Economy or Reliability?
Each of us has to make various significant decisions in our life. Purchase of a new residential house or apartment should be mentioned among such decision.
This is a significant and at the same time, complicated decision. Am I making a right choice? This is a question which takes too much time, sometimes several years to give the answer.
A very wide choice presented on the market makes this process even more complicated. So what is particularly noteworthy when purchasing real estate?
The primary feature is the construction quality. This quality determines reliability. Each of us dreams to have a reliable house.
There are two basic principles of construction and we will generally review their advantages and disadvantages in this article.
Carcass type structure. This is a standard and most common form of construction which consists of two main stages:
- Carcass construction
- Building walls by finished concrete products (blocks, slabs etc.)
Advantages of carcass type construction:
- Simplicity
- Low cost
Disadvantages of carcass type construction:
- Low strength
- Average operational cycle
The popularity of this method is predetermined by simplicity and low cost. Therefore, absolute majority of structures in Georgia, including Tbilisi is built using this method.
Monolithic structure. As seen above, carcass type structure has no high strength. Maximum average operational cycle may be 100 years.
At the modern stage of development and urbanization almost all new residential structures are multi-storey and therefore, importance of strength increases. In such case, carcass form of construction is not enough and it becomes necessary to use new technologies. Despite the above, it does not mean that multi-storey building may not be built using a carcass method; just everything has its advantages and disadvantages.
Monolithic construction is a unified process. In such case, blocks or slabs are not used as in case of carcass method and the structure is entirely or almost entirely made of concrete.
Advantages of monolithic construction:
- Maximum strength
- High operational cycle
Disadvantages of monolithic construction:
- Need of complicated technology
- High cost
As we can see, monolithic technology represents an item of luxury, but on the other hand, average operational cycle of the building increases at least twice. It is mainly used for construction of residential complexes which implies simultaneous construction of many apartment blocks.
At the example of Tbilisi, residential complex "Dirsi" (www.dirsi.ge) located at Mtkvari embankment represents such type of construction. It includes 22 residential apartment blocks. Their construction finished within 1.5 year which confirms efficiency of monolithic construction.
At a glance, we may think that these terms are very long and are not significant factors affecting our decision when making a choice. But not only an operational cycle is the case. Strength increases not only the term but also resistance against earthquake. Nothing is immune to this threat, especially in such seismically active region as the Caucasus and Georgia.
Therefore, it is up to us to choose: economy or reliability.
