Classy and elegant ceilings for a home that reflects your style… Stainless and glass Railings with concrete or wooden steps and with stainless or wooden handles…
We are at Day-as road, Cordova, Mactan, Cebu, Philippines. You can contact us at topcebucontractors1@gmail.com or text us at +639214275469 SMS or WhatsApp or Viber or Please fill out …
We provide finely finished interior, exterior, and energy efficient modern homes. The team is borne out of customers’ need for fine finishes. When a regular contractor finishes a house, it is common scene to find …
If you’re building a home in the Philippines—especially in the hotter areas of the country like Cebu, Iloilo, Bohol, and most southern areas of the country, comes with a major challenge: the heat. Most traditional …
The footing in an ICF build is a continuous footing since the entire wall of an ICF build is a load bearing wall that needs to be continuously supported. For a 2-3 story ICF house …
Here now is the answer to make cooler homes. Westerners mostly Canadians and Americans who like to have a vacation home or retirement home in the Philippines can now enjoy our tropical climate in their …
Black and brown are great contrasts to achieve a very elegant modern exterior. Using wood panels for the brown contrast gives it a very rustic effect, while a plain brown or light brown contrast matched …
How about having your own water treatment right at your roof top so you don’t need to buy outside and you can assure your water is the cleanest since you directly maintain your water purification. …
This 3 level commercial structure owned by the kindest couple in the Medellin area is designed to give budding businesses in this northern part of Cebu a good start on their business. The location is …
In the traditional way of constructing homes and buildings, people have relied in the hollow blocks for decades now until something new came along – the pre cast walls. The main advantage of pre cast …
Metal doors have been around a while yet most builders and home owners still prefer the traditional wooden doors despite it being more expensive compared to metal doors. Here’s a few reasons why most builders …
Renovating a church requires a lot of scaffolds since most big churches such as catholic churches have very high ceilings. You need to secure your workers when they work – thus you need a lot …
This parish office building (pastoral building) in San Pedro Calungsod Parish in Sogod Cebu is a fully donations funded structure and will be the first formal office structure for this parish. Currently, the business office …
When it comes to constructing houses and building structures, ensuring strength, durability, and stability is of paramount importance. One essential component that plays a significant role in achieving these qualities is the versatile I-beam. Let’s …
Helping charity is a way of giving back to the community. One afternoon, two years ago, as I was strolling at Ayala Mall, a volunteer for Save the Children introduced me to their cause. Save …
The following steps in securing your building permit could take days or even weeks or months depending on the city or municipality you are in. The fees also vary. Step 1 – Secure and Fill …
This home in Parkplace Pueblo de Oro in Babag Lapulapu city is a good example of an elegant yet affordable residential upgrade project. Newly finished projects in this subdivision is far from acceptable once you …
There is a boom in the Cebu construction scene and construction companies, engineers, and construction workers are having a great time. Despite the steady flow of contracts and projects, there are even more of these …
Designing your house nowadays comes with a hefty price especially if you go directly to an architect and sometimes even just a civil or structural engineer. Architects usually charge around 5-7% of your project so …
In today’s world of commercial sophistication and increased opportunities for the Filipinos, and as long as you have a qualified income stream, funding your house construction is no longer an impossible dream. Your contractor should …
Building a school is so much easier than building a house since the former does not require meticulous floor planning than the latter. The same floor plan can be applied for almost all floors except …
Unlike the power you get from VECO, MECO, CEBECO, MERALCO, etc, solar power from the sun does not come with a monthly electric bill… While it is true that it may cost a small fortune …
Mall carts may be just a small project with very little revenue for the contractor but there are hundreds of small cart business owners out there. Unlike the big new house build projects, cart construction requires …
It takes a highly skilled set of workers to be able to take on renovations. While the regular contractors usually shy away from renovations because it is usually very complicated, difficult, and sometimes even prone …
Planning to build your dream home? Let us help you get started—with professional house design at NO DESIGN FEE.
Our FREE House and Building Design offer is back! If you are planning to build a new home, this is a great opportunity to have your house professionally designed while getting the initial design and permit-processing work taken care of.
