Day 25, 26 & 27

The remaining thatch.

Workers removing the netting and the last of the thatch.

Close up view of the final level of the main roof.

View from the garage.

View from the other side of the roof.

No more thatch left, just the bamboo rafters.

View from the skylight looking out towards te east side of the property.

View of the roundabout and part of the garage and the stairs leading to the house.

Looking out in to the 2nd property, southside.

View of the north portion of the property.

More of the north portion.

Close up of the skylight, the black specks are leftovers of the rat poop. We have since vacuumed it up from the outside. Finally, they are no more, and so with the rats. *FINGERS CROSSED*

The dome skylight with the rubber matting protecting the stainless steel housing the compression ring.

View of the driveway, north side.

View from inside the house after all the thatch  has been removed, and the skylight vacuumed and wiped clean.

View from the roundabout.

Tarp covering the remaining open portion of the roof. With the skylight covered, the inside is no longer as bright. Adding the skylight sure makes a whole lot of difference with the lighting inside the house. 

Day 24

This is taken from inside the house.

It is getting up there. Now clearing up the 3rd level.

More of the same on the other side of the house.

1st layer cement on the 3rd level.

The cementing continues.

Two workers clearing up the 3rd level, removing the remaining bamboo rafters and vacuuming all the debris left from the thatch.

All 3rd level thatch completely removed. They also continue to put in the remaining tarp backing and wire mesh/rebar.

Day 23 & 24

Now opening up the third level of the main roof.

Setting up the bamboo scaffolding.

A view from the garage.

Now enjoying his new perch on the roof, trying to get internet connection from up there.

View from the garage.

On day 24 the weather was gloomy and wet, we decided to give our workers  break. We thought the low pressure area (LPA) causing the wet weather was going to continue throughout the day. It didn't. So we had an early weekend out of it. 

Day 22 & 23

This is about 2/3 of the way around the 2nd level of the main roof.

One of our workers helping out with the plasterin.

This is the finished 2/3 portion.

This is the final 1/3 of the 2nd level, they are laying on the 2 layer of wire mesh.

This is taken from the other side.

Day 21 & 22

Here is a portion of the old thatch with bamboo rafters an the tarp covered bamboo posts with the wire mesh and rebar.

Workers laying the wire mesh and rebar.

Second level on the roof with the 1st layer of cement on the farthest and with the 2nd layer of cement forefront of picture.

We kept the bamboo posts to provide support for the ferrocement roof.

This is how our roof looks like today. The workers are all in the back portion of the house, as seen on the pictures above. 

Because we are like our own contractors for this project, we find out the we always have to go to town to get supplies like cement, rebar, tie-wires, etc. Fortunately diesel prices or all gas prices have gone down considerably that it does not hurt to be driving up and down the mountain almost everyday. This also gives us the chance to check on our email, post in our blog, etc. So all is good!

We also realize that we do need to keep reminding the workers how to do things, and to make sure the follow our instructions. Sometimes they would give their own suggestions or opinions based on how they do things around here, but because they have never worked on ferrocement, they had to be convinced of what works. We insisted they measure the proportion of cement to sand and to slowly add in enough water to make a crumble mix, but as usual, they preferred a more "wet" mix. Well, for almost vertical areas the wet mix will not work. They realized this when the mix fell. So now they are convinced that a drier mix will hold more. As contractors and foremen of our own project, we do have to make sure they follow our instructions to the "T". 

Day 20

Workers now opening up the second level of the main roof. Behind the house, our mason is finishing up the 1st level cement. 

On the second level, in the back, we will be putting one window for our future 2nd floor loft, which will also add to the ventilation of the roof.

The rains continue to pour in the evenings and we have not seen any puddle in our patio and inside the house. The roof seem to be doing well.

Our mason tested the roof by hammering on it and the cement did not budge or crack. :)

What a blessing...

Before we began our roof project we made the intention of finding the right mason for the job. We needed someone familiar with ferrocement, and most of the people we talked to have not even heard of ferrocemen. We refused to look for someone living far away, instead we asked our worker to look for someone in the nearby area above us. As he went out to catch a motorcycle to go up, he happened upon a guy who was just waiting at the shed whose brother was a mason. So he took our worker up to meet the guy. We thought it sure was a blessing.

We met and talked with the guy, he did know of ferrocement because they had recently made a ferrocement water tank and biogas courtesy of Gawad Kalinga, a local non-profit organiozation helping people with housing and livelihood projects. So we were just ecstatic that here was a guy who knew about ferrocement and living only 1-2kms above us.

But, this was not the blessing I am referring to. When we talked to the guy we were still trying to find  source for our wire mesh. It took us a week or so to finally find a warehouse for everything construction related. We then contacted the guy to tell him we were ready for him. But then he backed out saying he already had work.

We were deflated a bit but were still hopeful. Thankfully, he recommended  a neighbor-co worker up there for the job. The new guy came and we talked with him about the job. Turns out he knew more about ferrocement, and was more talkative and easy going. It sure was a blessing in disguise that it turned out this way. Our mason is very good, works well with our 4 workers, and he knows how to delegate the work to make sure things are efficient.

So, it is truly a blessing that there are people near us that we can employ and do good work.

Also, we get good deals on freshly slaughtered pigs from our workers. No need to go to the grocery or wet market for that. Maybe next time we can get chickens.  We used to get fresh eggs nearby too but they closed due to the chickens laying lesser and lesser eggs each time. Hopefully, they will start up again soon.

Day 18

Today we will most likely finish the 1st level of the main roof. Once this has been completely finished, meaning smoothened, the next level will be a lot quicker because the area gets smaller as we get to the top.

This week we have had 3 nights of rain, the first one was quite strong. Because we were still working on the level connecting the patio to the roof some parts of our patio got wet, it even went inside our house. Around 3am we woke up to see puddle flowing in the middle of the house. Fortunately, the way the water flowed it simply stayed in the middle. At least our floor got cleaned.

Last night's rain was not strong but for some reason we saw small puddles at 3 places close to the wall. We just can't figure out where the water came from, the wall felt dry. We will have to keep an eye on this to see where it came from.

Anyway, the work seems to be going smoothly. For lunch today we will be sharing a treat from Jollibee(our localMcDonald's), bucket of chicken, spaghetti, ice cream and drinks, which we won from a  lottery. Just a little sharing of abundance.

Day 16 & 17

 Above is where the 1st level and 2nd level of the patio roof connects. We left about a foot extra of the wire mesh to connect with the next level.

Our mason working on the 1st layer of cement and wire mesh, he is lifting up the 2nd level of wire mesh and rebar to get to the first layer.

A close up of the plastering work.

View from our garage

 Second level patio roof connecting to the first level.

A close up of the thickness of the ferrocement. We made the thickness to about 1 3/4 inch on the bottom, it will get less thick as we go up to the top level.

Day 15

Our mason putting in the second layer of cement on the curved part of the roof.

Here's the close up of the first layer cement, next 3 layers of wire mesh with rebar, and the second layer of cement.

Here is connection from the patio roof and the main roof.