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Materials and pricing for our carekeepers hut
Submitted by luke88 on Thu, 2009/11/05 - 18:10.
Okay, so we can finally start building....we are starting off with building a 592 sq ft carekeepers house...made out of bricks...here is a list of the materials to just get the structure up with the prices... I am checking to see if anyone has any input and if the prices are too high, and if some are too high, where i can purchase cheaper materials. Keep in mind, that we are buying the materials 2 km from san juan del sur, close to our land...so the transportation is free.
592 SQ FT CAREKEEPERS HUT
QUANTITY - COST PER UNIT - PRICE (cords) - ($US)
3500 Ladrillos (Bricks) - 2.8 - 9,800 - $474
250 Piedras Canteras (Querried Rocks) - 25 - 6,250 - $302
25 qq de hierro 3/8 (Iron) - 790 - 19,750 - $955
12 qq de hierro 1/4 (Iron) - 780 - 9,360 - $453
70 lbs alambre de amarne (Wire) 1,050 - $51
60 lbs de clavo 3” (Nails) - 15 - 900 - $44
30 lbs de clavo 4” (Nails) - 15 - 450 - $22
30 lbs de clavo 5” (Nails) - 15 - 450 -$22
20 lbs de clavo 2 1/2” (Nails) - 15 - 300 -$15
10 lbs clavos 1” - 20 - 200 -$10
40 mts de arena (Sand) - 230 - 9,200 -$445
15 mts de piedrin (little rocks) - 630 - 9,450 - $457
250 Bolsas Cemento (bags of cement) - 168 - 42,000 -$2031
5 mts. arena fina (fine sand) - 275 - 1,375 -$66
30 tablas 1x12x4 (table wood?) - 192 - 5,760 -$278
TOTAL $C = $116,295
$USD = $5,622
Kudos to the responses
As a newbie to this site, I just want to say how cool it is that this guy has been given all this valuable information. And Luke 88; you too should be congratulated for not getting mad at anyone and actually coming back on to share your price list. By working like this as a community we can solve a lot of problems and all go away learning something during the process. I really think your caretaker should invite us all over to the house warming!! He's a lucky guy. Our house is about the same size, 2 bedrooms, and don't ask me how the 4 of us live it it but we do.
thanks
thank you for your input. I should clear things up...we call it a care keepers house, but it will actually be a small house for 2 of us to live in while we run the resort we are building. We do not have much experience in construction, so we are hiring a construction manager, but like you all say, they are out there to rip us off because we are "gringos".
I have been doing a lot of research and wont do anything until i get input and many quotes from all angles.
Also one of the contractors says it will cost them $4000 to finish it in 2 -3 months, which is total bullshit. The materials are just a little over that.
If I skip out on the bricks and build with cement blocks...how much will they cost to buy in rivas....anyone have an idea?
I am thinking...maybe hire a couple guys who know what they are doing and work with them as we need stuff done...instead of getting ripped off by the locals.
You are looking for something
That can not be supplied over the internet!.
Like so many others, you come here looking for something that may or may not exist..
You would do well to listen to other folks that have lived here for some time. Get more estimates. A construction manager is just another person you are paying. Who is this mgr. and what are hes/her credentials?Is he/she going to reduce your cost AFTER YOU INCLUDE HIS/HER SALARY?
Best of luck!
More generic comment
This is not just for you but for anyone who has "construction plans".
If you don't know anything about construction, you should not be managing a construction project.
And that doesn't just mean in Nicaragua. It is just generally easier to be a victim in Nicaragua because most small-scale construction does not include real construction plans, lists of materials and such, no real building permits and all the other checks common in the first world.
Definitely Excessive All Around
This is a whole lot bigger than is needed for a caretaker's house. And the materials - that's another story. Let's just say that almost everything is too much, even for the size you are building. The tablas are for forms for the concrete. You could get by with a lot less. The nails are also primarily for the forms, and you are buying enough to supply your contractor as well as the workers. Did the contractor happen to mention where he was planning on using 3700 pounds of rebar? Wow! Forty cubic meters of sand, 15 cubic meters of stone, 250 bags of cement - did I happen to mention I have some land in Florida I would like to sell? Sorry, but this isn't even close.
And if by some strange chance you are going forward with this job as shown, you need to personally check all invoices, inventory all materials both before departure from the supplier as well as on delivery and at least once per day, and be there virtually 24/7. Otherwise, you will be buying a lot of material for someone else and/or lining someone's pockets much more than usual.
I don't think the house is
I don't think the house is necessarily too big. Two bedrooms and one bathroom will take up about 35-40%, depending on how cramped you want the caretaker to live. Add a kitchen and living/dining room area and you are almost there.
This and that
All this stuff is the inexpensive part. Add the roof, windows, doors, ... and you get serious. And, as this is bigger than my house, I sure wouldn't call it "a shack".
That said, the quantity of brick is right, the price is not. And, generally, brick makes more sense up here as lots of it is made here but concrete blocks would probably make more sense down there.
