10 Easy Steps To Build A House In Nigeria

Why You Should Know The Steps To Build A House In Nigeria

Building a house in Nigeria for both personal occupancy or for tenants has not been easy especially when the subject has limited source of fund, such as civil servants with low income of N35, 000 per month, petty business men, and local farmers, etc. with intentions to own a house.

This post is meant for serious minded individuals want to know easy steps to build a house in Nigeria irrespective of the hurdles involve.

The Nigerian cities are so occupied and condensed that even to rent a house is very costly or can be very costly depending on the location you are living in the city, places like Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Owerri, and Kano.

At the center of these above cities you can be having a house rent of about N500,000/year to N150,000/year for a self-contain apartment and most landlords would ask you to per for a duration of 2years at once.

This makes the house rent to be very costly climaxing to about N1 Million or more, such huge money is enough to buy a plot of land in the less developed parts of that same city.

When considering a house in city you have to plan according to the funds available or flowing to your pulse regularly, there are many techniques to be applied to ensure you acquire a house of your own in the city.

We are going to highlight them one after the one, note that this suggestion and idea is for economic purpose not putting into consideration your taste for the choice of house and materials you would love to you.

Steps Showing Ways To Build A House In Nigeria

Below are the few steps of acquiring your house and stop paying such a huge money in the name of house rent.

Step one

At every city there are places regarded as less developed area a little far from the main city those areas has been discovered to have a less difficulty in the acquisition of land.

A serious minded individual that desire to own a land should locate such areas in that city so as to be able to pay for a land as low as N500,000 while the place is still busy and unoccupied by people.

This is because the more development moves to that location the more the value of the land in those areas.

Therefore buy the land about 7years ahead bearing a clear picture of what the future prospect of that location would be like.

The activities of the estate developers in majority of our cities has made it possible for every part of the city that is less developed, to be highly developed within a matter of few years gap.

Step two

Locate sites where new development is taking place but the development includes the demolishing of an already existing structures like, demolishing of stores, bungalows, etc. located in the heart of the city or any another location in other to build a bigger structure.

The reason you have to locate such a place is obtain some building materials which ordinarily would be very costly when you decides to buy them in the market example of such materials is the irons rods which you are to use for the lintel works in the doors, windows and  arch frames.

Another example is the facial boards for roofing purpose above all you will make a good fortune in gathering the woods used in the roofing of those houses, even some places like that you may get those materials free without paying anything for it.

Step three

Take a visit to welders and carpenters workshop to check for already used iron and wooden doors respectively.

This would save you a lot of money since you can be having such doors for N6000 and N3000 respectively while the new ones are N20, 000 and N12, 000 respectively so you just save N21, 000 for that, then ask or request them to furnish the doors for you, in that case you will get the doors painted and furnished.

Step four

The next step is to buy and keep your aluminum roofing sheets as the more the years the more the inflation in the market, so you make arrangements to be paying for short pan aluminum from every month’s savings which can take you four months or more depending on your saving capacity.

1 bundle of short aluminum pan contains 50pieces of the aluminum sheet and that costs N50,000 at present and has been rising in market price following the fall of naira so buying two or three bundles at N150,000 and keeping or storing it will save your money ahead of time when you will fully initiate the building project.

Step five

Another step is to obtain the drawing for the house from an experienced builder or you can hire a service of an architect if you can afford it.

At this stage proceed to count all the expenses involved in the raising of the blocks to roofing level this could be done by calculating the number of blocks required for each wall of the house and after that you sum them up to obtain the total number of blocks required.

Assuming the kitchen having four walls required 500 blocks, parlor required 800 blocks, the two sitting rooms required 400 blocks each and the toilets and bathroom will require 300 blocks.

Then the total blocks you need for your building = 500+800+(400 x 2)+300=2400 blocks this is the block you need to raise the building to roofing level.

For the sake of the works and the areas of the building requiring blocks which is not listed above you may approximate the blocks number to 3000 blocks.

