Real estate investment is something preferred among all kinds of options in investment indeed. It is because many people regard this as one of the ways which can ensure a good return of the money. Compared with things like stock investment, the real estate investment is usually regarded as more reliable. It is because it is very easy to understand and then invest. You would not need to spend a lot of time to read the charts. And you would not have the feeling that you are holding nothing in your hands with your money spent. You would have your house.

When you try to search online, you would easily find that there are pieces of information for real estate investors to understand the strategies in real estate investment and also the necessary techniques. Yes, it actually requires good techniques and careful planning before one can successfully get the real estate investment returns.

The residential properties can actually be divided into the multifamily dwellings and also the single family house. There are some factors which can be important in helping you to ensure that the property is in recession proof. Some factors such as the amenities, neighborhood, infrastructures, etc, can play very important role in deciding the sale ability of the property.

When some people try to invest in the real estates, they might invest with emotions. They would solely use their own sensations and feelings to make mild guess on the potential growth of the value of real estate. However, this is not something comprehensive. You can use a bit of your emotion to invest because making this kind of investment somehow needs passion. However, you should always remember to use your calm part of the brain to make the careful study. You would not need to study the charts and the complicated figures. However, it is still necessary for you to go around the area of your investment and see if there would be things that can affect the value of your property.

Many of the investors would not mind visiting the places in person. Even though they are busy, they would still try to spare the time to study the neighborhood around their potential investment in order to ensure that the investment can bring in revenue to their real estate investment portfolio. As long as you are willing to learn and plan carefully, you can also get the profits from real estate trading.

If you’ve got everything accurately organized and calculated, then it gets easier from this point on. Depending on the cost, you will have to shop around to get the best prices. Do not be influenced by the sexier but more expensive tiles and stay dedicated to your budget. Tiles can vary a great deal, not only in quality, but also price, so with the size of your job, the costs can go up quickly. It isn’t difficult to find the right tile as you can get a lot of information online. Don’t forget to examine the tiles in different illumination, before you make your final decision.

If you have planned every aspect out and found the tile that you want, now you are ready to do some real work. If you want everything to be perfect from now and into the long term, make sure the surface is properly set up to be tiled. Every spot that needs to be tiled will need to be prepared properly. You could be tiling the wall space, or the floor, but in either case the surface needs to be level, must be smooth, and will need to be primed or water proofed. You will need to make sure that your surface area is well prepared in order that tiling will go smoothly. Preparation of the floor is surely the most essential part of the actual tiling. Most individuals who tile on their own end up screwing up as they did not prepare the surface properly.

Once the prep work is all done, it is time for putting down the tile. Soon after the first couple of tries, you’ll see that laying tile isn’t difficult at all. Laying tile can be a bit sloppy so be sure that the rest of your house is protected from the potential mess. Be sure you wear safety goggles whenever you cut tile and be sure the surface is always clean. As long as you readied the surface properly, you will notice that setting the tile will go very effortlessly. To maintain an equal distance between the tiles, you need to use a spacer and a level. As soon as the tiles are properly glued to the surface, you can of course put on some finishing touches.

If you plan to use mortar, simply use a rubber trowel to spread it and use a cotton rag to wipe it off. Be sure the grout has filled all of the cracks, and you will be almost done.

Most of major schools, especially reputable universities provide online bachelor degrees. Today, many students are looking for online bachelor degree because it allows a flexibility not found in traditional college campuses and coursework schedule. Thanks to this modern teaching method, full coursework exercises loads are deliver to distance students who then will develop their own learning steps for completing required exercises, homework and examination requirements.

At present, about 50 percent of students enroll in online universities for bachelor degrees have their  full time jobs, and almost 30 percent are already in important positions at their firms. While some older adults are still pursuing bachelor degrees online, most men and women doing so are around 25 years old and have been employed in the workplace for at least 5 years. What does the figure mean? It means that the value of learning, especially a bachelor degree, of any type, will offer many in the business and science world the opportunity to step up the higher career opportunities.

