Written by THUMB RULES FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS – ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
Thumb Rules For Civil Engineering is essential for any civil engineer, Site engineer, or civil supervisor. They play a crucial role while taking quick decisions on site. The Thumb Rule of Civil Engineering or the thumb rule for construction helps you in finding out the solution using a simple mathematical formula and make smart decisions whenever needed.
But, while using these thumb rules, you must remember that the thumb rule never gives the exact or accurate results, you just have used them for approximate results.
There is a number of Thumb Rule For Civil Engineers that we used in construction work. So, the following are some most frequently used Thumb rules on the Construction site.
The Thumb rule method is an approximate & comparing method. In thumb rules and the units are not the same when we compare to get the results. So, ignore units while performing the thumb rule.
Thumb Rule for estimating the Concrete Volume with respect to the area:
The volume of concrete required = 0.038 m3/square feet area
Example:-If Plan Area = 40 x 20 = 800 Sq. m.
So, for the plan area of 800 Sq. m. the area the total volume of concrete required
= 800 x 0.038m3 = 30.4m3
Thumb Rule for Steel quantity required for Slab, Beams, Footing & columns:
Steel required in residential buildings = 4.5 Kgs – 4.75 Kgs / sq. Ft.
Steel required For Commercial buildings = 5.0 Kgs-5.50 Kgs/Sq. Ft.
Thumb rule for Civil Engineers to estimate the shuttering area:
Shuttering costs are taken as 15-18% of the total construction of the building. Shuttering work is done to bring the concrete in Shape. The Thumb rule to estimate the shuttering required is 6 times the quantity of concrete or 2.4 times of the Plinth area.
The following recommendation Thumb Rules for Civil Engineers are gvem in B N data for the steel quantity used in different members of the building Percentage of steel in structural Members
- Slab- 1 % of the total volume of concrete
- Beam- 2% of the total volume of concrete
- Column- 2.5% of the total volume of concrete
- Footing- 0.8% of the total volume of concrete
Thumb Rules For Civil Engineers for Brickwork
Following are Thumb Rules for civil engineering for brickwork and cement quantity calculations.
| Brickwork for 1m3 | Cement Qty in m3 | Cement Qty in Bags |
| 230 mm Brickwork | 0.876m3 | 25.4 Bags |
| 115 mm Brickwork | 0.218m3 | 6.32 Bags |
Thumb Rules For Cement Masonry Quantity
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Thumb Rules Plastering Quantity
| Type of Plastering | Cement Qty in Bags | Cement Qty in Kgs |
| Rough Plastering | 0.09 Bags/m2 | 4. 5Kgs/m2 |
| Internal Wall Plastering | 0.09 Bags/m2 | 4.5 Kgs/m2 |
| Duct Plastering | 0.09 Bags/m2 | 4.5 Kgs/m2 |
| External Wall plastering | 0.175 Bags/m2 | 8.75 Kgs/m2 |
| Stucco Plastering | 0.175 Bags/m2 | 8.75 Kgs/m2 |
| Lathen Plastering | 0.55 Bags/m2 | 27.5 Kgs/m2 |
