Resources & Guides
Resources & Guides
Everything we have learned about water, wastewater and pool treatment in the Philippines — written for the people who actually operate these systems. Articles are grouped into three topics so you can go straight to the one you need.
Browse by Topic
Three collections of articles
Water Treatment & SofteningHard water · softeners · filtration media · purification
Why Philippine water causes scale, stains and equipment failure — and what actually fixes it.
- Cebu's Hard Water Problem: What's Really Causing Those White Stains
- How Hard Water Damages Your Washing Machine
- The Hidden Reason Your Water Heater Keeps Breaking Down
- Hard Water and Dry Skin: The Connection Nobody Talks About
- Manila Water Now Uses AFM® Activated Filter Media
Swimming PoolsAlgae · chlorine · clarity · maintenance cost
Thirty articles on why pools go green or cloudy, and how to keep them clear with less chemical.
- My Pool Is Green. What To Do Now?
- The Number 1 Reason Pool Water Becomes Cloudy
- Why Algae Stops Responding to Chlorine and Algaecides
- How Can I Cut Down Pool Maintenance Expenses?
- The Pros and Cons of Saltwater Pools
Wastewater & STP Field NotesSewage treatment · compliance · operations
Notes from designing, building and fixing sewage treatment plants on real Philippine sites. Eighty-three articles and counting — the pick of them is listed in full below.
- Looking for a Reliable Wastewater Treatment Provider in Cebu?
- Four Questions I Would Ask Before Signing for a Sewage Treatment Plant
- What DAO 2021-19 Changed, and Why Our Designs Did Not
- Ammonia and Phosphate Are the Two That Fail
- The Cheaper Quotation Was Not the Cheaper Plant
Wastewater Field Notes
Design, cost and compliance, written up job by job
Building the Plant Is the Easy PartWhy the drawing, not the construction, decides what a plant costs to own.
Our Quotation Was Six PagesHow long a quote should be for the size of the job in front of it.
They Sent Us a Finished DrawingThe six-section answer we send back to a design somebody else has drawn.
A Regulation Dead for Ten YearsThe spec sheet was stricter in two rows and silent on the three that matter.
We Were Not the CheapestReading a competing quotation line by line before deciding what it means.
The Price Came LastHow we quote a water treatment job, and why there are three options and not eight.
The Design Fee Barely MovedFifty-fold difference in plant size, about 1.5 times the fee. Why.
Quoting From a Plant We Never BuiltRe-costing from invoices we had actually paid, and the three scopes we had left out.
Where We Stop Giving It AwayWhat we hand over free, and what starts at the sealed drawing set.
The Drawing Said BOD 300Designing at three wastewater strengths when nobody can source the number.
We Ask for the Influent ResultWhat we do when the one number that sizes the plant does not exist.
Nobody Had a Flow MeterHis water bill had been measuring the flow for eleven years. The arithmetic.
1,485 Milligrams, Called DomesticOne unlisted stream, pre-treated at its own slab and trickled back in.
Three Ways to Price the ConcreteWe build it, the owner builds it, or his contractor builds it under supervision.
Six Tanks, Six Sets of WallsShared cross walls cut the footprint of a six-chamber plant by a third.
How the Tank Gets PouredWhy the pour sequence belongs in a commercial document, stage by stage.
A Partition in a Sealed TankThen we measured the manhole. What can actually be built through a hatch.
The Tank That Treats NothingHow we size equalisation from a building's operating pattern, not a percentage.
No Equalisation Tank At AllWe took the pump out of the first chamber on purpose. What that bought.
Which Screen Were We Supplying?Three separations at the front end, and why we pour them rather than buy them.
It All Has to Go SomewhereThe second output of every plant, and the destinations a drawing should name.
We Stopped Redrawing the ClarifierOne standard underground detail, and the two internals we removed.
The Return Needed No PumpGravity recycle as a site accident, and the upflow number I first got wrong.
Energised Is Not CommissionedWhat goes in the contract about the weeks between those two dates.
Nobody Had Cited Them YetWhat to establish, and what to put in writing, after an inspection.
A Solved Problem Is Not a RiskHow we disclose risk in a quotation without inventing a liability.
He Wanted the Cleanest WaterWhy we design to the end goal and not one stage further.
Reuse the Water For What?The reuse ladder, and what each rung costs to build and to run.
The Same Building, Priced Three WaysThe technology was not what decided it. Here is what did.
Fixed Media or Moving MediaTwo tanks on one site, and the difference we can see but cannot explain.
Fourteen Dead RelaysThe plant had more air than it needed and nowhere for the bacteria to stay.
Ammonia 60, Nitrate UndetectableThe coliform failure turned out to have the same cause as the ammonia failure.
Fixing the Ammonia, Failing the NitrateThe limit-to-limit trap, and the recycle ratio that sets the ceiling.
The pH Was FallingAlkalinity goes weeks before pH moves, and which chemical we actually use.
It Came Up the Floor DrainAn odour complaint that was an air path, not a biology problem.
No Enzymes in the BottleWhy our grease trap conditioner leaves them out, and the culture carries them.
400 Millilitres a DayThe smallest pump we could buy was twenty-two times the dose. What we did.
Would Soft Water Eat His Pipes?The answer was in the pipe schedule, not in the water chemistry.
Enough Capacity, Not Enough FlowA softener is sized twice, and the second constraint fails quietly.
DENR Discharge StandardsReference: the limits under DAO 2016-08 and DAO 2021-19, class by class.
Parameters by IndustryReference: which tests DENR actually holds your sector to.
Free Tools
Calculators and estimators
STP Instant Price EstimatorAn indicative price for a DENR-compliant sewage treatment plant in seconds.
Wastewater Design GeneratorGenerate a treatment process design for your facility.
Pool Volume & Dosage CalculatorPool volume and the correct dose for each chemical.
Wastewater Computation CalculatorFlow and loading computations for treatment sizing.
Service Areas
Explore what we do
Water TreatmentFiltration media, iron removal, softening, refilling stations.
Wastewater TreatmentSewage treatment plant design, build and retrofit.
Wastewater Treatment in CebuSewage treatment plants and service across Cebu and the Visayas.
Commercial Kitchen SofteningTaking the hardness out before it becomes scale and grease trap crust.
Swimming PoolsPool filtration, chemistry and algae control.
Aquaria & AquacultureHatchery, RAS and display tank filtration.
Completed ProjectsOver two hundred systems delivered across the Philippines.
Company ProfileWho we are, what we build, and how to reach us.
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