Civil Work - Introduction
CIVIL WORK - INTRODUCTION
Civil Work is primarily that work which is fixed to the house and cannot be
changed easily. It includes tiling, bathroom renovation, breaking any walls,
fixing the kitchen platform, electrical work, etc. It is usually more messy and tedious compared
to the other work such as furniture and kitchen. Usually when you buy a new
flat from a builder, he gives it to you with the civil work completed so you
just have to focus on the wood work such as furniture and kitchen. In the
process of building, you can just ask the builder to put in tiles, fittings,
etc. as per your choice.
Civil work usually takes a long time to complete. It generates a lot of mess in
the house which can affect existing furniture. The day laborers who do civil work related
to masonry are pretty hard to work with, and its difficult to get this labor on your
own. It also requires some scheduling as multiple teams have to work in parallel and in
sync to get the work done. For example, after the bathroom tiles are broken, the piping
has to be done, and the masons have to come back to fix the new tiles; electrical work
has to be completed before plastering and the first coat of paint; electrical pipes need
to be laid in the floor before the tiles are laid on top of them, etc.
As in our case, since we bought an old flat we decided to a whole bunch of
civil work to get a newer feeling to the place. Firstly, we decided to redo the
tiles and the bathrooms which meant breaking the existing tiles and bathrooms.
Note that breakage adds significantly to the cost and the time. All the existing
stuff has to be broken, taken away from the flat, and disposed off at a proper
dump site by utilizing special tempos which do this work. Most of the delays in
our case happened due to civil work. Material was not ordered in time, some of
it was defective and had to be returned, laborers disappeared. Very little visible
progress was being made and it seemed like things were taking forever to get
completed. I have written details of each aspect of civil work further.
