Building a Home in Davao

[hk blues]

2 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

Yes... Maybe... But so far so good and the boys are fine with it. Fortunately there is no wind today... And Jake is not here to pee into it either!

It's an expression Tom.  

[Tommy T.]

51 minutes ago, hk blues said:

It's an expression Tom.  

I know.... The boys are pleased and proud of their work. I will pay them a bit extra when they are done. To me, reward someome who does well... maybe it will resound with them?

I can't help myself... I am upbeat and positive about this work now and the boys are responding and also positive...

I even loaned them some of my hand tools.... I NEVER do that! But with these guys, I do. They are careful and respectful of my tools and I totally respect that!

Edited December 21, 2020 by Tommy T.

[hk blues]

59 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

I will pay them a bit extra when they are done. To me, reward someome who does well... maybe it will resound with them?

 

Now you're talking Tom.  

[Snowy79]

Meanwhile my run of not so good tradesmen continues.  About a month ago I had a puncture on my rear tyre of my motorcycle and took it to the vulcanising shop.  He was going to repair it but I told him just fit a new tyre and tube as the tyre tread was getting low and there will be less chance of another flat.  I watched him get a new tube and tyre then went to get load for my phone.  On return there was a nice new tyre and off I set.  Two days ago I got another puncture but as it was outside my house I figured I'd just remove the wheel and take the tube out.  On removing the tube you guessed it, the old tube with a repair.

[Tommy T.]

So the deck/lanai is almost done now. The work is great and it gives the home a bit of a rustic look to break the modern style a bit. We both love it!

 

And the next step is to finish off the back gate. It needed some steel plate to keep prying hands off the lock and handle, plus add a bit of privacy. A five foot tall steel sheet will do the job, we reckon.

Addressing @Snowy79 and his issues... He certainly gets my sympathy. We are constantly dealing with companies or individuals who seem to have few ethics or communications skills... (but I always wonder since everyone seems to be constantly texting or on FaceBook...?).

L and I find that we just need to be always on site here if we want things to go the way we wish. We have also both experienced delays in service, some poor service and also poor quality goods with things.

A bit off topic... We had ordered a custom-made bed frame here. It is 100% mahogany and it is super heavy. It took eight guys yesterday to hoist it up to the second floor....so I guess it will live there forever!

It seems to be great quality with good joiner work. The finish is a bit lacking, but I can fix that myself. It cost a bit less than for a king size bed at Mandaue Foam, but the quality is much better. I cannot believe how heavy and solid it is...

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by Tommy T.

[RBM]

On 12/21/2020 at 5:51 PM, Snowy79 said:

Meanwhile my run of not so good tradesmen continues.  About a month ago I had a puncture on my rear tyre of my motorcycle and took it to the vulcanising shop.  He was going to repair it but I told him just fit a new tyre and tube as the tyre tread was getting low and there will be less chance of another flat.  I watched him get a new tube and tyre then went to get load for my phone.  On return there was a nice new tyre and off I set.  Two days ago I got another puncture but as it was outside my house I figured I'd just remove the wheel and take the tube out.  On removing the tube you guessed it, the old tube with a repair.

Ha... getting off topic how ever had to have a wheel changed recently. The knucklehead proceeded with the X wheel brace and a half meter extension.....this on a chevi spin....before I could react he broke one wheel stud.....managed to intervene before the next broke. Took the extension off him and a massive argument ensured, what really pissed me was my partner kept saying relax they know best.......

So its not just you Snowy.

[RBM]

Tommy this has been a great read, in fact should be made compulsory reading for any newby complementing a house build.    perhaps a few may change their mind.

 

Well done enjoy.

 

[Tommy T.]

The home is now essentially complete.... Not yet really "done," but everything is here - especially us!

So I will offer a few reflections and observations - without really "judgement." I know others in the forum will offer others too and some may conflict with mine? Well, that's okay as I am still learning the ropes here... I will number these just to keep track so I don't get lost in my musings however, they are not in any particular order, just as they come to mind:

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

1. I strongly suggest to only attempt a home build here with a partner or trustworthy family member who has some construction experience. L has coached me all along on the do's and don'ts and the "how to's." Her help and participation has been priceless. I would not have been able to build a home here on my own. She knows the languages, the available materials, how to deal with trades-people. My experience from building a home in USA 35 years ago was so very different - and much less frustrating.

2. Actually, had I known how this would go, I don't think I would have attempted it. However, having said that, L and I looked at a number of homes, apartments, condos... The construction quality of most of them was questionable. The prices seemed high and the locations were often not really what we wanted. Building was really the only way to go.

