Forced to demolish His Mansion.
Joseph bought land in Mlolongo area Machakos County. The owner of the land had fenced the plot and Joseph and the contractor assumed the fence was done on the actual beacons of the land. The truth is that the land owner had move two beacons on one side of the plot and fenced on it to give a false impression that the land was large and hence charge more. Joseph bought the land  and without confirming the beacons started building his mansion on the land. Half way through the construction, when Joseph was preparing to cast the first floor slab, one of his neighbor decided to sell his piece of land, he brought a Land Surveyor to help establish the beacons. It was during this exercise that it was established that half of Joseph’s house was on the neighbors’ plot. Joseph confirmed the same with his Land Surveyor. This forced Joseph to pull down the building. You can imagine the loss of money and time.

Lesson
Before paying for land, you should get a qualified Land Surveyor to establish the beacons of the land. This will help you know the actual area/size of the land with the exact dimensions on the ground. Never assume that the existing boundary fence is the actual boundary of the plot.Do a proper land survey.

Conned at the Timber Yard.
In most cases where the developers give labor contract, they normally with help of a qualified person source and buy materials. In the construction industry a lot of tricks are used to swindle people money, when buying materials, as Mary learned the hard way. She had reached the roof stage of her house, so she decided to source and buy timber by herself. After visiting many timber yards, she settled for one that she believed had good quality timber, with reasonable price. Mary bought the timber as quantified and delivered to site, she knew what she had bought was enough to complete the timber work of her roof. That was not to be, because the timber covered about 70% of the roof only.

Mary was shocked and doubted the quantity given by her contractor. But comparing with what her friend had used on her roof which was the same size and design as her house, the quantity given to Mary should have completed the house. Could the workers have stolen? It’s not possible the site was well secured night and day. Since the roof had to be done to completion,Mary had to make another trip to the timber yard to buy the remaining feet of timber, but this time she went with the foreman. That is when she realized the mistake she did. The first thing the foreman did was to ask to see the tape measure, which he inspected keenly .He then noticed that the tape measure didn’t have some digits on it as should the case for normal tape measure. There were missing digits on it, he found out that like between 1 foot and 12 feet, there were four digits missing on the tape, meaning although the tape reads 12 feet when measuring timber, the actual length of timber is 8 feet, less by 4 feet, leading to loss of money. Like for Mary It was a big loss, especially considering she had paid for about 4500 feet of timber. In the first purchase, she lost over 1000feet of timber. Mary had been conned.

Lesson
Go with your own tape measure and insist on using it.
When you are planning to buy large quantity of timber, get 3 people preferable carpenters, to accompany you to the timber yard.
• One person will confirm the measurement read out, from the tape measure.
• The 2nd person will be checking the quality of each timber being measured.
• The 3rd person to help in jotting down the measurements read, at the same checking the tape measure from his end.
If you are alone, you can’t keep up with the speed and tricks used. This is because its required that the timber quality and quantity be checked simultaneously during measurement of the each piece of timber ,then there is also jotting down the readings, so if you are less than 3 people, you may not cope up with the speed and this may lead to either you getting less footage or poor quality timber.

The Nightmare of a Poorly Draining Bathroom Floor.
Bathroom should be fun to use. After a hard day at work, a quick shower or a warm bath tub can be very refreshing. Showering can be a nightmare if the workmanship is poorly done. There is nothing as inconveniencing and depressing as physically draining waste water on the bathroom floor after every use. A good bathroom floor should drain water on its own using the slope made on the floor. Mr.Peter bought expensive tiles and fixed them on the floor of his magnificent house, hoping to enjoy using his bathroom. The slope of bathroom floor was poorly done, with some areas having depression that held water, also waste water was not into draining into the floor trap, instead it was  flowing to the opposite direction of the floor trap (Floor trap drains waste water from bathroom floor). Mr. Peter had to call qualified person to demolish the floor tiles and correct the issue.

Lesson
The floor trap should be put away from the door so that water drains away from the bathroom door, to avoid wetting the floor near the bathroom.
Get qualified and experienced person to do a proper screed on the floor considering the right slope of the floor? Prove the level is ok by pouring water and checking where it flows to. Do this before tiling the floor. If the floor screed is done well, the tiler won’t use a lot of tile adhesive. The tiler should also take his own level to ascertain whether they are indeed ok. He should ensure there is a smooth floor of waste water into the floor trap.
NB.Proper leveled screed applies to all bathrooms, regardless of the type of floor finish, be it terrazzo, ceramic tiles, cement finish, they all require a proper well leveled floor screed.