Month: September 2019

Pre Engineered Steel structure vs Reinforced Steel structure support for buildings.

 

Most buildings in Kenya, 2 storeys and above, are supported structurally using reinforced concrete.

Reinforced concrete is composed of structural ribbed steel that is covered in concrete.

Cost of Reinforced concrete.

1 meter length of concrete contains steel worth kes 900, 4 number D16 reinforcement.

The same length contains concrete worth kes 1,000, 0.1 Cubic meters of concrete.

Total costs including labour and formwork is approximately kes 2,200.

Cost of Structural steel.

I meter length of 4inch by 4 inch gauge 16 steel tube costs kes 1400. Add labour, to bring the cost to kes 1800.

Lower Cost.

The structural steel frame for supporting a residential house is at a lower cost compared to using reinforced concrete.

Other Advantages.

Structural steel takes smaller space since for a smaller cross section than reinforced concrete, it offers same structural support strength.

A few buildings have utilized this method of construction of late.

There is one conspicuous building made of structural steel support frame coming up in Kericho town CBD. Also , in hurlingham, the office block below was done using structural steel support frame.

Architectural Design.

A4architect.com can offer architectural design that incorporates use of structural steel support which will help developers to lower their construction costs and achieve better, more aesthetically appealing buildings.

Architect Francis Gichuhi Kamau.

info@a4architect.com

0721410684

 

 

Expansion joints are installed on large floor spans to prevent cracks in buildings due to expansion. These are made of PVC Styrofoam and fitted in between the beam and column joints then covered in concrete floor slab as shown above.

Architect Francis Gichuhi Kamau.
0721410684
info@a4architect.com

This house, built in Toronto Canada, has its structural support made from Pre Engineered Steel. The floors are then concreted, with the heavy concrete slabs being supported by the steel structure.

This lowers the cost of construction considerably.

The recent collapse of the Precious Talent school along Ngong road was an attempt to use timber as the support structure for concrete 1st floor slab to save on cost. If the developer used steel instead, this could have saved lots of life since steel is much stronger and lasts longer.

Architect Francis Gichuhi kamau
0721410684
info@a4architect.com

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO BUILD A HOUSE IN TORONTO?

How Much Does It Cost to Build a House in Toronto in 2023

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By Pierre Carapetian April 2, 2019
How much does it cost to build a house in Toronto? We break down the cost of building a house vs. buying a house in Toronto

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In Toronto, especially in the east end, it’s common to see a small house go up for sale only to see, just a few months later, nothing but the foundation remaining. With Toronto’s high home prices, some are choosing to tear down and build their own home rather than pay exorbitant amounts for a home that doesn’t check all of their boxes. But how much more does it cost to build a house in Toronto?

BREAKING DOWN THE COST TO BUILD A HOUSE IN TORONTO 2019
Cost to Buy Land
Cost to Tear Down a House
Cost Per Square Foot to Build a House
Things That Will Increase Your Cost Per Square Foot
The Cost of Building a House Vs. Buying
Long Term Vision

COST TO BUY LAND
When it comes to building a house in Toronto, you first have to find land on which to build. Ultimately, this means you have to buy a house for its land value. The reality of this is that the average detached home in Toronto currently sits at $1,294,936. Ideally, you are looking for homes that are less than $700,000. Hopefully much less. However, depending on where you ideally want to build your home, you may have to increase your budget at this phase.

In doing a quick property search for detached homes under $700,000 in Toronto (east of High Park, south of St. Clair West, and west of Victoria Park Ave) only four homes are currently listed. For now, as three of the four homes listed are $699,000, let’s use that as our benchmark example.

Chart with Cost to Buy Land in Toronto to build

The first affiliated cost to build a house in Toronto is the land. In this case, you’re looking at needing just over $162,000 to acquire and close on the land that’s priced at $699,000. Not to mention the mortgage, which would be about $2,800 per month.

