The rain has stopped and my workers have resumed work

At last the rain has stopped though there are still clouds hanging above. My workers have resumed work on the ground beam and today they completed the formworks for all the ground beams as well as formwork for the suspended slab. The suspended slab is for the Control Room in the middle of the building. Another bay on suspended slab is behind the Control Room. This slab is dropped 2" as I plan to use this area as a wet area, initially to house the pumps but later on to be converted into a kitchen cum toilet when the empty spaces on the ground floor is turned into residence or workers quarters. Tomorrow, my workers will start to put in the rebars for the ground beam. For the suspended floor slab I will be using steel fabric reinforcement (BRC) to replace rebars.

Today, I received news from my supplier that the price of steel bars has gone down to RM2,100.00 per ton for CQ bars.

The clouds just doesn't want to go away

I have been monitoring the weather in weather.com. The clouds over the East Coast especially Kelantan and Terengganu just doesn't want to go away. After one cloud about to leave another immediately appear. The low-lying areas have started to flood and a few of the main trunk roads are under flood water this afternoon though still passable.. This is the 4th day of continuous rain and my workers cannot work today. Another day wasted. Kuala Terengganu is still in darkness. The reading from my hygrothermometer in my house shows temperature at 26.9 celcius and relative humidity at above 90%.

Received news from my supplier that the steel bar price had dropped to RM2,300.00 (CQ bars) and RM2,600 (BS bars), a drop of almost RM1,000.00. GOOD NEWS for those who just wanted to start to build a birdhouse. Lets forget about the drop in birdnest price as this is influence by the economic cycle. It is not the large numbers of birdhouses that affect the prices. The numbers of birds will increase exponentially no matter how many new houses are being built. However, those who build or buy birdhouses have to be careful because you are sharing a smaller cake and also remember the X factor. I would like to warn those who are buying birdhouses in eco parks. Think twice before making a decision. Swiftlet farming is now an art of attracting the swiftlets to stay in birdhouse and to make as many nests as possible in the shortest possible time and there are so many factors involved and one of the most important is the macro habitat. Let us compare a birdhouse in an eco park and a standalone farm with the nearest farm 1 km away with the same micro habitat and on the same flight path of the swiftlets. The number of swiftlets passing will be the same but the chances of the swiftlets visiting your birdhouse will be different. Similarly with the feeding grounds. Which will the swiftlets prefer ? Feeding ground right in front of their birdhouse or far away? What I am talking here is not about those birdhouses in town which already had an established population and with swiftlets already populating the birdhouses to the brink. Sorry to those eco park developers if I have offended them. But this is reality. Buyers should not blame the developers if they are not getting the desired result later on as the one making the decision are the buyers and they should weigh all the pros and cons before investing in the eco park.

Eco Parks should not be about building rows and row of shophouses for the swiftlets to stay. Eco Parks should be eco-friendly, should be standalone, with suroundings with lots of trees so that swiftlets can search for food and buildings need not be rectangular like shophouses. Buildings show also be as green as possible with lots of hard and soft landscaping features like rocks, pool, fountains, shrubs and creepers. Eco parks should be about sub-dividing lots into at least 1/4 acres and building standalone buildings surrounded by fruit orchards, oil palms or other crops. Mixed farming such as rearing leeches or worms would be ideal. This is my vision and I feel I share the same vision with this blogger who had a farm in Thailand.

It has been raining continuously for the 3rd. day.

Fortunately, today is Friday which is the weekend in Kuala Terengganu. Otherwise it will be another day wasted. The town is really really wet but so far there is no flood yet. The sky continue to be dark. At glance at the weather online at weather.com shows clouds ahead above the Kuala Terengganu sky and tomorrow weather looks bleak.

It 's Rain, Rain and Rain

The rain doesn't seems to go away. It hasbeen raining all day for the 2nd continuous day. The sky had been dark for the last 2 days and you don't see the sun at all. This is typical of the monsoon in the East Coast. If this were to continue for a few days, the low-lying areas are likely to be flooded. This year the heavy rain came rather early. This phenomena used to happen after the Monsoon Cup in December.

My workers had been kept idle for the 2nd day. There are no works on site. A lot could have been done in 2 days. Tomorrow is Friday and a weekend in Kuala Terengganu and most probably the workers will not work come rain or shine. So, another day wasted.

Raining the Whole Day

It was raining the whole day and my workers did not work today. I hope the rain will stop so that my workers can continue with the ground beam tomorrow. In Kuala Terengganu, during the monsoon, when it started raining it wouldn't stop for a few days and it often resulted in floods in the low-lying, areas. It happended at least once a year. Flood in Kuala Terengganu in recent years are not severe compared to other towns in Malaysia. I would say that the residents here are the most fortunate compared to those staying elsewhere because there are hardly any floods.

