Home construction guides for India
Plain-language guides and calculators for building a house in India, from foundation to finishing, each checked by a civil engineer before publication.
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- Checked by a civil engineer
- Indian Standards cited by number
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Free construction calculators
Work out cement, bricks, steel and land area in feet, metres and the units used on site. Each calculator shows its formula and has been checked by a civil engineer.
Calculator
Cement, sand and aggregate calculator
Estimate cement bags, sand and aggregate for a nominal-mix concrete slab, footing or beam from its size and mix grade.
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Brick and mortar quantity calculator
Estimate the number of bricks and the cement and sand for mortar for a wall, from its length, height and thickness.
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Steel bar weight calculator
Find the weight of reinforcement bars by diameter, length and number of bars, using the standard D squared over 162 formula.
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Plot area converter
Convert land area between square feet, square yards (gaj), square metres, cent, guntha, ground, marla, kanal, acre and hectare.
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Water tank capacity calculator
Estimate the daily water need of a house from the number of people, and the smallest standard tank that holds one day of it.
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Septic tank size calculator
Look up the septic tank size for toilet waste from the number of users and the cleaning interval, using the dimensions in IS 2470 (Part 1).
Latest guides
Cement, concrete and steel
Cement shelf life: how long can cement be stored on site?
How long bagged cement stays usable, what the 3-month best-before date means, how to stack and cover cement on site under IS 4082, and what to do with lumpy stock.
Cement, concrete and steel
TMT bar full form and grades: what Fe500, Fe500D and Fe550D mean
TMT stands for thermo-mechanically treated. What the process does to a steel bar, what the letters and numbers in Fe500, Fe500D and Fe550D mean, and who chooses.
Plaster, paint and waterproofing
Terrace leakage and waterproofing: methods, slope and ponding test
Why terraces leak, how much slope and how many outlets to plan, what brick bat coba weighs, how high to turn up the parapet, and how to run a ponding test.
Planning, rules and approvals
Land area units in India: cent, guntha, gaj, marla, kanal, acre
How many square feet are in a cent, guntha, gaj, marla, kanal, ground and acre, where each unit is used, worked plot examples, and why bigha differs by state.
Planning, rules and approvals
Stages of house construction in India: checklist and inspection points
The stages of building a house in India, in order, with what to check before each one is covered or built over, and links to the detailed guides for each stage.
Plumbing and electrical basics
Water tank leakage: how to find the source and fix it
How to tell if a water tank is really leaking, the IS 3370 level-drop test, common leak points, how concrete and plastic tanks are repaired, and when to call an engineer.
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Who checks these guides?
Civil engineer Sumit Kumar Sinha, a graduate of IIT Delhi with 33 years of practice, reads every guide and calculator before it is published, and each page shows the date. The guides are drafted with an AI model, cite Indian Standards by number, and are corrected and checked again when a mistake is found.