Building a Home in Davao

[RBM]

 It took six guys to move the solid mahogany bed out of the way.

Appears you still have a remarkable amount of energy Tommy....

[Tommy T.]

Meanwhile... we have had the welder, electrician, painters and some others here to continue to finish the place....

Today, the painters are finishing installing the decorative bolts/nuts on the car and human gates in front. I loaned them the tools to make it go fast and they are taking care of them...so unusual for me to loan tools...

 

The human gate needed to be reversed to open outward rather than inward so the electric sliding gate wouldn't destroy or, at least, interfere, with the human gate. So, we discovered that the latch could be opened up and reversed to work with the modified configuration.

The painting by the true professionals is so much superior to that performed by the contractors' "hacks," or cowboys.

We had a crew out here two days ago to fix the leaky roofs. Well...it rained like hell last night for a few hours and there was only one very small leak. But the major leaks - where it rained inside before! - seemed to be fixed finally. Our current philosophy is that the contractor would send someone in to fix issues, but not give them "carte blanche" to fix them correctly, but rather just patch things a bit as cheaply as possible. The guys we hired paid a lot of attention to perform true fixes, and those paid off...except for the small leak... And they are pledged to fix that for us now, for free.

We're getting there, slowly...

We have planted several veggie crops now so hope for some home-grown food soon. There should be squash next week, and the garlic chives are always ready to go!

I spent a couple of days last week and weekend to fix doors that were "sprung," or would not latch properly. It was obvious that the contractor workers didn't seem to know the difference from a door to a Volkswagen! The contractor workers installed some hinges upside down, did not install all the mounting screws (or used round-head instead of flathood screws), did not chisel out or form properly configured places for hinges or lock-set strike plates or created these in the wrong locations, only to go back and fix them - leaving gouges in the door frames from their failed efforts... sigh!!!!

I made adjustments to hinge attachments and door latch strike plates and fixed all the issues! I discovered that several of the doors are severely warped. That seems to be because either: a) the wood was not dried before door fabrication and/or; b) because they were stored improperly here before installation - i.e., outside in the rain and sun and/or; c) that they were improperly finished, or finished too soon, before they were cured wood...

Whatever the case, several doors are warped up to over one inch from top to bottom! So I found ways to deal with this to, at least, make them close properly... We will deal with long term fixes later...

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Tommy T.

[Reboot]

Thanks for starting this tread Tommy T. I too am starting construction on a Filipino house. We just engaged an architect to start drawing up plans. I've owned a small piece on a beach for about 3 years. The value of the land has doubled in that time. Beautiful view of the pacific. I want to build on it now (at the moment it's just vehicle parking for pamily, a nipa party hut I had built a couple of years ago with electricity for lights and karaoke of course, and my brother in law's fighting cocks). I plan to mine your thread for information, and hopefully I won't make too many expensive mistakes. Again thank you for sharing. I have two children now with my wife, so I look forward to spending time there with them when it is finished. Maybe I'll get old here one day.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Reboot

[Tommy T.]

2 hours ago, Reboot said:

Thanks for starting this tread Tommy T. I too am starting construction on a Filipino house. We just engaged an architect to start drawing up plans. I've owned a small piece on a beach for about 3 years. The value of the land has doubled in that time. Beautiful view of the pacific. I want to build on it now (at the moment it's just vehicle parking for pamily, a nipa party hut I had built a couple of years ago with electricity for lights and karaoke of course, and my brother in law's fighting cocks). I plan to mine your thread for information, and hopefully I won't make too many expensive mistakes. Again thank you for sharing. I have two children now with my wife, so I look forward to spending time there with them when it is finished. Maybe I'll get old here one day.

Wow!!! Lovely beach location! I hope it is high enough from the waterline so that you don't drown during tsunami or inclement weather!

Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions. I certainly don't have all the answers, or even close, but I might be able to offer a bit of guidance, perhaps...

[Tommy T.]

It's a bit scary...

Yesterday, L had a long conversation with the painters here. Apparently, a British retiree built a home with his Filipina wife a few years ago somewhere not too far away in Davao from here... One night some miscreants used a ladder to scale their very tall (much taller than ours) fence and somehow forced their way inside the house. They found the wife and were forcing her to show them where money was stashed. Sometime during all this, the Brit guy woke up and commenced to challenge and fight the intruders. He was knifed and died.

