Retainage in Construction : Merits & Demerits

During construction, the construction contract governs the project. This document is a written record of the agreements between the customer, contractor, and subcontractor. The contract specifies the materials to be used, the timeline for completion, and the construction method and payment date.

Customers may withhold a small amount of money until the work is completed in payment terms. This withholding is called retention, which becomes important in construction.

Define Retainage

A retainage is a portion of a contractor’s fee that is withheld until the project is completed or specified in the contract.

In essence, retainage ensures that contractors and subcontractors fulfill their contractual obligations in a satisfactory manner. In the absence of retainage, a customer might pay an untrustworthy contractor their full fee upfront, at which point they might abscond with the money and abandon the project. A retainage serves as a reverse security deposit for the customer.

Retainage Workflow

A retainage percentage of between 5 and 10 percent is generally agreed upon by the parties before the start of the project, and stipulated in the contract. As the construction project progresses, progress payments are made periodically as fractions of the full fee.

An example of a retainage calculation would be $100,000 if the project price is $100,000, along with a 10 percent retainage. Each progress payment is subject to a 10 percent retainage by the customer or project owner. Each progress payment of $100,000 stipulated in the contract will be withheld by $10,000 by the customer.

Define Substantial Competition

As defined in the contract documents, substantial completion occurs when the work or a designated portion of the work is sufficiently completed so that the owner can occupy or use it as intended. A property has been substantially completed when the owner is able to move in or use it for its intended purpose, and retainage to the contractor is likely due.

Merits of Retainage

Financial Security

Money held in retainage allows the owner to preserve some funds that might have otherwise been wasted on an incomplete project when a contractor or subcontractor fails to perform their obligations. This money can now be used by the owner to hire another contractor to finish the project.

Proper Incentive

Construction contractors and subcontractors will be motivated to perform their work well if a significant part of the overall project fee is not released until the structure is usable.

Read more

Published By
civilguidelines
www.civilguidelines.com

Everything You Need to Know About Brick Work

Brick dividers are likely the most well-known structure components in development of a house in India. These dividers structure fundamental units for making rooms that make up a house. The dividers other than being space dividers are additionally primary components that move the heap of the rooftop to the ground.

Brick dividers are developed on strip spread or pontoon establishments that help the dividers. The dividers are built utilizing bricks and mortar. These can likewise be developed with different primary characteristics and thicknesses.

Brick dividers are built by getting bricks together with concrete mortar in game plans called English Bond, Flemish Bond or Rat Trap Bond. These bonds give diverse outer appearances to the divider. All development frameworks of brick dividers are such concocted that vertical cross joints in any layers are amazed. The bricks hence reinforce a strong mass that doesn’t part when the divider is stacked with live loads and dead loads.

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Basics About RCC Slabs in Construction

RCC stands for reinforced cement concrete slabs. It is the most important element in the construction industry to make a building. RCC slab is a structural component. The RCC slabs are supported on the columns and beams. RCC Slabs whose thickness ranges from 10 to 50 centimeters are most often used for the construction of floors and ceilings.

Thickness of RCC

The minimum thickness of RCC slabs is 5 inches. According to the AMERICAN CONCRETE INSTITUTE, the minimum thickness of the RCC slab should be 5 inches. According to Indian Standard, the minimum thickness of the RCC slab is restricted to 4 times the nominal size of aggregate. The minimum thickness should not be less than 4.75 inches.

Types of Slabs

Corrugated Slab – this is the type of slab where the concrete is poured into a corrugated steel tray. This type of RCC slab increases the strength and prevents the slabs from bending under their own weight. It runs across from side to side.

A Ribbed Slab – this type of slab provides extra strength in one direction.

A Waffle Slab – this type of slab gives added strength in both directions.

One-way Slab – this type of slab has structural strength in the shortest direction.

Two-way Slab – it has structural strength in two directions.

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Comparative Analysis of Slab to Beam Load Transfer

Load transfer mechanism in reinforced cement concrete (RCC) structures are a truly intriguing matter. The loads of a floor fall totally on the floor slab. They are transferred to the beams, then to the columns, and finally to foundation. Today, we will do a comparative analysis of slab to beam load transfer.

The forces acting on a slab are expressed as slab pressure loads, which are told in terms of kN/m2. However, when these loads are transferred to the beams supporting the slab, they morph into what we call line loads on beams, given in kN/m. This transfer has to be uniform on all sides (unless you have designed it specially for skewed loads) or else the flooring may crack, or worse.

Reynolds and Steedman (2005) present some very useful formulas to represent uniformly distributed slab loads transferred to beams. These formulae are great for analyzing the load transfer system from a two-way or one-way slab to its supporting beam.

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Types of Loads that Can Act in a Structure

If you’re a construction or civil engineer, probably 80% of your day goes by juggling loads acting on a member and strengths of the member. You will need to know all the types of loads that can act in a structure for designing it proper and strong. So, today we will discuss the types of loads.

The loads acting on a building can be divided into 3 main categories depending on the direction of their application – vertical, horizontal, and longitudinal. Among these, vertical loads are the most common since this is the way gravity acts.

There are many kinds of things causing vertical – or, gravitational loads, like the dead weight of a member, the live weight of things resting on that member, and the load of something impacting from above.

The most common types of loads acting in a structure are as follows:

1. Dead load
2. Imposed load
3. Wind load
4. Snow loads
5. Seismic forces
6. Shrinkage, creep, and heat effects
7. Other types of loads

Let’s run through each of these types of structural loads one by one now.

