The Concrete Hollow Block House

Thank all you guys that are contributing to this topic, I'm finding all this very useful information because I have an idea that my lovely wife and her sister have talked about self building at some stage in the future, they have already purchased land and only yesterday were chatting together about buying more.

I wish my wife would buy something...

I'm not sure what you mean when you say your Wife and Sister may go ahead with a Self Build? likely there will be a Brother or other relative in the family that claims to be a Master Builder and he will be the one to do this? Master Builders in PH are about as rare as Hens Teeth, unless you really know what it entails to build a house in PH it is better that you do not get involved, this will likely end up a complete disaster for you?

I myself did build a House but this was very stressful at times and I was fortunate to have a lot of experience in the trades, however it did cost me much more than expected and I run out of money all my savings and an investment I had are gone and here I am back in UK licking my wounds, however we as a Family (I have a young Son there) are still together even though we are apart at the moment.

My neighbour a Danish guy he was building at the same time as myself, he ended up having to get a loan to finish his house he had a collapse of a retaining wall one year ago in the big storm, to put this right cost him over a half million, him and his LOVELY WIFE have now split up, both gone their separate ways he run off with a Bimbo and she the Filipino wife went back to Denmark taking their son with her, that house now lies empty, the Wife refuses to sell making sure the Dane gets nothing out of sale of the house.

If it is essential to have a place of your own and you have no experience in the building trade, perhaps you should consider (Glamping) and have a Bahay Kubo, I'm sure you and your Lovely Wife would have just as much fun in this with your clothes off? very cheap to build and repair no worries there.

A harrowing tale there, "Honest Dave"

Thanks for your advice Dave it's much appreciated, I'm sure you yourself will soon get yourself up and running again so that you will be able to return to the Philippines, sooner rather than later, failing that you could always get them over here with you.
Its my wife and her sister,who were discussing a self build, my own personal interest is just to be an outsider looking in so to speak, my background is as a retired setter/technician in injection moulding, and laterly doing a bit of delivery work so that I could meet the financial requirement to get my wife here, I think its my sister in law that is interested in the self build with some financial input from my wife probably , my sister in law is a PA to a rather large egg producer stroke veterinarian in northern mindanao. I'm not looking to live permanently over in the Philippines, not that I would't want to but as I'm coming up to 71 this year age is against me and my wife is still on the 5 year route over here in the UK.

Sort of hoping to do the self build myself but with the assistance of one of my wife's brothers... trouble is I have been feeling knackered for the last couple of months - maybe I have long covid or something.



I did this in Sweet Home 3D .... I need to add an outside CR - the washing room is actually code for piano room - somewhere I can go to be alone... I think Hardiflex is the way to go but I need to raise the floor by about 12 inches to cope with possible flooding.



That's the existing bodega on the right - plan to bring the existing roof out first by about 4 feet to give it more shade.

This is a better picture



If you look carefully you can see the watermark on the door to the bodega... from Agaton Typhoon too.

I see it is a no brainer to use the stud and Hardiflex method in this situation, why bother with Blocks and cement when you have to consider the mixing of it, Rebar and curing times, with the Hardi you can stud this out in a day and sheet it the next, it would be better if you install plastic for the roof as it does not induce heat and also lessens the noise when it rains, having the roof done first is also a good idea and then the rest of the job can be done in all weathers. I would not say that Hardi is 100% waterproof, but I do suggest it is highly water resistant, we painted the house using Davies Sun and Rain both inside and out this is a very good paint which I highly recommend, some of our offcuts with left in the rain for a considerable time but they did not delaminate and we were able to use it again. I'm not sure if there would be much value in using the rice hulls for insulation in such a small extension, if the near to flat roof is plastic and has air gaps around the edge that will keep it close to the ambient temperature.

As I said it is near to impossible to get a good house built there in PH unless you DIY, if you can get a builder that claims to be experienced of course they all do? he will only do it in CHB, this has to be about the very worst method of all in which to build, totally Fecking useless in my opinion.

There is a guy close to Dumaguete who does Steel Stud Pre-Fab houses, he is a Scotsman (what better credentials can you have than this) his name is Len, unfortunately that is all I know of him and have no contact details, however an appeal on DumagueteInfo another Ex-Pat site, may get you some details, failing that, your wife must have a relative in the area and he can be tracked down from the Octagon Sports bar which used to be his Drinking Houf. There are a few other companies dotted around that provide this same service, this type of modular home tends to be more expensive initially than a CHB type? generally they are compact but well designed, likely to be insulated and not require AC.