COST TO TEAR DOWN A HOUSE IN TORONTO
The next step, of course, is to tear down the house. You’ll want to have a builder hired ahead of this phase in order to consult on ways to save money with what you already have. Depending on the floor plan of the existing house, you’ll want to consider preserving the foundation and maybe part of the frame of the house.

Generally speaking, when it comes to budgeting for the tear down of the house, you’re looking at about $20,000.

COST PER SQUARE FOOT TO BUILD A HOUSE IN TORONTO
When it comes to building a house in Toronto, the prices are broken down at a price per square foot cost. The cost per square foot to build a house in Toronto starts at about $150 per square foot to $250 per square foot.

If you’re building a 1500 square foot home, the price would range from $225,000 to $375,000 depending on the per square foot cost bracket you choose. For luxury homes, your cost per per square foot to build a house in Toronto will be closer to $350 or $400. Just keep in mind, you get what you pay for. High-end materials will lead to a higher price per square foot.

What’s Included in the Per Square Foot Cost
Regardless of whether you choose to build a house at $150 per square foot or $250 per square foot, included in that calculation are:

Building permits
Architect and designer fees
Construction costs
Hard Vs. Soft Costs
The construction cost to build a home in Toronto are broken into hard costs and soft costs. The Hard Costs will be things that have a fixed rate. These typically refer to many of the trade contracts, for instance, the cost for the roof or frame will have already been established based on the design.

The Soft Costs are the costs not affiliated with labour or materials. The soft costs would be things like inspection fees, engineering and equipment costs. Your builder will provide you with a list of the hard and soft costs affiliated with your construction costs early on.

THINGS THAT WILL INCREASE YOUR COST TO BUILD A HOUSE IN TORONTO
While it may seem counter-intuitive, building a bungalow actually costs more than building a two-storey home. Why?

According to custom home builder, Harlequin Homes, the style of a house will impact your cost to build. The average cost to build a 1500 sq ft house will be more expensive as a bungalow than as a two-storey home due to their more expansive footprint. This essentially doubles the cost for things like your foundation, basement floor, and roof.

It’s also worth noting here that your basement’s square footage is not included in your property’s listed square footage. Having a finished basement will be an additional cost per square foot.

As we mentioned earlier, the type of materials you use will also affect your cost to build. If you’re going for the best of the best, those luxury finishes will send your cost to build up. Your builder or designer will be able to help guide you towards great finishes that fit your budget.

Related: Toronto Laneway Suites get Green Light

COST OF BUILDING A HOUSE VS. BUYING
So how much does a custom home cost? Let’s do a rough comparison of the cost to build a house versus buy a house in Toronto. If you’re looking for a move-in ready detached home in Toronto, the prices will surely vary depending on your preferences. For arguments sake, let’s use the average home price for a detached home in the east end (E01, E02, E03 municipalities) which is $1,189,246.

cost of building a house vs. buying chart

It’s an interesting comparable. The cost to build a house in Toronto may cost you about twice as much in upfront costs compared to buying a house, however your monthly mortgage will be half as much as buying a move-in ready house.

How you finance the cost to build a custom home will also factor in to the equation: are you using the funds from selling a previous property or are you getting a loan or line of credit to finance the build?

While we don’t have a house construction cost calculator, there are some things to consider when budgeting the cost of building a house vs. buying one.

First, use our mortgage cost calculator to help determine your closing expenses (Land Transfer Tax) and monthly carrying costs affiliated with both a move-in ready house and a property you’d be buying for its land value.

When determining the cost to build a house in Toronto, beyond your land closing costs, you’ll need to add these expenses:

• $20,000 for the tear down
• Per Square Foot cost depending on desired size and price bracket (ex: 1500sqft x $200)

LONG TERM VISION
Other things to factor into your decision is whether you’re building your forever home or if you plan to sell it after a few years. If you decide to put the brand new custom house back on the market in, say, three years, you’ll definitely be able to charge far more than what you paid for it. (Detached home prices have increased 25% in Toronto’s east end since February 2016.)