So the story goes, there was a policeman who lived next door to this family and had recommended another guy as a guard. Well, the guard and the policeman are now suspects since the intruders seemed to know the layout of the home... As a new home, they did not yet have CCTV installed, but it was in the works, apparently. Well... we have our cctv and will shortly install burglar alarms too. We already inform all workers that we have alarms, just to spread the word.

Forgot to include: the painters were briefly considered suspects since they were working on that house at the time of the robbery. That's also how they had the story to relay to us...

As discussed previously on this or other threads, no one can be totally safe, ever, but we are continuing to make our ways to try to be more safe. The neighbourhood seems mostly quiet and okay, but... - as Rosanne Rosanna Danna said - "You just never know..." (or something like that...). I guess that the mean guard dog is the next step. People in this neighbourhood are quite afraid of dogs since there have been some incidents of dog bites from one of the local mutts here... 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Tommy T.
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[fred]

38 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

It's a bit scary...

Yesterday, L had a long conversation with the painters here. Apparently, a British retiree built a home with his Filipina wife a few years ago somewhere not too far away in Davao from here... One night some miscreants used a ladder to scale their very tall (much taller than ours) fence and somehow forced their way inside the house. They found the wife and were forcing her to show them where money was stashed. Sometime during all this, the Brit guy woke up and commenced to challenge and fight the intruders. He was knifed and died.

So the story goes, there was a policeman who lived next door to this family and had recommended another guy as a guard. Well, the guard and the policeman are now suspects since the intruders seemed to know the layout of the home... As a new home, they did not yet have CCTV installed, but it was in the works, apparently. Well... we have our cctv and will shortly install burglar alarms too. We already inform all workers that we have alarms, just to spread the word.

As discussed previously on this or other threads, no one can be totally safe, ever, but we are continuing to make our ways to try to be more safe. The neighbourhood seems mostly quiet and okay, but... - as Rosanne Rosanna Danna said - "You just never know..." (or something like that...). I guess that the mean guard dog is the next step. People in this neighbourhood are quite afraid of dogs since there have been some incidents of dog bites from one of the local mutts here... 

Yes. Filipino`s generally are terrified of dogs.
For good measure ,murmurs of an alleged rumour that one of the dogs was an unproven suspected rabies case and you will not see them for dust.
Dogs are a MUST have security item IMO.

Edited March 12, 2021 by fred

[Tommy T.]

1 hour ago, fred said:

Dogs are a MUST have security item IMO.

I agree.... but I will settle for just one big dog - so many around here already barking so much!

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, Tommy T. said:

It's a bit scary...

Yesterday, L had a long conversation with the painters here. Apparently, a British retiree built a home with his Filipina wife a few years ago somewhere not too far away in Davao from here... One night some miscreants used a ladder to scale their very tall (much taller than ours) fence and somehow forced their way inside the house. They found the wife and were forcing her to show them where money was stashed. Sometime during all this, the Brit guy woke up and commenced to challenge and fight the intruders. He was knifed and died.

So the story goes, there was a policeman who lived next door to this family and had recommended another guy as a guard. Well, the guard and the policeman are now suspects since the intruders seemed to know the layout of the home... As a new home, they did not yet have CCTV installed, but it was in the works, apparently. Well... we have our cctv and will shortly install burglar alarms too. We already inform all workers that we have alarms, just to spread the word.

Forgot to include: the painters were briefly considered suspects since they were working on that house at the time of the robbery. That's also how they had the story to relay to us...

As discussed previously on this or other threads, no one can be totally safe, ever, but we are continuing to make our ways to try to be more safe. The neighbourhood seems mostly quiet and okay, but... - as Rosanne Rosanna Danna said - "You just never know..." (or something like that...). I guess that the mean guard dog is the next step. People in this neighbourhood are quite afraid of dogs since there have been some incidents of dog bites from one of the local mutts here... 

This story is why we made the compromise of space/privacy for security to live in a gated and guarded community.  Does it guarantee safety - of course not, but it reduces the risk.  I know it's not for everyone though.

[Jack Peterson]

51 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

. but I will settle for just one big dog

 A small one with tech knowledge will suffice Tom and Cheaper to keep 

[Snowy79]

As a trained locksmith make sure the latch on the gate is what's called a  deadlatch.  Basically there are two snibs that when the gate closes one drops into the keep and the other is held compressed and prevented from dropping into the keep. This effectively locks the latch in the closed position.  If it isn't a thin blade or piece of wire in a hook shape will open the gate in under 2 seconds. It's also handy in that you can lock the gate with a key from the inside so anyone that climbs over your wall and tries to make off with valuables can't just walk out the gate.