Denis and Isabel Cañedo three storey Modern Mediterranean Residence in Aldea del Sol Bankal Lapulapu City

This modest home of Denis and Isabel in Aldea del Sol Bankal Lapulapu City is so cleverly laid out that it is actually two homes in one. If you notice that door by the garage – it is actually the entrance to the second unit, and the first unit has its door at the left side of the house. The reason for this is that the subdivision do not allow duplex designs, thus it was decided that there will be a separation somewhere in the middle – yet the two units have shared access to the second floor terrace and to the third floor of the house. They will just have separate entry points at the ground floor and separate staircases to the second floor. Since the subdivision requires a mediterranean design, yet the owners prefer a modern Filipino design, the designer Jacob Roque decided to have the cube modern design but by adding the canopies – it will appear mediterranean.

The house has a lot of rooms and a total of 4 bathrooms, that when you access the house you will feel like you are in a beehive yet an elegant beehive designed for humans.

Fuentes residence – a Modest finished Two story modern tropical House in Pacific Grand Villa in Lapu-lapu Mactan Cebu

This modern tropical home of Cris Fuentes is situated in Pacific Villa 1 Subdivision, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. The lot area is 120.00 square meters, with a total floor area of 187.00 square meters. Construction began in June 2020 and was move-in ready by December 2020.

This design by Edwin Jacob Roque makes efficient use of available property area. On the ground floor there is one bedroom, one full bathroom, maid’s quarter, service area, two-car parking space and open plan living, dining, and kitchen area. The second floor has three spacious bedrooms – each with an en-suite bathroom.

The whole home features clean and modern finishes with 60 x 60 cm glossy tiles. Windows are large to maximize airflow through the rooms to let in a lot of natural lighting. The whole home is semi-furnished with air conditioning in all bedrooms and living areas.

The efficient and functional designing makes for a modestly priced house within reach of anyone who can break through the cycle of renting forever.

Earth filling: When you’re lot is so low it becomes the village drain…

This lot in Pavia Iloilo is so low that all of the drainage water from the nearby homes all go to this lot and since it has been vacant and unused for so long, all new home owners connect to this lot thus making it the village drainage.

If the soil underneath muddy soil is clayish, then limestone soil is the best earth fill material since the combination of clay and limestone makes it impermeable by water. If it is not clayish, then a mix of clayey loam soil and limestone soil is recommended. Both types of soils are very abundant in this – country in the hilly and mountain areas.

After mixing, the calcium ions from the hydrated lime migrate to the surface of the clay particles to displace the water and other ions. The mixture becomes crumbly and granulated making working and compacting easier. When this happens, the soil becomes more solid and will no longer swell or shrink. This process is called flocculation and agglomeration and can usually occur in just a matter of hours.

When the right quantities of lime soil and water is added, the acidity of the soil decreases and this will cause the clay particles to break down. At this stage, silica and alumina come out and will react with the calcium from the lime soil and will become calcium silicate hydrates and calcium aluminate hydrates which are both cementitious products similar to that of portland cement. This reaction is what stabilizes the soil mixture and adds to its strength increasing its load bearing capacity. The soil is transformed from sandy granular to hard and relatively impermeable. This new permanent structural layer is stronger, durable, significantly impermeable, yet flexible.

This mixture of clayey soil and limestone soil creates a strong and dry structural layer in just a matter of hours, so the work and compaction can be done faster, and you don’t have to wait for days or weeks for the soil to dry up by natural evaporation. See below before and after pictures…

Workers Enhancement Seminars

Workers enhancement is one of Fine Finish Cebu’s priorities. Though it might be costly, but we always strive to have it on regular basis. Workers training not only sharpens the workers, but it also gives them the needed break from the daily grind.

Seminar content not only focuses on work skills but also on the workers’ spiritual well being. All advances in modern psychology and science can be solved at the root – the spiritual well being of the individual. We strive hard to address the spiritual needs of the workers by showing them easy channels of God’s grace and how they can tap in it.

No worker is perfect, but every individual can be shown how to tap and where to access spiritual benefits through the sacraments.

