How To Fix Leaking Or Damaged Roof

A house must have a workable roof on it before it is referred to as a shelter. Roof can get damaged due to these causes.

CAUSES OF ROOF DAMAGE.

(1)Old age or Long Usage-
There is no material that doesn’t have it’s lifespan, so the longer the roof was installed, the probability of its getting damaged quickly.

(2)Low Quality-
When a low or substandard quality is used, the roof will give way at the slightest pressure from man or weather.

(3)Bad Installation-
Roof is one of the most delicate part of the building, when it is not giving to an experienced and capable hand then you are likely to have a roof that will get damaged in no time especially when materials for preventing leakage are not used on the roof.

(4)Bad Design-
However, no matter the level of experience the installer has, no matter how efficient he is, if the roof is badly designed by the architect or whoever is in charge, the roof will end up leaking and which will subsequently get damaged.

(5)Types or materials of roof-
Some roof get easily damaged than the other, durability of roof depends on so many factors but aluminium has more advantages over others.

(6)Arson or damage through stones and other heavy objects thrown on it-
Careless throwing of stones or deliberate destruction can occur especially by area boys.

(7)Walking on it or placing heavy objects on roof can also damage it.

If the roof is destroyed, first step is to note the bad spots, check the nail points and mark out areas where there are problems, look for worn out nails. Metal flashing that were not properly done (flashing is used to prevent tiny holes during installation from causing leakages) will have to be replaced. And for others you may have to totally replace some pieces of roof.
Check the wood under the roof, the wood is the strength of the roof and it may have been damaged by exposure to water and other elements. Get a carpenter to replace any of the bad ones. If the damage isn’t much get a crowbar to remove the nails and replace the damaged piece.
It is good to install roof in the rainy season to easily expose leaking points by rainwater , but it is advisable you do roof repairs on a sunny day to avoid a slippery wet roof which can be very dangerous.
You can either use safety ropes for very high structures, a framework of scaffolding and ladder.
Please also consider the electrical wiring before working on the roof to avoid electrocution, for safety purposes use rubber soles when working on the roof.

Causes of Building Project poor Delivery In Nigeria

There are several reasons why your building project will not come out beautiful and solid as expected due to the following factors.

1. Clients uncanny penchant to save cost at all cost-Building a house for a first timer can be very daunting and too difficult. Preliminary works on site can be money guzzling which often discourages client from going on with the project. You may find it difficult to come to terms with the realities of spending millions on foundation and other preliminarysite works which will not really show to the outsider.
Developers want to make money and they will like to make it quick ,so substandard and inadequate materials are most cases used.

2. Quacks or no professionals on site- There are no well monitored building regulations in Nigeria, hence it is a free for all industry. People with little or no experience goes about parading themselves as building professionals and convincing the unsuspecting masses. Jobs are often interchanged, bricklayers are made to do the job of a builder . Even among the building professionals league, every professional is doing other’s jobs, of course badly. That is why an architect may want to design a structural drawing himself which a structural engineer ought to do, the same for a structural engineer. When there are no professionals to check the work done on your site there is a possibility that your job will be messed up.

3. Substandard Materials and Inadequate Materials-This is a common phenomenon in the building industry, substandard materials are used atimes out of ignorance and to save cost, low mixture ratio of cement/sand/granite or gravel also affects project delivery.

4. Lack of Enforcement will by the Government-Just like every other industries in Nigeria, there are very sound policies and regulations for the building industry, but just as it is difficult for the government to execute these policies, the same applies for the building industry. For example in Lagos state, the regulation is to make sure there is a professional on site at anytime, but most sites are devoid of them and government agencies aren’t really giving adequate attention to these sites.

5. Threats of Omo Onile and other Public Nuisances-There was a case of a Diamond Bank project in Ojodu Berger that collapsed partly due to the recklessness of “omo onile” they were asking for a certain amount from the contractor ffor the roof which he delayed in paying them, they therefore went to the site and remove some props (bamboo studs) that were used to support the roof gutter concrete. This weakened the support and eventually the entire building collapsed. Other cases are abound.

6. Clients Pressure on Contractor to Deliver the project at unattainable period-This is common among the banks, a project that is supposed to take 6 months duration is usually awarded to contractors for 3 months. Contractors on the other hand because of greed will take the project and put themselves on pressure which will make them to produce a poor job because they are in a hurry to deliver.
Moreover, there are fines for not meeting these unreasonable deadlines to the contractors, in order for them to meet up ,shoddy jobs by the artisans are often overlooked. This also applies to corporate and individual organizations.

7. Inadequate Manpower- Graduates produce from the higher institution of learning are being plagued with a lot of problems and inadequacies, hence most graduates are half baked.
Some specialized courses in building industry are not been thought in any of our university, so you may find expatriates involvements in more complex constructions. Employing them is costly, so if the client is not ready to shell out so much money, then he may have to make do with what he has.

8. Cost of Employing Professionals/Economic reasons-Just as stated above.

9. Inadequate Equipments-Some of the equipments or machineries needed to carry out these jobs are quite costly and cost of renting them is also very high so improvisation will have to be adopted. But in a case where you are using ordinary wood to support concrete where steel is recommended, then you will see concrete bulging out of shape instead of being straight and smooth faced.

10. Corruption-This is by far the major reason for bad jobs , contractors are in the habit of trying to make too much money off a project, hence substandard materials are substituted for quality jobs.