Step six

A very crucial aspect is how to acquire the 3000 blocks you needed for your building, presently in the Nigerian block industries a solid block of 5 inch costs N120 -N130, hollow blocks of 6inch costs N180-N200.

So are other blocks so buying a 5inch block of 3000 pieces costs N390,000 or 6 inch hollow blocks of 3000 pieces which costs N600,000 these prices can be very costly for you to afford.

Also, the quality of these blocks cannot be guaranteed as it was mold for commercial purpose, so in other to overcome this problem and its expenses here is an alternative in the next step number.

Step seven

Instead of the expenses in number 6 considering the fact that you are low income earner, you can decide to mold the blocks yourself the things you will require are; source of water supply, sharp sands, cements, a molder and its compacter or hire the service of block molders at N800 for each bag of cement they will use to mold a particular number of blocks.

If you are using 5inch blocks some of them can mold 50 blocks per cement bag or 40 blocks for 6inch block so it left for you to choose the type you need but remember the lesser the number of blocks the stronger the block becomes.

let’s assume you are using the 5inch block at 70 blocks per cement bag (3000/70=43) this means you will need 43 bags of cement but a bag of cement costs N2000, so 43 bags (43 x 2000)=N86,000.

A trip of sharp sand (double loading) costs N16,000 about two trips can take care the block molding and even have some that will remain for chocking of blocks during block laying.

So the two trips will cost N16000 x 2 =N 32000 having gotten the cement and sand you can proceed to make water available for the molding location assuming you are the type that usually have free time you can be going to that site to mold blocks at your free time.

You will be surprise that you wouldn’t know when you have molded the 3000 blocks you needed or you ask the block molders to do that for you at the normal price of N800 per cement bag therefore it will cost you N800 x 43 = N34,400 by this you have gotten your blocks ready.

Now let’s compare option number 6 and that of number 7; according to option number 6 buying blocks of 3000 pieces for 5inch will cost N130 x 3000 =N390, 000.

While option number 7 will give you extra sand for other works, and will cost only N86000 + N32000 =N118, 000, if you hired molders it will become N118000 + N34, 400 =N152, 400 so in all ramifications option 7 is more economical for low income earners.

Step Eight

Now you proceed to check the number of cement bags needed for the laying of the blocks.

Normally, laying of blocks do not consume cements so a room with 400 blocks won’t take more than 3 bags of cement to lay the blocks so following the calculations made earlier you can then obtain the number of cement bags needed for laying of the 3000 blocks.

Step Nine

With the above steps above having been achieved then you just have another calculation to make and that is the cost of laying those blocks some block layers charges N35 – N40 per block.

While after the window levels the price changes to N50-N60 so if you multiply the charges to the number of blocks you are to lay for the building it will give you the total cost of laying the blocks.

Note that these calculations will make you to be specific in your planning and help you on how to invest your money in the building projects and seeing the instant results of the money you are putting in.

The next is to proceed in the building project according to the plan and your financial savings.

Step Ten

In other to avoid continues paying of the huge house rent which you were planning to avoid; put the following into consideration that is building a portion of the house and moving to live in it while continuing the building process.

If that is your choice you can map out one of the room as the center to have doors, plastering, flooring, windows, etc.

Immediately after the roofing of the house, when this is achieved the rest becomes a story because the important thing is to see yourself in your own house in the city.

Hence, every penny that enters into your will have its visible purpose to serve, it will be just matter of years you will begin to enjoy the full features of a new house which is your own house.

Remember what discourages most people is the fear of stopping along the way thereby having uncompleted building which has tied the money they managed to save for years.

Conclusion

But this ten steps to build a house in Nigeria will help to predict how long it would take you save the money required for the roofing level which is what you should strive for so you can just move into the building believe me on your legs are in that roofed house your money has gotten money purpose to serve.

“I wish you good luck, and don’t forget to ask question through comments in case of any difficulty in your building project”