There are a couple things that I screwed up; being a construction guy it does bother me a bit. I did not realize how much rain would come beating in towards my kitchen door and window, almost destroyed the wood door and frame. When I first realized this during construction I figured I could block off the fence going solid instead of the cyclone wire that I used elsewhere, helped but the heavy rains found there way in.

Ended up going with putting in an overhang that protects the door and window with enough head clearance to walk up stairs. It actually ended up looking OK. Rain from that little roof is going to the closest catch basin.

I wanted universal style receptacles for the house, could not find them when we were building the house...ordered them from China, looked great but really started falling apart after a couple years. They are easier to find now so we are replacing all the existing receptacles and then looking at changing the switches...it is what it is but timing is everything, what I wanted was not available years ago.

Always fun and having a house is constant maintenance.

Shawn

 

I am hoping (after we finish sorting our lot) to build a 100m2 House with a 10'/3M Verandah/Patio going completely around the house with just one roof covering it in its entirety, not a house with a separate roof over the house and a Bull-nose/Patio roof covering the terrace area, adding to the (2 levels) guttering etc problems. My only concern is that it may make the inside seem dark and dingy. One idea is to place a raised turret type roof in the centre of the living area to add light via side windows that you can open to aid in airflow and cooling inside the house by allowing hot air to rise and escape via the turret. The other is Skylights, but I do not like those, as most I have seen over the years end up broken after the plastic becomes brittle with age, same for the corrugated fiberglass roofing you often see over patio/BBQ areas.

This is the best way I can think of where you can leave doors and windows open while it is raining allowing for both airflow and cooling. As a construction guy; what are your thoughts on that?

 

Sounds very interesting. When you install bigger windows, there would be no issues about too less light inside the house.
Something like an air/light tower on the roof I did imagine for a house also if I would build it from scratch. The lamellar windows standard in pinoy houses would be great for a such installation. The question is only how to open, close the window from far down.

Does someone knows a cheap and good house planning tool?

 

I played in Microsoft Paint to get basic ideas for what we had talked about wanting, there are also online web sites that I believe you can design 3D renderings to gain a perspective of your ideas but I preferred to stay with Paint so if needed I could print out what I wanted to have an Architect do the correct Plans come the day...

With the Windows I was thinking of the Wind-out style like you see in some Industrial Buildings to open Louver Windows that are high up;


Maybe something like this page can help you?
Get inspired with home design and decorating ideas, tips and trends

See attached a 10M x 10M 2-Bedroom House idea I played with using Microsoft Paint Program; (Maybe you can get the basics down well enough to pass onto a Builder/Architect?)

 

Here's a pic. I don't know what it's called but pulling that string can close/open the window.

 

I like how you are thinking with your the house design...too many folks just seem to copy the existing style of houses in the Philippines. The 3m verandah around the house would definitely keep any issues from rain coming into windows or doors and I think would be a pretty nice area to hang out.

I understand about your concerns with natural light. Going with the high windows (agree about skylights) would help with airflow, but a normal roof overhang is around 1m and what I assume (from the pics and drawings), would have the windows very close to that roof so I would worry about how much light you would actually get from them. Guessing that the turret roof would give a ceiling height 1-1.5m higher than the main ceiling.

Just a couple of thoughts,

Shawn

 

You can get some useful ideas from Pinterest.

 

There is another smaller benefit of the 3m porch roof: the sun can not hit the outside walls directly. This means that the outside walls are somewhat cooler. This leads to less warm diffuse thru the walls resulting in cooler rooms.

 

The idea I got from Houses built in outback Australia where the temperatures can exceed 50*Celsius! My father told me when he was younger, often they would line the inner walls, windows or outside along the edge of the verandah with hessian sacks and wet them, air flowing through would cool down the surrounding area greatly.

These images are typical of an outback Aussie House consisting of the house, surrounded by a Verandah/Terrace area providing shade for cool breezes to flow through and around the house, often areas outside were closed in for an outside kitchen area or Cooks quarters or CR if the Missus did not like trudging out to the old 'Thunderbox' (Aussie CR hehe) in the middle of the night!

Aussie CR (I remember these well as a kid growing up)
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My son lives in the north of Australia and uses a fogging system to cool down on his terrace area, you can barely even see the spray of misted water but you sure can feel the cooling benefits it offers!
Misting System Basics

Overkill here, my Son only had a few nozzles which worked very well in a small area, but I suppose more would really cool down around the house if there were a slight breeze;

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Another idea I had was to fit a galvanised pipe water system over the roof with those industrial sprinklers like you see in the Supermarkets on the roof in case of fire. In Australia on stinking hot days, often I would go out and water the corrugated roof for 10/15 minutes, it would drop inside temperatures by around 10+ degrees Celsius! Here in the province, surrounded by trees and scrub, it could be used for both cooling, and in the event of a fire in the local bush, act as a fire extinguisher to stop any leaf litter catching fire in the guttering etc which is usually house most house fires start when living in the bush... Of course you would also need to also connect to a gasoline powered water pump to err on the safe side in the case of a bush fire.

But just a few ideas to making life more bearable living in the Philippines and bringing a bit home with you...