Nothing wrong with CHBs if the structural plan complete with structural analysis calculations are followed. You have 12mm rebar about every meter vertically from steel reinforced ground beam and the header beam.
Likwise 12mm rebar every 3 blocks high that are tied to 12mm steel horizontally..Super strong Steel cage that will protect the building from earthquakes.
If you want to avoid the rendering process you can clad the exterior with hardiflex,tape and joint with skim coat and then ready for primer and 2 coats of elastomeric exterior paint. Inside you can even clad the walls with half inch plaster board.
Tape and skim coat the joints and paint. Job done. Sound proof,weatherproof sealed interior that will last many many years.
If you need an estimate to know what a CHB wall will cost you,ask on local FB expat groups for recommendations and go check the work if you can.
When you find some guys ask your wife to ask them for a price for laying CHBs per Sqr mtr.
If you ask them yourself expect a 10,15 % difference.
Any alternative structures must be signed off by the Municipal engineers office so if you decide on a lightweight hardiflex box you will need to run it past them first,otherwise no building or renovation permit.

Thank you Dave... what's the best way to raise the floor 12 inches there?

You say you need to raise the floor by 12inch this seems rather high to me? in most cases 6 to 8inch would be adequate unless perhaps your lot sits low to the surrounding area? a 12'' step would not be all that comfortable and another step up to that would be required, stairs should never be more than 8inch high with 7.5 inch being preferred.
Something resembling a monolithic slab (google this) may be the best option to raise the floor, this is a slab that is thicker on the edge with the rest being only 4 to 5'' to form the main floor, anchor bolts pre-cast into the edge of this slab can be used to bolt down the bottom rail of the steel stud wall these are readily available in many hardware stores there.

Forums such as this are great places to go for information on most things, just about everything a Foreigner needs to know regarding Living in the Philippines can be had from this, but when it comes to BUILDING they generally fail miserably, perhaps the reason why 99% of Foreigners live in not fit for purpose CHB structures, they follow like sheep and do what everyone else does, they in turn go on Forums giving advice on this Sheep method of building there in PH.

The attached Video is only good to serve as a BAD example of how to build in PH, these builders are just a bunch of Cupid Stunts, any Foreigner who thinks otherwise is seriously misinformed, from this Video I could see they have little of any understanding on the properties of cementitious materials and much the same can be said of the aforementioned Foreigners that go on to Ex-Pat sites and impart their knowledge of this commonly used method. Now a far better method would be to build with CIP (caste in place) concrete this must be the strongest of all structures, the time taken from mixing to getting it into its final position is likely to be less than 10mins the useful POT LIFE of wet cement especially in a tropical country is not much more than 20mins around this time it starts to really heat up, (due to the Chemical reaction taking place between the water and the Cement) after this time the initial curing is accelerated and not long after that it is rendered useless, now your Dumb Fecking Pinoy Builder has no understanding of this, much the same can be said of Foreigners giving advice on the CHB method, to them they think when a Mortar dries out and the water evaporates it then goes hard, so they have the easy fix to just add more water when it starts to firm up, but by this time it is past its sell by date and no longer fit for purpose, I do understand this was not evident on the Video, but they made so many other blunders in this that I have good reason (from the host of other problems I did observe) for thinking they do not know what they are doing, if you care to look at this again observe the Lintel on the completed window aperture, this was towards the end of the Video, it appeared to me that this was only a bit of Coco Wood, often they take this away once the wall is cured to leave at best a length or rebar to bridge the gap, that was just one of many faults I picked up on.

With the knowledge I have gained through the many hours of research I have done on house building, plus a lot of hands on experience, Likely I have the equivalent of a PHD in Philippine House construction??? but I Do Not have the knowledge that is required to build in a 1st world country with one exception maybe in US as they were the Dumb Feckers that brought the idea of a CHB house over to PH.

IMHO, it is just not possible to build a sound structure using CHB in a tropical country where cement retarders seem not to be available, the only retards that are readily available would be the Pinoy Construction worker, put these two together and you end up with structure with many failings. Believe it or not? 20grms of household sugar added per 40kg bag of cement does retard the curing time of cement.

Btw, my lightweight Hardiflex box is a little more than that, it is a Pillar and Beam structure formed in welded together heavy gauge Steel angle bar, with a uPVC roof installed and all built on the top of a Monolithic (raft slab) this floats above grade, to this we then added the steel studs and Hardiflex which has the attributes of an engineered box beam making the whole structure very strong, rice hulls were then added in the wall cavity adding insulation, in the event of a serious Quake this should fare well, but I must admit my rather over sized roof at and angle of 45 degrees just may give a problem in a serious Typhoon, I guess I could get 20knots out of this in a good following wind and I'm now thinking a tiller should be added to it?

I was never a high achiever at School which I left at aged 15yrs with no qualifications, I was the disruptive idiot in class that would do anything for a dare, but one lesson I did learn from a very good teacher was when she chastised me in class, mostly she was polite spoken but when giving a telling off she would revert to the Scottish vernacular, then she would say; David, if ye wur tae keep yer mooth shut naebidy wid ken yer Stupid.