What are you going to do with 250 piedra cantera and 250 bolsas de cemento? You can certainly price shop but what seems out of line (other than the brick price) is material quantities. I mean, 220 lbs. of nails for a brick house?
Just to put the cement issue into perspective, this is significantly more cement and iron than is in my house which is a 50m2. steel-reinforced all concrete dome that is almost 4 meters high in the middle.
Seems a little execissive
From what you describe you are building a full house. Why don't you use bloques, is the more common and cheaper material. When you use red brick you spend way more cement and hierro. The 40 Mts of sand is really high in both amount and price. When I build in granada at the start of this year the Arena price was 130 cordobas and that was when gas prices where still really high. Be careful with the tablas (pine wood) because the workers are careless and cut any which way so there will be more scraps and then they will ask you if they can have the scraps for firewood. The fine sand I asue is "repello", that is the finishing touches. With this budget your caretake is going to have one hell of a house, way better than most Nicaraguans and maybe even larger. What are the measurement in Metros (meters). In this budget you are missing the roof, for which you need zinc and perlines plus the carpentry which is somewhat expensive if you are a gringo and electrical and plumbing not to mention the floor, if you are going to leave it concrete or put ceramica or ladrillo. You might want to reconsider the size and scoop, unless you want your caretaker living like a king with his whole family there. Brick is a great material, its cool in the weather but very expensive to work, requieres more cement and hierro. How are they going to charge you for the work, per sq mt or per week. This hut will probrably end up costing you about 10,000 with the usual Nica cost over runs. Don't be afraid to make something really small, for a bed and an area with a hot plate or small kitchen and a small bathroom.
Get more details
Your piedra and cement quantities seem high, but much depends on your builder. somebuilders use peidra all around the bottom of the house. AT 2 feet per piece, its not hard to estimate the number of blocks. Other builders use none Some will do it either way, depending on your wishes.
I', too lazy to dig thru my receipts to see how much cement we used on a 80m2 house, but off the top of my head it was at least 200 bags. I went thru the changes: delivering only 10 bags to start, 50 later, counting the empty bags at the end of the day after the mason had left, calculated the cf of cement in the floor to figure the number of bags needed, etc.
I came to the conclusion that Nic. constructions methods suck cement. Look at the inch thick mortar joints (a US mason does 3/8 inch joints). Look early in the job to see all the cement used below grade that will never be seen again. All of the finish work, repellado and afinado, sucks cement, too.
I don't know if FYL ever did a calc on the cost per sf on his dome house, but the great economy of the dome shape should give a stronger product at a lower price. Domes will never catch on in a big way because of the weird factor, but they sure will work for some applications. If I lived in a hurricane prone area, thats the type of house I would want. IF i were starting a hotel and wanted a sales gimmick, especially if it penciled out per square foot, I would look seriously at domes.
Incidently, I've worked with 2 masons here and neither one could write a decent bid. You really have to dig the info out of them and then write it down.
¨Latin America devours its revolutionaries¨ -Simon Bolivar
sounds like your being "gringo priced"
for example
the red brick has traditionally sold for 1 cord maybe two because it's the rainy season but 2.8? 250 sacks of cemento is an awful lot of cement for one house 150 lbs of nails would build a huge house not a hut check to see your not building two houses My second bid from my "contractor" to build a bodega for the little house he had just built for me was 75% of the cost of the house.
Sometimes our blue eyes are seen as lottery tickets
I'd get another bid from someone else
If you are in SJDS
call me if you wish to discuss the project.
huuum
I give my mason nails, bailing wire, etc, 10 pounds at a time to see if he is really using it.
Wasted 1 x 12 pine is part of the Nicarauguan wastefull way of building. It's sad, but even with reasonable care on the part of the mason, this bueatiful pine gets chopped up to scrap as the job progresses. Someday structural block will make it here, but probably not soon.
You didn't seem to mention the cost of the vigilante to guard the materials.
Nice of you to use all of that arrenilla for a caretakers shack. How about paint?
What will temporary water and power cost you?
Your ratio od hierro cor and hierro liso is out of whack, unless they are going to use it in the floors.
What you are describing is just the mason's part. What about the other half of the house?? Roof floors, windows, doors, verjas, plumbings, electrical, security fence?
I'm thinking of putting up a caretakers house. I think I'm going to splurge on 12 square meters, with a small roofed patio.
¨Latin America devours its revolutionaries¨ -Simon Bolivar
ps
Whose going to supervise your vigilante, and what will it cost?
I came back from my birthday celebration (sober) and fired my vigilante on the spot for drinking.
¨Latin America devours its revolutionaries¨ -Simon Bolivar
ps again
you forgot the valastre and celecto. Cheap but not free. I just used about 12 6-yard trucks on a870sf house. A neighbor used 30 trucks on his!
¨Latin America devours its revolutionaries¨ -Simon Bolivar
what is valastre and
what is valastre and colectro?
balastre and selecto
Are a filling materials for foundations.
Balastre is a kind of rock quarry (pit) and selecto is a soil to fill up and compact together with the pit or gravel.
Selecto is what we use in US for fill the Singles houses floor slab.