However, it cost you more money upfront to build it than it did to buy the comparable move-in ready home. So if equity gains are what you’re after, the cost to buy a house in Toronto and reselling it after three years may be more lucrative because you’re putting less money down but still gaining the market equity.

Chart showing Cost to Build a house in Toronto vs Buy after 3 years

So if they’re comparable on the resale market, keep in mind you’ll have put 29% more into building your custom home than to buy a move-in ready. You can read more on the topic of Reno vs Ready here. But if you’re building your forever home, the ability to customize it to your preferences are so worth it.

If you’re thinking about building a house in Toronto, search for houses in your desired neighbourhood or across the city, just set the max price you’re willing to pay for land and get started on your journey to build today.

Need more guidance? Book a call with us to chat about your options.

21 acres for sale Kitengela. Behind KAG University. kes 5m per acre

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d11563.44112624848!2d36.919044605974804!3d-1.5914898536899273!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x182fbd2cc544f173%3A0x23cebd5440a61530!2sKAG%20EAST%20UNIVERSITY%20KITENGELA%20CAMPUS!5e1!3m2!1sen!2ske!4v1569313802516!5m2!1sen!2ske&w=600&h=450]

email. info@a4architect.com
0721410684

Half Acre for sale, Karen. Muteero area .Near Compassion International.

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Kes 31m

Email info@a4architect.com
0721410684

Monday 23rd September 2019 morning was a sad day in Kenya when Kenyans woke up to the sad news of 7 pupils losing their lives after their school collapsed.

This is very unfortunate and we hope and pray that the Almighty God will rest their precious souls in eternal peace.

Nairobi County Planning Department.

In Kenya, the role of ensuring safety of all building structures is vested in the County Government Departments of Planning and Development control.
For Nairobi county where this school lies, this department has its offices in City Hall Annex building in Nairobi CBD.

Procedure for constructing the school.

The right procedure for school construction is that the owner would have hired and architect to design the school and then submit the drawings to the County Government for approvals.
If the owner would have done this, the architect would have advised him that his proposal to set up a double storey building supported on timber structures and carrying a heavy load of suspended concrete floor would not work for a school.

Live and Dead Weight.

Timber tends to rot over time hence unable to support heavy loads. Also, classrooms tend to accommodate alot of people who also can have activities that require jumping up and down, severely impacting on the structural integrity of any building, let alone a building supported by timber.

The weight of the pupils plus the weight of the concrete slab supported by simple timber structures would not have lasted for long.
Timber Supported double storey structures.

The Dagoretti, Riruta, Kikuyu, Kinoo areas have lots of rental units made of timber structures supporting 2 storey floors . Uusally, a concrete slab is laid to prevent water and noise from the upper floor affecting the lower floor.
A quick scan of areas around Riruta will reveal lots of such structures which are disasters waiting to happen. Unless the occupants take their own initiative and move out, the County Government which is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring safety of buildings will most likely allow the building owners to continue operating.

In most cases, these are usually single room structures which can host at most 3 people per room hence not very heavy. Also, the people in the room do not have vigorous activities such as jumping up and down.

Copy Paste.

The school owner must have seen these buildings and assumed that they could be used to accommodate students without considering the heavy loading that classrooms come with . He then copy pasted a construction method that could not work with his type of building use. Its usually the role of the County Government to enforce and force such people to seek architectural services from the available practicing architects so that he builds a safe structure. County Government has various means and resources to ensure developers are working with architects to come up with safe structures eg County Askaris, County garbage, water ans sewer staff that are in the region etc who all report of new construction projects to county planning department for action.

County Government Enforcement.

In this case, there is a very high chance that the County Government officers in charge of this area were aware of the construction process but were either bribed or given instructions by their bosses not to stop the construction.
Its virtually impossible to get away with constructing any visible structure within Nairobi County, meaning that the County government department of planning has very good reach on all construction developments.

