What's mine is yours??
So it should be mentioned that we are not present on our lot on a daily basis. We have good friends that live across from our lot and help ensure that we do not have any squatting action going on. However, on one fine day a few weeks back, my friend heard some "whack whacking" going on.... and walking down to see what was going on ....noticed someone trying to cut one of our trees. After convincing them to move on.... the guy did.... he moved right on to my friends proper
Roofing Material Analysis
I saw my selected roofing material posted in a thread recently, which prompts me to share the selection and the associated process. Our design will not have a great deal of roof coverage, however, our most high ranking criteria is to ensure long term durability, low maintenance and lastly noise reducing and insulative values.
Our criteria for selection were cost, appearance, ease of installation and maintainability. Cost was one of the more complex to assess as we nee
Our experience with Globe WiMax internet connectivity
We assessed our internet access options in 2010 and after considering PLDT, Smart and Globe, we arrived at Globe WiMax as our selection. PLDT, was immediately dismissed for not having enough lines available on our trunk run (Valladolid, Carcar City) and even at that, you needed to accept their phone service and overall, we were not impressed withtheir phone asistance in conveying all this info to us. Smart was not selected simply because i
Among the many things we all have in common as we learn and adjust to another culture is we inherit family that is often times, not as vested into adjusting to western cultural idiosyncracies as our asawas may be, and also, may require much more adjustment on our parts. For those residing abroad, of course, this is not nearly as impactive on your life .. at least not on a daily basis... but for those that are in the Philippines... and those in particular that live near this new extended family..
What? not rushed?
What I mean by this is the design of the structure needs to reflect how you want to use it, but also, work well in your site. There are so many factors that could be considered when developing the overview of your project. I use formal engineering based brainstorming and logic tools to identify and process these criteria... but even without those formal tools anyone can make lists and pare them down to define the design that meets their needs and this step is so important to p
As I searched the internet for blogs and sites that helped me to learn more and add value to my design for this project, I often came across good information, but without a familiarity withthe author, I was not sure how to take some things. As with most of those authors, I am not a professional writer. So in lieu of me becoming one for the purposes of this blog.... I thought it might be helpful to provide more insight into my background, both in terms of what I have learned throughout my career
Power Strategy
Our main, long term, power plans will include the rental of a pole transformer. We currently rent a smaller capacity unit, at our current location, and it works extremely well for us. Cebeco, being the local power supplier, brought us out a transformer, hung it on the pole and ran the supply lines to our current home. We had a local electrician provide the feed off of this to an auxillary 110vac box and we have dual voltage available in certain areas that we ran new supply boxes
The Startup
I will be residing onsite during the construction of our home. Since it is only I and my brother inlaw to start, we will setup an encampment that will suffice until we have our workshop structure in a livable state. To get us going, we will make use of a couple canopies we have, along with my favorite import… a rubbermaid brand plastic garden shed. The kind that is composed of several panels and assembles in an hour or so, but provides a solid floor and a reasonably dry space.
How the Plan Developed
My wife and I are planning to build our new home just outside of Carcar, Cebu, Philippines. I have started, and will attempt to maintain, this blog as an ongoing record of this effort. It is intended to also serve as reference material for those that may see similarities in our plan and while we certainly hope to avoid as many pitfalls as possible, it may serve as a window into our errors and corrections for others to learn from. We recognize that our plan and implementat
