Steel Beam Residential Construction

[OnMyWay]

Our new neighbor across the street is doing an extensive expansion to the house they just bought, using steel beams.  This is the first I have seen it used in our Subic Bay Freeport residential neighborhood.  A Filipino friend who is an engineer was over last week, and he said this is becoming more popular as it can reduce the time to build, and labor costs. 

A bit of history on the house.  Originally when the Navy built it, it was a 2 unit duplex, 2 story, 2 BR, 2 BA on each side.  These 2 BR models are smallish.  When we moved to the area 6 years ago our realtor told us that the house (both units) was for sale for 7 mil and referred to it as the "Texas Joe's" house, because the owner was an owner at Texas Joe's steakhouse here in the Freeport.  It was a gorgeous house at that time, and came with furnishings including some really nice artwork (my other neighbor told me this).  They had united the the 2 units into one, so it was good sized.  In retrospect, that was quite a good price for both units.  It eventually was sold to a Pakistani family, which resulted in 5 years of neglect.  After they moved out, I walked around it, and it is astounding how quickly a house can  go bad in this climate here if you don't take care of it.  Rotting wood, peeling paint, broken external doors, etc.

The new owners are a Korean couple, appear to be mid-30's , with a 2-3 year old daughter.  As you can see in the pictures, it will be a huge house when they are done.  The contractor is Ansony and I did not know they did general contracting until they started this job.  They have a large door, window and metal fabrication business in Olongapo, and they do a lot of work in the freeport area.  By coincidence, I toured another re-furbished house in the area last week that is for sale by a foreigner.  I was very impressed with the quality of the work in the house, and asked who the contractor was.  Ansony!   The foreigner highly recommends them.

I am interested in expanding our house, and this contractor has me interested.  So far, they have been doing work in the way I want it done.  I need to level my lot and they have equipment to do that.  They had both a large and small backhoe onsite for several days.  Today, they brought in a concrete pumper to pour the floor of the second story.  About 4-6 hours instead of the days / weeks it often takes here.  So I am going to watch this job closely and see how the quality is.  I'll probably go over and take more pictures once in a while.  They have a public park on one side so I don't really need to ask.  Also, the new neighbor said the owner of Ansony is a good friend of his and he will introduce me.  He and his wife brought us a big box of Krispy Kremes to apologize for the noise and dust.  He said they are scheduled to finish in about 2.5 months.

After looking at the pics, any thoughts about all of this?  I don't plan on  a second story so I probably don't need steel beam construction, but I do have a lot of metal fabrication in mind.

Looking from my yard, the two arrows point to ends of second floor concrete they poured today.

Side view of the new addition

Another side view.  They poured concrete footers for the steel vertical beams.

Short video of the pump truck today.  They did not use the arm;  they just ran a long hose from the street to the 2nd floor.

 

[stevewool]

In my many dreams of living and building a home in the Philippines I often wondered if I could build the frame with metal and just fill in between with other material , but each time Emma just looked at me gone out.

[Balisidar]

Are the doing any earthquake proofing in the design?

[OnMyWay]

23 minutes ago, Balisidar said:

Are the doing any earthquake proofing in the design?

Good question.  I'll try to find out.  One of the things I need to do is get going on some design ideas for my place, so I plan to talk to them about that.

[Gary D]

We are just up the road from you and will be starting a 2 story unit later in the year. This is very interesting information, especially the concrete pump.

[OnMyWay]

27 minutes ago, Gary D said:

We are just up the road from you and will be starting a 2 story unit later in the year. This is very interesting information, especially the concrete pump.

I have seen quite a few concrete pumpers working in the Olongapo area in the last year or so.  Most recently this past week I saw one using the full boom on a small to medium sized building that now has a tarp on it now proclaiming that it will be a new 4X4 offroad center.  What this tells me is that these are getting more competitive and affordable for smaller projects.  Also, the freeport is heavy equipment import central.  We have hectares of imported heavy equipment waiting for sale or auction, and there are probably pumpers there too.  We also have at least 2, maybe 3, ready mix concrete plants locally.