Solution.

Solution is for the Nairobi County Government department of planning to ensure that all people in the processs of construction are forced to seek architectural services and where they are not complying, their buildings demolished so as to prevent loss of life unnecessarily.

NCA.

The National Construction Authority is relatively new in its operation and do not have the personnel to identify poor constructions going on around the county like the County Government can. County Government can rely on a lot of its staff doing other roles in the same vicinity eg public health staff, shop licencing staff, roads maintenance staff etc who will report of new buildings coming up. NCA can only be able to deal with large structures such as apartments due to their limited resources so in this case they are not to be blamed since the National Government is the one that created them and did not provide them with necessary resources for proper enforcement.

Dagoretti South MP.

The Dagoretti South MP said that the lack of Government schools in the region would solve the problem and proposed hiving off Lenana School land as a solution. The problem lies in construction standards lack of enforcement by County Government. The same problem is also facing Government schools so hiving off Lenana School land would only pave way for land grabbing and more unsafe buildings unless elected leaders sit together to look for a way of helping the citizens resolve building safety problems. What the Dagoretti South MP would have done is to pressure the County Government Planning department to ensure such unsafe buildings dont come up in both public and private schools.
Nearby public Primary Schools such as Ngong forest primary school can be upgraded into several storey blocks to accomodate for a larger intake.
[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d2760.5119285989854!2d36.725160016509726!3d-1.30479311382965!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x182f1ba4e51426bf%3A0xa9e9555f35ec6dd4!2sNgong%20Forest%20Primary%20School%2C%20Nairobi%20City!5e1!3m2!1sen!2ske!4v1569244121944!5m2!1sen!2ske&w=600&h=450]

Lenana school land, approximately 200 acres, can be expanded to house a girls high school which can share the numerous extra curricular activities such as music school, soccer, rugby, volley ball, basket ball pitches etc.

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d18684.523716937543!2d36.73431659126825!3d-1.2990377169017786!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x0%3A0xc3948e029f94aa23!2sLenana%20School!5e1!3m2!1sen!2ske!4v1569244709237!5m2!1sen!2ske&w=600&h=450]

Going Forward.

Buidings in Kenya have been collapsing and resulting to unnecessary deaths to Kenyans for the last 10 years with an increase in frequency. People discuss the tragedies online but after the dust settles, nothing is done, County Governments continue looking the other way as developers create death traps for unsuspecting public. Its sad that the County Government and National Government will not be able to ensure developers comply.

This analysis done here below by www.a4architect.com on why the Langata Southern Bypass building colapsed in 2011 recommends same remedy to resolve this issue of building colapse. 8 Years later, situation on the ground is still the same.

https://www.a4architect.com/2011/06/why-the-langata-southern-bypass-building-collapsed/

‘safety starts with you’

Citizens should ensure their own safety sadly, as in ‘safety starts with you’ . Ideally, citizens have Governments that make sure their buildings are safe but in this situation, with a County Government unable to take that role up to perfection, its up to citizens to ensure their won personal safety. Thousands of Nairobians in Riruta, Dagoretti and environs living in double storey houses supported by timber structures will need to take the initiative and move to safer structures since the highest likelihood is that the County Government wil not enforce the developers to ensure safety, just like it has been happening the last 10-15 years or so.

Architect Francis Gichuhi kamau.
info@a4architect.com
0721410684

WATER ACT
CHAPTER 372
Revised Edition 2012 [2002]
Published by the National Council for Law Reporting
with the Authority of the Attorney-General
www.kenyalaw.org
WaterAct_Cap372_

