Indian contruction companies and damp

corElement

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So this is quite pathetic if I may say so, we've recently purchased an apartment, 6 months in theres damp in the walls, paint blisters and cracked coatings.

Is it really possible for indian construction companies to not cheat people and use proper materials for construction where things dont damp? I very much doubt so. DLF unitech parsvanath vatika, you name it. There isnt a single building from any construction company where there isnt damp. Brand new buildings look like trash in 2 years because of damp.

What the hell people... You cant even fix damp permanently. Why cant indian companies make buildings without DAMP. Is our country this pathetic that you cheat on people with materials to this extent.. sometimes I feel people who defend things like these need to be jailed and people/govt people who dont put up stricter laws regarding shit like this should be thrown into a damp cell for a month or two. Problem is, they'll never learn. I dont care what defence anyone has against it, but damp should NOT HAPPEN IF THE COMPANY DOSNT CHEAT YOU.

Now I wait for the day my wall is blistered to the extent it threathens my hardware then have to break it down and fit it.
 
Hi,
Your experience scares me, cause i am looking for an apartment on the OM,Perungudi,Thoraipakkam area in Chennai.Really don't know what am i going to end up with.:rolleyes:

sri
 
The huge losses to human lives in Turkey earthquake were also due to a substandard builder and construction market. Its a global phenomenon.

Unfortunatley builder lobby use money clout to influence MLA's from introducing laws to protect the common citizen.

I heard this from a BSNL telecom manager - an MLA was sending hired goons to rough up workers digging and laying cables for Internet broadband, and snatching their tools - because he had not been paid a cut in the contract for the cable laying work. Hence broadband was being delayed to a certain part of the city for a year then. I was sitting next to an aggrieved customer in the managers cabin who has complaining about why there was still no internet service in his area, after 6 months of requesting. This was the reason given. That same MLA will stand in a crowd next to you and sing the national anthem on a day, fooling the public about his patriotism while he actively interferes in developing the nation, on the sly.

Legislation and implementation suffer due to money clout. No end in sight, sorry ... :mad:
 
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there isanother viewpoint which some guys follow and I followed while buying homes ( twice) in past
Buy home used 3-6 years is an ideal time...
1) In first rain you will come to know about water proofing and external paint.in 2-3 rains many defects appear.
2) People are settled so you know the neighborhood.
3) Society is formed and functional....if society is not formed in 3 years something is wrong
4) All papers especially O.C. ( dunno required in all states) and municipal requirements are complete ad functional.
many times people buy under speculation of nearby area development like upcoming park,road,station,airport etc,In 3-6 years you have clearcut idea.
5) Many times you get better rates than ready possession brand new building.

Of course unser construction rates are better ,but i have seen projects delayed for 1-2 even 3 years..in facts 6-9 months should consider common

6) sometimes older homes have lesser maintainace
7) you can see real condition of facilites post 3 years ..ie society can maintain swimming pool,health club etc.I have seen pools becoming dirty water poodle and health club into scrap room!!:)

again it is a viewpoint...but i like it
 
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dirty water poodle
That's a lovely typo, hemantwaghe :). Please excuse my correction: poodle is a dog; puddle is the word you seek.

What amazes me is that it is often no more difficult to get building construction right as to get it wrong! Old buildings suffer faults with time, but should a new building not be perfect? I think it should. We raised the level of our water tank, and thought that it might as well be raised with four walls as two, thus creating a store room. With the first rain, everything inside was wet. The engineer deliver a fine piece of bovine excrement: it would be alright the following year! I find it really impossible to think that his wealthy customers returning from places like Dubai would accept this nonsense for a moment. Later, we found that they had not even painted the back wall of the structure, not easily visible, at all!

On other stuff, such as bad wiring practice, and poor quality wood, they seemed to think that saving me money was the justification! Sure: I did not order teak and luxury, but nor did I ask for cheap and nasty!

My single example of experience with a Chennai builder, in renovating this house, almost drove me to a nervous breakdown. I find it easy to rant about such things!
 