Ground Beam in Progress - Day 2

My workers continued with fixing the soffit and side formworks for the ground beam and have covered almost half of the building today. After the formworks are in place, the steel reinforcement will be fixed into the formwork before concrete are poured into it. Besides the ground beam, my workers have to construct the ground slab at the same time. The ground slab will be suspended above ground and located in the middle and back middle panels.

Ground Beam in Progress

My workers had started to fix the soffit (papan jalan) for the ground beams. Part of the ground beams will be suspended above ground level and another part will sit on the ground. This is because my site sits in a depression and the ground to accomodate the birdhouse had to be split into 2 levels. My workers had also started making the formworks for the sides of the ground beam.

Site ready for Ground Beam

The backhoe moved in today to level the ground previously excavated to construct the footings. The entire work was completed within half a day and my workers proceeded to set up the the ground beams right away.

In the afternoon received call from Harry's blog readers, Henry Law and H.K.Ting from the Krai Eco Park who are coming to KT to have a look at the birdhouses and accepted their request to take them around. I took them firstly to the swiftlet central area which is in Kg. Cina, Jalan Tok Lam and Jalan Hiliran and then to those along the flight path and show them a few successful and not successful birdhouses. They did 2 bird calls, one at a proposed Eco Park and another just outside my site. They were quite impressed with the result of the bird call at my site.

Column Stumps Completed

My workers had finished concreting all the column stumps today. For column stumps that were concreted on Thursday, the workers had removed the formworks. I will be renting the backhoe again tomorrow to fill up the footings and to level the ground in order to allow the ground beams and ground floor slabs to be constructed.

Friday is a weekend in Kuala Terengganu

Today is a weekend in Kuala Terengganu and there is no work on site. The weather is fairly good as it had stopped raining and then sky is clearing up.

I take the opportunity to read through some of the swiftlet related blogs and one of the blogs that was written in Bahasa Malaysia attracted me. This is what the blogger had to say about bloggers writing about swiftlet farming trying to outdo one another. I had noticed one blogger condemning another calling him names and making accusations. This is what the blogger had to say:

"Dunia walit dunia jutawan, nilai pasaran RM 12 billion setahun amat besar untuk dikongsi bersama.. Janganlah kita menjadi manusia yang terlalu tamak hingga menggangu bisnes orang lain. Takkanlah kita nak rebut semuanya sedangkan ianya anugerah Allah kepada makhluknya rajin berikhtiar dan berusaha. Hentikan segala polimik dan kembali norma untuk meningkatkan potensi dunia walit yang sangat hebat, dimana Allah anugerahkan hanya kepada penduduk nusantara sahaja tidak dunia lain.

Tiada siapa yang berhak mendakwa ilmunya lebih hebat daripada orang lain kerana semuanya milik Allah, manusia cuma mampu berusaha dan berikhtiar sahaja. Walaupun ikhtiar kita betul dari segi kaedah dan caranya, tetapi jangan lupa bahawa rezeki adalah milik Allah yang diberi kepada siapa yang dikehendakinya.

Dalam industri walit belum lagi ditubuhkan suatu badan yang boleh mengiktiraf ilmu seseorang sehingga ianya layak digelar pakar dalam bidang walit. Gelar diri sendiri bolehlah, macam naik lif tekan suiz sendiri. Siapa-siapa pun boleh buat. Buat sebuah rumah burung walit, kemudian burung walit datang bersarang mengangku jadi konsultan atau mendakwa cara dia buat semuanya betul. Jika orang lain buat tak ikut cara dia dianggap salah. Tapi yang dianggap salah tadi pun burung datang bersarang juga. Kadang-kadang apa yang dia buat kali pertama berhasil dan bila buat yang lain tidak menjadi pun. Dimana silapnya, adakah ilmunya salah, tidak! itulah dikatakan rezeki.

Jika anda mempunyai blog tulislah apa yang anda nak tulis, katalah apa yang anda nak kata, dakwalah apa yang anda nak dakwa kerana itu hak anda orang lain tidak boleh mempertikaikannya. Kerana mereka tidak bayar kepada anda."

To read the full post, visit this site.

Heavy Rain Today

There is no activity on site today as it has been raining heavily since last night. There is a possibilty of flood in certain parts of Kuala Terengganu if the rain keeps pouring for the next 24 hours. Water levels of canals and rivers are rising and the town is in darkness with dark clouds hanging above. I am lucky that the footings had been concreted. Otherwise, I would have to wait another week or two to commence excavation as the earth will get soggy and difficult for the backhoe to move in to do the work. This is the time that I can observe to what extent the stream in my site can take the rain water from upstream and how high my low-lying areas will be flooded. The information will help me to decide on the final ground floor finished level. Though I had decided on the level, it still can be adjusted since I had just started on the column stumps.

Concreting Column Stumps

The workers had completed fixing the formworks for the column stumps and had commenced concreting the stumps after checking their alignment. Weather at site was not that fine and was drizzling in the afternoon. The sky is also quite dark. Hopeffully the weather for tomorrow will be fine so that the pace of progress can be kept.

