Free Consultation,18,September,2012

VASTHU CORRECTION

Quote

Dear Sir

I started constructing the house based on an architect design and asari's correction

But now many were saying NE corner for kitchen not good for kitchen and south toilet on North facing house also not good

Construction nearly completing , attached here is the plan , of Ground floor as well as first floor

Can i correct anything on this by extending or building separate kitchen etc.?

Thanks

Ramakumar

My Reply

For North facing house,you have to keep positions of living spaces as given below:

1.Kitchen at South East,cooking facing east

2.Master Bed room at South west.Keep head towards south while sleeping

3.Pooja at North east

4.No toilets at South East,North east and South west corners

Where is the construction site?

What stage is construction?

If required I can visit site and suggest suitable corrections

Construction of house at Cochin

Quote

We  have a plot near Azad rd. approx. 6 cents, where we are planning to build an apartment.

In the mean time kindly give me a clarification on the following points.

- Do u build house as per vasthu shastra?

- Do u take undertake construction works?

- Can u give some reference of your works done in town.

Nimitha

My reply

We design house as per Vasthu

We take up complete construction of house from  design to finish including interior wood work and landscaping in a professional manner with transparent billing methods using latest technology

Nearer to Azad road at Kaloor,Cochin,we have designed and built a three story office cum residence for  a sitting Judge of High court at Shenoy Road and for a Retired Judge of High Court at Kaloor Kathrikkadavu Road.

My Facebook profile,Thomas Viruvelil gives pictures of houses designed and built by us in addition to pictures and details given in our  following websites:

www.keralaarchitecture.com

www.viruvelil.com

www.kerala-dreamhomes.com

Facebook profile

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=531348963&sk=photos

Follow me on Twitter

http://twitter.com/#!/archtomy

Checking Plan of house

Sir,

the attached plan and other details are submitting for you kind consideration. i request your valuable opinion in the following matters.

1.whether a first floor can be constructed on the present building-building strength,foundation etc.

2.is any vasthu based problems are there in the present plan? if so how can it be rectified?

3.a staircase is there on the northern side of the building and ends at the backside. at the time of constructing first floor, i prefer to dismantle it & construct a new one from inside the building by extending the building to a little bit towards the back side. is it possible? is any vasthu problem will be there with regard to total calculation?

4..the building is in an 8 cent plot & we have an external toilet at the south west part of the plot.

5.the building is facing the east. but the steps are towards north.

6. inside the house,the internal toilet and gas stove are in a straight line across the building.

7.i need 3 more spacious bedrooms and a hall in the first floor. a detailed plan,estimate are requested from you with elevation considering all above matters and if needed with internal rearrangement of ground floor.the top of the first floor should be flat.Presently i have a solar water heater.that also should be accommodated.

expecting an early reply,

Pratheep

My reply

1.Whether first floor can be constructed or not can be  checked only after checking at site  foundation and soil conditions

2.Vasthu aspects can be checked only if direction facing the house and positions of roads near site are known

3.Adding Stair case to existing building-site inspection required to comment

4.Toilet at South west corner is harmful as per Vasthu

5.There is nothing wrong in North facing steps,though steps are better with climbing from west to east and from north to south

6.In this specific case,a site visit is required before plan for extension can be made and Estimate comes only after finalising plan of house

BUILDING HOUSE BELOW HIGH TENSION ELECTRIC LINES

Query

Dear Thomas Sir;

I read many of your very informative postings and found it very helpful. I request you to please look into my below query and give me your valued advise.

I am having a plot of 12 cents in Meenachil Panchayat near Pala. It is not a square plot but a rectangular with an approximate width of 30 m. Front side is facing a local panchayath road and one side is private road. there is an high tension line (220KV tower type) passing just behind the plot but I could see houses directly below it. The distance from main road is approximately 700m.

My maximum budget including all development expenses (raw plot to completed house with boundary wall and a well) is 25 Lac. Will it be possible to construct a house with following requirements with this budget?

3 bedrooms of reasonable size

1 Drawing+Dining

Sit out

Car porch

Kitchen

A store room+work area

Using good (not best available) quality material.

