My Construction story 1 ; The Professionals

Dear Steemians

I finally bring you this series of posts which would be talking about construction. I remember having said that I was going to start a series of blog on construction for a long while now but one thing or the other (my procrastination maybe) have made that relatively impossible for the times back now. But now, the decision has been made and I am going to kick this off right away.

In these series of posts, I'm going to be looking at how I can talk about things that could easily come to my head aside making textbook references. I want to see what much could come out of the knowledge gathered while in school and the well under 4 years of professional practice experience I have gathered. Just for the records (I have said it before in one of my posts), I am a member of the building environment because I am a trained quantity surveyor and although I am majorly in the consultancy aspect of the profession, i still find myself to have some indept knowledge of the actual construction.

So, right on to the business of the day.

I'll be making this more like a conversation that would be involving the client as well as the constructor (builder) and the one in position of the consultant. As a land/building owner, you might want to have some fundamental ideas of who is who in the construction space and who to meet when you need what. This piece is very importamt because there had been a lot of misconceptions. A very common one for me as a Quantity Surveyor is someone thinking I am a Land surveyor.

The build up.

My assumption is that you currently have some money with you (Maybe the much earned from the SBD Spike 😂) and you are about conceptualizing owning a landed property which you wish to build from the start to finish. In this build up, there should be an understanding of two broad categories in which a construction project jormally falls. We have the pre and post contract periods.

The Pre Contract Period

This is basically the period that preceeds the award of the contract to a contractor lr the actual construction of the building. This is the period in which the design and every other supporting document for the contract are basically prepaeed.

The Post Contract Period

As expected, this starts from thw point at which a contract is established and signed between the two parties (Contractor and the Client) for the execution of a building project.

Leg me just do a clarification of the terms used above

• Client : This is simply the individual in need of a landed or building property.
• Consultants : These are professionals whose work is bacically to help the client get value for his constructon through provision of valuable inputs. They basically work in with the contractor to achieve this.
• Contractor : This is the man saddled with the responsibility of the actual construction of the building.

Meet the Professionals

After an understanding of the break down of the construction process into the pre and post contract stages, we can now talk about the different professionals required. I will try to provide a list here according to how soon they are needed on a construction project and then have their responsibilities blown out in subsequent paragraphs.

• Land Surveyor
• Urban and Regional Planner
• Architect
• Quantity Surveyor
• Structural/Civil Engineer
• Electrical Engineer
• Mechanical Engineer
• Builder
• Estate Surveyor and Valuer

The Land Surveyor

His role professionally is to marp out and divide a piece of land into their prefered units, such as divide whaf is supposed to be an acre into plots and the likes. This is basically done by taking references from already established points on the land and the use of various mathematical and optical instruments. Some of the most popular of their instruments are the theodolite and levelling staff. The surveying word in itself means meansurement and that's what the land surveyors do. They are usually the first person to establish a contact with the landed property and mostly have to do this in the thick forests or even on water where no develpments have been established before.

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The Urban and Regional Planner

This is a professional who is trained at organising/arranging a piece of settlement in the ways that best fits their attributes. Planners makes use of their knowledge of nature and many physical attributes of sites to zone particular services to where best fits them. For example, they indicate on a layout where is best fit for a low rise residential, high rise residential, industries/factories, health care center, Waste disposal,police post, educational instititions,religious centers e.t.c. They are usually called city planners and are therefore required majorly when a big sized construction is being envisaged like an estate or a city in itself. They draw out a plan as can be seen in the image below and sometimes go ahead to create a realistic 3D design of the settlement.

One important fact to note however is that despite the fact that city planners might not be required directly on your project, they are still indirectly required as they are the ones who would eventually authorise your request to construct a particular category of building on a particular area of the city. In fact, it is advisable for you to view the master plan for the location of your property to be able to know the type of development you are allowed to put up. Take for instance, I decide to construct a 7 storey office complex say 1km away from an airport, i would for sure not be given an approval for such development as this would have been away from the recommendations on the planned layout by the planning authorities. Same goes for building a factory building or even a church where is supposed to be a residential zoned area, it is obvious that there would be noice polution all around.

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The Architect

This is by far the most popular and by many standards, most important member of the construction team. The architect is usually/traditionally the first point of call for the client. He is the one responsible for giving a realistic view to the intentions and desires of his client through the use of lines and sketches. This usually begings with a rough sketch of the client's needs which would be blown up into preliminary drawings (unsclaed) and thereafter, working drawings (Scaled to precision) which would then be used for the actual construction. The architect does all this bearing in mind the client's financial capacity for the project. This is the reason why there has to be preliminary drawings which would be run through the quantity surveyor for a preliminary cost estimate before going on to prepare the detailed designs.

The architect could be said to be required in the two major stages of construction i.e the pre and post contract stages. In the pre-contract stage, the architect works on a standard fit-for-approval design which would be used for the actual construction while in the post contract stage, he is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the construction project is executed according to his plan and purposes. In some cases, different architects could be employed during the two stages but the ideal thing is to have one architect handle both cases.