So this is quite pathetic if I may say so, we've recently purchased an apartment, 6 months in theres damp in the walls, paint blisters and cracked coatings.

Is it really possible for indian construction companies to not cheat people and use proper materials for construction where things dont damp? I very much doubt so. DLF unitech parsvanath vatika, you name it. There isnt a single building from any construction company where there isnt damp. Brand new buildings look like trash in 2 years because of damp.

What the hell people... You cant even fix damp permanently. Why cant indian companies make buildings without DAMP. Is our country this pathetic that you cheat on people with materials to this extent.. sometimes I feel people who defend things like these need to be jailed and people/govt people who dont put up stricter laws regarding shit like this should be thrown into a damp cell for a month or two. Problem is, they'll never learn. I dont care what defence anyone has against it, but damp should NOT HAPPEN IF THE COMPANY DOSNT CHEAT YOU.

Now I wait for the day my wall is blistered to the extent it threathens my hardware then have to break it down and fit it.


corElement,

It is quite angering to see the appalling standards of construction even from supposedly reputable builders such as DLF. Its your hard earned money and you have every right to be angry enough to break a bone or two of the builders. However, a few things to note / check though I am in no way qualified to offer any civil engineering suggestions:

1. When anyone constructs a building using the traditional brick & cement method, the building has to go through a curing process in which they make the walls damp by spraying water and then letting the moisture dry out. The longer the curing process, the stronger the building and less prone it is to cracks. Due to competition, cost cutting and general lack of quality, most builders do not do this. When buildings are not cured enough, they will become damp for the first few monsoon seasons. Unfortunately the side effect of this dampening is that the paint and emulsion of your interiors will come off
2. You also need to note where the dampening occurs. Is it generally spread across the wall or does it look like it started from a corner (for example where your ceiling and side walls meet). If it starts from a corner, it usually means that exterior side of those corners (especially if it meets the roof or window shades) needs additional patch work. Using a coat of white cement to cover those exterior areas will reduce the dampening. If it is generally spread across, then it is a sign of insufficient curing during the building process
3. Does the damping occur where you have window shades or openings for split A/Cs? If they do, then you surely need to do some patch work on the exterior as mentioned in point 2.
4. You mentioned crack in the paint coatings. You NEED to investigate and confirm if it is only an air crack (caused by the evaporation of residual moisture from buildings) or a structural crack. You can find this out by peeling off the paint in the cracked area and check if there are cracks in the wall structure. If you do see a crack in the structure, you also need to check if the same crack can be traced to the other side of the wall. I dont want to induce panic, but if the crack is present in both sides of the wall, then you are potentially looking at a major issue and would need to pull your builder up (especially if its a new building)
5. Assuming you are in the top floor and you have a roof on top, you may want to check and confirm if weather proofing has been done on the roof. If not, the damping will not stop till a proper weather proofing is done. Even if weather proofing is done, improper weather proofing will show up immediately when it rains the ceiling will look absolutely damp

If the crack is only at the paint level and the damping is due to one of the reasons above, then you should not worry. I am saying this because I went through the exact same issues when I renovated my home in Chennai and built a couple of more rooms in the first floor few years ago. The first rainy season made the entire house damp and the paint came off the walls. We just removed the paint as they came off, let a couple of rainy seasons go and reinforced the corners of window shades and A/C inlets with white cement and we dont have damping anymore. Also, when we built the room upstairs, we did not do weather proofing of the roof immediately the result was completely damp ceiling when it rained. After we weather proofed the roof, the damping has reduced a lot.

I may be completely off the mark in giving these suggestions. If I indeed am, my apologies in advance. It would also be useful to get a good civil engineer to check your apartment & building.
 
Hi Corelement,
It can be difficult to tell presently that whatever dampness you see now is all there would be, or it will get worse. Considering worse case scenario , ...

1. Start sending letter of complaints to the concerned builder immediatly and you must define the time period of rectification... say within one week. AWAYS ensure you get reciept /acknowledgement with company stamp and signatures.

2. Be prepared to take this as a slow and long battle, so you MUST preserve all documentation of your compaint and their replies. These documents will be the important weapons to use in consumer court.

