Architect/Home Builder

Perhaps your question should be rephrased, what you should be asking is, who is the best of the worst Architects and Builders in DGTE, as they are all quite useless in my experience, I did build my own house there, not that I did this all alone I did have a couple of workers and an experienced German Carpenter helping me for a time, but for the most part all the decision making was done by myself.
Architects in PH have little or no training in construction engineering, and construction engineers may have a paper to say they are one, but many fall short of this in my opinion, just as do many other professionals there.

As for house design most of what I have seen there is not what I would have? many of which would not meet building protocols in my home country of UK, also CHB houses are unlikely to meet the Building Codes there? Pinoy construction workers must be about as bad as they get, OK they do work for low wages, but you need 8 men there to do the equivalent of only 2 from a first world country, if you have little or no practical experience on house building and think you can rely on Architects and Builder in PH to enable a good build, think again? what you are more likely to get is something that looks attractive once it is all rendered, but underneath the icing will be a multitude of faults.

A Danish friend of mine had an Architect recommended to him and he in turn recommended a builder, this was started in 2019 with the builder quoting P320 for the labour for an 85M2 house of 1.5 storey, half- way through this job the 320 was all used up, this house which is right next door to mine is a very bad design with much sub-standard work in evidence, there was a retaining wall on one side of the property, this collapsed around 2 weeks after the owner moved in and cost P580K to repair, I tried to tell my friend this wall was not fit for purpose but he would not listen to me, now the owner has split from his wife and this house lies empty, I believe the major contributary factor behind this was all the stress caused through building there, the man was just a hairs breadth away from having a nervous breakdown?

If you need any more information on this subject? I can recommend a good builder to you I'm not prepared to shout his name out here, so you can PM me for this info, I can also give advice on alternatives to a CHB build.

My small 75M2 house with large Kitchen, cost me around P3M to build, knowing what I do now I could do this for around half that price.

 

Thanks i will reach out soon by PM

 

Would you like to message me these builders i would be able to talk with to get a few different options

 

@DAVE1952 My father told me that he knows an architect that doesn't know about structural engineering. Architects only do the design, but they don't have a knowledge about structures. I'm sorry for your friend that he has been scammed by the architect and laborers. I'm not surprised because my father's current client now had her building built by his nephew, an architect, but what happened was - after about a few years, the ugliness and bad design of the building started to emerge. My father and his men were the one who repaired the back jobs and poor workmanship of the past builder of the apartment. He becomes the maintainer of that apartment from then and now.

It's sad to hear that he scams his aunt because some architects are greedy.

Also, you said that construction workers were bad, I agree with it, but not all construction workers were bad and dishonest. Some doesn't have a training but only gains from the experience, some were really good but dishonest and lazy, and some were just lazy and dishonest just to earn money and only works if the foreman or the owner is around.

Construction workers were labeled as trashed here in the Philippines, and they lack training and support from the government. Just like farmers, they were poor and thriving but hey are the ones who sustain all the food in our country, but sadly they were also labeled as trash.

Construction workers only work for low pay rates just to feed their family, they have slow progress because they don't have enough tools to do the work efficiently, but I know some of them work slowly just make the job longer and earn more money.

I'm sorry to tell you guys that it's rare to really see an excellent construction worker, and also only few of them were good.

 

Err, generally no. Architecture courses at universities everywhere (including in the Philippines) include lots of subjects, also aimed at knowledge about strength and durability of materials and structures, about the underlying math and physics of such strength calculations, and even parts of chemistry that are useful when designing/building things.
Obviously, it will depend on the integrity and selectivity of the board exam to filter out unworthy candidates, so yes if the quality of the board exam is lacking you'll still get bad architects, like with any other licensed profession.

 

I'm so sorry that I've said all the architects, I mean some =). I don't know why, but my father's architect friend showed my father his blueprint and my father told him about structural and other structural mistakes.