We will provide the design of your proposed house or building at no design fee, helping you turn your ideas into a practical and beautiful home that fits your needs, lifestyle, and budget.
Whether you already have your dream house in mind or need help developing the concept, our team can work with you from the planning stage toward construction.
We will also provide FREE processing of your building permits as part of the service.
Please note that government fees, official permit fees, and other charges imposed by government agencies are not included. These fees will still need to be paid by the client as they are incurred during the permit-processing process.
To get started, we require a minimal advance deposit. The good news is that this is not an additional design charge—your advance deposit will be credited toward the cost of your construction project.
In other words, when you choose us to build your home, your initial payment becomes part of your construction budget.
Building a home is a major investment. We want to make the first step easier and more affordable for homeowners who are serious about building.
Let us help you design it, process the permits, and eventually build it.
If you’re planning to build a new home in Cebu or anywhere in the Visayas, contact us today and let’s start turning your ideas into a home you can be proud of.
Your dream home starts with a good design—and your design can start FREE.
📩 Message us today for a consultation and to learn how you can avail of this offer.
What if you could leave behind freezing winters, expensive living costs and months of cold weather—and wake up instead to sunshine, tropical gardens, warm ocean water and some of the most beautiful islands in the world?
For many foreigners from Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia and other colder countries, the Philippines has become an attractive place to consider for retirement, long-term living or simply a second home.
And if you’re looking beyond the major cities, the Visayas deserves serious consideration.
The Visayas offers an extraordinary variety of lifestyles. You can live close to the conveniences of Cebu, enjoy the natural beauty of Bohol, find a quieter island lifestyle in Siquijor, explore the beaches of Negros, or discover less-developed coastal communities throughout the region.
For foreigners who want modern conveniences while still being close to beaches and resorts, Cebu is an obvious choice.
Cebu offers access to international flights, major hospitals, shopping centers, restaurants, universities, business districts and a large variety of services.
At the same time, you can reach beaches, diving destinations, mountain areas and neighboring islands without having to travel extremely far.
This makes Cebu particularly attractive to retirees and foreign residents who want the convenience of a developed urban center without giving up the tropical lifestyle.
But perhaps you want something quieter.
That’s where the rest of the Visayas becomes even more interesting.
ICF, or Insulated Concrete Forms, combines insulating forms with reinforced concrete to create a substantial insulated wall system.
Instead of relying entirely on air-conditioning to overcome heat entering through conventional walls, insulation becomes an integral part of the building envelope.
A properly designed ICF home can help reduce heat transfer through the walls and create a more stable indoor environment.
Many Philippine communities are lively. Motorcycles, traffic, tricycles, construction and neighborhood activities can create considerably more sound than someone from a quiet suburban community may be accustomed to.
The mass of reinforced concrete combined with insulated ICF construction can help reduce sound transmission through the wall assembly.
For a retirement home, this can be particularly valuable.
Your bedroom should be a place where you can relax and sleep—not a place where you hear every motorcycle passing outside.
If you’re going to build a home in the Philippines, why not think beyond the next five years?
A retirement or second home could potentially be where you spend the next 20 or 30 years.
That makes the quality of construction extremely important.
You want a home that is:
Comfortable.
Durable.
Practical.
Easy to maintain.
Appropriate for the climate.
Designed around your lifestyle.
ICF can be incorporated into a properly engineered structural system to provide a substantial reinforced-concrete wall assembly.
It is important to emphasize that no construction system makes a building automatically typhoon-proof or earthquake-proof. The entire house—including the foundation, structural reinforcement, roof and connections—must be properly engineered for Philippine conditions.
But when properly designed and constructed, ICF can be an excellent option for homeowners who want a more robust and insulated building envelope.
If your income comes from a country with a strong currency, your pension, savings or investment income can potentially provide considerably more purchasing power in the Philippines than it does in many high-cost Western cities.
For someone accustomed to expensive housing, utilities, restaurants and services in Canada, the United States or Europe, the difference can be significant.
This doesn’t mean every foreigner will automatically become wealthy in the Philippines.
Exchange rates change, and your lifestyle determines your expenses.
