I lived in Volcán for four years as I was building my place here.
The construction standards in Panama are extremely stringent. Not
everybody follows them, so the responsibility lies on the person to work
with a good builder. I have built four houses in my life, and on all of
them, I oversaw the entire construction process.
In general, Panama has better building techniques than most of the
United States. This is because most of what is done in the United
States, especially in the Southwest, is what they call stick. This means
2x4 boards with foam and stucco sprayed on from the outside, which are
aesthetically pleasing, goes up very quick, and are very well insulated,
but not a real formable structure. In some walls that I’ve seen, you
can certainly drive your car through them easily, or even punch your
hand through some of them, especially if it’s drywall.
Most construction here in Panama is built with a thin wall with a
22-gauge metal. We call it the C-channel which is similar to metal studs
but are much thicker than what we use in the States. In the States, we
use metal studs, and put on gypsum or drywall. We had this in the
United States in the late 20’s.
It’s dry cement, not stucco, has no lime, and they put it on with a
trowel and polish it, usually on top of cinder blocks. They’re what you
and I would call regular slump blocks, depending on where you lived in
the United States. It’s like a regular slump block, cinder block, etc.
Here in Panama, they use a high-density foam that comes in two, three,
and four inches with a metal grate on both sides. They take the cement
and then apply it with a trowel or shoot it in under pressure, a process
that you and I would call “shotcrete” or gunite.
Not everyone in Panama does this as this is certainly just one of the
options available. You can have something built here with steel and
cement and find that these are commodities that cost the same everywhere
in the world. The price that I would pay for a sack of cement in my
little town here in Chiriquí is very similar to what you’ll pay for in
Phoenix, Arizona or anywhere else.
When the Chinese were building the dams on the Yellow River, cement
and steel prices were astronomically high because that increased
worldwide demand, and now those constructions have stopped.
The variable in the building costs in Panama is the cost of labor.
Here in Panama, a person working with cement, electrical, plumbing, or
something of that nature, is probably going to charge $25 - $45 per day.
In the United States, they would charge that per hour. You’re going to
pay the same for your materials but the labor will cost much less in
Panama. The quality depends on who you’re working with, how much you
know about what you want done, and your contractor. It runs the gamut
from “excellent, great value” to “unacceptable.” I’ve seen it on all
levels.
The house that I built here in Finca Cazador is made of solid, poured
concrete with 18-inch thick walls and has 1-inch rebar welded. I built a
bunker because that’s what I wanted but most people wouldn’t do that.
Looking back on it, it probably isn’t necessary.
Bottom line is if you have a good contractor, your construction can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, and for less than what you would expect.