3. Keep the battle slow.., you can't let things like this interfere with your peace of mind and daily routine. So don't plan a full blown attack with all your energy and tire yourself out... it won't work, cause the responding environment i.e the builder and the law is just slow to respond.

4. Do consult the consumer court /specialist lawyer early on to know how you should plan for battle in case the builder doesn't makes rectification in time (I would consider that time to be max 3 months, including not responding to your reminders)

BTW like anyone in this situation, you must be frustrated thinking why do such things happen in first place. Being in this industry this is my observation >>

... Unlike software industry and its product, the people are trapped once a person buys a building product and cannot junk it, like you can junk a software today, and start using the better one tomorrow. This situation has lulled the builders into complacency regarding being strict about quality "control". In India (and probably elsewhere also) people get in line only when the stick hits hard.

Some token quality "implement"* measures ARE taken by big brand builders, that DO yeild waterproof result, but in stray cases where the labour+supervisor have not been careful, the hapless owner bears the brunt of their carelessness, and for the builder tracking the fault and rectifying the fault is a MEGA task.

*Quality implement measure means definiing what waterproofing compound to be mixed in concrete and how. Quality "control" means controling implementation by means of maintaining checklist wiith an eagle's eye regarding, whether the labour+supervisor are actually doing job properly.
Control also means having a process that doesn't allow concreting to start if the quality control checklist is not followed. The concreting should start only when it is ensured that deficiency has been corrected. I have not heard ANY builder following such process. Can you imagine a big brand software company launching a product in market without beta-testing?.. well the builders in India do it all the time with their products!!

Rectifying dampness is not like changing a light switch or a leaky tap. So the builder is not inclined to undertake this MEGA task unless there is stick hanging above him like, negative exposure in media, court directed huge compensation and like.

PM me if you need further guidance on this issue.

Regds,

CorElement,

Can't you drag the builder to the consumer forum ?
 
In general if we buy property from un-branded companies the chances of cheaper raw material used etc are generally high.

In Mumbai there are several leading builders in whose flats such adverse problems will likely not surface, take the case of my flat, it is now over 13 years i am staying and there is virtually no problems, so one can imagine the benefits of dealing with builders of repute. In-fact there was a other builder who was offering a flat much cheaper when i was finalizing but i stuck to my risk management and bought a flat from this repute builder.

V.
 
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Hi,
Your experience scares me, cause i am looking for an apartment on the OM,Perungudi,Thoraipakkam area in Chennai.Really don't know what am i going to end up with.:rolleyes:

sri

Best bet is to go for resale flats which are 1-2 years old.
Trust me, Under construction projects are NOT WORTH it.

I agree that if everyone takes this route, the real estate business will collapse, but who cares.

I reiterate, Advantages of under construction flats = lower initial payment + preminum location of flats. Thats it really!

Disadvantages include, Interest on payment for 2-3 years pre EMI (atleast) + absorbtion of all losses (rental income + interest + EMI for something you did not get yet) because the BUILDER delays the project + UNCERTAINITY of the quality + Nowadays, uncertainity of completion itself.

Select few completed projects in your budget, walk around the place and look at some apartments and decide. Looking at a picture in the brochure an booking an apartment is foolish is what I learnt in the past. Brochures are next to nothing! Builders are not lawfully binded to provide all the items in the brochure and in almost ALL cases they do not. Add to that major defects in basic stuff like water sepage..

Edit : Resale flats does not have the service tax also. it accounts to 2.58% of the apartment value.
 
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I think it is always better not to buy a flat which is under construction because of the mentioned and other risks involved, ready possession is likely to be more smarter.

One of the reasons which people go for under construction is because of a myth that they are getting it cheaper and by the time it is ready, the rate will be much higher. To cite a example, the building where i am staying, the lady booked the flat when foundation stone was layed, it took around 2 years for the building to get ready, at the time of booking rates were booming, she had bought at 8000 rupees a square feet, and by the time building got ready, the same flat was available at the rate of 2900 rupees.

V.
 
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