If the only thing holding you back from building in the Philippines is the heat, don’t automatically assume that tropical living means living in an uncomfortable house.
Modern construction technology gives you options.
With appropriate insulation, shading, ventilation, windows, roofing and air-conditioning, a house can be designed specifically for tropical comfort.
And with ICF construction, insulation can become an important part of the wall system itself.
You can discover a warmer and more relaxed lifestyle.
You can explore some of the Philippines’ most beautiful islands.
You can make your retirement income go further.
And you can build a home designed around your needs, your lifestyle and the tropical Philippine environment.
Whether you ultimately choose Cebu or another part of the Visayas, Fine Finish Cebu is ready to help you explore the possibilities of building your own home in the Philippines.
The Philippines offers something that few places in the world can match: warm weather, beautiful coastlines, friendly communities, affordable living, and an extraordinary tropical lifestyle.
For foreigners, retirees, OFWs returning home, and affluent Filipinos, the Philippines can be an ideal place to build a permanent residence, retirement home, vacation property, or family estate.
But there are concerns that many people have when considering a home in the Philippines:
The heat.
The humidity.
And sometimes, the noise.
Someone accustomed to a well-insulated home in North America, Europe, Australia, or another temperate climate may be surprised by how differently many conventional Philippine homes are designed.
In a tropical country, keeping a home comfortable is not simply a matter of installing a larger air-conditioning system.
And creating a peaceful home is not simply a matter of finding a quiet neighborhood.
The building itself matters.
Its walls, roof, windows, orientation, shading, ventilation, insulation, and construction all influence how much heat and outside noise enter the home.
This is where a new generation of high-performance insulated tropical homes can offer a different approach.
Imagine living in the Philippines while enjoying the tropical lifestyle outside your home—and a comfortable, carefully controlled environment inside.
Imagine returning home after a hot afternoon and entering a residence designed to minimize unwanted heat transfer.
Imagine bedrooms that remain comfortable at night.
Imagine large windows overlooking a garden, pool, mountain or ocean view without allowing uncontrolled solar heat gain to dominate the interior.
And imagine something else:
Opening those windows on a comfortable morning or afternoon and letting the fresh tropical air move naturally through your home.
You don’t necessarily have to keep the windows closed and the air-conditioning running all day.
When outdoor conditions are comfortable enough, a properly designed insulated home can give you the option of natural ventilation and fresh-air living.
This is one of the most attractive possibilities of a high-performance tropical home:
Use the air-conditioner when you need it. Open the windows when you don’t.
But there is another benefit that is particularly valuable in the Philippines:
When the windows are closed, a properly designed insulated building envelope can also help create a quieter interior.
At the high end of the market, luxury isn’t always about adding another room.
Sometimes it is about removing things you don’t want.
Less heat.
Less glare.
Less humidity.
Less outside noise.
Less energy waste.
Less maintenance.
And more comfort.
This is why acoustic performance can become a genuine luxury feature.
Imagine closing your bedroom door at night and experiencing a peaceful interior environment while the activity of the street continues outside.
For someone spending ₱18 million, ₱20 million, or ₱25 million on a residence, that kind of comfort can be far more valuable than another few square meters of floor area.
For many people coming from countries with cooler climates, opening the windows is a fundamental part of enjoying a home.
You wake up.
You open the curtains.
You open the windows.
Fresh air enters.
You hear the birds.
You feel the breeze.
The house feels connected to its surroundings.
In a conventional Philippine house, however, opening the windows during a hot period can quickly introduce uncomfortable heat and humidity.
It can also introduce traffic noise.
A high-performance tropical home approaches the problem differently.
By combining appropriate insulation with carefully planned natural ventilation, shading, window placement, acoustic design and building orientation, the home can be designed to take advantage of favorable outdoor conditions while minimizing unwanted heat gain and noise when the windows are closed.
The result is a house that can adapt to the weather and environment instead of relying on a single strategy.
For foreigners planning to retire, relocate, or spend significant portions of the year in the Philippines, the comfort of their home can be one of the most important considerations.
The ability to enjoy the tropical lifestyle without feeling overwhelmed by the heat—or disturbed by unnecessary outside noise—can make a major difference in the long-term living experience.
