Our new roof in the Philippines is halfway done. If our construction crew did not take off this Thursday through Sunday for the Easter Holy Week, the roof would probably have been completed by the end of the week. The pictures posted on this article are the result of only 2 1/2 days of work as the roofers took off early this past Wednesday to return to their home provinces for the long holiday. Any expat that has lived in the Philippines for any amount of time knows that everything virtually shuts down for Holy Week and for Christmas. That’s to be expected in a country where about 84% of the population are Catholic.
That’s my asawa in the background checking out our new roof installation. The crew have started on the backside of the house. We’ve cleared some trees from the main road in order to get a better view of our new house. We are still 300 meters from the road on an elevation and have plenty of privacy. But everyone in the area knows a “kano” and his wife are building on the site and the view of our home looks much better with the landscape in front cleaned up.
I even got into the act and hacked down a couple of very small trees with my wife’s trusty bolo. One of the young men working on our new well spied me and took over the clean-up. I didn’t mind. It was hot that day and I didn’t want to offend the guy by insisting I do the work.
Here’s a look at the outer wall of the well which is almost completed. I have stated before that the well is 66 feet deep. Actually, it’s a little deeper, it’s 22 meters, or 72 feet deep. The crew have done an excellent job on the well and will move on next week to dig a new one for an expat friend of mine. Lots of folks in the areas are having their wells go dry and are depending on water trucks to bring them water so digging a new well is a good investment.
We’re headed off to Iloilo Monday to get our truck repaired. Our construction crew will have a full week of work and our foreman advises me that the plastering, the concrete finish put on the walls, should be done in two weeks. At that time, the laborers will be let go and our foreman’s crew of carpenters will remain to finish the rest of our new home in the Philippines.
Happy Easter to all my Christian friends. Take a break like our crew has and relax. The workers certainly deserve a mini-vacation as they have been working on our new digs since mid-January. And I’m sure my readers could use a break, too. Me? I’m always on vacation and try to do as little as possible. After over five years of living in the Philippines, I’m getting pretty good at that.
Thumbs Up!
Hi Dave roofs looking good I like the colour can’t wait to taste them fish and chips,happy hour looks good from 2 pm
Till 10 pm your a lucky guy,Derek in sunny pasig.
Looks like everything is coming along nicely Dave, am sure you will be glad when its all done and you can move into it.
Even though I said I would stop asking anything technical,its hard to teach an ol dog new tricks. In the 2 pictures of the backside where your wife is standing in them. It may be a visual thing and not really there, but it appears as though the far end, 1/4 or so length of the roof, they altered the shingle alignment cause they are staggered differently and the pattern dosent seem to line up diagonally as it does everywhere else. I cant tell if there is an offset in the roof so was just wandering is all.
I am also very familiar with the being kept in the dark or out of the loop as you said. Although you have been married far longer than I have to our beautiful wives, mine does the exact same thing, and unless I specifically ask a question about something or someone I rarely ever know whats going on there, I used to get annoyed by it, but in some ways its now a blessing. If I want to know something, I have to be specific as to who or what I want to know about though.
I have been a builder for almost 25 years,so I do notice those kind of things, but usually they happen to me it seems. I thought you might have had an offset in the roof line but could not see it, so figured someone put up a roof panel with the wrong stagger and they just followed the new stagger onward and did not notice it, if the picture had not been shot from the angle you shot it, I doubt I would have noticed it either. Its easy enough to fix, except the panels are already cut to length so they will have to splice all of them to adjust the stagger back in line.
Have a Happy Easter , Dave & Melinda!
Dave,
House is looking good. Hopefully it will be done by the end of May. But you know how things go there. You always have to expect the unexpected.
Hi! May I ask if you have difficulty in transportation in your area? Is it convenient to go around guimaras?