 

Well Sir, I'm sure that you will be correct you usually are in your writings here (Fecking Smart Alex) it is highly likely they will touch on all the subjects you mention on an Architects Course there in PH as in the rest of the world and likely as you say it may well be in their final exams where the system falls short, I'm sure if they do well in the exam section where it concerns their Singing, Dancing and Clapping of hand skills, this is all that is required to Pass? An Architect is not a fully-fledged Engineer and the reason why their drawing have to be signed off by an engineer in order to gain planning permission, my own experience with both of these professionals did not go all that well. My house is completely bespoke to that of the standard CHB house there, our Architect was a relative of my partner as soon as he received my basic plan, he phoned me up to ask me, what is a Monolithic Slab? (This is a raft slab sometimes known as a floating slab without any foundation and well suited to building in PH with the risk of Quakes) he said he had never heard of this before, a quick search on Google was all he needed to find this out, however he drew up the plans and included foundations to parts of it and defeated the objective of this type of slab, there was a few other things that he had wrong and I had to have my plans amended with the original engineer involved, when I approached him to have this done I had to meet him in the car Park of Robinsons Mall? I had made a model of my intended house build, as soon as he looked at it, he started to shake his head telling me he knows nothing about structures of this nature, but he would do it provided I paid him a large sum of money, eventually I had my amended plans back now signed off by another Engineer? they only made one small change to the original plans this was an easy fix for them, they just doubled up the dimensions of the steel from the sizes on the original plan, it had now become uneconomical to build this using their idea, also the suggested sizes were not readily available there and this would have to be a special order, so I just went ahead and did it My Way, Feck them and the Horse they rode in on. It would appear to be a well-known fact that once any house building plans are passed there, you can go on with the build and do whatever you want as long as the house ends up close to the original dimensions.

 

@DAVE1952 You're right. People do everything, even if they don't know it, just to earn money. They don't care about the result if it is poor or not. They only want the money. Architect, contractors, laborers, politics, etc., they were the same when it comes to money.

Contractors, architect, laborers were fond of targeting foreigners, old people, ladies and other ignorant people just to make money.

 

Perhaps I have given the wrong impression of my views on Pinoy construction workers and others associated in the building trade in PH, I did use the word 'bad' but never at any time was I trying to refer to them as bad people in the true sense, the two men I used in my construction are good men and I even recommended them to a local Foreign builder and when I was finished with them, he gave them a job, if I was to measure them against a tradesman from my own country they were quite useless, but that would be unfair to them as they were never given the chance of any formal training in order to improve their skillset, added to that the education system is PH leaves a lot to be desired and the majority of working people in PH finish School only to have arrested development and failed by the system, but I would go on to say these two men were as honest as the day is long, never at any time did they steal from me.

Of course, there are quite a few scammers there in PH willing to take advantage of Foreigners, I sometimes wonder if I may have a different attitude if I was wearing the shoes of a Pinoy construction worker with a Family to feed?

You mentioned the nephew, that scammed his aunt by building her a house of poor quality, was he really scamming her or perhaps it was a situation of him not knowing any better which is more likely to be the case?

I know of one house constructed a few months ago for a Foreigner in Valencia, this is perhaps the very worst example of poor-quality workmanship I have ever seen, this was built by a Foreigner, early on in this build I had taken this Foreigner MR C, aside and suggested to him to pay attention to his builder (I had info this Builder was running short of money) his reply to me was that he was not overly concerned with this and that being an old man as long as the house lasts for the rest of his time on earth that is all that matters to him, added to that his very words to me were; she can sort the problems out after I am gone, he fecking well deserves what may be coming to him, just a pity his wife is likely to suffer?

MR C, sufferers from NPD as do many of his same nationality, he just loves to talk about himself, telling everyone just how good a man he is.

 

@DAVE1952 Yes, here in the Philippines, I think there's no building construction course anymore. There's a carpentry but Vocational Course only in TESDA. So construction workers are either bad workmanship due to lack of knowledge or bad workmanship due to corruption.

He was really scamming her because that architect was also the contractor of the building and the architect was an experienced contractor, but I don't know the full story because that what's my father says

Too bad for Foreigner MR. C, I think it's best for him to just build a bungalow house with coco lumber materials, I hope he is okay, but Valencia is a good place for retirement because it's cold, fresh air and exciting view.

I hope you guys are doing well, have a great day =)