A properly designed insulated residence can help bridge the gap between the comfort expectations of a homeowner’s previous country and the realities of the Philippine climate.
For someone investing millions of pesos into a permanent retirement residence, it makes sense to consider the long-term performance of the building rather than focusing only on its appearance.
A retirement home should be:
Comfortable. Quiet. Secure. Efficient. Durable. Easy to maintain.
These qualities can be incorporated into the design from the beginning.
For successful Filipino families, a luxury home is increasingly about more than demonstrating wealth.
It is about creating a place where the family can live, entertain, relax and spend time together.
That means comfortable bedrooms, beautiful living spaces, excellent kitchens, private outdoor areas, home offices, entertainment rooms, pools, gardens and technology—all integrated into one coherent architectural design.
Don’t design an ICF house. Design a high-performance house that happens to use ICF.
The wall system is only one part of the solution.
A truly premium residence should consider the entire building as a system:
Site
↓
Orientation
↓
Solar control
↓
Shading
↓
Roof insulation
↓
High-performance walls
↓
Windows and doors
↓
Acoustic control
↓
Natural ventilation
↓
Humidity control
↓
Efficient cooling
↓
Smart controls
↓
Renewable-energy readiness
When all of these components are considered together, the result can be significantly better than simply adding insulation to an otherwise conventional house.
Today’s affluent homeowner has access to better technology, better materials, better architectural information and greater awareness of energy efficiency than previous generations.
Foreign residents and retirees bring their own expectations of indoor comfort.
OFWs return home with experience of different construction standards.
Affluent Filipino families increasingly expect their homes to provide not only status, but also comfort, privacy, convenience and long-term value.
This creates an opportunity for a new category of residential construction:
These are homes designed specifically for the Philippine climate while incorporating the comfort, quality and technology expected from premium international residential construction.
The Philippines should not require you to choose between tropical living and indoor comfort.
You can have the garden.
The pool.
The ocean view.
The mountain view.
The outdoor kitchen.
The tropical landscaping.
The open-air entertaining spaces.
And at the same time, you can have a carefully engineered interior environment designed to remain comfortable in one of the world’s hottest and most humid climates.
You can even have something many homeowners value just as much as temperature control:
peace and quiet.
The motorcycles may still be passing on the road.
The neighborhood may still be active.
The tropical life continues outside.
But inside, your home can provide a much greater degree of separation from the outside environment.
The answer is not simply a bigger air-conditioner.
It starts with the building itself.
Better insulation.
Better shading.
Better windows.
Better roofs.
Better natural ventilation.
Better acoustic control.
Better engineering.
Better construction.
And, where appropriate, advanced wall systems such as Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF).
A luxury home in the Philippines should do more than look impressive.
It should make you feel comfortable when you wake up.
Relaxed when you come home.
Confident during extreme weather.
Proud when you entertain.
Able to enjoy fresh air when the weather permits.
And able to retreat into a quieter, more peaceful interior when the outside world becomes hot, humid or noisy.
For foreigners, retirees, OFWs and affluent Filipino families looking for a premium residence in the Philippines, the next generation of luxury homes is not simply about building bigger.
It is about building smarter.
A tropical home should embrace the climate outside while giving you exceptional comfort inside.
And when the weather outside is pleasant enough, you should be able to open the windows, let the fresh air in, and enjoy your home naturally.
When the street becomes noisy at night, you should be able to close the windows and retreat into a quieter interior.
Cool when you want it.
Fresh when you want it.
Quiet when you need it.
Luxury when you deserve it.
That is the freedom of a high-performance tropical home.
The Iran-Israel-U.S. war has definitely caused worldwide skyrocketing of energy prices as when oil price increases, everything else increases, and your electricity bill will certainly follow suit.
The price of electricity can never go down again and could in fact keep going up as more conflicts around the world are expected to happen as we now live in the end times as most people say.
So the best way to keep our homes cool these days without using too much air conditioning or even no air conditioning is to insulate the walls and ceiling with EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) and this will be tricky for homes that we’re already built since it is almost impossible to install EPS during post construction.
