Building

What we mean by a building enquiry

Someone writing to a construction company is rarely asking for “construction” in the abstract. They have a plot and a drawing, or a house that no longer fits the family, or a beam they do not trust, or a shop that must stay open while the back is rebuilt. Micheletti Construction sorts those into new builds, renovations,extensions, commercial buildings, and structural repairs. If you cannot tell which label fits, the quote form’s building list includes “not sure — need a conversation.”

The company reading the form is Micheletti Construction Limited. Alberto Micheletti has been its managing director, on the public record, since May 2012 in Abuja. Before that he managed work at an Ibadan contractor and, earlier, projects in Lagos. That is the experience the company is willing to point at. It is not a substituted history from any other firm with the same surname, and it is not a gallery of unnamed “signature projects.”

The same company that roofs

A building that is handed to a separate roofer at the last minute is how valleys, parapets, and balcony upstands get improvised. We would rather hear about the covering while the walls are still a decision. If the enquiry is only the roof, use the roofingpages. If the walls and the roof are both in doubt — a leaked slab, a room that grew a crack after a new floor went on — say “both” under “not sure” on the form. Splitting them to chase two contractors is how the junction becomes nobody’s job.

What changes the work, city by city

Lagos plots are often tight, and on the peninsula the ground can be as awkward as the upper floor. A rear extension may have to pass materials through a finished sitting room. Salt air is a materials question for steel, railings, and any roof that is part of the build. Low streets flood; a new ground-floor slab that ignores the road level will be a wet room in June.

Abuja is a district city. Maitama is not Garki, and Gwarinpa is not Kubwa. Estate gates, approved colours, and the single long rainy season followed by harmattan dust change both the programme and the finishes. Concrete poured in the hottest weeks of March behaves differently from concrete poured under August rain. We programme around that. We do not publish a day-rate.

Ibadan’s fabric is older in many neighbourhoods: Bodija bungalows, Jericho GRAs, houses around the university, commercial frontages at Challenge. An alteration there starts by understanding the building that is already standing, including roofs that have been patched for years. Hills and surface water belong in the same note. L. D’Alberto’s office, where Alberto was a manager from 2009 to 2012, is not a Micheletti site address.

What a useful note includes

Storeys, what the building is for, whether anyone is living or trading in it, whether drawings exist, and which city and neighbourhood. Photos of the elevation and of the particular crack or room help. They are your photos. They will not be captioned later as our completed work. Access for a truck, a gate pass, and a month you hope to avoid — the heart of the rains, a family event, a shop’s busy week — belong in the last box of the form.

Fees charged by a planning authority, where one applies, are not listed here. They depend on the state, the plot, and the year. Quoting a number we cannot source would dress up a guess as a regulation. If approvals are part of the job, we say so when we have seen the papers, not in a table on a marketing page.

When you are ready, request a quote. If you want the city context first, read Lagos, Abuja, or Ibadan.