Blast proof and hurricane proof walls using micro rebars

How about a blast proof home for your new family? This is the plan for this house’s owner to make sure his family and computer equipment are safe from the forces of nature. Using micro rebars – twisted pin sized stainless steel mixed into a concrete batch will make your six inches solid concrete wall literally blast proof. Instead of traditional rebars embedded in a specific place in a concrete wall or column, small twisted pin sized rebars is scattered all through-out the concrete mixture making the entire concrete mix reinforced with fiber like rebars that gives the wall or column a homogenous rebar system that renders it literally blast proof. The concrete is protected with fiber like rebars in all places. This blast proof technology of treating concrete was originally developed for the US army, but entrepreneurs find it a good solution against hurricanes or typhoons, and the Philippines is one typhoon favorite country.

Further, the house has:
-100 square meter footprint
-Passive House construction techniques
-Simple architecture (square footprint, no fancy architectural details)
-ICF walls (interior and exterior)
-ICF decking like quadlock or quad deck for floors and roof
-functional flat root with appropriate drainage system (able to support people, solar array, exterior AC condenser, water tower, etc.)
-Helix micro-rebar in concrete replacing traditional rebar where applicable
-stucco exterior wall finish
-polished concrete interior floor finish
-drywall+paint interior wall finish
-fully sealed interior with positive pressure and controlled air exits
-energy recovery ventilation and air filtration system for airflow
-mid-range interior finishes (e.g., cabinets, sinks, showers, etc.)
-Noise isolation design thus relatively few windows/doors.
-A couple feet of space between the first floor’s false ceiling and the second floor for things like duct work, plumbing, ERV, plumbing system, etc.
-Walls are the standard 6″ ICFs, which would be 6″ thick concrete.
-Tall ceilings, 10′ is fine as that allows for an 8′ ceiling height plus leaves two feet for ductwork, electrical lines, flooring, etc. -Second floor decking and roof decking are sound proofed and for the bottom floor and roof decking has insulation like an outer layer of styro foam (or integrated if we push with ICF decking).
-Very maintainable, which means there is easy access to plumbing, ventilation, electrical wiring, etc. for repair, expansion and future changes.
-Most plumbing/wiring/HVAC is in the ceiling cavity (maybe something like a 3-meter ceiling with 0.5-meter ceiling cavity) and then run wiring/piping down from the ceiling on the outside of the wall (perhaps enclosed in sheetrock for aesthetics).
-Minimize the noise transfer between floors (and rooms) using a chute somewhere in the building to take most of the cabling, ventilation, plumbing between the floors. Should be indoors, to minimize the leakage of heat/cold to the exterior through the ventilation system.
-Roof is load bearing, able to handle large water tanks, solar systems, batteries, people, etc.

“Structure-only” Contracts

Once in a while we recommend or a customer require us to build only the structure and separate the agreement for the finishing – this we also recommend for specific reasons such as budget limitations or when the owner specifically wants to manage the supply and installation of finishing furnishings such as when the furnishings have to come from abroad and the owner wants only the brand supplier to install such furnishings.

Items that may require specific brand installers include but is not limited to special upvc windows, special parquet floors, imported asphalt shingle roofing, sound proof or special acoustic ceilings. Sometimes even common items like painting and standard glass windows that don’t require special brand side installers or workers, owners may separate these, to cut the budget schedule in different phases or different headaches.

The structure only contract may even sometime cut the total build budget in half as some furnishings could cost up to half of the project. This is also beneficial for the builder as he will be able to focus on the industry standards of the build.

Structure only contracts usually include only the concrete works, structural design requirements, electrical and plumbing rough ins. If the roofing, painting, and tiling are just standard or average priced, the builder may also request to add it to the contract as a separate add on cost so that the structure can be presentable. The special owner supplied furnishings can be easily added later on.

New waterproofing admix compound brand

Has anyone noticed the difficulty of sourcing Sahara water proofing compound? Some hardware stores don’t even distribute it anymore…

In our search for a good supply of this popular brand, we encounter a different brand instead – which seemed to be posed as a direct competition – even the name itself “Savannah” is in direct parallel with “Sahara”.

