House construction guide
How long does it take to build a house in Kerala?
The stages of a house are the same for everyone. The order they run in is not, and that is what decides your handover date. Here is the order Rzianz works to, stage by stage, and why it lands on 270 days.
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start to handover
The short answer
Rzianz builds a house in 270 days, from start of work to handover. The date holds because the work runs in parallel tracks, not one stage after another: electrical conduiting and internal plastering begin on the ground floor while the first floor structure is still going up. The completion period is written into your agreement.
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What happens in those 270 days
A house is not a queue. Read the stage explorer below as four tracks running at the same time, with the seven construction stages marking the order. The point it makes is the one that decides your handover date: by the time the first floor structure is going up, the ground floor below it is already being wired and plastered.
Order of work on a Rzianz site, four tracks and seven stages. Sequence and overlap only, bar widths are not durations.
Track 1Structure
Foundation, ground-floor walls and the ground-floor slab, cured 28 days
20-day overlapFirst floor: walls, lintel, sunshade, columns and slab
Track 2Services, plaster
Ground floor: conduiting 2 days after the slab, then internal plastering
First floor: conduiting 2 days after that slab, then internal plastering
Track 3Finishes
External plaster through to fixtures, in a fixed order
Track 4Handover
Cleaning, then day 270
Start of work
Excavation. The day the 270 days begins. PCC and RCC footings and the columns below ground follow, then backfilling.
Read the detailOn site at this stage
- Structure: excavation and footings
Plinth beam
The PCC and RCC plinth beams tie every column together at plinth level. Basement filling then readies the site for the ground floor.
Read the detailOn site at this stage
- Structure: plinth beams and basement filling
Ground-floor slab
Walls to lintel, the lintel, sunshade and columns, walls above lintel, then the slab and beams. The slab cures for 28 days, and conduiting begins 2 days after the pour.
Read the detailOn site at this stage
- Structure: ground-floor slab, curing
- Services: ground-floor conduiting begins
First-floor slab
The first floor repeats the same sequence, starting with a 20-day overlap from the ground-floor slab, while the ground floor below is being wired and plastered.
Read the detailOn site at this stage
- Structure: first floor going up
- Services: ground-floor conduiting
- Plaster: ground-floor internal plastering
Plastering
Internal plastering follows the conduiting on each floor. External plastering then closes the shell, so the wet trades inside can work without weather risk.
Read the detailOn site at this stage
- Services and plaster: first floor
- Finishes: external plastering begins
Tiling
After wiring and plumbing, waterproofing, screeding, primer and joinery frames: toilets are tiled first, then floors.
Read the detailOn site at this stage
- Finishes: waterproofing, screeding, joinery frames, tiling
Handover
Doors and polishing, electrical fixtures, then Jaquar, Grohe or Kohler sanitary fixtures, cleaning, and handover on day 270.
Read the detailOn site at this stage
- Finishes: doors, polishing, fixtures
- Handover: cleaning, then day 270
A typical contractor runs those four tracks end to end, and every handoff adds waiting. Rzianz designs and builds as one team on the owner's own land, so the drawings, the services layout and the site programme are settled before excavation and the tracks can be overlapped safely. That is the whole mechanism behind house construction in Trivandrum landing on a date rather than a season.
Stages 1 and 2
What happens during the foundation stage?
Foundation work is the first stretch of the 270 days and it has no shortcuts. It runs excavation, plain cement concrete footing, reinforced footing, reinforced columns below ground level, backfilling, the plain cement concrete plinth beam, the reinforced plinth beam, and finally basement filling before any brickwork starts.
- 01ExcavationStart of work. The day the 270 days begins.
- 02PCC footingA plain cement concrete bed so the reinforced footing sits on a true, level base.
- 03RCC footingThe reinforced footing that carries the load of the house into the ground.
- 04RCC columns below groundColumns cast from footing level up to plinth.
- 05BackfillingEarth returned and compacted around the completed below-ground work.
- 06PCC plinth beamThe levelling bed for the plinth beam.
- 07RCC plinth beamThe tie that locks every column together at plinth level.
- 08Basement fillingFilling and consolidation inside the plinth, ready for the ground floor.
None of this is visible in a photograph a year later, which is exactly why it is the stage most often rushed. It is also where an unclear drawing set costs the most time, because a change to a column position here moves every floor above it. If you are still comparing quotes, the house construction cost in Kerala guide sets out what a foundation line should actually contain.
Stage 3
What happens on the ground floor?
The ground floor runs in a fixed order: brickwork up to lintel level, then the lintel, sunshades and columns, then brickwork above the lintel, then the reinforced slab and beams. That slab is cured for 28 days, and the cure is not a pause, because conduiting begins 2 days after the pour.
- 01Brickwork to lintel. Walls raised to lintel level, openings left as drawn.
- 02Lintel, sunshade, columns. Cast together, so the openings and the shading are one piece of work.
- 03Brickwork above lintel. Walls taken up to slab soffit.
- 04RCC slab and beams. The ground-floor slab, then a 28-day cure.
Stage 4
How does the first floor overlap the ground floor?
The first floor repeats the ground-floor sequence exactly: brickwork to lintel, lintel and sunshade and columns, brickwork above lintel, slab and beams. What changes is when it starts. It begins with a 20-day overlap from the ground-floor slab, so the two floors are never fully sequential.
This single decision is what lets a two-storey house fit the same 270 days as a single-storey one. While the upper structure is being raised, the ground floor below is already in Track 2: conduiting went in 2 days after its slab, and internal plastering is following the conduiting. Three trades are on site at once, in three different states of completion, on purpose.
One team, one programme
Overlap planned, not improvised
Completion period in the agreement
Stages 5, 6 and 7
What happens during finishing?
