Steps of Home construction in Nepal: A guidebook for building a house in Nepal

Building a house in Nepal on our own is not that easy. At some point of time all of us once build a house in Nepal if we are Nepali. If not a new house, we definitely renovate the old house according to the current trend. So the building a house in Nepal becomes everybody's a must happening phase in the life of a Nepali.

Having said this, many people often doesn’t follow the necessary rules, guidelines, schedules and structure - resulting in malpractices, over costing, low quality in work for building a house in Nepal. Because of the lack of trustworthy agencies, you have to understand the basic construction process of house building in Nepal.

So no worries, we are showing you the process of construction right from buying the land to getting the completion certificate of construction from relevant authorities in our blog below.

Steps of Home construction in Nepal

Land Acquisition

Land Acquisition process is not a difficult one, but rather a tricky process in the context of Nepal. There are two kinds of owner- talsing and mohi. Talsing is the one who has the ownership of land because he bought it whereas Mohi has the ownership because he worked on the land for many years and gave crops to the Talsing. Because of dual ownership, fights are created during the transfer of ownership. Another reason why land acquisition becomes a trouble is companies are not registered and they don’t want to bring the land to their ownership before planning the plots and directly transfer the plots from previous owner to the new owner. This also creates fights and uncertainty in borders between buying clients.

Another problem is access to road and right of way. Land agents don’t give you accurate information about right of way of the road and later on, you could have to leave much land and you won’t be able to construct a dream house.

Design Planning Phase

After buying the land, you enter the design planning phase. You have to hold several meetings with your architect for the design phase. Your client will visit the land and get measurements, draft a preliminary blueprint for your approval and after you think the draft is ok, the structural analysis and detailed design of your dream house will begin.

The final step of the Design planning phase will consist of the interior design phase. You will know the complete cost of the building after knowing how much you will spend in your interior designing. If you are a person who has a simple living standard, interior design phase might not be relevant for you.

Get Building Permit

You have to take a building permit before you actually start construction of the building. Taking the building permit has three steps.

In the first step, you will take Temporary building approval which will consist of approval up to the plinth level. After completing the construction of the plinth level, you will have to apply for the full building permit of the building.

After completion of the building, the Municipal Engineers from Government of Nepal will look at the final building and give the approval for Completion certificate.

You must take the certificate of completion because you will need this for acquiring loan from banks, for getting electricity, drinking water and sewerage line from respective authorities of Nepal Government.

Site Preparation

After getting the first approval, you have to search for a contractor, make necessary contract documents, give the contractor amount for mobilization and the contractor will do the site preparation which includes clearing the site and layouts.

Foundation

The next step after layout is to dig for foundation. There are two methods of digging- manual digging and machine. Manual digging is more accurate but machine is cheaper. If the operator of the machine is not good, then the digging will not be accurate and foundation will cost more than necessary because the amount of concrete used will be more.

Construction of Walls

After the foundation has been cast, it will be time to construct walls in case of load bearing structure and construct frames in the case of Reinforced concrete structure. You have to make sure that you don’t construct wall before in a Reinforced concrete structure because you won’t be able to modify your interior after several years if you want when you build walls and then cast the slab over it.

Casting the Slab or Roofing

This step is one of the most important steps in building a house because slab or roof is the place which actually protects the building from external weather agents. In case of sloped roof, the material that you can use are asphalt shingles, clay tiles, slates and metal sheets- only to name a few. You can view this article to know compare and contrast between these roofing materials.

Plumbing and Electrical Lining

After casting the slab, it’s time to construct walls in RCC structure. After building walls, it’s time to put on Electrical and plumbing line. Wiring and laying pipes for Plumbing and Electrical Lining can be done before doing plaster for a high finishing quality. Plumbing and electrical can work in the site at the same time. The testing of plumbing and electrical lines should be done before plastering and finishing works.

Finishing

This is the final stage of the building before you get the turnkey of your dream home. The contractor will carry out the finishing works. The works will involve plastering, plumbing, flooring, waterproofing, tiling, and landscaping of the plot. These activities should be done in the respective order. After carrying out all these works, your building is ready for living.

 So the Process of Home Construction in Nepal looks like:

1. Land Acquisition
2. Design Planning Phase
3. Getting the Building Permit
4. Site Preparation
5. Getting a Foundation ready
6. Construction of Walls
7. Casting the slab or roofing
8. Plumbing and Electrical Lining
9. Finishing

 FAQs on Building a House in Nepal