Dead Load

All the weight of the building itself is considered as the dead load of the structure. When considering a member, the dead load of the member is its own weight. The dead load acting on it would be the weight of all the permanent construction resting on the member.

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Road Estimator – the Best Software for Road Contractors

You have your formulas, your spreadsheets, your cost estimating sheets – and then you have the Road Estimator 6.6. If you’re a contractor or engineer in charge of road construction, the Road Estimator is an invaluable friend you must have in your PC!

A revolutionary software on its own, the Road Estimator is a great tool for road creation and quantity management estimates. This robust computer application can take care of all your section creation and quantity calculation. The software is so intuitive, it can generate roads and cross sections on its own from survey data, down to the last detail of earthwork and quantity.

Apart from road cross section calculation, the Road Estimator software can generate data for new roads, widen or strengthen existing roads, in any setting – urban, rural, mountains, highways.

Highlights of Road Estimator

New Roads

You’re a road contractor and you gotta build roads! The Road Estimator is your best friend in this matter. Whether you are building new roads, single-lane, multi-lane, highways, service roads or rural roads – you will be able to get all kinds of estimation data from this exciting software. It can quantify roads with or without pavement, consisting of multiple layers, without any limitation of materials or the number of layers.

Widening of roads

Existing roads need to be widened as the load on them increases with time. The technical challenges of widening a road, especially in populated areas, can easily be overcome when you have the nifty Road Estimator by your side. Be it any kind of work – road repair, rebuild, soil replacement, cross-sectional changes, super elevation – just feed the survey data into the Road Estimator and watch the magic!

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Top 10 Australian Civil Engineering Companies

Australian civil and infrastructure developers have always been ambitious about building strong and tall buildings. And so began the race among construction companies in Australia. Today, we will visit the most prominent among them, according to a 2015-16 survey, and present the reflections as the top 10 Australian civil engineering companies.

1. Buckeridge Group of Companies

The Buckeridge Group of Companies, or BGC in short, began in 1960 as a small family-owned firm, which has grown into one of the top privately-owned companies in Australia by turnover. The construction firm on BGC was established in 1994 only.

Since then, BGC has been responsible for building some of the greatest structures around Australia, for example, the award winning Perth Arena. They also include BGC Contracting which deals with mining and civil construction. BGC Construction was awarded non-residential Australian contracts totalling $1.3bn by the time of the survey.

Contact

6th Floor 22 Mount St,
Perth, WA 6000
Australia
Tel: +61 8 6220 4800

2. ADCO Constructions

After starting off only in 1972, ADCO has completed over 3,500 projects valued at over $10bn. With 580 direct employees and numerous achievements, it has shot up among the 50 most successful companies in Australia. Their projects include Smithfield Cinemas and Entertainment Leisure Precinct in New South Wales.

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Civil Work Quantities Excel Sheet Free Download

When you are a civil engineer, site engineer, or similarly engaged in construction work directly, you have to know exactly how much material you need for the work or you cannot do your job. For this, a quantity calculation sheet comes very handy. So, here we are with the civil work quantities excel sheet for free download.

Civil Work Quantity Calculation

The work of constructing a building is divided into many parts such as concreting, masonry, plastering, tiles etc. Each of this work requires a certain number of materials to construct. For example, for concrete work you need to know exactly how much cement, fine aggregates, and coarse aggregates do you need. Also, you need to know the mass of the steel you need for reinforcing.

This is what we know as the civil work quantity calculation. It is possible to do this work by hand, but it would be a huge task. To make it easier, we present a very useful excel workbook for civil work quantity. This workbook has sections to calculate the material quantity for each type of work.

But not only that, there is another sheet inside the workbook that is a converter sheet. Using this sheet, you can convert any quantity from one unit to another unit. For example, you can convert how many cubic feet of concrete you need to cubic meters.

Advantages

You can do the following kinds of work using this civil work quantities excel sheet.

Brick Masonry Work:

The following quantities of brick masonry work you can find out using this sheet.

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Top 10 Construction Companies in London Hiring Now

If you’re looking for a job in a UK-based construction engineering company, you should get to know these top 10 construction companies in London hiring now. Whether you are looking for a supervisory or administrative position in the construction industry in England, your best bet are these.

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s jump right into the list of the top 10 construction companies in London that are hiring now!

1. L&B Haulage & Civil Engineering

The L&B boasts an experience range of more than 30 years. They work in multiple fields covering ground works, civil engineering, construction and allied activities, including haulage, demolition, waste management, recycling, crushing, screening and skip hire.

Services

1. Bulk Earthworks
2. Civil Engineering
3. Demolition
4. Plant
5. Haulage
6. RC Frames
7. Temporary Works
8. Waste Management and Recycling

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co

Techniques to Mark Foundation Area

Foundation is the component of the structure which connects the structure to the ground. It bears the loads which are transmitted through the structural system of the whole building.

Types of Foundation

Foundation has two types. One is shallow foundation and another one is deep foundation. Spread footings, isolated footings are the example of shallow foundation. Piles, pile walls, and caissons are the example of deep foundation.

Purpose of Foundation

1. Foundation holds the building up.
2. It bears the load of the whole building.

The Process of Foundation

Floor plan

Level: Nor part of the floor is higher than anyone.

Square: Walls are parallel and the length of the walls remain the same.

Plumb: There are 3 steps

1. Orientation of the building on the site.
2. Mark a simple outline of the building’s foundation on the ground;
3. Place a batter board around the foundation outline and mark the position of the inside walls, doors, and windows on the boards.

Read more

Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co