Or is it wise to sell the plot (I purchased it for about 15.5 Lac) and buyer  readily available one I checked few with a budget of 40 Lac but are made with very low quality material and wood.
Do you have any body working for you near Pala who can visit the plot?

Regards,

Binoy George

My reply

As per present cost indications(which are likely to go up in coming days),you may be able to complete house at a guess estimate cost of Rs.25 lakhs

Staying below 220 KV line is not healthy due to high inductive field which will form around it

Every contractor and builder design and build houses in his own way and no one bothers to do  good quality construction with professional design,supervision and professional standards in Kerala.

All that contractors look for is increase of profit in spite of continuous input cost increases and owner of the house simply look for contractor who offers lowest rate at the time of commencement of construction.If contractor ask for extra charges ,owner has no problems! Both owner and contractor do not bother about final cost figures! At that point owner will be anxious to finish construction some how and contractor will be looking for ways to extract maximum profits.This is continuously happening all over Kerala  and still people try to keep professional Architects/Engineers away thinking that they will increase cost of construction! In reality,they will save lakhs of your hard earned money.

Renovation of house

Query

HI,

WHILE CHECKING FOR THE RENOCATION OF MY EXISTING HOUSE ,I SAW THE SITE.

WE HAD A HOUSE IN MANANTHAVADY WAYANAD DISTRICT. FULLY COMPLETED ONE. NOW WE WANT TO RENOVATE THE BATHROOMS AND THE FLOOR TILES ,KITCHEN AND TO FURNISH THE HOUSE. FIRST I WANT TO KNOW U HAD ANY WORK IN WAYANAD, SECOND ABOUT THE TIMING, BECAUSE WE ARE IN ABU DHABI, WE WANT TO ARRANGE EVERYTHING WHAT WE NEEDED AND THEN EXICUTE THE WORK WITHIN TINE.

INTERIOR DESIGN CAN COMPLETE LATER.

IF U ARE ABLE TO GIVE A PROPER ADVICE, THEN I WILL SEND THE PLAN AND THE IDEAS .

I AM WAITING FOR UR ADVICE AND VALUABLE SUGGSTION.

MRS. LISY ANTONY.

ABU DHABI.

My reply

Mananthavady is a bit far from Cochin.But still we can consider working on remodeling of your house

Basically every one should understand that remodeling and renovation is not an easy task.New construction is always better and cheaper.For new construction,it is possible to estimate cost expected if not fully correct but to a great extent.For remodeling work as we go on dismantling portions of building and remove portions of built up work,new problems crop up.Unless you are willing to go for remodeling at any cost,do not attempt it.Most of the people attempt to remodeling thinking that it will be cheaper.

Again for remodeling work you cannot simply get contractors to get work done as you  feel good enough.Always ensure that you get expert professional assistance continuously from beginning to end of remodeling work.No contractor  can tell you exact cost of remodeling work in advance  even though you will insist on getting a cost indication before engaging a contractor for work.If contractor need the work,he will give some cost indication.If that indication give him good profit,he will keep quiet.Otherwise he will start asking for extras!

Flooring Material

Respected Sir,

Please permit me to introduce myself Biju George living in Ernakulum Dist. My building construction is on progress and I have searching materials for flooring. I have go through your blogs and really useful and informatics. I have severe problem in leg and I can’t bear the cold. So I have search the material suitable for the living style.

Please permit me to share my idea as follow

1 Complete Granite except bathroom

2 Sit out , Foyer, Stair, kitchen are granite, bathrooms tiles & bedrooms and dinning with clay tile

Your advice is very valuable for me to choose the correct materials,

Thanking you and looking forward from hear you,

My reply

Do not go for  Marble or Granite for flooring.Basically these are negative energy materials.When you walk on them with bare foot,or lie down on floor your body heat is taken away by these materials making you feel bad.These are also highly slippery in nature and thus can cause you damages due to slipping.Cost wise using granite will be as costly as going for teak  wood flooring which will be good for your health.

