advocate selvakumar

Civil law

Tuesday, 14 June 2016

Get Peace In Farmhouse

Sometimes you need to get away from it all to a weekend retreat where you can relax and have a pleasant, restful time. What better way than to have a farmhouse where you can have a change from the busy city life. How can you make the farm house more appealing? It should be different in some way and should give you a whiff of the outdoors combined with the comfort of the indoors. Wood and stone are two elements that have multiple creative uses in embellishing your place.

Cladding of stone, terracotta or bricks in the foyer, lobby or dining room will make even the dullest of places to become attractive. A warm and inviting stone cladding for the fire place is a good idea. Exposed bricks in the wall add a rustic ambience to the home. If you want a reminder of the Mediterranean, you can have a title mosaic embedded in a wall. More stone will look good in patios, staircases and columns. A backdrop of luxurious furnishings and furniture will complete the picture. The use of wood will definitely add charm, whether in the cladding or in rafters. Wooden beams and columns with cladding are ideal to give a countryside atmosphere.

Windows are another feature that will increase the beauty by bringing in a view of the natural surroundings. You can have all types of them, whether large ones with fan lights, picture windows or bay windows they will fill the house with sunlight. If you have a courtyard, you can have French windows with doors opening into it. For a sloping roof, dormer windows are best. It gives the house a happy, healthy air.

Since you are there to have a leisurely time, pick comfortable furniture like large loungers and oversized couches. A long dining table to while away the hours in conversation over meals would be good. The theme of the farmhouse has to be carefully chosen, whether it is a haveli theme which requires colonial or Rajasthani style of furniture, or a western rustic theme with a log highlight. You must get furnishings that go with the theme. Bright coloured ones for the western theme against a neutral background are best. Include options for storage.

You can make the farmhouse an ideal place that fits your dreams. With romantic features like big balconies, a fish pond, bright skylights, a sun room, a meditation room, a spa with a whirlpool tub or a lookout tower, you can really let yourself go. A well-equipped kitchen is also essential. In all, the farmhouse should be the perfect place to rest and have a thrilling time simultaneously.

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Civil law

Monday, 13 June 2016

Children Room furnishings

Decorating children’s room is different from decorating an adult's bedroom. While adults extend their activities to several rooms in the house, normally, children will try to confine their activities into their single room. To a child, his room is not only the centre for indoor games, but also for other activities such as reading, listening to music, displaying prized possessions.

The most important aspect to be kept in mind while furnishing a child's room is that the room should facilitate your child's personality development and while so furnishing the children room, we have to take into consideration the age of the children and their areas of interest. The décor of children room should be flexible enough to accommodate the changing tastes and needs of the children.

Location

Plan to have the child's room just adjacent to the parents' room, preferably with a connecting door in between. Just knowing that he/she can just walk in and be with his/her parents can be a big comfort for both.

Here are some specific areas which can be considered while designing the children room to make it multi-functional:

Play Area

Play areas for younger children may include an arts & crafts center. Most children love to exhibit their talent by way of drawing and by coloring them. Therefore, providing a comfortable space for working on drawings, arts and crafts would be an encouraging factor for the children. Similarly, you may hang a chalkboard which can be used for drawing pictures and for teaching purposes.

Reading Area

Provide a quiet and comfortable space that will entice the children to inculcate the habit of reading. If you have the space for a comfy chair, perfect. If not, an over-stuffed floor pillow or two would suffice. Needless to say, that the children room should have good ventilation and lighting.

Comforts for friends

This becomes more important as children get older and older. They would like to spend time in their room with friends. Depending on their age, a small entertainment unit which includes a computer, CD Player, carom board, chess board, fiction books etc. is a must.

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Civil law

Sunday, 12 June 2016

Parking Slot

PARKING SLOT

Parking area is a small piece of land in which we park our vehicle and drive-way is the approach leading to this parking bay. Though every square foot counts in terms of money and the demand for built up space is high, lack of adequate parking space and turning radius is bad planning.

Whether it be a individual house, a small or large apartment complex, corporate business house, a multi-building campus or public facilities such as airports or stations, a lot of thought needs to go into the design of parking facilities. Parking lots whether for houses or office complex have to be designed not just for the present but with an eye on the future. Kerb side parking is also very important and an essential part of urban design.

We have to adopt different norms when designing parking lots for residences, small or large apartment complexes, offices, commercial establishments, shopping complexes, a combination of shops and residences, hospitality sector, public spaces such as airports, railway and bus stations and recreation zones, campuses and so on. Thus, parking space can be decided depending on the nature of the activity. Road landscaping, which includes kerb side parking and public parking facilities, will also have to be dealt with as this is the base for smooth flow of traffic.