Some will install solar power to aid their electricity use for air conditioning but you can only use it during the day since there is no sun at night and you will need a lot of batteries to store solar energy for night time use on air conditioners since they consume a lot of power.
Intuitive home builders nowadays are also taking into consideration that using air conditioning round the clock is not good for the skin as our skin needs the natural moisturizing of the atmospheric moisture.
You need a well insulated home to keep your home cool without drying your skin round the clock with the air conditioner.
Since it is difficult or expensive to insulate an already built home, it is best to build your new or second home or your kids(s) home with full insulation already in the design.
ICF (insulated concrete form) homes or the composite insulated wall panels is your best answer to a well insulated new home.
A full ICF house is a really very strong home, but a bit pricey, since your walls will be made of solid poured concrete with full EPS insulation on both sides including the ceilings. The EPS is protected with an outer layer of dry wall so you can still install additional decoratives on the surface such as stone accents for the outside of the house, or just have it smooth painted such as for the interior of the house. It will be like living inside an ice chest but with windows to let the moist fresh air in. You can also pre install your windows with screens and have an exhaust fan through the ceiling that pulls the fresh air through the windows then out through your ceiling. Of course you can still use air conditioning as the windows in an ICF home will have a small retractable slit vents to let in fresh air most of the time.
The lighter and cheaper version of the full ICF walled house is the composite panels made of concrete and EPS mixed together to form a solid and heavy wall panel 5-7 inches thick – half thinner – than the full ICF which is at least 10-12 inches thick.
As far as insulation efficiency, both the full ICF and the composite version offer the same effectivity, the main difference is the thickness – which means the full ICF will be a lot lot structurally stronger than the composite insulated panels.
A non-profit contract is a contractor’s way of giving back to the community. It is usually offered to customers who can use a huge discount such as religious organizations (depending on the religious affiliation of the contractor); charitable institutions such as orphanages, shelters for the poor and the homeless, and other similar institutions; young couples who are just starting; and those specialty projects with great designs that the contractor may benefit as an added decoration to his portfolio.
As it is a non profit project, the contractor may still charge the customer very necessary items such as his transportation costs and minimal “per visit” rate depending if the project owner will agree, but more often – the contractor will just simply at least expect to be refunded his transportation costs during site visits.
Basically, the non profit deal leaves almost nothing to the contractor, save the site visit fee, and that he can add the project pictures to his portfolio. So what’s left for the project owner to fund are the materials and the workers wages and the supervisors’ daily or per visit rates.
If the contractor would ask for a supervisory fee for himself apart from the regular supervisors fees, and if the owner will agree, then the deal becomes a supervisory contract and no longer a full non-profit project since the contractor will now be receiving a minimal fee for his supervisory services.
How a non-profit construction deal works can be either “contractor-managed” or “owner-managed”. If it is to be “contractor managed” then the contractor will schedule a down payment from the owner and succeeding progress payments thereof, just like a normal contract, while “owner managed” means both payment schedules to materials and workers will be planned and scheduled by the project owner, and the contractor will simply supply the workers and the supervisors, all tools and equipments coming from the contractor will be rented by the project owner.
The non-profit and the supervisory deals have been offered by contractors since time immemorial since some contractors really like to execute some specialty projects and will do anything to get it to his portfolio, and sometimes – some religious or charitable projects are high value “giving back to the community” projects that a contractor find very appealing as a way for him to get some merits for his soul. Also, some young couples who are just starting also become high value projects for the contractor that he will offer non-profit deals as a way for him to get more referrals like when the young couple have strong connections or are belonging to the community’s upper strata.
So if you are one of the above, go ahead, and see if your contractor can offer you a non-profit deal so you can get an instant huge discount on your project today.
If you’re building a home in the Philippines—especially in the hotter areas of the country like Cebu, Iloilo, Bohol, and most southern areas of the country, comes with a major challenge: the heat. Most traditional concrete hollow-block homes turn into “ovens” during the afternoon, leading to high electricity bills from air conditioning.
Your home should be a sanctuary, not a sauna. This is why Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) is trending today.