Keep in mind that there are many working vacancies that do not require employees to hold a bachelor degree, so if you’re earning one for employment, and not self-improvement reasons, make sure that your time and money will be well spent in the pursuit of one. These days most students looking for an bachelor degree are already employed full time or at least part time jobs.

Most of online distance bachelor degree programs allow students to specialize in different majors, so spend time to study and research for deciding the best program that fix their own needs and personal wishes. Most students will spend about two to three years to complete coursework for obtaining their online bachelor degree, but that’s just an average, and some might take less, while others might take longer, this depends. School fees will vary depending on the online program that you select as well as your learning branches. When looking for the right program for you, consider also available financial aids and student supports, and take the time to seek scholarships and grants when needed. This will help you overcome some financial difficulty you might encounter.

Remember that, finding an online bachelor degree that fit all your needs is not an easy task.  And of course it is not cheap at all, but it will be more than worthy your hard efforts in the long term comparing the increase of earning power and reputation, as well career opportunities. However, you have to do your homework independently and pursue your coursework goals with very limited instructions from professors or lectures. Thus, those are serious on their higher learning tasks will obtain the best results from this form of modern online learning method.

When all the preliminaries are completed and the owner has decided to proceed with the work, tenders are invited. Legally this is an attempt to check if there would be interested contractors to carry out the work within the estimated limit of time and finance. The invitation to Tender is not binding to the owner to proceed with the work and does not cause any liability for any expenses to which contractors would spend in preparing and submitting their construction bids.

Information to be given in a Call for Bids Notice

The notice must be as short as possible, but conveying an adequate idea of the nature and scope of the proposed work and all essential details.
The text of a good advertisement should at least include the following information:
Mode of submitted bids: Bidders should be asked to submit bids in sealed covers, in order to maintain secrecy of quotations.
Form of Bid: It is advisable to get all offers in the same form to facilitate scrutiny, and comparison
Name of the inviting authority: This helps the bidder know the persons he will have to deal with and the co-operation he may receive, if his bid is accepted, and such may also affect his quotation.
Nature of the work and its location: If the nature and location of work is within his operating area, the prospective contractor will want to learn more about the job; else he may not waste time in reading further details
Estimated cost of the work: This most briefly indicates the magnitude of the work and enables him o see whether it is too small to interest him or perhaps too large for him to handle.
Time Limit: The time limit within which the work is to be completed should be mentioned. This will be of great help to the bidder to work out a realistic price of the work.. The time limit may influence the type and number of construction equipments and workers to be employed, and will vitally affect the contractor’s bid.
The availability of Data and forms:
where, from whom, at what cost and up to which date blank bid forms and specifications may be obtained and whether a refund will be made upon their return in satisfactory conditions.
Earnest money required with the bid: The amount and form of security; whether the amount will be accepted i the form of cash, bank guarantee, check or others. Also the number of days within which the amount will be refunded to the unsuccessful bidder.
Performance security: The amount, form, and procedure of recovering.
Information regarding drawings: where and when drawings can be examined by bidders.
Last date, place and time of receipt of sealed bid.
The date, time and place and procedure of opening bids.
Reservation to reject bids.

Tips for consideration in preparing construction bids

Careful study of the contract documents: The contract documents issued to the contractor or supplied for his inspection include general contract conditions, drawings, specifications, bills of quantities etc. These documents are to be studied carefully to check if any unusual conditions, specifications, or any feature of the work would demand special attention during pricing.
Sub-contractor’s work: Make relative inquiries about prices with sub-contractors and material suppliers for their respective portions of the job.
Site visit: This is important to ascertain the conditions under which the work has to be carried out and their impact on pricing.

