Building a Home in Davao

[Tommy T.]

We went out to the home site again yesterday morning and spent hours there...

Mostly, I just sort of wandered around looking here and there while L rattled on and on with the foreman, electrician, welder... I am so glad to have her there when we go.

..

So now the railing is lowered.

Here you can see the small terrace off the "library" or third guest bedroom. It is also next to the small wet bar where I will be able to get my Tanduay, beer in the afternoons or make coffee for us in the mornings. There will just be enough space for a tiny table and two people to sit and enjoy.

The stair project continues... I had no idea how complex or challenging creating this staircase would be. The wood has been sanded down and so is now covered to minimize damage from foot traffic. They should install the railings in a few days... Note also on the lower left - our first furniture is already here!!!

Not being as talented or having a nice workshop as @Mike J, we ordered up a dining room table and chairs to be made of difficult-to-get hardwood from a province. So it is sitting there patiently waiting for us to enjoy our first at-home feast... I just want pizza and beer!!!!!!

A huge coil of the 3/4" waterline that will run from the main road connection to the home - about 170 metres all up.

The electrical panel now has circuit breakers installed - two 60 amp breakers at the top for the main service and then 30 amp breakers for each air/con unit and water heater, 20 amp for the lighting and outlet circuits. And I had to laugh... without me even saying a word, the Sparky told me he would label all the breakers... This guy really is a pro!

I could clearly read "General Electric, i.e. GE" on the switches. Nice, clean installation so far.

 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Tommy T.

[Tommy T.]

I am guessing that many of you are getting as tired of reading about the endless home construction as I am about experiencing and writing about it???

Well... things are progressing...

Ivan, the electrician, labeled all the breakers as he wired them in. Not the way I would label (really...masking tape???), but who am I to complain? Later, we can either replace this with stick-on labels or do it like in USA and put labels on the inside of the breaker box door?

I am really super impressed by the wiring so far... Check out how neat and organized the circuit wires are in the box? That's as neat and clean or even better than I ever saw in my new-build house in USA back in the 80's. I mean, look at the perfect 90 degree turns and direct and straight wire runs... Ivan really is a pro at this and I am so pleased to have him as the Sparky here. One less thing to keep me awake at night - no or few worries about the wiring...

One awning (called "canopy" here) as a sample construction for the rest. Looks good to us.

Another canopy under construction. They chip out cement and hollow block over the windows to find rebar and then weld the angle steel supports to it. I am always learning about the local construction techniques here - so different from what I am accustomed to and familiar with in USA.

They are now attaching the framing around doors and windows inside and out. It will look a lot better after painting... But they are paying a lot of attention to details... I really did not expect this. Or maybe they are doing this because they realize how close we are monitoring the work?

The foreman holding a stairway handrail support for us to check for location and suitability. I have opted for more handrails than might be "normal" due to my inexorable advancing age and just because now is the time to do this rather than after the home is completed. The staircase is very open and we both want it to be safe and secure for us and any guests...

Not pictured was the work of the boys as they dig through the ground installing the sewer line from the septic tank to the river. At one point, they had to dig at least 1.5 meters - or deeper - to place the line and under a huge rock that was smack in the middle of their path. I still don't quite understand that the norm here is to route black water after the septic tank directly into fresh water rivers and streams. It goes against my anti-pollution background and thinking.... But we are doing what is regulated and common...

[Jack Peterson]

3 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

Not pictured was the work of the boys as they dig through the ground installing the sewer line from the septic tank to the river.

  A septic Tank should be a sealed tank to work and for me and others I suspect, would never have it run into a river to add to pollution and I think would be illegal. it may happen here but is not on Tom 

[Tommy T.]

2 minutes ago, Jack Peterson said:

  A septic Tank should be a sealed tank to work and for me and others I suspect, would never have it run into a river to add to pollution and I think would be illegal. it may happen here but is not on Tom 

I hear you, Jack. But the contractors are following the code here - as far as I can tell. (and as usual... I might be wrong).

My first preference - back before the build - was to construct a drain-field for the sewage. I researched and found there are regulations and specifications for doing that - right down to the length of the lines and so on. But when I inquired of two potential builders regarding that, they both looked at me with the 1,000 yard (or meter) gaze. They were totally unaware of that technology and process.

From everything I have found, the system constructed here is the norm...

I can see that this is the norm for here in Davao City. In our apartment, sewage runs from the dwelling straight out to the street and into the street drainage ditches... reminds me of Paris. When there are floods in heavy rains, the last thing you want to do is wade about in flood waters in bare feet! 

[Tommy T.]