I took a few pictures of my daughters and got the pumper truck in the back.  I cropped it so you can read the phone numbers.  Looks like Manila numbers but it might be based here.  I also took a picture of the ready mix small truck.  Maybe you can use these numbers to find out more.

  

[OnMyWay]

Wow, I didn't realize it was a year ago that I wrote about this house!

So the Korean owner seems a bit shy about socializing, but tonight I went over and had a chat, so he invited me in to see this huge house.  Basically, it has bedrooms and kitchens towards the front of the house on both floors, and then a giant open area in the back of the house on both floors.  And it appears that both huge areas are basically play areas for his only daughter, 4 years old!  On the top story, he even has an indoor swing hanging from the high ceiling.  Overall, it is not super fancy, but very nice.

[Frank from Boston]

Nice to have found this forum! As a "construction guy" from Boston, and visiting the Philippines several times, I firmly believe that utilizing steel beams for the backbone or skeleton of the structure is the way to go if possible. To then complete the framing with metal studs. Still learning to navigate it's viability with material availability and cost. Building this way would absolutely be my first choice. Looking forward to connecting with the group!

[Old55]

Welcome to the forum Frank.

Please feel free to introduce yourself in the Members Greeting topic section; https://www.philippines-expats.com/forum/109-members-greetings/

[OnMyWay]

5 hours ago, Frank from Boston said:

Nice to have found this forum! As a "construction guy" from Boston, and visiting the Philippines several times, I firmly believe that utilizing steel beams for the backbone or skeleton of the structure is the way to go if possible. To then complete the framing with metal studs. Still learning to navigate it's viability with material availability and cost. Building this way would absolutely be my first choice. Looking forward to connecting with the group!

Funny that this came up again, because 2 days ago I saw another neighbor adding on to his unit using steel beams.

I don't think it is cost effective in our area.  My Korean neighbor that I mentioned in the original post has the house for sale, for 36 million peso.  I think that high price is mostly based on how much money he put into it, because it is overpriced.  By comparison, another house here, which I would consider a grand mansion, fully furnished with high end imported wood furnishing, was for sale for 35 million for a few years.  Then he dropped it to 30.  It finally sold a month or so ago, I assume for less than 30.

Here are a few pictures from the house for sale for 36.

It doesn't look like much from the front.  This is the original Navy 2 story duplex in the front, joined into one unit.  It was originally renovated and joined by the owner of Texas Joe's resto, which I think some of you have been to.

 

View from the 2nd floor across the street to my house!

First floor extension with steel beam construction

Second floor extension which was mostly a playroom for his daughter.  If you look closely, you can see the indoor swing hanging in the middle of the photo.  My kids loved going there to play a few times, but then Covid hit, and the wife and daughter moved back to Korea 18 months ago.

They have 3 indoor kitchen areas and 1 outdoor!  There is a huge kitchen, not pictured, that they never used.  His wife just used this small one with the wood counter.

Some of the lower level front area.

2 Units Connected 2 Storey House

Leasehold: 25 years

Land Area: 1,657sqm.

Floor Area: 695sqm.

7 Bedrooms

8 Toilet and Bath

3 Maid's Room

3 Kitchen

1 Dirty kitchen

2 livingroom

1 Function room

1st Floor

*3 Rooms (1 guest room ensuite with toilet and Bath)

*1 Function room

*4 Toilet and Bath

*1 Toilet

*3 Maid's room

*1kitchen

*1 Dirty kitchen

*Spacious living room and Dining area

*Parking area

*front garden and spacious back space

2nd Floor

*4 Bedrooms

(with connecting room, dresser room)

*3 Toilet and Bath

*2 kitchen

*Spacious livingroom

*2 Dining area

*wide balcony with nature view

*Glass windows