We offer a complete package from
design to permits/paperwork to construction and interior design.
Three Easy Steps:
Step 1)
Most important is COMMUNICATION. It's YOUR house so please tell us all
about your plans/wishes; location to build, when, how many storey, rooms,
floor area, budget-range etc. so we can give you the best (FREE-) advice.
Step 2)
We inspect your lot;
a. verify location and orientation of your house with the morning sun
(this effects design)
b. verify soil and neighbor-buildings
c. verify local government or subdivision's regulations/restrictions
d. verify logistics/accessibility
e. verify availability of building-materials and manpower
f. verify source of electricity/water
g. make pictures
h. make a short report of our findings
i. make a budgetary quote and recommendations
Step 3)
Just select from the following examples the features you like from any of
the pictures and we mix it with your UNIQUE design that will fit your LOT,
WISHES and BUDGET:
http://www.sibonga.com/philippine_house_pictures.htm
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In case you want to install a complete kitchen we can leave the kitchen
out temporary until you arrive here in the Philippines to select one.
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Afraid of 'overpricing'? You want to know EXACT how many steel bars and
sack of cement is used?
The solution is our 'Design-Supervision Package'; you pay a fixed amount
(a percentage of the estimated total cost) to us to design- and
manage/supervise your project. We design the house and we arrange all the
paperwork, materials and labor BUT you are the one to pay those (not to
us) during the construction. You don't have to be available all the time;
you receive receipts for all materials and labor that have to be payed.
This 'Design-Supervision package' quarantees also that the project will be
finished within the agreed time-frame.
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What is the cost of building a house in the Philippines?
It is wise to look around for the best- and most affordable contractor but
remember that the more you squeeze your budget the more you lose on
quality.
Some future-house-owners have to be educated too in the sense that they
are sometimes not realistic in expecting super-service and quality while
hiring the cheapest contractor...
You can probably force a (desperate-) contractor to go very low in price
but do you realy think you are the winner..? Think again, he will use some
tricks to keep his cost down to still make a profit and your house will
look fine - for a short while only...so you will 'pay the price' lateron.
We advise anyone who realy wants to build a simple home and spend as
little as possible for that to look for a non-licensed contractor (without
office, no contract, not able to communicate by E-mail) because LICENSED
contractors will most likely refuse to do the job for you.
The reason is simple; when you force a contractor to build a home in the
cheapest way possible and with the cheapest materials then you definitely
will experience problems within 1 year after building. And then the
contractor is to blaim while the home-owner got exactly what he paid
for...
To avoid this, licensed contractors refuse to build cheap inferior homes
to avoid losing their good name and license.
The following prices are from LICENSED contractors; they keep up 'a
certain level of quality'; if you want cheaper then you have to hire a
non-licensed contractor.
The cost to build your house or commercial building depends on the exact
location (city or province or island?), total floor area (make the house
2x bigger and the price will become 2x higher), the
logistics/accessibility (is it possible to use a truck to bring the
materials or do they have to be carried?), regulations/restrictions of the
local government or subdivision ('they all have their own rules'),
soil-type, site preparation (maybe backfill or retaining-wall?)
neighbor-buildings (fire-wall?), availability of local skilled labor,
source of electricity/water etc. plus you have to select what construction
methods have to be used (hollow blocks or other) and what level of
finishing you want (low-cost, average or high-class).
But to give some guidance:
A 100 sq mt (10m X 10m) one-level middle-class house near Metro Manila,
Cebu or Davao will cost very very roughly on average between Php 1.6M and
Php 2M.
This is mostly including: building-materials (doors, windows, roof,
kitchen, paint, tiles etc.), labor, electrical/plumbing, equipment, tools,
professional fees (management, supervision etc.), mobilization,
demobilization, temporary facilities, transportation, waste-disposal, blue
prints, bonds, insurances and other incidentals to complete the work.
Not including (this is mostly seperately priced-) are for example
furniture, fixtures (chandelier, bathtub etc.), appliances (aircon,
refrigerator etc.), landscaping, fence/gate, pool.
Your blue prints and construction-contract will contain all final details.
If you want a contractor to build far from the big cities than expect
higher avarage costs; for the same example maybe between Php 2M and Php
2.5M.
Make the house 2x bigger and the price will be very roughly 2x higher.
You want solar panels? Vaulted ceilings? Insulation (two sheets glass)
Windows? Ceramic Roof Tiles? Decorative stones on outside walls? Higher
quality kichen and bathroom? Then you pay more.