There are much more cheaper anti skid tiles with attractive designs manufactured by almost all tile manufacturers.Better go for it

Clay tiles are good excluding Kitchen and other high traffic areas.But now it is getting difficult to get due to non availability of clay.Most of the clay tile factories in Kerala are either closed or closing due to non availability of clay soil

Low cost house Construction in Kerala

All talk of low cost house construction in Kerala starts with talking about a foreigner Architect,Mr.Lawrie Baker who lived and died in Kerala.He propagated a certain type of house construction as Low cost House construction about twenty years back.

Though house construction technology has grown in his absence In Kerala,most of the materials for house construction available about twenty years back are either missing or have turned in to costing too much to afford for low cost house construction.

Salient features of low cost house construction introduced by Architect Lawrie Baker were the following:

1.Walls using good quality red bricks with very good finish in appearance

2.Reduce use of concrete and steel for concrete reinforcement

3.More use of Arches

4.Environment friendly design allowing better lighting and ventilation inside rooms

5,.Different,attractive external appearance for the house using better masonry work

6.Avoid plastering to reduce cost

7.Reduce use of wood

He had a different outlook to methods of construction and he trained quite a few Architects of Kerala in his style of design and construction and few of them still follow his methods in construction.

If you look at Kerala House construction before Ar.Lawrie Baker ,you can see that earlier “Asaris’ who acted as architects  considered wood as most important material for house construction.House construction in those days were practically work of wood workers assisted in parts by masons working with laterite stones.In those days both material like wood and labour were very cheap

.When it came to days of Lawrie Baker material was considered costly and hence to be saved even at the cost of increased labour charges as labour was cheap and easily available those days.A good mason used to get  daily wages of about Rs.50/- for working about ten hours! Apart from lower wages construction labour was running behind house owners for work with fake respect!

Today we stand to face almost disappearing materials for house construction.Even if available you have to pay whatever fancy figures the supplier may demand.Labour is equally costly and extremely difficult to get.House owner will have to run behind labour these days to get their services at terms demanded by them.Because of the earlier running behind of construction labour for work,even today most of the people think all those related to construction including qualified experienced architects should treat it as a favour for giving work to them and I face this mentality almost everyday.In this situation,how do we reduce cost of constructing a house in Kerala?

In present day condition,both labour and material are costly and difficult to get.So we have to find ways to reduce cost of both labour and material.As both labour and material suppliers are not ready to reduce their costs,we can only try to reduce use of these for construction.To do it without compromising on quality of construction,we need services of experts.How do we find out experts in house construction?

Any one who have simply passed out of Engineering college cannot be treated as an expert.Our system of education is such that our educational institutions do not bring out people who are capable of doing the work well.

With my experience in designing more than 1000 houses in Kerala and directly building from beginning to end more than two hundred houses in different parts of Kerala,I can tell you that each new construction poses new problems to me and I learn from each new construction.I naturally correct my mistakes in earlier project in the new project.In fact each new project make me more qualified and experienced to give you a better design and better management of house construction.

Most of the people think that any one who can draw a plan of the house is good enough as long as he demands lesser money for the plan or nothing! Nothing is definitely better!

Plan of the house is the most important critical document which decides or avoids unwanted cost in construction of a house.A more qualified more experienced professional can give you a better design as experience might have taught him to make use of the available space for better use, avoiding wastages in space and cost.So ,do not go for that low cost plan of the house if you want lower cost of construction.To save a few thousands to an Architect,you will be loosing lakhs in cost of construction and finally you will end up with a house with lots of inconvenience,improper unwanted spaces in the house.Quite of lot of people realise the defects in plan and design of the house after they spend many lakhs and reach structure completion stage of a house construction.Many people call me to correct mistakes at that stage of construction.I express my inability to do anything to correct it at that stage.

Some people or most of the people also think that getting a plan and Elevation from a qualified person is all that is required.They think contractor will manage everything afterwards.Yes.He will manage to save his money and increase his profit in doing the construction.To save your money and to get quality construction,a qualified experienced construction professional should give continuous detailed drawings,instructions and supervision at every stage of construction from beginning to end.Naturally contractor may increase his rates if such professional monitoring of work is brought in by you as he cannot do many of those adjustments to save both material and labour costs, not for you but for increasing his profit.

Apart from all these construction technology is rapidly changing bringing new construction methods ,technology and trends.A professional if associated with the work continuously can guide you on this saving you money and getting better quality and utility for your construction