An example I mentioned very early on in this topic: Some homes/condos we looked at, that were newer than this home currently is (since it took almost 1 1/2 years to build), had many big cracks in walls, very poor quality of finish work and we just did not trust them to last. This home, after flooring and walls were constructed has already withstood several earthquakes - some in the 5.5-7.0 range. Yeah... there were a few small cracks here and there, but nothing major. We owe it to our dilligence and the help of the foreman to build a quality structure.

3. Quality... Not high on the list here mostly. L's advice was to come out here everyday and observe. Even that might not have helped since we could not be here 24/7. My mistake... I only came out maybe twice weekly with or without here to check construction. At least one of us should have either been living on-site or visiting every single day. There were a number of times when we were not here when the boys would be "creative" and either do the wrong thing or maybe the right thing in the wrong way... They ended up undoing several things and re-working them to make them right.

We enticed them to be a bit more diligent (packing cement into the hollowblock holes with 2x2 pieces of wood, rather than just slopping a bit of it on the top and calling it good). Sure, I can't be certain that the boys did that always, but I think they did it enough to add significant strength to the house. The foreman, on his own initiative, added extra horizontal rebar along the hollow block files.

L checked and verified that they were using properly sized and graded re-bar everywhere.

The contractor was telling us that their hand-made hollow blocks with just the cement mix (including molasses for strength!) dumped into hand loaded forms was Grade A. We forced them to bring in a machine that vibrated and forced the cement into forms under pressure. They still are a joke compared to USA "cinderblocks," which are manufactured with heat and pressure. You can take a hand trowel and break a locally made hollow block into the size you want easily. But we got the best we could.

4. Materials... were often difficult to find ("Sorry...out of stock," with a lame smile). We had to wait for tiles to be delivered from Manila or Cebu, along with other items. L specified we wanted to use only Holcim cement for the masonry and ABC adhesives and grout for the tiles. Otherwise, they were going to use the cheapest they could find. We are certain the contractors did not make a lot of money on this build. Many products were sub-standard or just okay - mostly coming from China. Stainless is all 304 and not the best quality either.

5. Time.... Oh my... don't plan on being in a hurry. Everything seemed to take a minimum of 3-8 times longer than estimated or quoted. We are still waiting for some window work to be done - despite paying a rather high price. The kitchen cabinets took forever and nobody seemed to communicate with each other or know what they were doing.... I would have been laughing had I not been crying!

When sailing, there were some sayings... What is Manana time? It means "not today." So what is Island time? Same thing as Manana time, but without the rush... Phils.... are mostly on Island Time, except when driving!

6. Finish Work.... another oh my! We learned after a while that the painters did not know how to apply varnish - or really to paint. They painted the walls (very early after the cement veneer was applied), then installed doors and then spray painted the doors with varnish - after they were in place! overspray on door handles, white painted walls, floor tiles, sinks, toilets. My God! Then they spent weeks cleaning up all the mess and then repainting the walls. Some of the door hardware still has overspray. And the sprayed on varnish mostly does not look good - lots of orange peel finish, some runs, flat and thin - all of the above.

When they painted, they rarely used dropcloth or even cardboard, so there were paint drops all over. Then they used solvents to remove the excess paint and varnish and started to destroy the wood tiles in the bedrooms - NO, NO NO!!! Then they followed instructions and used plastic scrapers and gently worked away at that. Whatever they may think they saved by using a spray gun, they lost so much more in spades having to spend many man-hours to clean it up. There is still more varnish overspray for them to paint over. Much door hardware still has the overspray.

It is obvious that, when doing some of the tile installation, they just slopped in the cement, laid the tile (they did make them mostly even and straight), then swabbed down the adhesive cement from the surface and called it good... No grout! So we have multi-coloured "grout" between many tiles.

The quality is not what I would I would expect in USA...

7. Detail Work.... Overall, they were not much for detail work. And this is not just my observation, but L's too... She was a bit appalled at the sloppy painting - not always masking, not even using a cardboard or plastic barrier to slide along as they paint. It's as if most did not plan ahead or think about what they did - they just went ahead and did what they were told... This is not what you would expect in USA or perhaps many other countries...

8. Innovation... So here is where they often shined! They took virtually no tools or few tools and fashioned their own. Sometimes they did amazing things with cement or steel, even wood.

9. So now we have two "punch" lists for fixing or just making right. It totals about 50 items at this point. Part of it is three roof leaks - one which they have worked at three times already to remedy. One has only been worked on twice and the other is still to be addressed. We have resigned ourselves that we may have to take care of some of these ourselves because we can either do them ourselves or instruct someone how to deal with them the way we want - while at least one of us is always here!