A 100 sq mt one-level high-end, first class home might cost between Php
2.3M and Php 2.7M
Be Aware: if you want to build far away from the big cities then a local
contractor can offer a lower cost estimate BUT they build with the
old-style hollow blocks (PLUS local workers mostly just do not have the
skills that 'city-laborers' have) while contractors who are located near
the city will mostly be exposed to more projects and therefore have more
experience and can offer better construction-methods. (but you pay
more...)
Also take notice that ONLY Manila and Cebu have all the building-materials
available that you need; outside those cities you have no choice other
than to buy some materials in Cebu or Manila (higher cost).
HARDWARE STORES IN THE PROVINCES OFFER LIMITED QUALITY BUILDING MATERIALS
AND ARE EXPENSIVE BECAUSE OF SCARCE SUPPLY.
In Boracay for example you might pay dubbel for cement...
TIP: A more realistic approach to determining the cost to build a house in
the Philippines might be to simply work backwards. Start by determining
how much you can afford to spend, then be realistic about the size of the
house you need (every square meter counts!) and finally, decide what you
can afford to build.
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Payment
Option 1: expect to pay 30% to 50% of the contract-amount CASH at contract
signing.
The rest by 'progress billing' which means you pay every month as long as
the construction is going on (about 5 months).
It is wise to buy ALL building materials at the start of construction; not
every month little-by-little because prices will not likely go down PLUS
you get a nice discount at the hardware store for buying in bulk.
Option 2: (only if you own a titled lot) 'Inhouse Financing'; pay 50% of
the contract-amount CASH at contract signing; minimum Php 1M.
The rest over a period of maximum 5 years with approx. 1% interest per
month.
Option 3: get a loan at any bank to finance the lot and/or construction.
To build apartments, subdivision, condominium or hotel etc.
(only if you own a titled lot) If you have a strong business plan with a
strong exit strategy (you finished the feasibility- and market study) then
we can discuss a Joint Venture or/and Funding.
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Hollow Block Construction
More than 50 Mistakes that can be made - and the Solution for those
In Philippines Construction probably 99% of all residential- and
commercial buildings are made with hollow blocks. You only need sand and
gravel from the nearest river, cement from the nearest factory and steel
bars from the nearest hardware store. Ample available and thus the obvious
choice to use for building.
First they form the columns (posts) by pouring concrete (sand + cement +
gravel + water) between forms (mostly made out of plywood) where steel
bars (reinforcement or 'rebar') are placed. When the concrete is dry
enough, the forms are removed and what is left are 'steel-reinforced'
concrete columns that can carry the next floors and the roof.
Note that the walls do not carry anything but their own (heavy) weight.
Between the columns they build up the walls out of hollow bricks by simply
stacking- and glueing them together with mortar (sand + cement + water)
and again reinforce with steel bars.
Note that the walls do not carry the next floor or the roof! The columns
do that.
Building with hollow blocks is still the most affordable way of
construction here and since they use it also for 20-storey buildings it
have to be a good option obviously...but make sure that not only the
contractor is experienced; the construction-workers are the one who do the
work and that's where most problems occur.
Most hollow blocks are made literally in someones backyard as a family
business where they have a few wooden forms in which they pour concrete to
dry in the sun.
They should use a certain minimum amount of cement (expensive) to make a
strong hollow block...
Then why is it that when you drop a hollow block on the floor it breaks in
many pieces?
Are they using enough cement?
We have ways to make sure the hollow blocks are of better quality.
Hollow block walls have steel reinforcement bars inside; but the wall is
still 'as strong as the weakest link', which is the hollow block, which is
mostly 300 Pound per Square Inch.
So make sure the blocks are of good quality.
Any hollow block wall is 'victim of its own weight'; outside walls have to
be 6 inch thick (according to the Philippine Building Code) often
resulting in cracks at the window-corners when the workers do not exactly
know how to avoid this.
The cracks let raining-water through that might even reach the steel bars
in the wall and that means Rust.
The wall can maybe resist pressure but not uneven tension which occurs
because of the high total weight plus weak hollow blocks between strong
reinforced steel concrete.
Plastering or Rendering
Look around you here at the buildings; mostly the outside walls have
cracks in the plaster; it almost seems normal.
Walls that are made with hollow blocks have to be covered with a seperate
layer of a cement-sand mix (rendering or plaster) without steel bar
reinforcement; it easily peels of or cracks when not enough cement is
used. The cracks let raining-water through that might even reach the steel
bars in the wall and that means Rust.
But even if they use the correct amount of cement, there are more problems
that are not easy to control when the construction-crew is not educated;
rapid evaporation, uneven shrinkage and lack of knowledge are only a few
of those.
