Field notes from South African building sites, workshops and bakkies

KH Field Notes is a working blog for artisans, site foremen and small workshop owners between Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. Posts stay short and specific: how to price a tiling job so the adhesive, cutting waste and travel time are actually covered, which 18V drill still holds charge after a Highveld winter, how to trace damp on an old plastered wall before you repaint it, and what to do when a client pays thirty days late.

Expect job-site photos, material lists costed in rand, tool teardowns after real use, and guest notes from electricians, plumbers and cabinetmakers. No sponsored filler.

Read the latest post Send your job photos and questions

New here? Start with how the site is organised, or jump straight to real jobs and reader cases.

Questions we get from the site and the workshop

Short answers, drawn from jobs around Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Cape. If your situation is different, say so when you write in and we will look at it properly.

Can I send in my own job photos?

Yes. Snap the before, the problem area and the finished work, plus a line on what went wrong or right. We credit the sender and often build a full post around one reader submission.

Do you take sponsored tool reviews?

No. Tools get bought, borrowed or pulled from a working bakkie, then used for a season before anything is written. If a brand sends something, we say so in the post.

Are the material lists priced in rand?

They are, based on quotes from suppliers in the area where the job ran. Treat them as a starting point for your own quote, not a fixed rate for your town.

How often do new posts go up?

Roughly every two weeks, sometimes slower when a teardown or a damp repair takes longer than planned. Reader questions usually get answered first.

Can I write a guest note?

Electricians, plumbers and cabinetmakers have all contributed. Send a short outline of the job and what you learned, and we will work out the format together.

Where do I send questions?

Email the editor at info@kh-demo.com or call +27155504205. Post to 5749 Ngobeni Camp, Scottton, WC 4540 if you prefer paper.

Still deciding what to read first? Start with the field notes archive, or check the contact page if you want to send a job in.

What readers and site crews say

Notes come in from tiling teams in Midrand, a cabinetmaker in Pinetown, a foreman running a small crew out of Bellville. Some of it is praise, some of it is a correction. Both get read.

The tiling quote breakdown saved me on a bathroom refit in Randburg. I had been leaving out the levelling compound and the cutting waste on diagonal layouts for years. Ran the numbers again and the job actually paid for itself.

Sipho M.

Tiling contractor, Johannesburg

I run a small workshop in Pinetown and the drill teardown matched what I saw on my own bench. Two of my 18V units died the same way after a cold winter. Good to see someone test tools in a bakkie instead of a showroom.

Riaan van der Merwe

Cabinetmaker, Pinetown

The damp post helped me tell a bridged damp course from a leaking downpipe on an old house in Observatory. I would have repainted over it and been back in six months. Instead I traced it properly.

Thandi Nkosi

Site foreman, Cape Town

Guest contributors and workshops we have run notes with

Kloof Electrical
Bay Plumbers Co-op
Midrand Tiling Crew
Highveld Tool Repair
Pinetown Cabinet Works

What you get from these field notes

Every post comes off a real site or a real workshop bench. No press releases, no sponsored tool launches. Just the numbers, the failures and the fixes that held up after a season of use.

Costed material lists in rand

Adhesive, levelling compound, wastage on diagonal cuts, travel across Johannesburg traffic. You see the line items that quietly sink a quote before you sign one.

Tools tested through a full winter

Batteries left overnight in an unheated bakkie, chucks full of grit, brushes that wore first. Teardowns after decking, roofing and workshop work, not a showroom demo.

Repairs traced to the actual source

Damp on a plastered wall is rarely a paint problem. Hose tests, moisture readings and the repair sequence, plus when a structural issue needs an engineer instead.

Supplier checks that save a callback

How to read an aluminium supplier before you commit a deposit, what a bakkie load may legally carry, and which shortcuts on building materials come back as rework.

Invoicing clients who pay late

Payment terms written into the quote, staged billing on longer jobs, and the paper trail that keeps a slow-paying client from stalling your next month on site.

Notes from other trades

Electricians, plumbers and cabinetmakers write in with what they see on shared jobs. Reader photos and questions get worked into the next post, answered straight.

New to the site? Start with the job-by-job breakdowns, or read how the workshop and site workflows fit together before you dig into individual posts.