Construction quality of Lodha's 3.5 Crore premium flat

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So will these constructions collapse easily within 15 -20yrs or at any time soon??
Estimated life of building is just on paper then.
If brand names are doing such businesses how to trust the newbies and small builders.
We pay crores and get slummy homes from inside. Disheartening!
Now, seems is the world of fast constructions, out of the sky prices and cheap output & risk of life.
 
But one of the very reasons cited for drywall usage (on Saint Gobain website) is that you can compromise on the strength of the structure since the drywall is less than a 10th of the weight of a standard B&M wall.

  • Drywalls are eight to ten times lighter than masonry walls, reducing the dead load of the structure. This assumes significance especially in high-rise structures, resulting in not only structural cost savings, but a reduction in the burden (both ease and cost) of moving up heavy material. Studies have shown that drywalls lead to structural cost savings of as much as 15%.

Still, If you do it properly, there should not be any problem with that compromise and also in commercial buildings, the structure is built so strongly that its not a problem. But in this case, they didn't even build the drywall properly in accordance with guidelines to the point that the walls can be punched and torn down with bare hands. So what guarantees are there that they the structure itself is built properly and in a safe manner.

Take a look at these videos of the balcony. Do you think this is anywhere close to being safe? Leaving aside the fact that a kid or pet animal can fall down from which ever floor they are in up to a max of 41 floors, is there any guarantee that the balcony itself is safe? It looks flimsy and there doesn't seem to be any solid floor even in the area that you can walk.


 
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Not arguing about the shoddy construction, just adressing @nRiTeCh 's concern about the structure collapsing.
 
If a crore of home is built on with Gypsum Drywall then it should cost way too less as they actually not building any strong sturdy wall. If its just a matter of room partitioning like this cheap then even 1cr homes should cost less than 40 lacs. In fact commercial office spaces from inside out should also cost less.
Henceforth before buying a house, first "try your hands"...box it kick it and check its durability.
 
The problem is that the flats were booked before anything was constructed. They have only the specs sheet to go by and Lodha made no mention about drywall usage.

Julian said:
Not arguing about the shoddy construction, just adressing @nRiTeCh 's concern about the structure collapsing.
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That is what I am trying to say. There are no guarentees that the structure itself is strong enough to not fall. Drywall is used to cheap out on the structure. While not shown in the videos, they also alleged there are issues with the overall construction, not just inside the flats.
 
nRiTeCh said:
Henceforth before buying a house, first "try your hands"...box it kick it and check its durability.
Click to expand...
I'm trying to do this but the problem is as soon as a apartment starts construction at my desired location, the booking starts and its full within few months. So all I have is to go by construction companies previous projects. I'm really apprehensive yet people close to me are dropping 560~70 lakhs without dropping a beat
 
Lord Nemesis said:
The problem is that the flats were booked before anything was constructed. They have only the specs sheet to go by and Lodha made no mention about drywall usage.
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This right here is the single biggest problem i have with what lodha has done in this case. It's fine in countries where drywall is the norm for non-loadbearing walls, but in india where people haven't even heard of it, they should definitely have explicitly mentioned it, not even just listed it in the specs. In fact if they had a separate page in the brochure explaining the merits of drywall, people might have actually appreciated their innovation (in the indian market). The 2nd issue I have is with the damn main-door duct and the drywall next to it.

Lord Nemesis said:
That is what I am trying to say. There are no guarentees that the structure itself is strong enough to not fall. Drywall is used to cheap out on the structure. While not shown in the videos, they also alleged there are issues with the overall construction, not just inside the flats.
Click to expand...

If the rest of the structure is regular RCC, i'm sure the engineers would have taken into account the structural loads of the building in question even if they reduced the amount saved due to drywall vs wetwall.

Then again, this is India...
 
nRiTeCh said:
If a crore of home is built on with Gypsum Drywall then it should cost way too less as they actually not building any strong sturdy wall. If its just a matter of room partitioning like this cheap then even 1cr homes should cost less than 40 lacs. In fact commercial office spaces from inside out should also cost less.
Henceforth before buying a house, first "try your hands"...box it kick it and check its durability.
Click to expand...

If they're intentionally trying to cheat and fool customers, all they have to do is build the sample flat with wetwall instead. You can box and kick all you want and you will only know you're getting drywall on possession.

