Second Thoughts?

[JJReyes]

I wonder how your bamboo bungalows will compare with earthbag for price and ease of building, if they are super typhoon proof and earthquake proof they must be a lot better than many typical Philippine structures, will they last for thousands of years as earthbag structures will? What will happen when you Fillipino with a skinfull drives his truck into the bamboo bungalow?

The earthbag structures are probably cheaper and easier to build. They should last longer. In the photographs, they look like concrete blocks.

The typical Philippine "bahay kubo" or nipa hut uses green bamboo. The termites, fungi and wood boring insects move in before the residents. The construction is filmsy, although photographs in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Bopha showed homes made with corrugated metal had no roofs, while the nipa huts with grass or anahaw roofs were intact. The damage to the nipa huts were from fallen trees and large branches.

Bungalows made with treated bamboo will last 50 to 70 years. Old Japanese farmhouses made with bamboo last several hundred years. The reason is the smoke from the open hearth cures the bamboo. When they dismantle old farmhouses, the blackened bamboo command prices similar to hardwood. They are used for arts and crafts.

The eco-village made of bamboo will be located in gated resort with a security fence. I am not too worried about crazy truck drivers. Should I be?

Building costs are double or triple what you would pay for a two bedroom Philippine nipa hut. I saw photographs of a home in Central America that withstood a 126 miles per hour hurricane with minimal damage. The damage was one corner of the roof. The secret is in the joinery. The bamboo poles will flex during earthquakes and high wind.

Edited December 18, 2012 by JJR

[Thomas]

Safety and security...... there's so much negativity on here..... is it really justified?

I think I'll put off my retirement to the Phils until after a trip to Colombia, looking at flying to Medellin on 9th Jan for a month to have a proper look at life there

Well. Surely some unsafe in Phili too, but I believe Medelin, Philippines, is at least 10 times safer than Medellin, Colombia :no: with the lots of kidnappings there in Comobia (or have they ended?)

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In Phili there are 7000 islands, rather often there are a WHOLE one for sale, the smaller ones not so expensive. (I like inland myself, so I didn't bother to memorise the price, but I believe it is/was one for sale for less than 3 mill in Talibon, Bohol, recently.)

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Concerning interesting low cost hobbies suiting rural life, I wrote about some in Will's topic earlier today, so I don't repeet it here.

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You seem interested in aid/developing projects as Bruce have started, and I plan to start after I have moved there. (See Bruce's topics concerning his aid to mainly hospital and orphinage. I like Help-to-self-help developing projects. Probably I will chose to start some Refining of farmer's products, adding both some jobs and some better income to the farmers. Bruce is retired and do all for free, paying much of the costs himself. I'm not retired, so I will need to work. Earlier I had plan to start an own Internetnet related business to live at plus an aid developing project, which I would try to finance myself and work for free. But when I researched possible developing projects - and the bad Internet connections :no: - it made me change my mind, so I will probably make a combination of own business and the aid project (=Then it can be enough money to start a biger developing project. I aim at earning some more than the Filipins, but pay them some more than normal, and the farmers some more than they get otherwice. If there will be any profit, then I plan to use it to add more such Refining jobs, and so on... An other idea I have is about producing energy and money savers, the first product suiting the poor, the second for middle class, but the second will benefit the poor by adding jobs to them. Local production, but many will be involved in the marketing through local (small) shops.)

If we end up close enough, you perhaps want to be involved in that Self-to-self-help project? :no:

[Thomas]

Building costs are double or triple what you would pay for a two bedroom Philippine nipa hut. I saw photographs of a home in Central America that withstood a 126 miles per hour hurricane with minimal damage. The damage was one corner of the roof. The secret is in the joinery. The bamboo poles will flex during earthquakes and high wind.

An other useable "secret", they did show in a TV program where they tested typhon resistande for some different types of material and roof angles,

The tests show it's much stronger to build in a HIGHER angle as in your photo, because then the wind press DOWN the roof, while in a rather flat angle, a strong wind can form forces similar to them, which LIFT airplanes, making the roof flying OFF.

But in the test they noticed it was important to not have a big opening in the bottom of the roof, when they used concrete/clay tiles as top roof cover. (In that test they only checked tiles and a type of tar paper flat plates (or what you call them in English). These later ones they told can't stand strong sun heat many years anyway. No check of any corrugated sheet metal cover in that test, but I guess it need to be thought of the BOTTOM similar as for the tiles.)

[Okieboy]

Yes there are lot of Islands for sale but i don't know how a foreigner could fully own one, i saw one it was about 4 million USD how would you sell something like that to a foreigner, and he can never own it, until foreigners can own land, the Phillipines will stay pretty much 3rd world

[Thomas]

Yes there are lot of Islands for sale but i don't know how a foreigner could fully own one, i saw one it was about 4 million USD how would you sell something like that to a foreigner, and he can never own it, until foreigners can own land, the Phillipines will stay pretty much 3rd world

Yes, foreigner can't own land fully himself

but as I have understood it, there are some legal solutions (I mean NOT Dummy solutions):

/Part owning:

If have a company, which REALY need land, then foreigner can own 40% of the land through that company.

