Amazing Dowel House

Wood dowel construction.

We were surveying land in Indang, Cavite in 1993 and we stayed there for 5 days. Indang was an amazing town, still rustic at the time we were there, with some houses dating back to the Japanese occupation. We enjoyed visiting lots of pineapple plantation where very old huts and wooden houses still stood, some of them built even in  Spanish times. I marveled at them.

We stayed in this old house, actually a two-level cabin, supposedly built during the Spanish occupation. The ground floor was of stone, the second floor of wood. The wood construction was fascinating. Everything was of dowel construction--no nails were used. Pretty much like tongue and groove construction. My engineer companion, owner of the ancestral house, told me to check for nailed joints, if I could see one. So I did.

I was so amazed! I didn't see any. It was my first time to see a house constructed without nails. Carpenters of old were experts at it, my engineer friend told me. The coming of the nail technology only made houses inferior, he added. I guess metal and wood don't mix well. They can only do temporarily, and sometimes with damaging effects eventually.

Dowel construction is an ingenious way of putting together construction members by means of dowels or wood pegs into holes in lieu of nails or screws. For instance, a hole is bored into member A. Member B is equipped with a dowel which is inserted into the hole made on member A. The fit must be accurate--not too loose, not too tight. The dowel is gradually inserted into the hole by gentle hammering, preferably with a rubber cushioned hammer head.

The cabin we stayed in was built near the end of the Spanish regime in the Philippines, almost during the American Period, but the house still stands firm. Even the window and door jambs, and the windows and doors themselves, were done using dowel construction. It was a shame that digital cameras were not yet around to take pictures of them.

Recently, I asked how the house was, and it's been dilapidated, one of the owners said. They might demolish everything and sell the property. I sighed deeply. I'm going to miss that house. I remember how it was awesome seeing its joints and frame members connected together by dowels. I never tired of looking at them.

Well, of course, the wood used then were sturdy and solid woods from mature timber. As I ran my fingers on the smooth wood surface, they felt like solid concrete. You can hardly make a dent or mark by scratching even with a sharp metal tool. It's near impossible to do the same construction quality now-a-days, my engineer friend opined. But I sure would like to own a mountain cabin made using dowel construction.

Later, I also saw furniture made on the spot without nails. Also jambs and doors and windows. Only dowels and tongues and grooves were used. It's fascinating to see carpenters use manual labor to make accurate dowels and holes to fit them in. No electric drills or anything like that.

Construction using welding is also good, so is the use of nails and screws, but I'd rather have my house done with the wood dowel system--if I had the money for it. There's a touch of mystery and history about houses of dowels, old or new.