The Capstone Project: A G+1 Duplex, Fully Specified

Most QS tutorials give you fragments — a slab here, a footing there — and you never see how the pieces add up to a project you could actually bill. This module fixes that. You will carry one building from drawings to takeoff to BOQ to budget to three running-account bills, and every number will reconcile from the first lesson to the last. If a figure appears in Lesson 2, you will meet it again in Lesson 3 priced, in Lesson 4 billed, and in Lesson 5 reconciled.

The project is synthetic — no real client, no real site — but every dimension and decision is realistic for a tier-2 Indian city in mid-2026. Treat it as your practice building. When you finish, redo the whole cycle on a real drawing set from your own site: that is the real capstone.

The project: Anand Villa

Anand Villa is a G+1 duplex for a single family, to be built by a small contractor on an item-rate contract.

The setbacks left after the 9.0 m x 8.0 m footprint satisfy typical local bye-laws for a plot of this size; verify your own city's rules before reusing the geometry.

Structural system

RCC framed structure. All structural concrete is M20 (nominal mix 1:1.5:3) with Fe 500 TMT reinforcement — a common, defensible choice for a G+1 in a low-to-moderate seismic zone. (For higher floors or aggressive exposure you would move to design-mix M25+; that decision belongs to the structural engineer, not the QS.)

Walls and finish level

• External walls: 230 mm modular brick in CM 1:6.
• Internal partitions: 115 mm brick in CM 1:4.
• Internal finish: 12 mm plaster CM 1:6, putty, primer, acrylic emulsion.
• Ceilings: 6 mm plaster.
• External: 18 mm double-coat sand-faced plaster, exterior emulsion.
• Flooring: 600x600 vitrified tiles; anti-skid ceramic + wall dado in kitchen, toilets and wash.
• Doors: one designer main door, flush doors internally. Windows: UPVC sliding.
• Fittings: standard mid-range CP and sanitary ware; concealed copper wiring with modular switches.

Call this a standard finish — not economy, not premium. It is the finish level a middle-class family in Jaipur, Indore or Nagpur typically builds.

One regional note before anyone copies this spec blindly: 230 mm clay brick is the north and central India default. In Pune, Mumbai or Ahmedabad the same house would likely use AAC blocks (lighter, faster, thinner joints — masonry and plaster items change completely), and several states push fly-ash bricks near thermal plants. Sand is equally regional: where river sand is restricted, M-sand is the default and 15-30 percent cheaper. The method in this capstone is national; the material items are not.

Who is building it — and the paper that protects them

Anand Villa is an owner self-build: a salaried family engaging a small contractor — a thekedar with his own mason gangs — on an item-rate agreement. There is no PMC at this scale, no RERA registration (an individual building a personal home is not a RERA "promoter"). That means the QS thinking in this course is the owner's protection; nobody else is checking.

One RERA-era distinction still matters even here, because everyone now talks in its vocabulary. RERA defines carpet area as the net usable floor area — excluding external walls, shafts and open balconies. For Anand Villa: BUA 144 sq m, less external walls, partitions and stairwell approx 24 sq m, gives carpet area approx 120 sq m (about 1,290 sqft) — roughly 83 percent of BUA, typical for a low-rise. Developers sell flats on carpet area; contractors bill construction on built-up area. An owner who compares a contractor's ₹1,900/sqft (on 1,550 sqft BUA) with a developer's ₹2,300/sqft (on carpet) is comparing two different denominators — a lakhs-sized confusion this course exists to prevent.

How this lesson protects your money: everything on this page — dimensions, member sizes, finish specs, the openings schedule — becomes a written annexure to the construction agreement, along with a drawing revision register. Six months from now, when a wall moves and the thekedar says the change was "always in the drawing", the annexure decides who pays. Projects without a locked data sheet settle that argument by whoever shouts longer.

Openings (locked now, used in every later lesson)

Total openings in external 230 mm walls: 2.52 + (2 x 1.89) + (10 x 1.44) + (4 x 0.27) = 2.52 + 3.78 + 14.40 + 1.08 = 19.78, say 20.0 sq m. Internal doors (9 x 1.89 = 17.0 sq m) sit in the 115 mm partitions. Note the IS 1200 discipline you learned earlier: the 0.27 sq m ventilators are deducted from masonry (threshold 0.1 sq m) but not from plaster (threshold 0.5 sq m) — the capstone will apply both rules.

Why every number is fixed before takeoff begins

A takeoff is only as good as the drawing set behind it. On real sites, half of all estimate disputes trace back to quantities measured from an outdated revision, or from "assumed" member sizes that the structural drawing later contradicted. So the professional habit — and the rule for this capstone — is: lock the drawing data first, write it in one place, then measure. Our locked data is this lesson. If a later lesson needs a number, it comes from here, not from memory.

The one thing we do not fix from drawings is market rates. Rates in Lesson 3 are indicative mid-2026 ranges for a tier-2 city — cement around ₹400 per 50 kg bag (market band roughly ₹340-460), Fe 500 TMT around ₹62 per kg basic (band ₹55-66, ex-GST). Always replace them with your city's current quotations.

What you will produce, module by module of this capstone

1. Lesson 2 — a condensed takeoff: excavation to roof, member by member, with the arithmetic shown.
2. Lesson 3 — a priced BOQ (about 20 major items), a per-sqft sanity check, and a stage-wise budget with contingency.
3. Lesson 4 — three RA bills against that BOQ, with retention, GST treatment and a variation, ending in a final bill.
4. Lesson 5 — reconciliation, the certificate assessment, and your 90-day plan.

Keep a notebook (or spreadsheet) open as you go. Every table in Lessons 2-4 is small enough to rebuild yourself — and rebuilding them is the fastest way to make this stick.

Common mistakes at the project-definition stage

• Starting takeoff from the architect's plan alone. Member sizes come from structural drawings; finish areas come from architectural; MEP loads come from services drawings. Collect all three.
• Not writing down assumed data. If bearing capacity, foundation depth or mix grade is assumed, record the assumption — it becomes a variation claim later if reality differs.
• Mixing units. This capstone works in metres and cubic metres for civil quantities, kilograms for steel, and sqft only for the final per-area benchmark, because that is how Indian BOQs and thumb rules actually mix.

Next: the takeoff. We start below ground and stop at the parapet.