* Difficulty to access the site
* Limited space on the site for vehicle movements
* Type of soil and depth of water table
* Availability of space for storing materials on site
* Availability of materials, their sources and prevailing market prices
* Local availability of skilled and unskilled labor, prevailing wages for workmen
* Source and cost of water needed for construction
* Power and lighting source, and the cost of erecting, marinating and dismantling power connection to the site

Time for completion: The bidder then estimates the length of time the work will take and the number and category of permanent staff suggested by the nature of the work for construction management . This helps to calculate the establishment charges.
Temporary works: The value of any temporary works needed to commence the construction and to clear away on completion, such as temporary office required for construction management purpose, store sheds for building materials, access road, water supply, depreciation of construction equipments, insurances, taxes, etc.

Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problem occurs in many engineering structures  such as  dams, offshore structures, large storage tanks, long-span bridges etc., those are in contact with fluid and analyses of such interaction problems are important for safe and economic design of the structures. Past record of dam failures and location of many dams in seismic prone areas have created a worldwide concern for dam safety against seismic hazards.

Considering the effects of fluid–structure dynamic interactions is important for the design and safety evaluation of earthquake-excited gravity dams. Significant research has been devoted to this subject since the pioneering work of Westergaard  (1933) who modeled hydrodynamic  loads as an added mass attached to the dam upstream face. Although  Westergaard’s analytical formulation was developed assuming rigid dam impounding incompressible water, it has been widely used for many  decades to design  earthquake-resistant concrete dams because of its simplicity.

During the last four decades, several researchers developed advanced analytical and numerical approaches to account for dam deformability and water compressibility in the seismic response of concrete dams  (Chopra,  1970;  Chakrabarti and Chopra, 1973;  Chopra, 1978; Zienkiewicz  et al.,  1978;  Hall and Chopra,  1982;  Fenves  and  Chopra, 1984;  Liu and Cheng,  1984; Chopra  et al., 1986; Tsai and Lee, 1987; Humar and Jablonski, 1988; Maeso et al., 2004). Most of these methods are based on a coupled field solution through sub-structuring of the dam–reservoir system, making use of analytical formulations, finite elements, boundary elements or a mix of these techniques. In the approach proposed by Chopra and collaborators  the reservoir is modeled analytically as a continuum fluid region extending towards infinity in the upstream direction.

For practical engineering applications, simplified procedures are still needed to globally evaluate the seismic response of gravity dams, namely for preliminary design or safety evaluation purposes  (Fenves and Chopra, 1985; Fenves and Chopra, 1987; Bouaanani et al., 2003; Bouaanani and Lu, 2009).

Author:

Phan Hoang Nam

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Graduate School, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea

1. Socioeconomic factors
   • Environmental protection
   • Public safety regulation
   • Economic instability
   • Exchange rate fluctuation
2. Organizational relationships
   • Contractual relations
   • Attitudes of participants
   • Communication
3. Technological problems
   • Design assumptions
   • Site conditions
   • Construction procedures
   • Construction occupational safety

The environmental protection movement has contributed to the uncertainty for construction because of the inability to know what will be required and how long it will take to obtain approval from the regulatory agencies. The requirements of continued re-evaluation of problems and the lack of definitive criteria which are practical have also resulted in added costs. Public safety regulations have similar effects, which have been most noticeable in the energy field involving nuclear power plants and coal mining. The situation has created constantly shifting guidelines for engineers, constructors and owners as projects move through the stages of planning to construction. These moving targets add a significant new dimension of uncertainty which can make it virtually impossible to schedule and complete work at budgeted cost. Economic conditions of the past decade have further reinforced the climate of uncertainty with high inflation and interest rates. The deregulation of financial institutions has also generated unanticipated problems related to the financing of construction.

Uncertainty stemming from regulatory agencies, environmental issues and financial aspects of construction should be at least mitigated or ideally eliminated. Owners are keenly interested in achieving some form of breakthrough that will lower the costs of projects and mitigate or eliminate lengthy delays. Such breakthroughs are seldom planned. Generally, they happen when the right conditions exist, such as when innovation is permitted or when a basis for incentive or reward exists. However, there is a long way to go before a true partnership of all parties involved can be forged.

