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1. UNIT 3 : BUILDING TRADES
 Importance of identifying and analysing different building trades
 Identification and listing of relevant labour types (Skilled, Semi – skilled etc.) and their number required for storage and processing of
material on site, carrying out different tasks of construction and handling and operating required machinery on site.
 Work is often tendered in a part or piecemeal manner in large organisations. Hence, it is required to know the exact labour required for
all steps of a specific construction task. It also helps in multitasking of the existing labour force within the same or different sites, and to
identify or contract highly skilled labourers for a short amount of time.
 List of Stakeholders or Experts required in the construction process
 Owner – Can be a single person or a large organisation
 Principal Architect or Firm (Large projects also often have a local or site architect and a different architect for designing the structure,
interiors, landscaping, or for sourcing government approvals or permissions).
 Principal Contractor or Development Firm or agency – Controlling party for different individuals or companies involved and usually the
single point of contact for the owner and architect.
 One or multiple sub – contractors (depending upon the scale of the contractor setup and project) for installing different services or for
executing specialised or extra items of work.
Terms of employment and payment are usually different for each party and have to be clearly stated in the relevant contract documents.
 Building Trades and Labour required for different steps in the construction process
 Procurement of Material
 Basic raw materials like murum, bricks, sand, stone etc are often sourced from the unorganised sector and subject to quality testing
and availability, and are hence usually sourced by the contracting agency (also for ease of processing of taxes). Only cement, steel
and different fixtures are manufactured as per strict and pre – determined specifications or can be customized as per individual
design, and are therefore often sourced by the client.
 Payment for the above is either done as a separate fund or an advance investment by the client, or is deducted from the running bills
in stages. All Terms and conditions for payment in the above conditions should be clearly defined in the Contract document.

2.  Civil Work
 Every contracting agency has a set of unskilled labourers employed for doing sundry jobs such as loading and unloading of material
and lifting it to the required height, cleaning of bulk, natural materials like sand and aggregate, mixing of materials combined in a
specific proportion, preparing of base, curing etc.
 Different skilled labourers are used for different smaller tasks within the construction stage eg. For construction of concrete structural
members, different teams are used to cut and tie reinforcement in place, mixing the constituent materials for concrete, installing
formwork and shuttering etc.
 Simultaneous tasks can hence be carried out by various sub – teams in case of large or multi – storied structures.
 The kind of labour required depends upon the different tasks involved (as per checklist) and interchanging of teams or agencies
within the entire process is not done. For eg. Murum filling and brickwork for site plumbing is not done by the relevant team
employed by the civil contractor, the plumbing contractor has his own individual skilled labour for this task.
 For timely and effective installation of services in the building, a skilled supervisor (and labour) from the service team is usually
involved to oversee or inspect the execution of the civil work at pre – determined intervals eg. Casting of slab, plinth filling,
plastering etc. The relevant civil drawings and specifications should hence clearly describe the scope of work of this person and the
service.
 Cleaning before final handover is done either by the painting agency (as it is usually the last task to be carried out) or by unskilled
labour employed by the contractor.
 Site Supervision
 Site supervisors are usually employed by the Architect (on behalf of the owner to co – ordinate with all the relevant sub – contracting
agencies, or for turn – key projects where the design and execution are done by the same agency) or by the Contractor, as his
representative on site.
 The appointed site supervisor needs to be well – versed in all aspects of construction, and hence should have the relevant
qualifications or extensive site experience – Trend in India of learning by observation and up gradation of unskilled labour to skilled
by experience, presence of project management agencies for large projects etc.
 Tasks to be performed by him include ensuring timely delivery of materials and required machinery to site (as per checklist), co –
ordination between the architect and all the sub – contracting agencies (or skilled labour for small projects), quality control and
inspection of completed work, and taking measurements of completed work for billing.
 For small – scale projects, the degree of precision of work required is higher, hence more monitoring is required, but since the
number of agencies involved is small, less co – ordination efforts are required.

3.  Installation of Electrical and Plumbing systems
 For installation of services, all the required fixtures are chosen and often supplied by the owner. The contractors only provides all the
relevant fittings for supply such as piping or ducting, valves etc. and labour for all tasks involved (skilled and un – skilled), including
fitting of the provided fixtures.
 The required civil work for installation of services is done by the relevant skilled labourers employed by the service contractor only.
 Separate labour or agencies are used for construction or installation of control systems and devices such as transformers, tanks etc.,
for producing load calculations and detailed layout drawings, testing of installed services and sourcing government approvals for
supply and installation.
 Installation of allied systems or services such as Lifts and Escalators, HVAC, Fire – fighting, systems for acoustics and digital
automation etc. or any other extra items
 For these services, the exact service provider is identified at the design stage itself and the exact specifications required by them have
to be compulsorily incorporated into the design and executed civil work.
 Material procurement, base work required (if any), installation and testing is done by the skilled labour provided by the manufacturer
or service provider only.
 Test Certificates and Maintenance instructions or manual is also to be provided by the above agency to the Client or Architect before
final handover.
SCOPE OF WORK OF DIFFERENT BUILDING TRADES FOR DIFFERENT ITEMS OF WORK IN THE CONSTRUCTION
PROCESS
AS PER ATTACHED EXCEL SHEET