The architect because of his position as the 'envisioner' of the design is usually authomatically the team leader and in actual sense and standard, earns more than any other member of the team. In the post contract stage, he chairs the periodic site meetings, gives instructions for a change (if necessary) at particular points while trying as much to marry his sketches with reality.

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The Quantity Surveyor

This is the financial expert on a construction project. He is a professional who has an idea of everything (even if little) as the financial state of the project lies in his hands. The QS as fondly called in a nutshell is responsible for ensuring that the client gets value for his money while maintaning standard quality all around. A QS for example would be involved at the preliminary stage of the project in order to ensure that the architect's design falls within the clients' budget. This is achieved throught the preparation of a approximate and preliminary estimates. The approximate estimates are prepared at the stage wherein the architect have come up with his sketches. Approximate estimates are prepared based on the data available on similar construction works which the QS has been involved with in the past.

After the preliminary drawings are prepared by the architect, the QS also prepares a preliminary estimate as a form of cost check to ensure the architect has not gone away from what was being envisaged at the innitial sketch statge. At the final stage also, after the working drawings have been prepared by the architect, he prepares a Bill of Quantities (BOQ) which is a standard contract document just like the architectural workimg drawings as prepared by the architect. The BOQ consists of the extracted quantities of material required for the project as envisaged from the available architectural and other supporting drawings. This document is sent to the contractor/executor who inputes his prefered price to execute the construction work for consideration of the client and his consulting team.

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In the post contract stage, that's after the job has been awarded to a contractor probably through a tender process wherein 2 or more contractors have shown interest and one had been picked to execute the job, the QS is saddled with the obligation of ensuring that the contract is executed the way it should. He vets additional works as approved by the architects and prepares periodic payment recommendations based on the progress of work made by the contractor called interim valuations with which the architect prepares a payment certificate.

(A typical BOQ format)

The Structural/Civil Engineer

In few words, a structural engineer is saddled with the responsibilities of the stability of a structure. They are usually involved in construction projects either going to heights other than a bungalow or buildings with specific distinctive qualities either one automated by nature or one designed by the architect. I always refer to the structural engineers as the architects' saviours. By fact, they are responsible for making most unrealistic designs by architects workable through various thorough calculations and use of softwares which simulates the design (at least after the soft wares came around). They prepare a drawing that shows the best positions for the structural elements of the building like columns,beams and slabs that would make for a stable building structure.

On the other hand, Civil engineers are more relatable to road and earth/ground projects generally. You would scarcely find them on a normal building construction project except however it is a large construction like an estate which would require road construction and all. However, it is worthy of note that structural engineering is a kind of branch of a broad civil engineering generally.

The Electrical Engineer

As the name implies, he is responsible for the electrical connections that goes into the construction project vis the lighting, sockets, music system, power supply and generation e.t.c. Ideally, a standard construction project would have an electrical drawing which plans the positioning of all electrical installation works.

The Mechanical Engineer

Just like his electrical counterpart, this professional handles works related to the mechanical definition of the building like the cold and hit water supply, solid and liquid waste disposal, gas supply and installations, air conditioning system e.t.c. They advice and liase with the necessary team members involved in the project to perfectly position each of their services in a way to ensure a pretty conducive and comfortabke dwelling.

The electrical and mechanical consultants are very important to ensure a proper planning for your construction project as an improper planning could cause clashes after the project is kick started. There inputs are usually very much appreciable in high rise buildings and industrial constructions apart form the quality planning one gets to have when they are engaged in smaller construction projects.

The builder

This is one of the most important individual. A builder is a professional trainned in the buildability and constructability of building structures. His trainning is directed at bringing what has been indicated on paper directly to the ground and perfectly and well executed too. In fact, i never knew there was a special course in the university by the name "building" until I was granted an admission to study QS. Builders are mostly the contractors. They are mostly the guys that take the construction job to be done or are being employed by the contractor who has taken the job as it is said that "anyone can be a contractor". In a nutshell, the stability and final look of your buildimg is left in the hands of your builder.

The Estate Surveyor and Valuer

This professionals are required at the post construction stage of the contract.Just as the name implies and definition of surveying as earlier given, we are lookong here at a professional who is trainned in assigning value to completed projects/ buildings while considering useful parameters such as location, services available, quality of finish, type of accomodation, culture e.t.c. They are in charge of recommending a rental or sale value tk a property based on specific standards as said. If a lawyer had been doing this close to you and made you assume that this is a a normal obligation of the lawyer,get the right info now..lol

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Dear friends, i sincerely hope I have been able to bring some light to your ideas about the construction professionals you might be needing after making that lot of money from steemit..lolz. If you have any more enquiry, contributions or dissagreement with any points, please drop them in the comments section, i appreciate them.

I remain my humble self @dorth

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