I think we were in the same class at skool.

We flooded, a neighbour decided to reduce the diameter of a large nearby drain, that is why I need to raise it.

Just to clarify:

I was planning to rebar around the edge of the slab sunk into the existing slab with a bit of epoxy... fill up the main area with some gravel before concreting the main floor area at 4 inch to 5 inches like you say.

I'll add another step later to the doors.

If the existing slab is perhaps rather thin 2.5inch which they often are there, I would suggest not to pin it and perhaps better to break it up in situ, if it is thin this can be done quite easily, by forcing/levering it upwards with a heavy digging bar keeping this under pressure while striking it from above with a mash hammer, a very effective method.

If for some strange reason it is of a more generous thickness you can pin this with a simple method that does not require epoxy by drilling the pin holes at and angle between 30 and 45 degrees, to then straighten the bars to vertical this leaves them well locked in and I would suggest better than the epoxy method, although you could still do both but that would be a bit of an overkill.

I had a PM from someone telling me of his intentions to buy land and build on it, perhaps he was not even asking my advice? but I gave it anyway, it may have some interest to others here.

Buying land in PH is likely to be a good move for you and eventually a great benefit for your family there, we ended up with a Lot of 600M2 at a cost of P1800 per M2 spending just over a million Pesos, I had thoughts to adding a couple of Studio apartments on this where we could do B&B to give a small income stream with some degree of flexibility in this, not having demands imposed as a business where you have to be there 24/7, for myself I would not build a house there on anything much less than 400M2. My overall cost to build must have been close to 3.5M, having the experience of this build, I would suggest I could now do this for around a little over 2m and add another 32m2 living space within that price, likely if this was put on the market as it stands we would only get 3.5 to 4m max for it, being a little quirky and not standard CHB it may be a hard sell, having said that a house not requiring AC must appeal to many. If I was to build a second house it would be much improved and have a lot less mistakes, but I think I would have to build three houses to have the last one about right?

To buy a ready built house or to build your own would be a difficult question for me to answer, assuming both would be done in CHB, the problem with an existing property is you will never know how well it was done, even the slightest earth tremor would have me pissing my pants if I was inside this, then we have the more common Typhoons how strong will the roof be, however some of the older properties that do exist built more than 10yrs ago have been done to a high standard having proper stout Pillars and Beams and perhaps been through a Quake and a few serious Typhoons, the steel sheets to the roof may have suffered bit over this time, but as long as the render is still sound this would suggest a strong build. Now there is a trend to build using very slim P&B's and these are not fit for purpose, having very poor structural integrity. In all CHB properties I would suggest they have one major problem, this being the steel contained inside the CHB is not well protected between the foundation and to just below grade where no render will be present, Septic tanks done in CHB have little more than a 20yr lifespan, often much less due to the attitude of the Pinoy builders, this will all be hidden and no one can see the faults.

Tip; seal the manhole covers of the septic with tile grout to stop the ingress of rainwater, added to that the top of the tank should have a good run to make sure it sheds the water and not puddle on the top, never mix the Grey and Black water in the same digestive tank and perhaps when they do come together this would only be in the final leaching tank, in my case I kept the two completely separate with the Grey going into a leaching tank of its own some distance away from the sewage. The construction of a septic should only be done in Concrete Never in CHB using a Pozzolan Cement and Never the pure Portland.

I would suggest to you, that waiting until you retire would be the time to build your own house in PH where you would be able to give 100% supervision to the build, however I do understand that waiting until this time may not be a good option for you with Family influences putting pressure on you to do something about it now, in my view this is a slippery slope that may be difficult to climb out of?

I will attach a Link to a Video of a recently constructed house this being a Pillar and Beam structure infilled with CHB, the owner and builder of this property are both in this video (I know them both) with the builder giving an example of the pricing to build this. It has been said that this is done in a Western Style, what I think they mean is; Texan style, which is the centre of the universe for some? the likes of this house would be a find in Scotland which I consider to be the Bulls Eye of the universe? This house is not very far from Oor Wee Hoose there in Valencia Negros and I was able to view this in its early stages of construction.
I'm hoping to hear from others that may have an opinion on this particular property no matter if they are positive or negative, this house is not all that attractive to me, however I cannot say it is unattractive, just that it would not suit me, but may be highly desirable to some?

Can You Have a Western-style Home in the Philippines? - Tour of Home! - Bing video

Hope the tilers have used tile adhesive for the floor, not like my builders who just used cement mixed with adhesive. most of the floor tiles have come lose.
150 sm just down stairs open plan. at least I don't have to use air-con, I must be getting use to the humid warm air.
I wish I had built a small house like that.