The other oddity I see here is that city ordinance - or code - requires all roof drainage to be routed into water or septic tanks before being run out through the same lines as the sewer lines. I guess I am dumb, because I really just don't get it.... The water ends up at the same place either way... There are apparently no real sewer lines here - at least not that I am aware of. It's one of the reasons I will not eat fish from or swim in the waters near this city.

[Jack Peterson]

7 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

all roof drainage to be routed into water or septic tanks

 Grey Water ( Rain) from roofs and House Sinks should never be in the Septic Tank but in another or left to Earth Drain, It destroys the Work of the Septic and would Fill it Quickly, That will add much Cost to your Budgets in Emptying the Septic but each to their own 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Jack Peterson
added a little

[Tommy T.]

7 minutes ago, Jack Peterson said:

Grey Water ( Rain) from roofs should never be in the Septic Tank but in another or left to Earth Drain, It destroys the Work of the Septic and would Fill it Quickly, That will add much Cost to your Budgets in Emptying the Septic but each to their own 

Sorry, Jack... I misspoke a bit there... The rain water is supposed to drain into its own "septic" or other tank, before draining into the environment. It is not directed into the sewage septic tank... However, here in Davao, it all ends up in the same place eventually - the street-side drainage ditches. So the new house actually has two tanks - one is the true two-part septic tank and the other is the "grey" water rain drainage tank. They will both be connected on the down-stream side of the tanks and channeled into the river.

Edit: Neither L nor I can understand the logic behind this system. We had to add two 600 liter "Best Tanks" to collect the roof drainage from the apartment here. After it flows into the tanks, it flows directly back through a drain into the sewer line and back to the street...

Edited July 8, 2020 by Tommy T.

[GeoffH]

22 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

SHowever, here in Davao, it all ends up in the same place eventually - the street-side drainage ditches. So the new house actually has two tanks - one is the true two-part septic tank and the other is the "grey" water rain drainage tank.

This used to be the norm in rural Australia as well, it's only about 10 years since the septic tank (sewerage variety) at my previous house in Maldon was retired due to the provision of sewerage pipes and a local processing plant.  The early style septic tanks in Australia were not sealed, they had an outlet that was commonly piped and ran under the ground with small leak holes in them under the house lawn.  The idea was that any overflow would be absorbed by the soil and become fertalizer.  It certainly used to make the grass on the side lawn grow several times are fast as the other lawns.  There was generally a second overflow pipe which ran to the street drain.  However that was expected never to flow and you were required to have them emptied by a truck often enough that it didn't but in earlier decades it was common for the street drains to smell and be slimy because people were lax about emptying them.  Storm water was (and still is) an open pipe running into the street side gutter.  Nb I'm talking about a small town of 1300 people, larger towns had more modern systems.

But what you're describing doesn't seem that different. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by GeoffH

[Tommy T.]

15 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

This used to be the norm in rural Australia as well, it's only about 10 years since the septic tank (sewerage variety) at my previous house in Maldon was retired due to the provision of sewerage pipes and a local processing plant.  The early style septic tanks in Australia were not sealed, they had and outlet that was commonly piped and ran under the ground with small leak holes in them under the house lawn.  The idea was that any overflow would be absorbed by the soil and become fertalizer.  It certainly used to make the grass on the side lawn grow several times are fast as the other lawns. 

That's exactly what we had at our home on some acreage near Seattle years ago. There were actually two septic tanks - one apparently took care of the greases and primary "fermentation" while the second, larger, one continued the biological processing. The land was so flat that we needed a pump to get it to an extensive "drain field" where all the pipes were perforated so the black water would seep into the soil. It was all forested, so we could not tell what effect it had.

The rain/roof gutters drained into pipes that I set to drain into "dry" wells. I did not have to do this, but just wanted the surface run-off to not collect on the flat property surface. I dug out two four foot deep by 6 foot diameter holes in low parts of the lawn area. Then I filled them with clean, coarse gravel, topped it off with several layers of newspaper then covered them with a foot of soil. They worked in all but the heaviest rainfalls and kept the grounds mostly dry - or at least unsaturated. They slowed down the water flow enough to give most of it time to soak gradually into the subsurface soils and clay. Maybe that's the idea here with the tanks?

Whatever the case, we are just following the custom here and trying to do the cleanest job we can. Maybe some day we can find a way to improve the system because I am not happy seeing that our sewage will drain into the small creek...

Edited July 8, 2020 by Tommy T.

[hk blues]

In my development, our septic tank is a sealed unit and absolutely must not drain to the flood sewer.  The showers and sinks (grey water as Jack correctly describes) drain directly to the flood sewer and not into the septic - it would fill up rather quickly if it did!  Funnily enough, my American neighbour and I were discussing this last night as the septic tanks are varying in size and location even in the same model of house.  

I'm surprised to hear that untreated raw sewage is being directed into a river as per code.  Fish is off the menu if I visit Davao!