As I wrote at the beginning.... Would I do this again here? No. My grey hairs have turned white and Tanduay is expensive and difficult to find during the alcohol ban...

The home is about done. We feel it is built to a better standard than many homes here.

It looks nice, is comfortable, quiet and dark at night - a bit noisy sometimes during the day. We have a nice TV, stereo and many little luxuries. I would not now change a thing - just go with it...

 

 

Sorry Mods... I got confused with keeping the revealed content small and did the "spoiler" twice...

We have some sort of squash plant volunteers that have appeared.

The builders left us a nice hot chili plant (mainly for L's taste.)

We planted a couple of talisay trees that should quickly grow and block the view from some neighbours from us.

We have some seeds for beans, cucumber and radish. We will bring in some good planting soil and plant these along the wall where we will be able to enjoy watching them grow from the new lanai. We will also get tomotoes and flowers too. Life is good!

(And Tuko is always around somewhere telling me F**k You!) He's already been in the house and he's quite large...

The lanai and looking to the back yard.

The lanai looking to the front of the property.

The lanai from the backyard. We will put some steps or rocks to walk on on this side just on the other side of the cut-down mango tree.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Tommy T.

[Viking]

Your house looks really great Tommy and I am happy you have finally finished it.

If you excuse, I am a bit curious how it ended up financially? Where you on budget or 5-10-20 % above?

From my experience it is usually hard to stay within budget, but it would be interesting to know in what areas it was exceeded (if it was). Materials, labour, appliances, permits, furnitures, gardening etc?

I am ofcorse not asking how much you paid for everything, it´s more to get an idea on what parts it could be wise to calculate with a bigger budget.

Hope you had a great Christmas in the new house and advanced Happy New Year to you and L! 

[Tommy T.]

15 hours ago, Viking said:

Your house looks really great Tommy and I am happy you have finally finished it.

If you excuse, I am a bit curious how it ended up financially? Where you on budget or 5-10-20 % above?

From my experience it is usually hard to stay within budget, but it would be interesting to know in what areas it was exceeded (if it was). Materials, labour, appliances, permits, furnitures, gardening etc?

I am ofcorse not asking how much you paid for everything, it´s more to get an idea on what parts it could be wise to calculate with a bigger budget.

Hope you had a great Christmas in the new house and advanced Happy New Year to you and L! 

Thanks for your kind words, Viking.

Well, the final figures aren't in yet but here's the best I can say:

The contractors referred to us as "picky." Well, maybe so, but we just could not settle for Philippine Standard in many cases.

I would guess we overran maybe 20%-25%, maybe even a bit more? The windows were a killer - about 15% or more of the total cost. And we contracted them separately from the rest of the build.

Materials were always higher than anticipated. Sometimes it is because we specified better than "standard." This happened in my USA home years ago too. I just can't settle for standard in many cases - door locks, doors, windows, tiles, curtains...

Labour was about what we expected.

However, after we got started and could walk around the premises to get a feel for the spaces, we knew right away that we needed to add a laundry and dirty kitchen area - ka-ching!

We also changed the downstairs CR from being inside the rather boxy design of the home to, instead, be external - almost an add-on - ka-ching!

The lanai was totally on our cost - ka-ching, ka-ching!

Appliances were a bit of a killer too... always around P25,000 except microwave. But we wanted good appliances - Panasonic, Technogas. The aircon units were also our cost and Panasonic, again, proved to us to be the best quality and value for us. Of course, inverter/split-type added up. We bought all appliances at either Emcor or Abensons because they install and/or service what they sell. SM appliance prices were similar or a bit higher, but then you contact a "service center" if you need service. Also Emcor and Abensons employees knew more about their products than the dozens wandering around the SM store who didn't seem to know much of anything. Obviously, nobody gets paid commission, so why extend themselves?

Furniture is expensive too. Mandaue Foam generally had the best quality - SM Home Store was much more expensive and had little stock - basically a joke. And their staff also wandered around and talked to each other but knew nothing.

Stereo, TV and microwave from Abensons. Not always the cheapest, but they knew their stuff and had nice selection of quality goods.

Gardening hasn't happened yet.

Permits...another joke. It took over a year to get an electrical permit and 9 months to get the water permit. The contractor was the one to obtain these and he had no idea what he was doing. He told us up front that he "had friends," who would grease things through. A while ago, I advised him to find new friends as these did him and us no favours. But the costs were not high for permits, they just took forever and continually got bogged down in local bureaucracy....

And thanks for the Chirstmas and New Year's wishes! Same to you and yours. And stay healthy!