Nipa hut style

[stevewool]

Does any of the members live in a Nippa style home full time , Emma was showing me one the other day a 2 bedroom one and it did look nice too, but could it be lived in full time , so do any of our members live in one or has lived in them for many months before , I understand security wise they would not be very safe but adding a few solid walls here and there may help.

[hk blues]

13 minutes ago, stevewool said:

Does any of the members live in a Nippa style home full time , Emma was showing me one the other day a 2 bedroom one and it did look nice too, but could it be lived in full time , so do any of our members live in one or has lived in them for many months before , I understand security wise they would not be very safe but adding a few solid walls here and there may help.

I've been in a few but never slept in one but once you start adding solid walls etc I'm not sure they would still be Nippa huts.  Almost the worst of both worlds. 

There is one in my wife's place which looks very, very nice but I'd describe it more as a normal house in the style of a Nippa hut.

[GeoffH]

A nipa hut is not insect proof… that’s a step too far for me ( those nipa styled houses are NOT nipa huts ).

[Dave Hounddriver]

4 hours ago, stevewool said:

do any of our members live in one or has lived in them for many months before

When I lived in Biliran, a down-on-his-luck German expat lived in a nipa hut on the beach. He was a friend so I visited him frequently until Yolanda destroyed it.  He rented it from a local for 500 pesos a month and he had fixed it up with an electric fan and tv and some furniture and it was reasonably comfortable.  Of course it was small but he spent a lot of his time outside on the beach or doing other activities.

The part I could not have tolerated were the snakes and rats.  On Biliran there are cobras.  At least once a cobra got into his nipa hut.  That would have killed the enjoyment for me.  Then there were rats.  No way to keep them out of a nipa hut but he learned to live with them.  The bugs were actually not bad.  I have found that mosquitos don't seem to like the salt air being right on the beach.

[robert k]

Steve, I lived in one for 6 weeks back in 2013 and it wasn't horrible. During the day, no real issues. At night any light you show will draw bugs for long distances if you are away from other light sources. A bright light outside like a couple of 20W LED lights 20 meters (or as far away as you can get) from the house would draw bugs away at night and you could show some diffuse light. I had considered a for lack of a better word, a Nipa house. The solution I thought of is to have a large solid room with it's own roof/solid ceiling where you could control conditions as needed, climate control, show lights, watch tv, read a book without straining your eyes, sleep without a mosquito net. Nothing says you couldn't invest in screen wire for the entire house before the woven panels go on. Just think of the woven panels as modesty curtains. The Nipa house I lived in had some larger overhangs shading the walls and increasing the shaded area. I would add a roof like I have seen on egg farms, the whole roof in the center open with a small roof above that with a 12 inch/300mm air gap. I personally wouldn't do it without the solid room I was speaking of in case a big wind comes along and blows the rest of the house away. My experence was quite pleasant during the day, the bugs were a nuisance at night but I think the bug problem can be dodged if never totally escaped. I have never escaped bugs in the Philippines anywhere (never lived in a highrise condo). The only rat problem I had to deal with in the Philippines was concrete block built house in Manila. I had a mouse in Pili, eating my pancit but I dealt with him.

[Joey G]

Have done the nipa hut... for 6 months.... back in the late 70's early 80's...there was no electric, and not surrounded by other huts/houses... it was in a location my wife described as... "living on the farm".  They are certainly not as hot during the day as any cement/brick house, and they cool down faster at night as well.  Rain rarely came in, and when leaks appeared were fixed easily. Rats and snakes... rats weren't a problem "on the farm", they kept it pretty clean....  never saw any snakes around either, but having a dog on the property probably wasn't much to their liking.  

Personally I'd take a decent nipa hut in a good location any day....LOCATION being the key... it's a lifestyle as much as a place to live.  

[baronapart]

3 hours ago, robert k said:

Steve, I lived in one for 6 weeks back in 2013 and it wasn't horrible. During the day, no real issues. At night any light you show will draw bugs for long distances if you are away from other light sources. A bright light outside like a couple of 20W LED lights 20 meters (or as far away as you can get) from the house would draw bugs away at night and you could show some diffuse light. I had considered a for lack of a better word, a Nipa house. The solution I thought of is to have a large solid room with it's own roof/solid ceiling where you could control conditions as needed, climate control, show lights, watch tv, read a book without straining your eyes, sleep without a mosquito net. Nothing says you couldn't invest in screen wire for the entire house before the woven panels go on. Just think of the woven panels as modesty curtains. The Nipa house I lived in had some larger overhangs shading the walls and increasing the shaded area. I would add a roof like I have seen on egg farms, the whole roof in the center open with a small roof above that with a 12 inch/300mm air gap. I personally wouldn't do it without the solid room I was speaking of in case a big wind comes along and blows the rest of the house away. My experence was quite pleasant during the day, the bugs were a nuisance at night but I think the bug problem can be dodged if never totally escaped. I have never escaped bugs in the Philippines anywhere (never lived in a highrise condo). The only rat problem I had to deal with in the Philippines was concrete block built house in Manila. I had a mouse in Pili, eating my pancit but I dealt with him.

What is strange is that I have spent weeks in the the "jungle" with my wife in Zamboanga del Norte deep in the province. Never one mosquito bite. It is crazy....My wife says it is my DNA))) In the US I am eaten alive...

Edited April 25, 2022 by baronapart

[Dave Hounddriver]

On 4/18/2022 at 8:21 AM, Dave Hounddriver said:

When I lived in Biliran, a down-on-his-luck German expat lived in a nipa hut on the beach.

It occured to me that a nipa hut on the beach may mean different things to different people.  I do not have any pictures of the hut Reymund lived in but I searched through some pics on the Internet and found a similar one.  Take away all the people in the pic and imagine one 50 year old expat living in this and you get the idea.  That was what he got for 500 PHP a month

[Jollygoodfellow]

Just gotta make it home

 

[stevewool]

Thanks for all the replies , I’ve told Ems to find some land first where I think I would like to be before we go any further.