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We build a “bahay kubo” bamboo guest house
Tags: bahay kubo, bahay kubo Philippines, Bamboo, native house Philippines, Tad tad
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:
The standard Filipino column footer and four 10mm rebar column reinforcement.
This photo shows the location on the lot and the surroundings.
The columns going up. They will be hidden in bamboo cladding.
Day 9 of project, total expense so far $510
Excess rebar coming out of column tops is bent over top plate to try to stop the roof from blowing off in a typhoon. This is standard practice.
The roof will be thatch from the Nipa palm. We paid P360 per 100 panels of thatch.
Nipa thatch being laid. It is tied on to the roof structure with thin nylon rope. We are laying the nipa with a 3" exposure.
The split bamboo floor being laid over the coco lumber joists.
Our bahay kubo will be sheathed in tad tad. Tad tad (which means chop-chop in Tagalog and Ilonggo) is bamboo which is unrolled into a flat panel using a bolo to make many cuts in the bamboo until it lies flat.
Marlo is using his bolo to split open bamboo to form a flat panel
The finished tad tad panel ready to be installed as wall sheathing
Tad tad is supported by a bamboo framework
Mortises are chisled into the bamboo studs
Wall framing. The short studs are for window openings.
More progress
Making Shutters
Installing shutters
Inside the bahay kubo. We project the final cost to be about $1,500 USD.
Sunset light on bahay kubo. Note ”security” light on right. As is traditional, the globe is the bottom of a plastic bottle, in this case a water bottle. Vinegar bottles are also popular. Inside is a 26W compact fluorescent bulb. These lights, as well as lights and outlets inside the bahay kubo, were installed over the weekend by a neighbor who does electrical work. Next steps will be adding a porch railing and bamboo strips to hold down the nipa roof.
It’s been hot and dry lately but the bahay kubo stays cool. The windows set high on the walls and the wide roof overhang keep the sun out of the house during the day, even though there is no trees or shade. The very open breezy site also helps.
The completed bahay kubo. Thirty five days labor and $1,500.00
Interior with Christmas decorations
Happy homeowner!
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Posted by GOIloilo on 11.06.09 2:36PM under Our House Project
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Posted by lady k on 11.07.09 12:14 pm
Hi Bob!
Can I get the 1st reservation on the “bahay kubo”?
Good luck on your exciting adventure of home building,
can’t wait to see the pictures.
Take care both always…lady
Posted by GOIloilo on 11.08.09 10:46 am
OK, you’re #1!
Posted by jim monreal on 11.25.09 12:30 am
Bob,
It’s looking great! You will have the strongest bahay kubo to withstand any flood or typhoon.
This is first class accomodation for the construction crew. Is there any provision for bathroom or cooking facilities once you convert this into a guest house?
This is the place where I would take my everyday afternoon siesta – to just lie down on the bare bamboo floor and enjoy the natural breeze.
Warm regards to you and Carol.
Posted by Citas on 11.26.09 4:43 am
Napping in your bahay kubo sounds very refreshing!
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Posted by Angie on 12.14.09 11:22 pm
Oh! It’s beautiful now. I feel homesick seeing the finish product with the parol hanging on the bahay kubo. The early morning breeze of December … hearing Christmas carols … eating “ibos and paho” sipping native hot chocolate make it a perfect retirement.
It is cold here in Canada -19 C right now in British Columbia … well it is better than -40 C somewhere in Alberta.
Bob Happy Holidays to you and Carol.
Posted by Building our Philippine House – Index at goILOILO.com on 02.15.10 3:07 pm
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Posted by chris & ana snell on 02.21.10 6:33 pm
hi that looks really good bob ,if you had a resort and buit these as guest accomadation i dont think there would be any complaints ,the buety that i find in this is that it is made from natural products (apart from the piers at the corners) the bamboo looks fantastic and the roof even though may not last as long has got to be better than rusty galvanized corogated iron its amazing that the craftsmen still adhere to traditional methods to build ,theysaybamboo is the same strenght as steel if this is the case it is a strong house and looks great wel i think it does anyway ,would also make a good hideout for the boys and a case of san miguel or two
chris
Posted by randy on 03.10.10 9:45 am
someday i want to build also “Bahay Kubo” i really appreciated that house very cool and native.