During periods of economic expansion, major capital expenditures are made by industries and bid up the cost of construction. In order to control costs, some owners attempt to use fixed price contracts so that the risks of unforeseen contingencies related to an overheated economy are passed on to contractors. However, contractors will raise their prices to compensate for the additional risks.

The risks related to organizational relationships may appear to be unnecessary but are quite real. Strained relationships may develop between various organizations involved in the design/construct process. When problems occur, discussions often center on responsibilities rather than project needs at a time when the focus should be on solving the problems. Cooperation and communication between the parties are discouraged for fear of the effects of impending litigation. This barrier to communication results from the ill-conceived notion that uncertainties resulting from technological problems can be eliminated by appropriate contract terms. The net result has been an increase in the costs of constructed facilities.

The risks related to technological problems are familiar to the design/construct professions which have some degree of control over this category. However, because of rapid advances in new technologies which present new problems to designers and constructors, technological risk has become greater in many instances. Certain design assumptions which have served the professions well in the past may become obsolete in dealing with new types of facilities which may have greater complexity or scale or both. Site conditions, particularly subsurface conditions which always present some degree of uncertainty, can create an even greater degree of uncertainty for facilities with heretofore unknown characteristics during operation. Because construction procedures may not have been fully anticipated, the design may have to be modified after construction has begun. An example of facilities which have encountered such uncertainty is the nuclear power plant, and many owners, designers and contractors have suffered for undertaking such projects.

If each of the problems cited above can cause uncertainty, the combination of such problems is often regarded by all parties as being out of control and inherently risky. Thus, the issue of liability has taken on major proportions and has influenced the practices of engineers and constructors, who in turn have influenced the actions of the owners.

Many owners have begun to understand the problems of risks and are seeking to address some of these problems. For example, some owners are turning to those organizations that offer complete capabilities in planning, design, and construction, and tend to avoid breaking the project into major components to be undertaken individually by specialty participants. Proper coordination throughout the project duration and good organizational communication can avoid delays and costs resulting from fragmentation of services, even though the components from various services are eventually integrated.

Attitudes of cooperation can be readily applied to the private sector, but only in special circumstances can they be applied to the public sector. The ability of bid management to deal with complex issues is often precluded in the competitive bidding which is usually required in the public sector. The situation becomes more difficult with the proliferation of regulatory requirements and resulting delays in design and construction while awaiting approvals from government officials who do not participate in the risks of the project.

This is to introduce the newly posted articles on Roller Compacted Concrete  (RCC) as follows:

RCC Roller Compacted Concrete in history

The first Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) dam of the world was Alpe Gera at Sondrio in North Italy. It was executed from 1961 to 1964. The technology in that period is not what it is today. This dam had a total quantity of concrete of 1,800,000 cubic meters of concrete. Concrete feeding to the dumpers moving on dam was done by use of 6 cubic meters skips  moving on an inclined haulage track. This method of construction was found to be expedient then…

Evolving correct mix design for RCC

The design philosophy of medium/ high paste RCC dams is that the concrete should be watertight. Thus the RCC has to be designed to bond layer to layer to have an in situ permeability equivalent to that of traditional concrete dam. In the same way as in Roller Compacted Dam (RCD), contraction joints are formed through the dam but these are at large spacing. After observing the performance of RCC dams all over the world, the present trend is to construct medium/ high paste RCC dams for medium/ large heights, realizing the fact that durability is important in achieving long term economy to owner…

Placement of RCC

… From the text of what is stated above, it will be seen that the future of expedient construction of RCC dams to save costs and earn revenue lies in adopting the present world technology and improving it further. This will also help in a big way the utilization of fly ash, which is becoming increasingly necessary…

Storm-Water Retention

During heavy rainfalls, runoff from surfaces such as pavements and rooftops can cause serious problems such as sewer over?ow and water pollution. Green roofs slow down the water ?ow by retaining up to 75% of the rainwater, thus alleviating the pressure on storm-water infrastructures.