PART IX P CONSERVATION OF RIPARIAN AND CATCHMENT AREAS

116. Determination of the riparian land
(1) Riparian land, as defined in Part I of these Rules shall not imply a change of
ownership but impose management controls on land use for water resource quality as
defined in these Rules.
(2) Unless otherwise determined by a Water Resources Inspector, the riparian land on
each side of a watercourse shall be defined as a minimum of six metres or equal to the full
width of the watercourse up to a maximum of thirty metres on either side of the bank.
(3) The width of the watercourse shall be equal to the distance between the top edges
of its banks.
(4) The riparian land shall be measured from the top edge of the bank of the
watercourse and this shall also apply to seasonal and perennial watercourses.
CAP. 372 [Rev. 2012]
Water
[Subsidiary]
[Issue 1]
W2 P 144
(5) Unless otherwise determined by a water resources inspectore
(a) the riparian land adjacent to a lake, reservoir or stagnant body of water shall
be defined as minimum of two metres vertical height or thirty metres
horizontal distance, whichever is less, from the highest recorded water
level;
(b) the riparian land adjacent to the eye of a spring shall be a minimum radius
of three metres to a maximum radius of fifteen metres, measured from
around the edge of the spring;
(c) the riparian land adjacent to the ocean is defined as a minimum of two
metres vertical height or thirty metres horizontal distance from the high
watermark, whichever is less.
117. Demarcation of the riparian land
(1) The Authority may with good cause orat the request of a riparian landowner
demarcate the riparian boundary of any watercourse or body on any land at its own cost.
(2) When demarcating the riparian boundary, the Authority shall require the landowner
to place permanent recognisable beacons at sufficient intervals to adequately represent
the riparian boundary.
118. Proscribed activities on riparian land
(1) No person shall undertake the activities listed in the Sixth Schedule on riparian
land unless authorised by the Authority in consultation with other relevant stakeholders.
(2) A riparian land owner or user may, upon showing good cause, request the
Authority shall respond in writing within thirty days of receiving the request stating its
decision.
(3) Any person who undertakes any of the proscribed activities on riparian land
without authorisation by the Authority shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a
fine not exceeding fifty thousand shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding
three months, or to both.
119. Orders related to riparian land
(1) The Authority may instruct by an order, a riparian landowner or user, at his or her
cost, to develop and implement a soil and water conservation plan.
(2) The Authority may instruct by order a riparian landowner or user, to desist from
any proscribed activity or to improve the condition of the riparian land in the interests of
meeting the water resource quality objectives.
(3) In requiring a riparian landowner or user to improve the condition of the riparian
land, the Authority may facilitate support to undertake the required activities.
(4) Where the riparian landowner or user fails to comply with an order to develop a
soil and water conservation plan, the Authority may cause such a plan to be developed.
(5) The Authority shall recover the cost ofdeveloping such a plan from the person or
persons who have failed to comply with the order.
120. Soil and water conservation plan
(1) For the purposes of conserving the catchment and riparian areas, the Authority
may by order or state as a condition on an authorisation or permit, require a person to
prepare and implement a soil and water conservation plan.
(2) While preparing a soil and water conservation plan, the Authority or riparian
landowner shall be guided by the criteria set out in the Sixth Schedule.
[Rev. 2012] CAP. 372
Water
[Subsidiary]
W2 P 145 [Issue 1]
(3) The soil and water conservation plan may be developed by the Authority,
landowner, landuser, or Water Resource Users Association in consultation with the
officer(s) in charge of agricultural and or environmental activities for the area.
(4) The soil and water conservation plan shall conform to the format laid out in the
Second Schedule.
(5) Where in the opinion of the Authority the landowner or user has failed to comply
with an approved soil and water conservation plan, the Authority may cause to be
rectified, constructed or maintained sufficient soil and water conservation measures for the
purposes of conserving water resource quality conditions.
(6) The Authority may recover the cost of these measures from the person or persons
who have failed to comply with the soil and water conservation plan.
(7) Failure to comply with an approved soil and water conservation plan may be
considered by the Authority as a basis for rejecting, suspending, cancelling or varying a
water use permit.
(8) Any person who fails to comply with the soil and water conservation plan shall be
guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a fine not exceeding ten thousand shillings or to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to both.