Your contractor may use substandard material and may try to ignore important points such as plastering, brick works, mixture of the mortar etc. You must be very careful in all aspects by keeping in mind the following practical points.

LABOUR RATE CONTRACT

When the contract is for labor only and house owner brings all the materials at site, pay attention on the points as mentioned below.

1.      If you have no details of written agreement, the contractor may charge more payment from the owner by asking more payment for some items such as shelves in cupboard, projection in windows and ‘Dado’ etc.

2.      He may ignore proper depth of foundation to save his labor.

3.      He may ignore mixed cement concrete in foundation. He may try to lay dry brick blast and also try to lay less depth as required in the drawing to save his labor.

4.      He may use dry bricks instead of wet bricks, as more labor is required for wetting the bricks.

5.      He may ignore properly mixed mortar and may try to use mortar after one mix only instead of at least four mixes. Thus, he can save the labor and money.

6.      He may try to employee second-class mason to save money.

7.      He may ignore proper height of DPC (Damp Proof Course) to save labor for brickwork and earth filling under the floor.

8.      He may ignore proper arrangement for curing.

9.      He may do the brick masonry uneven, which is not in plumb, straight line and level by employing untrained labor.

10.  He may leave unfilled joints of brickwork.

11.  He may use wooden planks in stuttering instead of steel shuttering.

12.  He may try to mix cement concrete by manually to save the expense on mixer and vibrator.

13.  He may try to eliminate beams from the slabs to save labor and shuttering cost.

14.  He may try to do plaster in an improper manner by not giving proper curing before ‘Plastering’, without marking “BUNDAS” and the corners are also not in right angle.

15.  He may try to save labor in compaction of earthwork and base coat of the floor and also may ignore proper paneling of floor.

16.  He may ignore proper slope in the room for drainage of roof water and may leave tile tracing un-pointed.

17.  He may try to keep the height of parapet low by not making cement concrete ‘Gola’ on the roof to save the labor and money.

18.  He may charge more cost for measurement of the area in a wrong way. The owner should check the measurement of the house personally or should get the measurement checked through some technical person.

THROUGH RATE CONTRACT

When the contractor arranges both building material and labor, he may try to save money as given below.

1.      He may use inferior quality of the cement and may try to use less quantity of cement.

2.      He may try to use less number of MS steel bars in RCC slab and may try to avoid provision of beams.

3.      He may use inferior quality of sand,’Blast’, ‘Bazri’ etc.

4.      He may try to use either second class bricks or mixed bricks.

5.      He may use fine sand instead of coarse sand because fine sand is cheaper than coarse sand.

6.      He may use inferior quality of wood and may also use substandard section for door and windows, ‘Chowkhats’ and shutters.

7.      He may try to use low quality fittings, glass and other fixtures.

8.      He may try to leave termite treatment, Damp proof treatment etc.

9.      He may try to lay flooring with inferior quality of materials and may also provide less thickness.

10.  He may try to use inferior quality of paints.