The compound is just like Sahara – a white chalk like powder… The packaging says “alkali based” so its probably like a copy of the Sahara yet we cannot dismiss the fact that Savannah is manufactured, if not, distributed by a company we already know – Federal Chemicals – who manufacture, if not, distribute the popular brands we already know – “Fedseal”, “DevCon”, and “WD-40”.

Just like Sahara, you only need to mix 1 package (1 kilogram) for every 40 kilogram bag of cement. Even the pricing at 40 pesos per kilogram is similar to the price of Sahara. As per its packaging, Savannah claims to be recommended for waterproofing of roof decks, rooms, cellars, basements, tanks, reservoirs, pools, conduits, and other structures that require water seepage locking.

As Sahara supply is currently scarce, Savannah might be a good competitor. Let us know your own results using Savannah waterproofing compound.

CCTV monitoring on work site

A few months back we were planning to install CCTV to monitor the work site specifically to check on the workers to see who should be retained and who to let go. Now that we have the equipment and the system to install the CCTV we are now a little hesitant to pursue the installation as we don’t want to put unnecessary pressure on the workers’ trust since people who are being watched do not act their true selves. We were afraid the CCTV runs opposite the concept of workers empowerment. An empowered worker don’t need to be watched. The CCTV is the symbol of the employers’ lack of trust on the workers.

It was a little difficult how to explain the presence of the CCTV to the workers. After a few days of thinking through, a good explanation has come to light. Since the CCTV is directly linked to the internet, we can allow the workers to use this same connection after work hours so they can enjoy the internet at which point the CCTV will lag but nevertheless will come back to life again when they’re all asleep and nobody’s using the connection. While they are asleep the CCTV will watch the site and the materials storage for them.

Now that we have a good segway to introduce the CCTV installation, now we can watch the workers all day without fear of losing their trust. To them, the CCTV came with benefits.

Dr Arcaya affordable house expansion

Dr Arcaya thought they needed to move back to their ancestral home in Lapu-lapu City amid the pandemic since they no longer need to be close to the schools in Cebu City as everyone is going online, thus he decided to renovate the home where he grew up and move there for a change of scene. Since the family is getting bigger, they will need an additional toilet and a bigger kitchen thus he needed to use that extra space at the back of the old house for a new kitchen with a bathroom.

Income is a little low due to the pandemic as he was unable to work in his assignment in Bohol due to the absence of transportation to that area, thus he asked us to help out in his budget and find a way to pursue his house expansion with minimal cost.

We thought a good color combination and correct placement in the expanded area will make his expansion look grand with just minimal cost.

Building permit processing assistance

If you’re processing your building permit for the big cities like Cebu City, Mandaue City, or Lapu-lapu City and you get really difficult hurdles in the different departments in the city hall, even though you thought you have already attached all the necessary documents and your design is already good as per the building code, then know you might have encountered an unnecessary roadblock…

A specific department may require you very unnecessary documentations and will require you to change this or that aspect in the design even though it might already be what’s called an academic moot or unnecessary technicality then you will need to think outside of the box — remember you are dealing with a government employee. In our experience, dealing with big cities, it is where most of the difficult stages in the processing are found.

The best way to deal with that kind of difficulty is to access channels that can speak their language or to contact friends in that department if you have, if you don’t then that’s going to be extra difficult for you…

You will know you’ve been dealt with a difficult hand when you keep coming back for their corrections in the design and supplying the necessary correction or documents and still they wouldn’t let you through…

You will need someone in that department that can help you — someone who can vouch for you. That someone can be an employee in that department or someone in a different department but with higher powers or even a politician if you know one.

In our years of experience, we’ve already made come contacts with people who can help the permit processing…

Having that kind of connection will not only lessen the time needed to process the permit but will also give you an insider that will keep giving updates on the whereabouts of your permit, and you no longer have to keep coming back to that office and be exposed to the sick air we’re having around nowadays…

Let us know if you’ve encountered unnecessary road blocks in your permit processing and we’d be glad to help you out…