Finishing is the longest list and the least forgiving order. External plastering, then wiring and plumbing, waterproofing, screeding, primer, joinery frames, tiling with toilets before floors, doors, polishing, electrical fixtures, sanitary fixtures, cleaning, handover. Get one out of order and the trade behind it has to come back.
Finishing, in the order it has to run
- 01External plasteringCloses the shell, so the wet trades inside can work without weather risk.
- 02Wiring and plumbingPulled through the conduits laid in Track 2, before anything is sealed over.
- 03WaterproofingToilets, terrace and wet areas, while the surfaces are still bare.
- 04Screeding and primerLevelling beds and the first sealing coat, so tiling and painting get a true surface.
- 05Joinery framesFrames set before tiling, so floor levels meet the frames rather than fight them.
- 06TilingToilets first, then floors, so wet areas are closed before general flooring starts.
- 07Doors and polishingShutters hung and finished once the dusty work is over.
- 08Electrical fixturesFitted after polishing, so nothing installed gets damaged or masked.
- 09Sanitary fixturesJaquar, Grohe or Kohler, chosen by the owner and fitted near the end.
- 10Cleaning and handoverDay 270. The completion period is written into the client's agreement.
If you want to see how the finishing specification moves the number rather than the calendar, the home cost calculator lets you change the specification and watch the effect.
Where the time goes
What actually delays a Kerala build
Almost nothing that delays a house is a construction problem. Three things do most of the damage, and all three are decided before a single brick is laid.
Design changes after work starts
A layout change during brickwork is never one change. It moves the services layout, the plaster, the tiling and sometimes a column, so it reappears three times over as lost days.
The fix: a fixed-scope drawing set, signed before excavation.
Waiting on the permit
No builder controls the local body's queue. What a builder can control is not starting the clock until the permit is in hand.
The fix: the 270 days only starts once the permit is in hand, so the delivery date you are given is a date that can actually be kept.
Sequential instead of parallel work
The most common one, and the least visible. If plastering waits for the whole structure, and finishing waits for all the plastering, the house spends long stretches with one trade on site and everyone else idle.
The fix: a programme that overlaps the tracks instead of queueing them.
Rzianz protects the date with the two things it can actually control: a fixed-scope drawing set agreed before start of work, and a programme that overlaps the tracks instead of queueing them. Neither is a promise, both are a method. Compare that against how other builders in Trivandrum describe their timelines, and the difference is usually that they describe a range.
Before the 270 days
Before construction: design and permit
Design has no honest single figure, so Rzianz does not publish one: it depends on the brief you bring and how settled it is. The permit is different, because the rules set the clock.
In a municipality or corporation area, such as Thiruvananthapuram, the Kerala Municipality Building Rules give the Secretary 15 days to approve the site plan, and then 15 days to grant or refuse the building permit. Each clock runs from a complete application, and the permit's 15 days start only once the site is approved. If the Secretary decides neither in time, you can take the application to the Council. For a house under 300 square metres (about 3,229 sq ft) with up to two storeys, the rules now allow a self-certified building permit, where the local body's acknowledgement certificate counts as the permit. Panchayat areas follow the parallel Kerala Panchayat Building Rules.
What Rzianz does commit to is the handoff between the two phases. Once the building permit is in hand, you get the start date in writing, and the 270 days is counted from that start of work. Nobody should quote you a delivery date against a permit that has not been issued, because that date would be fiction.
Owners planning from overseas usually want this stage mapped out before they travel. That is covered in detail in the guide to building your home in Trivandrum while you are abroad, including the weekly video updates NRI owners get once work starts.
Reader questions
Questions people ask about the timeline
Not answered here? Ask on WhatsApp and a person replies.
How long does it take to build a house in Kerala?
Rzianz builds a house in 270 days, from start of work to handover. That span covers the foundation, the ground floor, the first floor, services, finishing and cleaning. The date holds because the work runs in parallel tracks rather than one stage strictly after another.
Does the 270 days include the foundation?
Yes. Start of work is excavation, and the 270 days is counted from there. Excavation, PCC and RCC footings, columns below ground, backfilling, the PCC and RCC plinth beams and the basement filling all sit inside the 270 days.
Can a two-storey house be built in 270 days?
Yes. The first floor structure does not wait for the ground floor to be finished. It starts with a 20-day overlap from the ground-floor slab, and on the ground floor below, conduiting and internal plastering are already running while the upper structure goes up.
How long does a concrete slab take to cure?
A structural slab is cured for 28 days. That period is not dead time on site: electrical conduiting starts 2 days after each floor slab, and internal plastering follows the conduiting while the cure is still running.
When does the 270 days start?
The 270 days starts at start of work on site, which is excavation. Rzianz gives that start date in writing once the building permit is in hand, because the permit queue at the local body is outside any builder's control.
Can I track progress from abroad?
Yes. NRI owners get weekly video updates from site, so you can see the actual stage of work rather than relying on a written status line. You can also ask questions on WhatsApp between updates.
How long does a building permit take in Kerala?
In a municipality or corporation area, the Kerala Municipality Building Rules give the local body 15 days to approve the site plan and then 15 days to grant or refuse the building permit, each counted from a complete application. A house under 300 square metres with up to two storeys can use a self-certified permit, where the acknowledgement certificate counts as the permit. Rzianz starts the 270 days only once the permit is in hand.
Is the completion period written into the agreement?
Yes. The completion period is written into the client's agreement, so the 270 days is a contractual commitment and not a sales figure quoted at the enquiry stage.
Start of work
Get your start date in writing
Send us your plot and your brief. You get the construction stage sequence for your own house, the completion period written into the agreement, and a start date the day the permit is in hand.
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