries show what kind of materials you should look for. They explain how to mix good quality mortars and concrete. They describe how to make your building square, level and plumb. And so on.

If you have further questions, or need assistance with the execution of your building, just send us an email via the contact page.

Choosing Good Bricks and Blocks

Full text will follow shortly. For now take a look at the pictures and its captions.

01. Bricks must be strong, have regular shapes, and regular dimensions. This pile with rounded corners and many broken bricks, looks suspicious.
02. Too soft and badly burnt bricks have no sufficient structural strength. The bricks here even starting melting after some heavy rains. Not good at all!
03. These bricks survived 8 hours of transportation in Nepal; a good indication of their strength and quality.
04. The edges are still sharp with not too many chips and cracks. Good bricks sound bright and hollow when you clap them together.
05. The same with cement blocks. From the outside you can immediately see there is too much breakage and the corners are too weak.
06. Suppliers have a tendency to put in the incorrect amount (too less) of cement in the mixture, resulting in structurally unsound blocks.
07. It is our job to detect such bad quality practices. Do not hesitate to break down things when they are not according to your expectations.
08. In Nepal we make clear deals with our suppliers. We pay them a few rupees more per block, but are demanding the right amount of ingredients.
09. These cement blocks survived 4 hours of bumping through the mountains in the back of a tractor. A good indicator of the strength of the blocks.
10. Stabilized earth blocks and cement blocks need to be kept moist for several days after production, to make sure the cement and concrete cure properly.

Cement, Steel Reinforcements and Concrete

Full text will follow shortly. For now take a look at the pictures and its captions.

01. This beam is badly cast and all steel reinforcement is exposed. Such poor quality has not much strength and will be very dangerous in seismic zones.
02. To do it right, first we need to determine the correct sizes and amounts of steel, and how the connections must be made.
03. Calculate the correct diameters, and do not save costs on your steel. Too thin rods such as on this picture, will result in weak columns and beams.
04. Stirrups and hooks must be bent and applied in specific ways. Make sure you know how before you start.
05. These stirrups are NOT correct. They must be bent back 180 degrees, or they may open and crack your beam during an earthquake.
06. These stirrups are NOT applied and tied correctly, especially see the space between rod and stirrups on the right side.
07. Half a stirrup is no stirrup at all. Too many of such errors may result in collapse during a seismic event.
08. So supervision is of the utmost importance. Mark down badly tied stirrups and demand that they are done properly again.
09. A commonly seen mistake. Do NOT place your formwork directly against the steel bars. You need at least 30 mm of concrete coverage on your steel.
10. A good solution is to make or buy cement spacers. We make them with a pvc pipe or bamboo rings that we fill up with cement and a piece of steel wire.

General Improvements on Your Building

Full text will follow shortly. For now take a look at the pictures and its captions.

01. Some tips on how to make your building straight, level and square.
02. A simple trick to check if your main grid is square, is to measure triangles according to Pythagoras...
03. ...If one side is 6, and the other is 8, then the diagonal must be 10.
04. Mark your main lines outside the building as well, and protect these, so that you can use them again at various stages of the construction.
05. Start with the most important blocks first by marking the corners of your walls on the foundation.
06. Place the corner blocks and make sure that they are straight and level horizontally…
07. …check that the blocks are plumb in the vertical direction with a plumb level…
08. …and check that all corners are placed at the same height with a water level.
09. Some extra checking that the walls are square can be done with a steel angle.
10. Do NOT start like this, it's impossible to assure that all lines of bricks are level and have the same height. It will cause tension in your walls