Top 5 mistakes to avoid while constructing your house

Constructing a villa, a bungalow, or another sort of independent or individual house for your family needs you to have a proper construction plan in place in addition to a proper financial budget. A new house (including the land) could cost anywhere in the range of INR 40 lakh – INR 2 crore, depending on the size of the plot, the span of construction, and whether you have purchased the land first-hand or in one of the subsequent re-sales.

There are around 45 crore houses in India in total as of date, out of which around two-thirds lie in rural areas, and, the rest one-third, in urban areas. A sizable percentage (estimated 10%) of these houses are constructed and managed in an individual and independent manner. We look at the top 5 mistakes to avoid while constructing your own new house.

1. Choosing looks over substance:
It matters how you give precedence to the construction quality, structure, and the quality of material for your house over its feel, looks, and aesthetics. The interiors and the decor of your house come after you've answered the question that the house is structurally safe and sound, and that it can safely withstand jolts of earthquakes and other natural and/or artificial phenomenon.
More than the feel and the ambiance of the house, it’s the construction strength and the structural stability that matter more. An 80:20 thumb rule to this effect is a fairly good indicator of how much you should invest yourself in the house’s substance vis-a-vis its feel and looks.

2. Not finding a good and reliable construction contractor
While it’s possible that you hire different contractors for different aspects of your house’s construction, it makes more sense to hire an umbrella constructor for your entire house. Doing so ensures that you not just achieve economies of scale, but also construction quality and reliability.
Whether it’s the DPC, the structure, the walling, electrical, plumbing, the flooring, the plastering, the painting, or the wooden work of your house, a professional umbrella contractor would ensure quality and reliability across all of these aspects, while also rendering to you a deep discount on an overall basis.

3. Not taking adequate care of construction regulations
Aspects such as the floor area ratio (FAR), the height of your construction, the carpet area, the built-up area, and the super built-up area of your house go a long way in determining the compliance and the regulatory efficacy of your house. Goes without saying, you need to get each one of them the first time right without fail.
In order to ensure regulatory compliance, you’d need to consult a regulations representative or an equivalent professional on a periodic basis. It will also ensure that your time, money, effort, and resources always stay under control.

4. Compromising on the material used the in terms of quality or quantity
A house owner just can’t afford to compromise on the quality or the quantity of material, work, and resources used in its construction. Whether it’s the beam, the column, the bricks, the cement, the wall putty, the wood, the paint, doors & windows, tiles and flooring, walls and surfaces finish, electricals, furniture, safety and security or the entire construction approach for that matter, you need to get each one of them to spot on for your own good.
Quality and quantity together ensure that your house even exceeds your lifetime in terms of shelter and habitability, while demanding minimal renovation, repair, and maintenance in between.

5. Not constructing enough, or constructing too much
Just like the cost of the land/plot, your construction too has a good cost associated with it. As the owner of your house, you just can’t afford to build either too little or too much, and need to always take into account your family strength, preferences, and your construction budget too, for that matter.

The timeline associated with the construction of your house also matters a lot to this effect. You need to ensure that construction never stops in between, as also not gather a pace that’s too unrealistic or haphazard.

To conclude, taking care of these 5 construction aspects would ensure that you build a good house, where you and your family can spend years together in peace, while being able to truly call your house a home or an abode. Even if you happen to miss some other aspect of construction while taking care of these five, you will realize that it won’t bother you much in terms of time, effort, or cost.

All in all, once you’ve purchased the plot and decided to build your own house over it, give it your 100% in every possible sense, for building your home is, in all probability, a once-in-a-lifetime activity. So, make sure that you build a good house while at it.

Authored by:
Nidhi Aggarwal, Founder, SpaceMantra