Starting House Construction During the Rainy Season

Our home construction was tackled differently. We thought that the whole house would be demolished and then everything would start from scratch. The construction team treated it differently and demolished parts of the house as they progressed.

After removing the "finishings" (all doors, cabinets, windows, bedroom walls), the team prioritized digging the new foundation. They kept the roof intact so they can work without getting rained in. It was surreal to see a huge part of the house removed.

At street level, you wouldn't actually know that the house was slowly getting demolished. The front door was intact and the debris was kept and picked up from the back. It was a good idea to do this since the movement inside was kept private and it kept the dust going to neighbors to a minimum. 

It's really helpful to work with an experienced team. I was worried at some point about their safety and our architect told me not to worry since they knew which walls to remove. My siblings said seeing the bones of the house reminded them of the time it was still being built (I wasn't born yet at that time). Well, I was able to see (from photos) the structure of the house and it was really surreal. 

Our architect has a video about starting construction during the rainy season. He pointed out some pros and cons. The big plus is the pricing of materials. With lower demand, the prices are more affordable. For us, it helped that a structure was in place and they were able to use the roof while working on the foundation. The new house will be a bit smaller than the old one, so the old foundation will help support the new one. 

Would you start your house construction during the rainy season?

Waterlogged

We finally had a break from constant rains this afternoon. It's been raining everyday for two weeks now and it does a number on you when you don't see the sun shining brightly. The sun peeked this afternoon and it was refreshing. It was short-lived though and it rained again. 

I'm unable to sleep well when it rains, especially when it rains hard. I guess it's PTSD from typhoon Ondoy when I woke up to water rushing in. The past few years I struggled with the issue that the basement in our current home would get flooded. 

Good thing we managed to get help from city hall (Building Official and CENRO) to get it fixed.The flooding was due to the wrong way the contractor of the house beside us did their drainage. It was back-flowing to our backyard. It took two years before the issue was addressed, only resolved when city hall warned the contractor their license would get suspended if they didn't fix it. 

We held our stand and pushed back when the contractor through the HOA wanted to charge to fix the drainage. It wasn't our fault, so we said no. It took them almost two months to fix and it was quite obvious where they went wrong when they dug up the area. The drainage was higher than ours, that's why their sewage would back flow to us. They eventually grudgingly fixed it. 

Our issue is a very small one compared to the countless families affected by the floods the past few days (weeks, months, years...). Our city seems to have been crowned as the most flooded city in the region which is so sad. I hope a solution can be found and done soon. 

Stay safe and dry everyone.

#BeKind #StaySafe

Rain Drenched Garden

It's been raining for 12 straight days now. I've been missing my gardening time. I miss watering my plants one by one. And I miss trimming them when needed. Taking photos of random flowers that bloom. Harvesting bell peppers, tomatoes and papaya. 

It's always a wonder how plants survive non-stop rain, but easily get root rot when you over water them. Everything is so green in the garden now and I'm happy there's still some random flowers blooming despite the rain. 

I'm just afraid there will be a lot of pests again when the rain lets up. I'll just have to be vigilant and make sure they don't multiply like crazy! 

How's your garden doing?

#BeKind #StaySafe

Rainy Gardening Days

It's been raining a lot in the past few days and it's been hard to figure out whether to add water to the plants or not. Our pocket garden looks like a jungle now because the plants had a growth spurt. 

Well, some plants continue to bloom even though it's raining. My new gumamela plants have been blooming every week. The new marigold plants were fine for a few weeks, but it hasn't adjusted well. I need to read up more about caring for marigold plants.

Surprisingly, the kalachuchi (desert rose) continues to bloom. I thought it would somehow hibernate since it prefers sunny days. I guess the chicken manure I added last summer is still providing it vitamins to make more flowers. The bonsai ones though are healthy but not flowering. 

I'm still amazed by the caladiums that just grew suddenly. We moved some empty pots from Mom's garden and apparently those pots had caladium bulbs in it. They just suddenly grew when it started raining. Not only that, they also grew much bigger than I expected! They are so lovely to look at and I always smile when I see them because it's also called "Heart of Jesus". 

The dark side of the rainy season are seasonal pests. We've been battling caterpillars that have been feasting on our calamansi plants. They had eaten about half of the leaves. The plants luckily bounced back, but the caterpillars keep coming back even though I've been spraying Neem oil mixture twice a week. What has helped is watering the soil with hydrogen peroxide which helps kill larvae. Oh well, we'll just need to be more vigilant.

When the weather clears, we'll also trim the plants. The grow spurt has been exponential with just a week of continuous rain. At least our rain drums are always full. It helps us keep the plants hydrated especially during water interruptions. 

How's your garden doing?

#BeKind #StaySafe

Our Door Keeps Expanding, Should We Change It?

My childhood home's front door is about 56 years old by now. It's older than me and has stood the test of time. I think it helped that Mom had aluminum doors added to protect it. The aluminum door also served as a way to leave the main door open to let air in or to easily let visitors in when there was a gathering at home. 