1. Natural Thermal Insulation
Traditional concrete walls made of hollow blocks (CHB) are poor insulators; they absorb the sun’s heat all day and release it into your rooms at night. ICF walls act like a giant cooler box for your house. The dual layers of EPS foam provide a thermal break that keeps the interior significantly cooler than the outside air.
2. Strength Against Typhoons
Living in the Philippines means being prepared for the typhoon seasons. ICF structures are poured as one continuous reinforced concrete wall. This makes them incredibly resistant to high winds and seismic activity compared to standard block laying.
3. Quiet Living in the City
Whether you’re building in the busy streets of Mandaue or near a main road in Cordova, ICF provides superior soundproofing. The foam layers absorb street noise, giving you a quiet, peaceful interior even in a noisy neighborhood.
4. Faster Builds, Better Finishes
Because the forms stay in place, you can achieve perfectly straight walls that allow for fine finishing. Please do reach out to us at our CONTACT PAGE if you need any assistance…
Right during pandemic all the way to the current wars happening in Ukraine and now Iran, moving ICF blocks from the US or Canada to the Philippines or Asia have become impossible due to the shipping costs and logistical hoops.
ICF builders tried to get ICF from China but the quality is not the best and shipping costs and logistics is still a nightmare.
So to build an ICF home, the only option left is to do it yourself. To ensure quality, you need to get samples first – make sure the thickness and density of the EPS conforms to the required minimums for ICF construction. If you need technical assistance, let us know – we’d be glad to assist you for a minimal technical fee. We have available rigid EPS for ICF construction use.
Your ICF form must allow for 5-6 inches of concrete core cavity, and the EPS must be 2 inches. To make it hold during concrete pour, you will need a lot of lumber to hold it. You should also already pre install the drywall surface on the ICF by using long screws that goes to the concrete core so that it holds on to the poured concrete giving your drywall surface that concrete hard support from the concrete core. If the area is for bathrooms – meaning you will have tiles on the walls, then be sure to stick the screw heads out – do not bury the heads all the way – this way, when the concrete core cures, the partially buried screw heads will become your tile adhesive anchors – so when you apply the tile adhesive – the partially buried screw heads will hold it tightly. Your long crews also need to be galvanized or stainless if at all possible, but no worries – rust cannot develop around it since the long screws will be totally buried in cement or tile adhesive in the bathrooms.
Do not hesitate to contact us if you need technical assistance. We’d be glad to help you nationwide… We can also supply you the EPS forms including the nationwide shipping…
This farm house have very spacious kitchen and living room. The bedrooms are bigger than most average homes in the country today.
The entire ground floor is an open type space designed for a backyard farming type of living as the lot is more than a thousand square meters nestled in the middle of a well irrigated forest type area where you can plant almost anything.
The walls are made of composite insulated wall of concrete and styrofoam mix (Expanded Polystyrene) sealed in smooth silica resulting in good heat insulation and faster finishing since it is already smooth. Insulated walls will greatly reduce aircon use resulting in lower electricity bill. Note that traditional non insulated concrete walls conducts heat well and will even retain heat from sun exposure up until night time. Most home builders are now slowly considering insulated walls due to its enormous energy efficiency benefits.
Most farming type of living will also involve raising animals like goats and chickens thus the side stairway is secured with metal railings and gates that prevent animals from climbing up the living room.
The windows are made especially large to make well ventilated living areas.
The ceilings are also made higher than standard for added ventilation. The high pitched A frame roofing design will allow for a larger breathing space above the ceiling which will make cooler ceilings.
The house gives an overall relaxed atmosphere as you are surrounded with thick vegetation and the sound of birds – it is a residential dwelling that is in itself also a rest house away from the bustling city…
ICFp or insulated composite concrete pre fab wall panels is your next great choice if the original ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) is currently beyond your budget range.
These insulated pre fab wall panels costs lower than ICF but is slightly faster to build but its major difference is that the factories are only in major cities in the Philippines – Cebu, Manila, and Tagbilaran Bohol. If your project site is not within those areas, you will incur additional shipping costs on these pre fab walls – nevertheless it still costs less than the original ICF.
