Goutam, If you paid good money to an architect to draw this out for you, ask for a refund and FIRE him at the earliest. You have planned for a duplex. The whole point of that is to have the feel of a larger home on a relatively smaller plot. That very purpose has been defeated by the odd placement o...

Biddappa, Looks good. I am a bit concerned about its weight bearing capacity. Check what the weight of your plywood is going to be per track and proceed from there. Keep a 2X safety factor for weight bearing capacity to get longer life. If very expensive, I would go with at least 1.5X. Nothing less ...

Biddappa, I am guessing you intend to deploy a bottom rolling arrangement. Hence, the concern for buckling? I think your concern is very valid and I would advise you not to do it. The local carpenters seem to work with a gut feeling of their own which in most instances is not grounded in reality at ...

So, if I understand this right, the OP wants to join some 10ft of his building to his neighbor's compound wall. This is obviously against all rules set forth by BBMP. The neighbors rightfully so, are mad about this. bdasitesmvlayout proposes OP to bribe the BBMP engineer and use him as an attack dog...

No expert here. I would get a sample from Basant Betons and see how the ones you have compare to their block. Basant's blocks are supposed to be top of the shelf. Basant also has some white papers on testing cement blocks on their site. You may want to go through it and perform some rudimentary test...

Radius of 3 feet i,e. spiral stair dia of 6 feet conforms to most residential building code standards in US. Wonder why your architect is against it.
Ref: http://www.salterspiralstair.com/techni ... ding-code/

Martin, Quick question: Don't see chajja(sun shade) at all for the front facing window on first floor, side ground floor. I see chajja with large openings for the side-first floor windows. Are you not worried about rain water ingress through your wood framed windows? Do you plan to retrofit a glass ...

Glad to hear about your progress. Was worried since there were no updates from you for a while. Please keep the photos coming and godspeed for the rest of the construction.

Hi Folks, I have searched through the forums and find it interesting that there hasn't been a lot of discussion on the pros and cons of Steel Windows. (frame+grill+shutter all made of steel). I must admit that this could be because, these days the UPVC variety is what is preferred for the obvious be...

Check www.btiles.com. Haven't bought wire cut bricks from these guys personally. My brother enquired with these folks a while ago and he felt they were very reasonable and the quality of bricks was also good.