Rapid Evaporation: when the water from the concrete-mix evaporates too
fast during the process of setting (hardening), it results in uneven
shrinkage which gives cracks.
So the workers have to keep the complete wall surface wet to avoid quick
evaporation BUT that's a lot of work...
The thicker the layer of plaster, the bigger the difference in evaporation
(the outside part of the plaster loses water first) and the more chance of
developing cracks.
Labor is relatively cheap here which is maybe the reason why not many
Philippine contractors focus on improving construction technologies.
Plaster is labor-intensive and time-consuming, even redundant and
unnecesary when you see the next technologies; you don't need hollow
blocks nor plaster.
But for those who still prefer the hollow blocks; we identified more than
50 mistakes (and the solution for those-) that can be made. For example
the mistake that workers add water to a concrete-mix that became dry while
they have their lunch...not knowing that the chemicals in concrete have
done their work and adding water doesn't change anything; it has lost its
strength.
Our skilled workers are educated to avoid all the above mentioned problems
by means of new insights in structural engineering plus we have the latest
plaster-additives available to avoid cracks.
When building your house you can select cheap doors and windows because
they can be replaced by better quality later BUT do not make the mistake
to select an inferior 'bare structure' because that can not be replaced...
Two Alternative Construction Methods:
1) Panels of Light-Weight Concrete; Insulating
Cost: same or little higher than hollow blocks but Insulated (K-factor
0.2); keeps heat/noise outside, providing comfort and saving on
aircon-bills.
No plaster = No cracks. Two times faster built. Walls hard as granite.
Smooth flat surface.
The weight is only 25% of regular concrete; meaning the foundation does
not have to carry so much weight and column-size can be reduced.
This light-weight building is perfect for steep hills or when there are
soil- or foundation problems.
(Many American companies are using it to build their projects like
callcenter in Cebu/Manila).
We do not sell the panels; we design/build as a complete service since
skilled-experienced labor is necessary.
http://www.sibonga.com/philippines_concrete.htm
2) Solid Concrete Walls
Cost: same or little higher than hollow blocks but 10X stronger walls
(3,000 PSI).
Typhoon and Earthquake resistant.
No plaster = No cracks. Two times faster built.
Columns and walls integrated as one system; walls also carry the next
floor(s) and roof.
Weight is distributed evenly over the ground-floor unlike
hollow-block-construction where the column-footing put pressure on a small
space.
Ongoing reseach shows that walls can be made even thinner which will soon
make this method (much-) cheaper than hollow block construction.
This 'reduced-weight' building system is also perfect for steep hills or
when there are soil- or foundation problems.
The whole idea behind this is that most hollow-block buildings in the
Philippines are at each point very massive and heavy while that is not
always neccesary; look at an egg-shell, it is very strong but very thin...
We are the only contractor who offers this method in the Philippines; in
the USA they use it for many years already in projects like the Trump
Tower etc.
http://www.sibonga.com/cement_hollow_blocks_philippines.htm
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Value
Engineering? What is it?
While other contractors only look at ways to cut cost by using cheaper
materials, we also optimize the FUNCTION of all parts of your construction
project. This is also known as 'Value Engineering'.
We remove unnecessary expenditures and find alternatives.
We do not 'cheapen' your building nor do we 'cut corners'.
We simply use knowledge which other Philippine contractors fail to
recognize due to lack of information, shortage of time, rigid application
of standards, reluctance to seek advice, habitual thinking, failure to
admit ignorance, poor human relations, resistance to change or they make
decisions based on feelings rather than facts.
The biggest savings are made in an EARLY stage of construction; design.
Home-owners and companies who want to build a commercial building tend to
look only (too late-) at the construction- and maintenance stage to save
on cost (materials and labor) but the highest impact on cost are found in
the design-stage.
The philosophy behind this is that when we ask 'HOW' we are only looking
for solutions but when we ask 'WHY' we are also looking for reasons.
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Construction takes on average 3 to 6 months but before that we need about
6 weeks for blue prints and building permit.
Ask for our 'extra service offer'; a laptop with wireless Internet and
camera-connection (WEBCAM) at the construction-site to see for yourself
how we progress.
Be advised that when you want a contractor to bid (quote) for your
project, you need to show the blue prints. This is to avoid comparing
apples with pears; every different design will have a different price.
We hope this general info answered
your questions; if not then please tell us more about your plans/wishes;
location to build, when, how many storey, rooms, floor area, budget-range
etc. so we can give you the best (FREE-) advice.