These insulated pre fab walls are your next best thing to the original ICF. This wall panel is a pre manufactured concrete wall mixed with EPS (Expanded polystyrene) – the same material used in ICF insulation – but the way it is added is that the EPS granules are mixed into the concrete which is sealed, and then sealed on both sides by drywall at the factory – the same drywall used in the original ICF construction.
Based on its composition you can already conclude that this is not a load bearing type of wall unlike the original ICF, so you will need to have columns and beams in your house design. Once your columns and beams are built, then you will add these insulated pre fab walls, and since it is already smooth due to its dry wall surface, then the finishing and patching during painting will be faster.
As far as insulation characteristics, based on our own tests, there is little difference between the original ICF construction and the pre fab composite walls – meaning both achieves almost the same insulation capabilities, but another difference is that these walls are only 5-6 inches thick, unlike the original ICF where the total thickness is 10.5 to 11 inches total due to its minimum 5 inches solid concrete core composition, then you add 2 inches of EPS layer on both sides then top it up with the .25 inch thick dry wall on both sides of the wall for the original ICF construction.
The major difference between the original ICF and the the insulated composite pre fab wall panels (ICFp) is that in the original ICF – concrete is poured unto the forms on site, while the ICFp – concrete is mixed with EPS at the factory.
See this latest finished house in Talisay City Cebu using the insulated composite pre fab wall panels.
Here in the Philippines there are major stumbling blocks when trying to build an ICF Insulated Concrete Forms home.
The stumbling blocks are: 1. Local building code requires columns and beams; 2. Its very hard to find a concrete conveyor. Ready mix concrete companies here usually only have high pressure pumpcrete; 3. Workers need in depth training in ICF style construciton.
Americans and Canadians and other home owners coming from cold countries do require insulated homes when they decide to settle in the Philippines to be able to save on air con electricity bills. Their homes need to be insulated from the outside heat so as not to overwork their air conditioning systems.
The Philippine building code require columns and beams in contrast to the original American and Canadian ICF construction style that don’t require columns and beams since the walls are solid concrete making them excellent load bearing walls. So the easiest way around this is just to build the columns and beams but insulate them like you would an ICF wall – EPS on both sides of the solid pour topped with drywall. Make sure though that you don’t build the beams of the second floor slab ahead – you have to wait for the ground floor walls to be finished so you can just build your second floor slab beams on top of your cured ground floor insulated walls.
Another stumbling block is the unavailability of a concrete conveyor – a concrete conveyor is one that delivers liquid concrete from the truck without the pressure from pumpcrete / concrete pump. It is important that liquid concrete be delivered without the high pressure so as not to destroy the ICF concrete forms since it is made of light ICF. The solution for this if you cannot find a concrete conveyor is to just use wide ICF forms and hold it together with tie rods – a piece of metal that holds the two insulation forms and tie it outside on the plywood form surface. This will require that your drywall top needs to be pre installed and to secure your drywall – simply use long screws that await in the concrete core area so that it holds when the concrete cures. After curing, simply cut the tie rods below drywall surface level and cover it with spray EPS.
The final stumbling block is the scarcity of workers with ICF training. This is where your training ability will shine. You have to design your training in such a way that the workers will see the benefits and the rationale of an ICF or insulated home, so that they will have the ICF mindset as they slowly build the house. It is also advised that your skilled workers be of the younger age bracket as younger people are usually adept to change compared to their older counterparts.
If you are planning to build an ICF or insulated home here in the Philippines, simply email us your rough house layout and a photo scan of your lot sketch plan and a google snapshot of your lot location to finefinishcebu@gmail.com or to topcebucontractors1@gmail.com
Pleased to update to potential interested parties the recent update on this house in Valencia Negros Philippines. The second floor walls are now done. In the attached pictures below you will see how the structure now looks, just lacking the roofing and wall finishing. You can see the 2 inch EPS insulation on both sides of the beams and walls in the pictures showing the freshly poured walls and beams. A video of the actual pour will also be added later on. Enjoy the pics and the video and do let us know if you are interested in building an ICF house in the Philippines.
NOTE: Please do Check your SPAM Folder for the confirmation link after you submit your email in case you can't find it in your inbox. Sometimes it does land in the spam box....
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The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
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