Building a Log home in the Philippines?

[Lolo-Steve]

FYI I still have not found time to take the class but I am a firm believer in the BNP method of building a Log Home. I have a small patch of land in a county in North East Texas where I DO NOT have to worry about building permits as there are no country permits needed to build. Only two small towns have building departments that require permits.
I have a Girlfriend in the Philippines whose family are very poor but have land and I had hoped to take the class build a few small two bedroom houses here for resale and then go to the Philippines to build a house using the methods I have learned. Of course I want to build my own house here too
Now I know that Skip (the original owner of the Log Home Builders Association) had lived in the Philippines before he passed away but did he build any log homes while he lived there?
In my trips to the Philippines in the past I noticed that most small homes built in the country were made of concrete blocks (blocks that were so brittle that they break at an alarming rate). The ideal is that building with wood is not a good ideal as the Philippines has a lot of termites and the houses get infested. To me this does not really make all that much sense as Log homes are being build in Africa and Australia which can have even more termites than the Philippines.
So.. does anyone know about log homes being built in the Philippines? What types of local trees would be suitable for homes there? Any special building methods (only those that can be answered without giving away LHBA trade secrets of course) to help keep the termites away?
I have looked online but I am not finding too many things on Log Homes in the Philippines other than those built by the US military before WWII.
Thanks for any ideals or information you might have on this.

Lolo-Steve

[Yuhjn]

No Skip did not buld log homes in the Phillipines. He built a big concrete building. The problem is you cant get good logs there and you cant build with palm trees (They are not actually trees, they are part of the grass family and will rot as soon as you cut them down).
Log construction was Skip's choice because it can be done easily and cheeply in the states. When living somewhere else, the rules change.

[Lolo-Steve]

I have seen trees almost 200 feet tall there that were not palms, I am unsure of the name of the trees but I will do a little more homework and post what I find. I know there are pine trees (or pine like trees) lost of hardwoods and I seem to remember a type of walnut??

Perhaps the trees were Skip lived were not of the type needed to build a Log Home but that does not mean that there are not trees suitable in the whole country does it?

[rkissinger]

This may not be applicable, to the Phillipines, as I haven't been there and am not an expert on it. But, I have spent a bunch of time in Thailand and have a house there made of concrete. In Thailand, and I suspect it is also the case in the Phillipines wood is a very valuable commodity, to build an entire house completely out of wood is almost unheard of. If you did happen to get your hands on enough good quality logs to build a house, you would be better off to sell them and build a few concrete houses. The main reason for this in Thailand is because logging is severely restricted, in fact you need a special permit to own a chainsaw, and it is rare that you would be allowed to cut any sizable trees. The Phillipines may be a different story, but I suspect if it were feasible Skip would have built a whole complex of log homes there. Also, I believe most of the species of trees you will find there are very hard wood, (teak and mahogany types) and although extremely beautiful, I don't think they would be very workable for this type of log home. The good news is (at least where I built) building codes were non-existent, and labor was very cheap. Good Luck.

[Steve]

I live on the same island as Skip did, and there are no good home building trees here. The wood the locals use is mostly coconut, which can be very hard, but they treat it with hardcore preservatives to prevent the insects from eating it.

Up in the northern Philippines, they have nice tall trees in the mountainous regions. Most of those are illegal to cut down these days. Back when it was legal, everyone cut all the trees down off the sides of the mountains, then entire villages were wiped out in the mudslides during the rainy season.

But even if you had some of that wood, you'd still need to treat with chemicals to prevent insect damage, plus damage from salt water spray (Skip's house is maybe 15 feet from the ocean). Just not ideal conditions for a log home.

-Steve