Reducing Energy Consumption

Green roofs are great insulators. They can reduce peak energy demand by lowering a building’s cooling costs in the summer months and heating costs in the winter months.

Reducing the Urban Heat Island Effect

More green roofs and fewer dark colored roofs equal a cooler city. Dark roofs retain heat while plants naturally cool their surrounding environments through evapotranspiration cycles. In cities where the ambient temperature can be up to 10 degrees hotter than the surrounding areas, green roofs can help bring the overall temperature down.

Waterproofing Membrane Protection

A green roof protects the waterproofing membrane from damaging UV rays, freeze-thaw cycling and repeated foot traffic, extending its lifespan. Some green roofs in Europe have lasted more than 40 years without being replaced.

Improved Air Quality

Green roofs filter air by absorbing and converting carbon dioxide to oxygen.

Sound Insulation

Soil and plants are an effective sound insulator.

Aesthetics

Green roofs are visually stimulating and can make great areas for recreation and pleasure.

Increased Property Value

Installing a green roof can increase property value by providing a valuable building asset.

When a project fails, or is already failing before it is completed, it’s critical that lessons are learnt from the experience, to better avoid project failure in the future. To do this, you should consider project success or failure under four headings: People, Process, Culture, Context.

One of the most important of these is process. Make sure you have a consistent approach to programme and project management. Ensure that you’re using a recognised project management methodology – for example PRINCE2. Ensure that your people are effectively trained – for example they have a PRINCE2 qualification.

You also need to ensure that your organisation has the right cultural approach to project management. So, consider whether programme and project management is recognised as a dedicated career path, whether the attributes of programme and project managers recognised as professional skills and are people supported to achieve PRINCE2 qualification. Are programmes and projects being undertaken by resources ‘on top of their day jobs’ and do you provide the opportunities to ‘improve’ programme and project management?

The key to achieving consistent project success is adoptinga process – such as PRINCE2 – and using it consistently:

Home insurance, also commonly called hazard insurance or homeowners insurance (often abbreviated in the real estate industry as HOI), is the type of property insurance that covers private homes. It is an insurance policy that combines various personal insurance protections, which can include losses occurring to one’s home, its contents, loss of its use (additional living expenses), or loss of other personal possessions of the homeowner, as well as liability insurance for accidents that may happen at the home.

The cost of homeowners insurance often depends on what it would cost to replace the house and which additional riders—additional items to be insured—are attached to the policy. The insurance policy itself is a lengthy contract, and names what will and what will not be paid in the case of various events. Typically, claims due to earthquakes, floods, “Acts of God”, or war (whose definition typically includes a nuclear explosion from any source) are excluded. Special insurance can be purchased for these possibilities, including flood insurance and earthquake insurance. Insurance must be updated to the present and existing value at whatever inflation up or down, and an appraisal paid by the insurance company will be added on to the policy premium. Fire insurance will require a special premium charge, plus the addition of smoke detectors and on site fire suppression systems to qualify.

The home insurance policy is usually a term contract—a contract that is in effect for a fixed period of time. The payment the insured makes to the insurer is called the premium. The insured must pay the insurer the premium each term. Most insurers charge a lower premium if it appears less likely the home will be damaged or destroyed: for example, if the house is situated next to a fire station, or if the house is equipped with fire sprinklers and fire alarms. Perpetual insurance, which is a type of home insurance without a fixed term, can also be obtained in certain areas.

In the United States, most home buyers borrow money in the form of a mortgage loan, and the mortgage lender always requires that the buyer purchase homeowners insurance as a condition of the loan, in order to protect the bank if the home were to be destroyed. Anyone with an insurable interest in the property should be listed on the policy. In some cases the mortgagee will waive the need for the mortgagor to carry homeowner’s insurance if the value of the land exceeds the amount of the mortgage balance. In a case like this even the total destruction of any buildings would not affect the ability of the lender to be able to foreclose and recover the full amount of the loan.