What did you forget in your new place ?

The original thought was to increase Airflow. Then the thought of light came next, also as per the pic I made, it was before the idea of going with one roof instead of having to seal between the Terrace roofing to stop water running down the walls of the house and wetting the terrace area (as one house I lived in back in oz would do in heavy rain) which also had a separate cemented terrace floor, each time it rained, water would pool up out the back, then run through under the slab of the house and squirt out between the Brick wall and Terrace floor outside the front door!

So the other idea I had was a complete cement floor which included the House and Terrace as one, which may also help to avoid any future subsidence as another mate in Oz experienced when he did his outside Terrace area after building his house. The black clay soil was to blame but he spent more than $100,000 underpinning everything to try and keep it all together!

Another mate bought a new house, but after around 10 years, the floor sunk dragging the second floor with it until the second floor was around 6 inches lower leaving the outer brick walls standing firm, it was a real disaster as the floor and walls separated from one another sinking in the black clay soil...

These are lessons I would like to learn from and avoid when it comes time to building here.

Oh; and relatives here LAUGHED at me when I said I would like to build a house that will stand for a hundred years so my Wife & Daughter will have somewhere to live out their time here. I have friends in Australia who live in houses built in the late 1800's, but try and tell the locals here that and they roar laughing at me in disbelief! It would seem for most (local Filipino) here, a house does not even last the lifetime of the builder/owner...

 

I missed wooden quality floor at my apartment. I bought it brand new with a disgusting composite floor, I thought I wold change it immediately, but they just don't have choice where I lived (Vietnam) and I doubt they have anywhere in Southeast Asia. Everywhere there are these ugly tiles or cheap composite wood, and we are talking not about a village, but huge Hochiminh City Properties Property for sale in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) - Buying real estate in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). It all looks nice on pictures, but in reality it's made of cheap materials, really disuppointing. These days I know there is a European distributer of wooden flooring in Southeast Asia, but he wasn't there when I was looking for wood.

 

That is all about getting your fill material and compaction straight for your foundation. Then obviously sloping your drainage correctly at final grade away from the house. Flashing is important if you are having a roof butt up against the side of the house.

For us the nipa guest house and the "roof" over the garden area go to some rain water collection. The 4 downspouts on the upstairs roof deck and 2 out of 4 from the main roof go straight into catch basins that take that water out to the drainage ditch outside of the house. We have 2 downspouts from the main roof that are making a bit of a mess right now but the plan is for an underground rain water collection system...unfortunately I'm limited on time home so it has taken a bit of the back burner as I need to be there to oversee it. It will happen soon though as rain water is such a great resource for the gardens and yard.

Another thing to think about on your future location is grade...for us we bought in what was formally rice patties and fish ponds so things were too low. We built our lot up about 1.5 meters higher than around us. Flooding was a concern. We have weep holes installed all around the perimeter fence about 40cm below finish grade to drain any excess water away and with catch basins taking rain water off site we are sitting pretty high and dry for going on 3 years.

I see no reason you can not build a house that will out last you and yours and be passed on many decades later...it is not impossible to mix concrete correctly, find crushed gravel and a solid rebar plan to reinforce things. Does take effort and oversight...it will cost quite a bit more but the peace of mind is well worth it in my opinion.

Shawn

 

The BIL caught water from the roof here in pails, Nipa into a corrugated drain, then direct into the pail, but the water looked like strong Tea or Black Coffee, have you ever seen the colour of the water in small creeks or rivers where there is Tea Tree Bush along the coast ways? Very brown! My wife would like Nipa over an iron roof for added cooling and to quieten down the rain, but I would like to catch the rainfall from the roof into underground tanks, but the colour puts me off (never tried to taste it after the BIL spat it out when he tried it hehe) is your water coloured also?

Back in Oz, my old Boss had his son and I work on his property in our spare time, we dug (by hand) underground water tanks for him, largest Tank was 14 feet across and 12 feet deep, we dug by hand thankfully in sandy ground, and cemented the bottom, then laid (the larger Aussie) Hollow Blocks for the walls, which we reinforced and filled with cement (adding a liquid (like the Sahara here) that waterproofed the cement) rendered inside again with the water proof cement, then the old Boss (who also owned a construction Business doing Storm water drains and Catch Pits/Man Holes) built the top using cut gum trees for the supports with a block centre pillar to hold the heavy top up, and added a metal Man Hole lid in the top, the Tank went about half a meter above ground level. The water from those tanks was always nice and cool, which he caught from a corrugated roof on his small house he built to live in
whilst building the main house.

When he built his main house, he used his Backhoe to dig the LARGE underground tank, it was around 10 meters long by around 4 meters wide by about 2 meters deep, he put walls in to help support the top, you could climb over in the middle of the inner walls to get to the end, as well it had holes at ground level so water always remained level and for future ease of cleaning, the top was the floor of his Patio (Terrace) area, in Summer it was COOL as sitting in that area! The water really helped to keep the floor of the terrace cool, making the whole area a nice and pleasant place to sit in the heat of the day.

That is where I got my idea for an underground tank system here, as you can hold a LOT of water as well as helping to cool down if you build under the Terrace floor area.

Regards the flashing, that is what changed my mind to one single roof over the house and terrace area instead of as in my original play in Paint, as I recalled one unit I lived in in my youth that would see water running down the block wall each time it rained as my ground unit butted up against a two story unit beside it, the Landlord tried many times to seal the flashing to no avail, here; I think flashing would be a disastrous move! When we got Papa (construction worker here) to build our kitchen roof, I bought flashing, but he plain refused to fit it up, claiming "no need" as the Nipa roof hung over the corrugated kitchen roof where it butts up against the wall, I asked what happens when the wind in a Cyclone blows rain back up (only a slight grade on the roof) and it runs between the iron and the block wall and floods our kitchen... *Crickets* (Live & learn!)

I would love to hear from others also as to what ideas they bought with them to here, from back home/past experiences etc so as to make living and dwellings better/more bearable for the living conditions here...

 

Yes, the water coming off the nipa guest house is quite brown...but it is used for watering plants and they don't seem to mind.

Shawn