Work on the slab early to get a firm foundation

By John Semakula

Five years ago, Hussein of Butebe village in Mukono central division embarked on building his house. He began by constructing the  boys quarters, where he currently lives with his family, and the garage, where he keeps his car.

After that, he started to build the main house, starting with the foundation, complete with a slab.

After constructing the slab, Nsereko was financially exhausted and decided to halt the project to mobilise for more resources. Last month, Hussein resumed work on the project after about four years and it is now at the wall-plate. Before then, Hussein was ridiculed by passersby for spending millions of shillings on the slab, instead of going straight and handling the slab last. Hussein ignored them.

“I started my house with the slab because I wanted a neat foundation, free of mud whenever it rained. Since I did not have to impress  anyone, I took my time,” he says.

According to Hussein, starting with the slab made his house stronger. He scoffs at people who think that building the slab last is of any financial advantage.

“There is nothing good about building the slab last, after all you cannot sleep in the house without it,” he said. But Alex Mwangu, a resident of Nabuti village in Mukono central division, says many people who  start with the slab usually run out of money before putting a single brick on the shell.

Mwangu, therefore, took a different approach of putting up the structure and roofing it before working on the slab. “I feared injecting millions of shillings on the slab, before putting up the house. At the end of the day, the cost of building a given house is the same and the difference is in approach,” he said.

Before working on the slab, Mwangu moved into the house so that he would stop paying rent, which was a big burden to him. The issue of whether to work on the slab first or doing it last, puzzles many Ugandans planning to build houses. However, professional engineers advise that it is better to work on the slab first.

Idris Nsereko, an architect with 3M Design and Construction, says a slab makes the outer structure stronger. Without the slab, he says, a house under construction can easily collapse. “The components we use in constructing the slab, such as the wire mesh, hardcore and iron bars help to hold the slab together in case of natural disasters like earth quakes,” Nsereko says.

While constructing the slab, polythene is used, and this, according to Nsereko, helps to stop water moving from underground to the upper part of the house. But, he says, the slab is very expensive to construct and that it is the reason many people prefer doing it last.

“A wire mesh goes for sh800,000, a lorry of hard core costs sh180,000, while the polythene material is over sh100,000, plus other requirements,” Nsereko added. He says in countries which are regularly hit by natural calamities, it is a must to construct the slab first.

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