Best Posts in Thread: Architect/Home Builder

Dave I agree with you 100% on this, to give someone P5K to do the survey of the house you would have to be (Aff yer Fecking Heid) I cannot help but wonder if it was Big Bad Jeff that was involved in this, especially when it was said he smoked a few Cigs and did little else, Jeff is a chain smoker to extreme and also that kind of person who would extort money from someone in any way he can, thinking of him and his mates rates.

My Solar system here in UK has a 25yr warranty for the panels only and I think 10yrs for the rectifier/inverter and other associated parts, now if this had to fail after the warranty expiries, this will cost me 40% of the original installation cost to have this replaced, I would imagine here in UK they are using well tried and tested units, but unlikely to be the case in PH?

As for Phil-Can, (The replacements were NOT TOO SKILLED) when they brought in English John as Foreman, I would suggest everything went south after that, although Bernie did not say this to me directly, when I did ask him if John was one of the reasons he left, he just gave me a big smile and no denial.

 

Not as concerned about savings as much as quality of life... The new Gel batteries do not off gas so can be kept in air con extending battery life. hoping that with increasing demand that production will drive prices down but hate brownouts with a passion and getting tired of Gen upkeep .. so will purchase in the next year hopefully

 

Yes that was my neighbor that had/has trouble getting Noreco to allow them to hook up to the grid. The contractor that built the house started with a crew of competent supervisors and for a number of reasons lost them. The replacements were NOT TOO SKILLED.

It sounds like Noreco really doesn't want to buy solar power from residential consumers. It would be interesting to know why they want 30K pesos, for what???

I remeber your post from about a year ago. You should be happy!!!! Basically you got mugged and the mugger stole your pocket change. They forgot to take your wallet and cell phone.

My meter shows that I draw about 325 watts all day (every day). If I just hook up a 250 watt on grid system I might see some reduction from my Noreco bill. There is no way Noreco is going to get 30K from me. I'm toying with that idea.
One person tried to sell me an on-grid system boasting a 5 year payback. Finance is not my thing but when I looking at the numbers they came out closer to 10 years and that did not include the lost opportunity cost of having a lot of capital invested for 10 years. If any parts of the system failed there would be more costs. The system was just not likely to pay for itself.

 

Dave there is a man lives in Valencia who supplies Solar systems his name is Jeff (I call him Big Bad Jeff he is 6'3'') he is a US guy and an arrogant Fecker, he drives a Red Hilux Pickup, one of the partners in Phil-Can told me their company had a job done by him but they would not use him again, I do know a partner in this business lives adjacent to you and this may well have been that very job you speak of?

This Jeff also did a couple of installations for two of his drinking mates one of which you know Canadian Rob, he was charged around P330K for a 5.6kw system, there is two types of panels available the latest being the Monocrystalline the older less efficient are Polycrystalline, so Rob had the Mono's fitted, then we have US Chris around this same time he had the same system fitted but was charged P500K with the old Poly panels being fitted, obviously this did not go down well with Chris when he later found out he was charged a different Mates Rate, so he demanded his money back and threatened Jeff to report him to the BIR, Chris got his way and the panels were removed and his money returned to him. This is not the first time I have warned people off this Jeff in both of the above cases there was problems getting their system Grid Tied, Rob had to go it alone and managed to get this done, Jeff did not fulfil his promise to arrange this.

Some months after these two jobs were done DPX (I believe they are tied in with Phil-Ex?) were advertising their 5.6KW system for P330K supplied and fitted, from this I can only assume Rob never did get a Mates Rate and Chris was just ripped off.

On 11th December of 2014 I had a solar system fitted to my hoose in Scotland, this is a 4kw system and this cost the equivalent of P330K, this can be had for the same price or less today as now the grid tied payments are very low, it was predicted to take 8yrs for payback, if my house had been in London I would have the system pay for itself in 7yrs, however solar panels are more efficient the colder it gets and a cold day with clear blue skies have it working at its best, the very best month of the year for me is May (600kw in the month) and not June (500kw in the month) as you would expect having the longest days.

 

I don't know which company my neighbor used but the company has not been able to get Noreco to allow connection of their system to the grid. I don't know if the problem is Noreco or the installer. I suspect the installer does not get along with Noreco.

Another person I know had a solar/battery system installed. It seems the batteries are the wrong type and need to be replaced every 6 months.

If I were to deal with a solar power provider there would be a schedule of payment based on progress (like getting connected to the grid) and performance.

 

There are a few good builders here, some run by foreigners. The concern of making a recommendation is that good builders often have multiple projects concurrently. That can lead to the real skilled laborers being spread too thin possibly resulting in two houses not being finished the same. Skilled and experienced roofers, plumbers, electricians, cabinet makers are not always put on your build, whether you use a builder or decide to hire a local foreman to put together his crew.

 

My father is a good builder, and he doesn't do bad things like corrupting and overpricing. He has 40+ years of experience in Building Construction. He studied Bachelors of Science in Industrial Technology major in Building Construction, and he is the only one who graduated on that course because it's the only course for poor people at that time. He was a student foreman when he was in college. I wouldn't say he is the best, but he is pretty good in his craft.