Buildiyo

  Nithya had lived in her previous home in Adyar for seven years before she understood what had been done wrong in its construction. The leaking bedroom wall was the first signal — so gradual in its first year that she assumed it was condensation. By year four, the structural engineer she finally called identified the real problem: a foundation settlement crack in the south-east column that had been allowing water ingress since approximately the second monsoon after construction. The original contractor had long since moved to a different city. The repair cost ₹4.8 lakhs. The disruption cost seven weeks of living around construction. The emotional cost — the knowledge that her family had been living in a structurally compromised home for four years without knowing — was something she found impossible to quantify. When she began planning her new home, she had one requirement above all others: the best construction company in Chennai was not going to be the one with the most impress...