Isabela House (Construction Log 5) Drilling For Water
No mains water? No problem. Just drill for it. It’s amazing when you realise how many properties in this country rely on underground water supplies. All you need is to drill a deep water well. I say all you need but the reality is that it takes a lot of strength to manually drill these deep water wells. First a small pipe is inserted into the ground with a sharpened metal end. This is gradually driven into the ground. Then a T bar is screwed on top and the turning begins. A pump is connected to the top to push water from the surface down into the hole to soften the ground underneath. So the water left from the recent monsoon rain was not wasted. Instead the men dug channels across the construction site so it would collect in a small pond right by the drilling location.
Once construction has been completed there will be an electric pump to draw water into a raised storage tank which will supply both properties. But given the prevalence of brown-outs maybe it would be a good idea to retain a hand pump also.
Today was also the first time we had met the engineer assigned to our project. He brought with him various blueprints, technical drawings and the building permit application forms. Multiple copies of each document required a signature. These together with copies of the community tax certificate and the barangay clearance letters the engineer later delivered to City Hall.