/If have child, who is Filipin citizen:

Let he/she be the owner, and then behave good enough so they don't kick you out when they reach decision age :mocking:

A Swedish friend of mine put his mango farm land on his baby daughter when he bought it around 30 years ago, No problem so far.

I suppose can be secured by a long time lease too.

(There is a antidummy law concerning wife (only ?)

/Not owning but controll:

Long time lease.

/Not owning but controll type 2:

But owner can want to get all money direct :) This can be solved in a COMBINATION not make it as a selling, but as a combination of loan with the land as security and a long time lease. (Two separate contracts. One loan and one lease, Make fees suiting each other good enough to make all involved satisfied, still being at a logical level separate too.)

Disadvatage:

Legaly can the official owner pay the loan, when the value have gone up, and sell it for a higher price to someone else.

You are still protected by the long time lease loan, but you miss to get the profit from the value raise.

But it's a risk in lease situations the owner can want to use the land later himself. You still have the lease contract, but he can try to make you want to leave by making your life there misserable. So better if can put ownership on your kids, who will inherit it later anyway.

[Dave Hounddriver]

A Swedish friend of mine put his mango farm land on his baby daughter when he bought it around 30 years ago, No problem so far.

An American and an Australian I know both put the land in their child's name. Separation came up and mother got custody of the child with the right of guardianship and thus control of the property. Anyone who follows any scheme to acquire land here better be prepared to walk away from it if and when things go sour. It may go well for you, probably will, but there are many legal loopholes to get screwed over on so, once again, be prepared to lose it and get no sympathy or compensation from anyone, anywhere IF it happens.

[Thomas]

A Swedish friend of mine put his mango farm land on his baby daughter when he bought it around 30 years ago, No problem so far.

An American and an Australian I know both put the land in their child's name. Separation came up and mother got custody of the child with the right of guardianship and thus control of the property. Anyone who follows any scheme to acquire land here better be prepared to walk away from it if and when things go sour. It may go well for you, probably will, but there are many legal loopholes to get screwed over on so, once again, be prepared to lose it and get no sympathy or compensation from anyone, anywhere IF it happens.

Yes. That's why I want the house in my name

combined with a separate long time LEASE contract UNDEPENDING of who is owner.

If I'm corect informed the Phili law has a built in kind of pre-marriage contract (=In a separation each keep (value of?) what they had before marriage, just have the during marriage got things together to split if separate.) I will check it more before marriage, otherwice I will demand one*, but give her some "bohnus" part direct. So I plan to build the house just before marriage :)

* Saying:

-I trust you, otherwice I wouldn't want to marry you, but there are so many Filipina/family pressure scammers and I don't want to be any suspicious checking you during the marriage. With such document I don't need to be suspicious. I expect we never split anyway and then you will get same anyway. But some men are scammers too, and you can't be sure I'm not, that's why I offer you a bohnus when marrying me. (Then offer her something e g some land** and see what she think.)

**First I thought buying land and build house on it, letting the wife owning the land, BUT then I got to know of the anti-dummy law counting wife and husband as SAME person in some cases, so I suppose such solution don't function. So it has to be something else than land where my house is.

[JJReyes]

The tests show it's much stronger to build in a HIGHER angle as in your photo, because then the wind press DOWN the roof, while in a rather flat angle, a strong wind can form forces similar to them, which LIFT airplanes, making the roof flying OFF.

I will leave it up to the project architects to design the bamboo bungalows. To prevent roof lift from typhoons and hurricanes, the new budiling code requirements in Florida and Hawaii is the use of hurricane clips to anchor the roof. Once the roof is gone, the interior contents are completely destroyed.

Yes there are lot of Islands for sale but i don't know how a foreigner could fully own one, i saw one it was about 4 million USD how would you sell something like that to a foreigner, and he can never own it, until foreigners can own land, the Phillipines will stay pretty much 3rd world

You can't own the land if you are a foreigner, but you can own the building or structure on top of it. The recommendation is to get a lawyer to do the contractual agreements in case of a future dispute.

[Thomas]

I will leave it up to the project architects to design the bamboo bungalows. To prevent roof lift from typhoons and hurricanes, the new budiling code requirements in Florida and Hawaii is the use of hurricane clips to anchor the roof. Once the roof is gone, the interior contents are completely destroyed.

As an angled metal to hold the whole roof conctruction,

irons lock each tile/plate better

or what?

In Thailand they anchor the roof from the house GROUND, with a steel contruction all the way up, the roof NOT hanging on the walls as we contruct here in Sweden normaly.

So in Thailand perhaps the walls can blow away, while the steel structure and the roof still stands :)

[Lordblacknail]

I too have concerns about life here, and we have decided that it isn't for us. We will be moving to Panama when we can. The difference between Columbia and Panama is that Panama has a legal income stream, the canal. Sorry, but I just don't want to live in a country with as much violence as Columbia no matter how cheap it is. As far as a garden, my wife has been unable to grow much of anything here due to the poor soil.