Site Mobilization

Getting Organized for the Valencia House Build

With every home build site mobilization is an important staging in planning everything so that the construction can follow smoothly. now that we have designed, agreed to a price and signed a contract with the client outlining the terms and conditions, it is time to actually get down to the house build itself.

For the Valencia house build this meant such things as getting the building permit,  power and water to the site, temporary washroom facilities and a bunkhouse for our crew to sleep in and to store materials.

How to get Building Permit in the Philippines – Procedures

1. Get a Requirements-Checklist and application forms from your municipal’s office (Office of the Building Official). Your architect mostly knows them but you need to get the documents from your municipal’s office since every form bears the municipal’s seal. Your architect and engineers then will be the ones who will fill them up.
2. Go to the Office of the Building Official and submit the papers. They will tell you then where to go next, in this case Assessor’s Office. If you’re in the city hall, they usually have windows where you have to submit each folder of each set of forms. But in the provinces, each section are usually close to each other if not on the same unit.
3. You will be issued Acknowledgement Slip which bears the date of the status of your application. It’s usually around 10 working days.
If your application is approved and in compliant with the National Building Code, you’ll be given an Order of Payment to pay the necessary building permit fees.
4. Present the Order of Payment at the Treasurer’s Office and pay the fees. Fees range from P6,000 and above depending on the your construction size, municipality location and the assessment plan. Fees in the provinces are usually cheaper than in the cities.
5. Photocopy the OR (Official Receipt) and bring a copy to the Office of the Building Official releasing section.
6. After 5 working days, go back to the releasing section of the Office of the Building Official and claim your building permit.

Temporary Power and Water

To get temporary power , the first stop was the Noreco offices in Dumaguete City where we picked up a list of requirements. One of the requirements was an electrical drawing for our temporary facilities.

To get water immediately, we spoke to one of the neighbors if we could use his water hookup. He agreed and we installed a hose to his exterior line complete with an inline water meter purchased at Polaris which could keep track of our water usage for reimbursement to the neighbor.

Temporary Washroom facilities was provided rudimentary by digging a sewage pit, pouring a small slab with a hole and sitting a cheap toilet fixture over the top. To provide privacy, a small native bamboo enclosure was built around the toilet.

A small bunk house was then built in one corner of the lot, again using basic native bamboo and coco lumber building materials with a nipa roof. Our thinking behind building an on site bunk house was that it was preferred that our men stay on site full time to both provide security for tools , equipment and material as well as to cut down on absenteeism of our work force.

Site mobilization now complete, we next move on to site development and layout.