WHAT MAKES UP YOUR BUILDING??

Growing up we all had a basic need of man in the form of shelter (homes) over our heads. It may have been a single room, chamber and hall or for the ‘dadabi’s’ some plush self-contained house among others. No matter the type of house you stayed in the key thing  was you having shelter over your head. The shelter (home) we lived in, served as a protector from various elements of the weather such as rain, gave us some form of thermal (heat) insulation, sound insulation among others. Just think of where you would have stored your laptop, IPhone/phone you are using now if you did not have a home? How would you have charged your phone? Where will people visit you at, and what directions would you have given them? Where would those designer suits or dresses have been stored? Clearly whilst the basic function of the building is to have served as a protector from elements of the weather, it has over the years evolved to perform other secondary functions.

Have you ever bothered to ask yourself how the house you are living in was put up, what are the constituents of this building in terms of materials and parts of the building, are there any special process involved in building a house?

I had such questions running through my mind in the year 2001. I had then applied to KNUST to pursue a course in Electrical Engineering in line with my aim of being an Electrical Engineer after my Secondary School education, and as was the norm we selected other programmes in addition to your first choice programme. I was hoping I would be admitted for the Electrical Engineering programme and hence did not really bother so much about my other choices. I added Building Technology as part of the choices since the name sounded interesting, even though I had no idea what it entailed. Admissions finally came and KNUST had ‘shocked me’ from the Electrical Engineering and admitted me for Building Technology. I was shattered and for a while undecided whether to accept admission or not, but I finally did after talking to some in the industry. 

My first few weeks at KNUST was almost like hell to me.  Lecturers come to class mention things like columns, beams, slabs, foundations among others and represented them with single lines or at worst double lines in sectional drawings, plan and others. I hardly could relate with what was taught then. Coming from a science background i had never bothered about construction or even thought of pursuing it as a programme. I expected to see the above mentioned parts of the building in 3D or some pictorial form but alas ..... Well I almost resigned myself to my fate & just wanted to ‘pass through the school some’ until fate smiled on me and I found a book in the library that so much simplified construction to the basic or i will  say for dummies like me.
It is from that perspective for which I wish to start this blog, to try and make construction easily understood by the laymen as a number of us may undertake a construction project at some point in our lives either for ourselves or for an organisation.

. In order not to bore you further let me just introduce the most essential parts of the building to you in this blog and then go deeper on the various parts in subsequent blogs.

  

Fig. 1 Some line diagrams used in Class which seemed confusing to me the

                   

Concrete Slabs on Walls

                     Section through a foundation

Fig. 2 What I was hoping to see

                    

                                    Columns & beams in 3D 

                      Building transferring load to foundation 

** Above images obtained from Building Construction Handbook by Chudley, R. and Greeno, R. 2010, 8^th Edition

The house you live in can basically be divided into two main parts:  

1.    Sub-structure
2.    Super-structure:

a.    Masonry elements & roof

b.    Finishes

c.    Services

1. The Substructure also called foundation is said to be all the part of the building below the ground level but inclusive of the ground floor bed. The ground floor bed is simply the concrete floor you stand on at home for a single storey building as well as have your furniture and all other items positioned on it. The substructure’s main function is to carry the entire load from the building into the soil below it and hence if the substructure is not strong or the soil below is a weak soil then you should know your building is in danger of collapse or developing some cracks.
2. The Superstructure of the building is all that part of the building above the substructure and is basically made up of Masonry elements & roof, finishes and services.

A.   Masonry elements & roof: the main parts of the superstructure are the blocks, concrete columns (pillar in local language), beams (lintels as used by tradesmen), blockwork – forming the masonry elements, roof timber and roof covering such as aluminium sheet or roofing tiles.

The beams (lintels) carry the loads (weight of roof) and transfers it to the columns (pillars) which in turn transfers it to the foundation. The beams also hold the building together as a unit and prevents it from literally opening up at the top.  You will thus realise that for a building to have good strength the columns and beams need to be very strong. The blockwork in this case will only come in to close the spaces between columns and hence are more of partitioning purposes.

There are cases where some people prefer to eliminate the columns and use the blockwork only to carry the load to the foundation which is technically allowed. In such a situation it is important to get blocks that are called load bearing blocks and whose strengths are known from the manufacturer as they will be the ones to carry the load to the foundation. A weak block will thus cause collapse of the building in no time

B.   What we refer to as finishes in the building are not to carry any loads but more for aesthetics and some functional purposes. Finishes include rendering (which has been corrupted as plastering to walls), screeding of floors, wall & floor tiling, doors, windows, balustrades, internal staircases, painting etc. They basically make the house look nice

C.   A building usually has two main types of services – Electrical Services and Mechanical Services.

The  Electrical services as we all know has to do with items such as Electrical wiring, light switches & lights, sockets, distribution boards, ceiling fans etc. Items to do with data such as telephone points, internet points, TV points and the like can loosely be classified as part of Electrical Services.

The Mechanical services aspect has to do with plumbing and thus takes into effect plumbing pipework, septic tanks, kitchen sink, wash hand basin, W/C, shower or bath tub among others.

Well folks I think this blog on the basic parts of the building should be enough for you to digest whilst I work on the next blog which will take things further. I do hope after reading this you are now aware of the important features that went into the construction of your home and will be able to make some decisions when it comes to you building your own.

Do feel free to comment as I would love your feedback.

Until the next blog is up, wishing you the best!

                        A completed foundation & Superstructure columns

        

                   Foundation under construction