House Build

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I want to make sure anyone else reading this knows of all the pitfalls that can happen here when it comes to electricity. It is better to be safe than sorry.

1) After a while living here you will notice extremely few outlets/panels/systems being "properly grounded". In a perfect world yes, but this is the Philippines.

2) I'll touch the neutral buss bar in a breaker box in the U.S., but not here unless I check it with a meter 1st.

I have done R.V. work in the U.S. (over 20 years) and by RVIA code the neutral buss bar is not grounded. Go figure. I know houses and even mobile homes are wired to a different electrical code though and the neutral buss is grounded. I have no problem working my way through the spaghetti in most electrical boxes in the U.S., but some I have seen here are a nightmare in comparison.

This may explain some things here as will checking out the following link. Just when you think you have it all figured out they put a wrench in the works here.

Be very careful when you talk about electricity distribution in the Philippines, different systems are used.

For Cebu Island 2 systems are in use and Noreco here on Negros "usually" is wired like the CEBECO diagram below, but some areas are also wired like the VECO diagram.



VECO:
Split phase pole transform, center tap transformer grounded no ground going to house, 2 hot wires 180 degrees out of phase = 220/240 volt

CEBECO:
One hot and one neutral, one side of pole transformer grounded, 220/240 volt.

For the VECO area be very careful , only single pole light switches are used, so there will still be one hot at the light fixture when light is switched off (120 volt to ground)



Philippine Electrical Wiring – Building our Philippine House |

 

I confirmed that our area is 220 phase to neutral, I've driven a 10' ground rod so my panel/system will be properly grounded. We've rented a few different places over the years and their electrical has all sucked. One of the first things I'll do it look in the panel and even some simple houses it is confusing what they've done.

Shawn

 

A good Sunday

Had 7 workers show up today; had a BBQ with chicken and pork and shut down a little early to treat the guys to some beers at the site.

The workers concentrated on rendering and I concentrated on electrical. The electricians that roughed in the roof slab did not follow my drawings so I have way more conduits stubbed down for the lighting (how that happened I will never understand). I wanted all the boxes installed before concrete placement of the roof slab. My plan was to have the metal boxes that will support the ceiling fans welded to the rebar in the slab (because of the EVG panels I went with for the ceiling)....ended up with rebar stubs and conduit without boxes installed. As you can see from the picture I posted I've had to cut out the bottom of the boxes for the screwed up way they did the conduit. Not ideal but am stuck with what I have. Once the boxes are welded to the rebar we'll have no worries about support for the ceiling fans.

Shawn

 

Love a cloudy day...not so hot

Most of the wiring is done, could get power to the nipa hut at least but the wife will need to talk to the electric company to see what it will take to make that happen.

The rendering is really coming along and having them do things in a 3 day process seems to have worked well. The decision to add a window to the master bathroom seems so far to have added some better air flow. I misjudged the way the sun hits the house and the master bedroom so far is the hottest room in the house.

The wife added some soffits to the nipa, looking good so far, I added the "vents" on each corner to keep air flowing better.

Shawn

 

Wednesday pics

The rendering is going great as well as the soffit work the wife wanted for the nipa. All the lighting circuits have been pulled as well as the TV and telephone cable. I will splice the light circuits tomorrow afternoon after we get back from Dumaguete.

We need to pick up some plumbing materials and the transfer switch; we'll have a few circuits that we can power off of our generator during extended brown outs. Still not sure how we will get cable TV and internet so I've got conduit on the second floor as well as at the gate so I have a couple options.

I bought a brick mold for the base board and maybe for some back splashes; made some test bricks today (actually the wife took over) so we will see how they look tomorrow. Also have some concrete colorant we tried with these, hope they end up looking good, we'll pop them out of the mold first thing in the morning.

Shawn

 

Good progress on a Thursday

The rendering is continuing and looking good. We are removing the dirt, sand and backfill that was put out front. There is quite a lot of digging to do to get back to where I had the culvert put in, need to get this straight as the plumbers need to run the lines from the catch basins and septic tank to the "canal".

The bricks came out a darker than I had hoped for, so round 2 is up to try and get the color right. I do love the mold I bought as it has 18 different bricks with an aged look.

I was not pleased with my options today to pick up a transfer switch, what I got will work but not what I was hoping for. I'll install it tomorrow as we ended up spending more time in Dumaguete running around than I expected. My main breaker is 80 amps (though I doubt I will ever pull half of that) so only had one option for an electric meter and it was 17K+...decided to let the wife look around a bit later to see if she can't find another place that would be cheaper. She still needs to have the city electric folks come out and figure out where they want to place utility poles and where my meter will actually be mounted. Really different rules here from what I am used to, so better for the wife to deal with it as I would probably not deal with things as well as she would.

Shawn

 

Where did you get the brick mold?

 

I ordered it from Amazon and used a shipping company to get it here with the other items, if I remember right it cost about $75 but it is a great quality mold.

Shawn

 

A good Saturday

Mostly rendering work going on. Still trying to get the brick color to where I am happy with it, I know it will be used as a baseboard but I still want it to look good. I really don't like the transfer switch, but it does have indicator lights...plus better than the porcelain knife blade option. I'm debating on closing in the plumbing lines from the second floor, the wife thinks once they are painted I won't notice them (I guess she doesn't know me as well as she thinks she does).

The spray gun is not working (brand new) so the guys are using brushes to apply the varnish to the nipa...I messed with it today but guess I'm not smart enough to figure out why it has no suction but only air...I had hoped to use it for all the painting since I have an air compressor.

On a personal note; I decided a few days ago to not got back to Afghanistan. Finishing the house is a priority to me and after a couple years there it has lost it's "appeal" for me. I also think taking another couple months off will be good, really interested in working in Africa next.

Shawn

 

Shawn,

I've built many houses thru the years and about three which I lived in. I can tell you from personal experience that YOU will see every one of those imperfections for a long time to come. At some point I just began to ignore them, even if no one else saw them, I did.

Up til this posting I thought you were a great guy until I read that "appeal" for Afghanistan. Maybe we should have a new thread asking for a good shrink in Duma. LOL

Have a great day and thanks for the pics and info.

Dean