By which time the specs will also be mentioned in the agreement (which is prepared by the builder and his advocates, and no one reads). So you will not be able to claim, I was shown a wetwall sample flat and received a drywall one.
 
Julian said:
By which time the specs will also be mentioned in the agreement (which is prepared by the builder and his advocates, and no one reads). So you will not be able to claim, I was shown a wetwall sample flat and received a drywall one.
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If anyone is buying a flat without even reading the agreement, then they deserve every bit of what they get. When I booked my flat, I read through every word of not only the draft copy of agreement sent in e-mail but the final hard copy of it and even caught every place there was a difference between the draft and final copy and questioned the builder on it before I put my signature. It is incredibly stupid to sign the agreement for such an investment without reading through it yourself or at least pay a lawyer to go through it once.
 
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Julian said:
If the rest of the structure is regular RCC, i'm sure the engineers would have taken into account the structural loads of the building in question even if they reduced the amount saved due to drywall vs wetwall.

Then again, this is India...
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That's the problem. This is India where flyover's, bridge's falling down is not an uncommon thing and if you have sufficient money and power, everything can be managed. Just look at this case, these people only posted actual videos of the flat, but lodha took them to High court and the judge didn't even bother hearing their lawyer.. Lodha's lawyer just said that there is no need to inspect the rest of the building and the judge happily agreed.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
If anyone is buying a flat without even reading the agreement, then they deserve every bit of what they get. When I booked my flat, I read through every word of not only the draft copy of agreement sent in e-mail but the final hard copy of it and even caught every place there was a difference between the draft and final copy and questioned the builder on it before I put my signature. It is incredibly stupid to sign the agreement for such an investment without reading through it yourself or at least pay a lawyer to go through it once.
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Nope, even the lawyers you pay to scrutinize the builder's agreement doesn't read through it or doesn't care. This is anecdotal experience, maybe there are some genuine lawyers who go through it with a fine tooth comb. Heck when we sold a flat in the family, i went through OUR lawyer-made agreement and found about a dozen typos (forgiveable) and technical (wtf) errors in the writing. Most people justify their laziness saying, we can't understand legal english. If they spent half the time in one day watching saas bahu serials or aimlessly swiping on their cells, they could read one whole agreement...
 
Its a common practice in US and Australia to get a 3rd party to inspect and create a report before signing house purchase agreements. These reports are extremely detailed and they usually charge some 2-3 hundred dollars. I've never seen this happening in India though.
 
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There are people who do pay lawyers to review agreements even in India. The charges depends on the lawyer, but personally, I have seen people pay 5-6K for such a review.

There are also services like Kaanoon.com that offer document review by choice of your lawyer.

A while ago. one of my colleagues had a property to sell and decided to draft the agreement himself to save some bucks. The buyer got the document reviewed by a lawyer and he quickly found a loop hole. This property was bought on a loan and my colleague wanted to put in a clause that till full payment is completed and property transferred, the buyer will reimburse the monthly EMI costs. But instead of EMI, he put in "Principal" in the agreement. The buyer's lawyer pointed him to the loophole and advised him pay only principal amount which is peanuts compared to the interest part. He also told him that since the agreement doesn't allow my colleague to back out as long as he pays the principal amount, he should not complete the transaction till he the property appreciates to the point that that he can make a tidy profit of it instantly. Essentially he can keep the property locked by just paying a paltry amount till such a time that is convenient to him.
 
Say, If the flat owners break the useless drywall and try to build it to better specs, then wont their usable square footage decrease a lot? Not to mention running foul of municipal rules etc for changing usable area. They cant even put cement brick walls since it will increase load on building. Buying these type of flats is like buying a huge flat for crores and getting a big hall in return with shoddy partitions in it.
 
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6pack said:
Say, If the flat owners break the useless drywall and try to build it to better specs, then wont their usable square footage decrease a lot? Not to mention running foul of municipal rules etc for changing usable area. They cant even put cement brick walls since it will increase load on building. Buying these type of flats is like buying a huge flat for crores and getting a big hall in return with shoddy partitions in it.
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Load on building? Joke. I even doubt these cheap constructions will even withstand minor earthquake tremors and mumbai heavy monsoon or light storms.
Better off buying a strong marriage hall and then partition it with pop or fibre and create your own 20bhk.
 
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