Parking designs

International norms for parking suggest that small and medium cars require about 200 sq.ft. The turning radius for various categories of vehicles is also stipulated ranging from about 30 ft. to less than 500 ft. for large trailer trucks. These figures may not make much sense to the common man whose primary need is to comfortably drive his vehicle in and out of a parking lot whether it be in his home, office or public spaces.

When looking at parking for residences or apartments, the one norm to be strictly followed is that the gate must never open onto the road. When vehicles are jammed into small parking lots the gate will have to be opened outward to allow entry and exit and thus there is a major inconvenience. When designing the gate it is necessary to keep it to normal size about 8 ft. If the size of the gate cannot be widened to help easy turning it may be good idea to go in for a bell mouth at the entrance where a slightly inset gate will provide a wider entry point of about 11 ft. to 13 ft.

Another point to be noted is that one must provide parking space for owned vehicles inside one's compound and not to drive cars onto side walks or in front of your neighbour's house. The residents and associations must never compromise for squeezing into a single parking slot more than one vehicle even if it were just for the night.

Parking for apartments is either provided alongside the building and is uncovered, or takes the form of covered parking at basement or the ground floor levels. When looking at the parking lot of any apartment, the first thing one has to note is the approach from the road. It must neither be a steep climb nor a sharp descent. If the parking is below or above road level it is safe to have a gradual slope approach. If parking slots are between stilts one must make sure that the distance between the pillars is adequate to park and reverse a car without having to turn very sharply.

When parking lots are provided alongside buildings, what owners' should insist upon is that there must be enough space for free movement of another vehicle along side a parked one. In other words there should be a minimum 10ft. wide space between the parking slot and the building to allow vehicles to move around.

When designing parking for independent houses four factors come to play. These are the positions of the gate, the porch, the drive and a garage. These factors have to be studied and decided even as the design of the house is taking shape.

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Civil law

Friday, 10 June 2016

Importance of curing in building construction

Importance of curing in building construction

In concrete construction, the importance of curing cannot be over-emphasized. Concrete which is not adequately cured and loaded before it attains full strength is very likely to develop cracks. The cracks in concrete adversely affect its durability by corrosion of reinforcement.

IS 456-2000 (plain and reinforced concrete – code of practice) defines curing as “the process of preventing the loss of moisture from the concrete while maintaining a satisfactory temperature regime.” The moisture loss takes place in two ways. One is by evaporation caused by the heat generated during hydration of cement. Second is by evaporation aided by atmospheric temperature and wind. The evaporation caused by wind and atmospheric temperature increases when the exposed surface area of concrete increases.

In the case of horizontal surface such as top of flat slabs, moisture loss is prevented by ponding – making a pond 8 cm to 10 cm deep and keeping it filled with water. If the surface is sloped or vertical, ponding is not possible. Such surfaces are covered by a layer of sacking, canvas, hessian or similar materials and kept constantly wet. IS 456-2000 stipulates that exposed surfaces shall be kept constantly wet at least for seven days if ordinary Portland cement is used, and at least for 10 days, where mineral admixtures or blended cement are used.

IS 456-2000 permits removal of vertical form-work of column, beams and walls after a lapse of 24 hours of placing concrete. It also permits removal of formwork from the underside of slabs after three days if propos (vertical supports) are re-fixed immediately. Removal of formwork from the underside of slabs exposes the entire surface to atmosphere and abets moisture loss. This part cannot be kept wet by ponding or by covering with sacking or hessian. Spraying of water is also not effective to keep the surface constantly wet. Thus, removal of formwork conforming to provisions of IS code makes it virtually impossible to comply with the provision regarding continuous curing of exposed surfaces for seven or 10 days.

To speed up construction, the columns above the slab are raised the very next day of casting the slab. When column raising and shuttering for the upper slab are in progress, the ponding of the top surface of the slab is often neglected as it inconveniences the workers engaged in formwork erection. The ultimate result is inadequate curing adversely affecting the strength and durability of concrete.

Now-a-days, there is a craze for shorter cycle time for slab casting. The cycle time is the interval between casting one slab and the slab immediately above it. A 10-day cycle time means once the slab at a particular level is cast, the slab immediately above it will be cast within 10 days. The concrete attains design strength in 28 days. Within that period, two upper slabs will be cast if the cycle time is 10 days. Formwork blow the lower slab will have been removed, because IS code permits removal of vertical support below the slab (spanning upto 4.5 metre) after a lapse of seven days. The stipulation that forms shall not be released until the concrete has achieved a strength of at least twice the stress to which concrete may be subjected to at the time of removal of formwork is conveniently overlooked. Thus, a 10-day-old slab, which, in all probability is not properly cured, carries the weight of the slab immediately above it. It is also subjected to impact load caused by the vibration of concrete and movement of trolleys carrying concrete.

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