04-16-2009, 02:40 PM
This has all been worked out a 1000 years ago and it's still done everywhere else in the world in the tropical zone but here, as here, most people hire their building done and profit motive is a bigger factor than sensible living.
Your first principles:
Figure earthquakes, termites, volcanoes, and hurricanes.
Why build expensive houses? Especially if they're going to get eaten, shaken, burnt, or blown down? Unless you're building out of ceramics and titanium, there's your reality. I guess one can live in a cockroach infested steel bunker, but why? It all matters.
So, you build for minimal expense and maximum utility during the lifetime of the structure, which is probably 30 years. You could build out of treated bamboo, like most places, or timber, on post and pier, or whatever, but you want the maximum level of quality of life out of the least expense. That's the ticket.
If its built by people that know how to build such things, it's very comfortable indeed. The disclaimer is IF. A California style structure is going to need a lot of help. This doesn't mean it won't work. It just means it will cost a lot(more).
Is it a big deal if your house happened to be shaken, burnt, or blown down? Not really, it took 3 weeks to build the first house. If built intelligently you had a fine standard of living without bugs, or AC, or any of the rest of that. You'll live 3 weeks in a hotel or a tent while the guys put your place back up. You'll salvage the durables out of the one that fell down and build the second.
Anyway, one perspective. You can grow the lumber for a house here faster than you can feed the house to termites. No worries!
Your first principles:
Figure earthquakes, termites, volcanoes, and hurricanes.
Why build expensive houses? Especially if they're going to get eaten, shaken, burnt, or blown down? Unless you're building out of ceramics and titanium, there's your reality. I guess one can live in a cockroach infested steel bunker, but why? It all matters.
So, you build for minimal expense and maximum utility during the lifetime of the structure, which is probably 30 years. You could build out of treated bamboo, like most places, or timber, on post and pier, or whatever, but you want the maximum level of quality of life out of the least expense. That's the ticket.
If its built by people that know how to build such things, it's very comfortable indeed. The disclaimer is IF. A California style structure is going to need a lot of help. This doesn't mean it won't work. It just means it will cost a lot(more).
Is it a big deal if your house happened to be shaken, burnt, or blown down? Not really, it took 3 weeks to build the first house. If built intelligently you had a fine standard of living without bugs, or AC, or any of the rest of that. You'll live 3 weeks in a hotel or a tent while the guys put your place back up. You'll salvage the durables out of the one that fell down and build the second.
Anyway, one perspective. You can grow the lumber for a house here faster than you can feed the house to termites. No worries!