"We build a “bahay kubo” bamboo guest house. We’re planning on building our conventional concrete house in early 2010. The plans are just about complete. More on that later. We decided we’d build one of the pretty native houses, a “bahay kubo” as a first step. We selected the above photo of a Panay Island home to guide the local workers as to what we wanted. The photo is from the wonderful book “Folk Architecture”, published by GCF Books, Quezon City, 1989. This book not only has hundred of photos of bahay kubos and other vernacular Philippine architecture but also measured drawings of many of them. Our rationale for building this now is that we can use the building as “barracks” for our workers from Iloilo City while they work on our house. It’s likely that we’ll use the same Iloilo City foreman and key crew members as built our fence. We’d like to give them a little better accommodations than they had for the fence project. They will stay on-site from Monday to Saturday pay day. Saturday evening they take a jeepney into Iloilo City to see their family and give their pay — or most of it — to their family. So they spend five nights per week at the site. Once the house project is complete, the bahay kubo will be used as a very atmospheric guest house. The bahay kubo is 23′ x 12′ including the porch. We decided to build using four concrete corner posts or columns which will extend all the way to the top plate. The columns contain four 10mm rebars which extend above the top of the columns and which will be bent over the top plates to secure the roof strucure from being blown away. The columns will be one part of the structure the termites can’t eat! The rest of the building will be built entirely from bamboo and coco (coconut) lumber. The roof will be of nipa — the thatched leaf of the nipa palm. Construction began on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 with a crew of four on site. Here’s a few photos:" Read More http://myphilippinelife.com/we-build-a-bahay-kubo-bamboo-guest-house/
Nice site that,thanks! He got stung on his nipa roof though..(bad quality) Done properly they can last up to 15 years..
I've had nipa roofs houses in the province (western samar) and must say the ones we've had last about 3 yrs before parts need replacing. It maybe down to the fact in western samar they tend to get quite alot of thyphoon weather.
Yes. some quite good blogs from people settling in the Philippines from the USA. I picked out four but there are others. Each with some good photos. They seem to update it too.
Stu.. Our roof is 5,1/2 years old now and IMO we will be OK for another 8/9 years.. When ordering nipa you really need to tell them you want a good thick piece of bamboo and a minimum length of nipa .. Also,its best to order double nipa leaf.. It cost double but it makes a big difference.. When fitting the nipa tiles its important to space the tiles as close together as possible.. Finally to protect against high winds its vital to stretch a strong nylon fishing net taught over the whole roof.. Either that or as they have done in the picture on that site.. A net is better though.
Good tip about the net. To be honest ours was all homemade by the sisters (we where trying to keep the cost down) and me infact!! I think my bits where the first ones to need replacing