Column Stumps in Progress

After concreting the footings yesterday my workers had started to fix the formworks for the column stumps. The formworks is expected to be in place by tomorrow. My kepala will check the column stumps to make sure they are in alignment with the grids that had been set up as well as at the predetermined level to receive the ground beams . After everything is in order the workers will immediately proceed to concrete the column stumps.

Reinforced Concrete Footing Completed

Today, my workers managed to complete fixing the steel reinforcement for the footings and stumps. The mobile crane arrived as scheduled. My kepala managed to fix the water pump despite the initial hiccups and concreting started slightly late at around 11.00 a.m. Despite the late start, my workers with the cooperation of the crane operator managed to finish concreting all the 16 Nos. of footing by 5.00pm. What a feat and credit must go to the kepala and his gang of workers, altogether 6 of them. The crane rental was RM600 per day which is considered high because it was the rate when the diesel price was at its peak. I hope the government can do something to force the operators to reduce their rental.

After my workers finished concreting the footings at around 5.00pm, I noticed quite a number of swiftlets flying low below the tree tops inside my site and some hovering nearby as if acknowledging that this will be the BH to watch. Before this, the swiftlets used to fly pass above the tree tops.

Excavation Works Started

Today the backhoe moved in to start excavating for the footings. Rental of the backhoe per day is RM400.00. The backhoe managed to complete excavating all the footings, totalling 16 Nos, and sizes ranging from 5' x 5' to 6' x 6'. At the same time my workers started to install the formworks and steel reinforcement for the footing and trying to get the footings ready for concreting tomorrow. Meanwhile, I had booked the mobile crane which will be used to place the concrete. I will be using site-mixed instead of ready-mixed because of space constraint. The mobile crane could not swing the boom outside because of my decision not to cut down trees unneccessarily.

Setting Up

My workers had started setting up the footings in preparation for the excavation yesterday.






















Cement, sand and aggregates had also been delivered to site, ready for concreting. Cement are stored in the store.

Construction Works Had Started

Construction works had started on site. The first think to consider is the temporary electrical supply . While waiting for approval from TNB for the supply to be installed, whether permanently or temporarily, to my site. I have to look for alternative supply. I managed to source from a nearby house which is currently unoccupied. The owner is staying with her daughter in town and only comes home during the Chinese New Year. This is the house that I am getting the temporary supply.

I am trying to get permanent supply for my site so that I don't have to do another application when my birdhouse is completed.

Besides electricity, I need to have water. Since I have constant supply from the stream in my site, what I need to do is to install a pump and water tank to store the water. I will be using a PVC tank and a concrete tank which will be used later as the suction tank for the BH.

I also have to get ready the store for storage of cements and other materials as well as equipments like vibrators and pumps. Also what need to be constructed is the temporaary accomodation especially if your site is far away from town.

After that you have to fix the sight rails which will be used to set up the BH proper.

I also have to order the timber and plywood for the formworks and steel bars for the footings and stumps as well as for the columns and beams. The steel bars had arrived on site and it cost me about RM3,200 per tonne. Before Hari Raya, the price was RM4,2000 per tonne. Luckily, I did not start earlier on as it would have cost me much more to build. My workers had started cutting the steel bars for the footing. I will be mobilising the excavatormin a few days time to carry out the exccavation for the footings. I have also to order sand, aggragates and cement for the RC footing. The concrete mixer is already on standby. However, check has to see whether the machine is in working condition because it has been staying idle for almost 4 months.

More Site Photos

As promised, I will be posting more photos as the construction works progress. The photo below is a view of my site seen from the main trunk road.




Here are more photos of my site taken from inside. Have a look at the site contour. Don't you think it is an interesting site?. If you think so, then keep track of the progress.

My site are surrounded by tall trees and shrubs and sits on a depression. That is why I have to raise my birdhouse so high until 4 1/2 storey. I had identified 2 possible entry points for the swiftlets, both on the swiftlet path, and I had chosen to build my roving room facing one of the entry point, that is the one facing Sungai Terengganau on the west. I have read many SIFUs who advise not to build facing west because the entrance hole is facing sunset. In in my opinion, it is alright as long as the nesting place does not get sunlight. In my case, the roving room is designed in such away that the sunlight are being blocked from entering the nesting place. In fact it is better for the swiftlets as they are entering with their backs facing the sunlight and they are not being disturbed by the glare of the sunlight. this has been proven in my previous construction where the entrance hole also face the west. Here are the photos of the 2 possible entry points into my BH. Entrance hole need not be directly facing the flight path. If there are feeding grounds around like rivers, lakes, oil palm plantations or fruit orchards, you can have the entrance hole facing these attractions. Like in my case, my experience with my 1st. BH, the flight path is on the left of the entrance hole which is facing the river and yet the swiftlets did not find any difficulty flying in. In fact, I have put up a 2nd hole 2' x 4' on the left side of the roving room but the swiftlets still prefer to corner in using the main entrance hole.