Not our front door :)

My standard for doors is high because of that door and I don't recall Mom changing any of our doors since I was born. I was brought up to believe that things should last. Anyway, our front door has been giving us trouble. We had it changed two years ago because we'd have trouble opening/closing it during the rainy season.

Our contractor back then said that the door probably wasn't treated well when it was made that's why it expands when the weather is cold. Well, the door they got for us has the same problem and is even worse. I haven't been able to open or close it. 

We did some research and were advised that steel doors are actually better. Further research told us that fiberglass doors are even better. They don't rot or rust and they're not affected by weather. Ahhh, just that... they're expensive! 

Oh well, huwag nalang, magastos!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Waterlogged

Too. Much. Rain.

The forecast today says there's going to be more rain. It's been a stressful week since the mishap with the duhat tree and electrical post in our neighborhood. I got rained on a bit yesterday and haven't been feeling well. I had to postpone pulmo rehab to next week so I could rest.

Our cats are not so happy either. We put out new boxes with fluffy rugs to keep the warm. They are also sad they can't run around too much. I'll probably spray their toys with catnip to boost their energy.

I hope it's one of those forecasts that would miraculously go the other way. Stay dry and keep safe everyone!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Flood Proofing Your Home

We were really surprised a few weeks ago when it flooded on our street. It was the first time it happened. What surprised us more was water gathered on our side garden. 

That happened because the water in the drain got stuck because the street was flooded. Not a good sign for us even if our house is higher than the street. We didn't realize it could still flood in our house if the drains are clogged.

DOST-PAGASA announced that La Nina can bring more than usual rain. The flooding due to the typhoon happened just before the La Nina advisory was announced. I did some research to find out what's the best recourse for our issue.

The easiest way to prevent water from coming inside our basement is to keep the water out with sandbags. I ordered some bags online and then we bought sand at the hardware. One long bag requires 3 small bags of sand. 

I read you have to put the sandbag at your door to prevent water from coming in. We put the bag at the door nearest the drain. It's the door that's always been problematic for us. (Water used to leak in from the wall. We resolved this by adding a canopy.)

We're keeping the sandbag there until after the rainy season. At least we can sleep well at night and not worry about unexpected flooding. 

#BeKind #StaySafe

Typhoon Aghon

Our first typhoon finally came, Typhoon Aghon. I think it's quite rare not to have typhoons in the first few months of the year. I didn't notice we haven't had a typhoon in the past few months. Last year there were only 17 typhoons in the country. Normally there's more than 20, so it's been really unusual. That's also probably why summer has been terribly hot. 

Pikachu

It's been raining non-stop since yesterday. My plants are fully soaked. It's been a nice kind of rain in our area, but other areas have had it bad with flooding. I saw on the news that there are areas where trees have fallen. I hope everyone will be safe since the typhoon is still hanging around until Wednesday. 

Our cats have chosen to stay dry by our front door. We were surprised most of them were hanging out together there. Poor Mando was left alone in the laundry area by her siblings. She was calling us to come out and play with her from the kitchen window. We indulged her, of course, and was surprised she allowed us to pet her. Soon enough her siblings visited her and she quieted down. 

My favorite weatherman (meteorologist), Ariel Rojas, said the hot weather may come back after the typhoon leaves. Ugh. It's not rainy season yet since DOST-PAGASA hasn't checked off all the indicators. I hope the typhoons this year will be gentler. Just enough to water the plants and re-fill the dams. 

Stay safe and don't forget to pray!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Preparing for the Rainy Season

It finally rained a lot yesterday. The rain that poured the past week wasn't enough to water the plants. Only the top leaves got wet, so I was happy it finally rained for real yesterday. I expect the plants would look healthier today. The rain provides them additional vitamins and they like rain water better than Maynilad water. 

One pain we had for a long time was water would come in through the sliding door. We had sealant placed a couple of times, but water kept coming in. It was annoying since we've had to check for water when it rains hard in the middle of the night. After careful observation we realized that the sliding doors needed to be protected with a canopy. 

So after almost three years we had a ready-made canopy installed. Since we had the floors replaced, the floor area of the sliding door was also adjusted. The tile was removed and the cement was applied. It's now a bit slanted to allow water to roll down. This will also help prevent water from coming in, although the canopy should do the trick. 

The canopy also helped cool down our family room since it's tinted. It's pretty cool in the family room already, but we can now do away with curtains. This means we can see the cats whenever they roam around. We also don't need to worry about rain anymore.

I think this will be the last upgrade we'll do for the house for the meantime. We'll focus on organizing it so we can have visitors. We're delayed once again since we all got sick and we're still recovering. We'll have to schedule the house to be cleaned and disinfected, then have the display cabinets returned. Hopefully next week when we're feeling much better. 

#BeKind #StaySafe