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Thread: Budget Building

  1. #126
    Member Mike Hunt Hurts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nigelandjan View Post
    All very interesting MHH but I thought this was about a cheapy building thread ,, really you could have done your own building thread with that lot

    It is a cheapy building thread, believe me! (This lot was done on a shoestring) No it is not a shoe box by any means, but you can get some pretty good bargains if you look around.

    I do not want to live in an 8 x 4 house made from cheap concrete shit just to save a few Baht, all of the wood here could be torn down and resold for more than I paid - concrete is a waste of money, no one can reuse it and no one wants it!

    (27 of those huge mothers of trees were bought for 250K - (about 3K GBP at the time) 12 were used for supports the rest were chopped up for floorboards.)

    The most expensive thing was the damn roof, a huge mistake!

    If you take the roof out of the picture, the materials, apart from the concrete can be sold and reused, I didn't spend more than 700K for all of the wood in this. I could sell the wood tomorrow for more than 3 million (depending on the police)

    500K for a concrete shoebox is not cheap - it is a waste of money, cannot be sold, cannot be reused and will only end up as landfill or rubble. Bargains are where you can keep the value or sell the bits.

    Thais do not want second hand concrete houses, you may as well throw your money down the drain.

    I only posted this so that anyone thinking of building a new place might at least spend an hour or so and see what you can do with some old wood rather than going and throwing your money down some pit where you cannot get anything back on it.

    If you don't like it, don't read it! Simple as that. If someone makes a better decision and it saves them a few bob in the long run then I am glad to help.

    And the people spouting on about "Cheap" houses - I can tell you for a fact - I could get bigger, and better built up here for 150K!

    And would you believe it, there is not a single aircon unit in the entire place! The wood stays pretty cool so all you need is a reasonable fan - it does however get freezing in the winter.

    It is a haven for lizards which in turn eat all the mossies, and then the cats eat them. If I want to make sure it isn't sold off, I can tie a rope around one of the huge beams and hang myself, as Thais hate anything to do with death and ghosts, I guess an Anusawari Kam Gnoh!

    Seriously though, if you are thinking of building here, even on a small scale - go with wood! You can always sell it - I was told by a good friend (Thai Joiner) that a 4metre teak tree about 3 foot around (old wood) will sell for 40K in BKK!!!!

    You can also make friends with lots of Thais too - they love wood - I often get them visiting and they end up getting pissed and hugging the trees as they beliveve there are spirits inside of them, they only do this when they are pissed out of their heads for some reason. (and only before darkness)

    When they are sober, these big trees deter them as they FEAR the tree spirits - let me just say - I don't get Thai visitors at night time! (I had one Thai guy turn up one night, a proffesor from Mae Jo university - he got steaming drunk and hugged a tree whilst crying like a baby - kind of embarrasing really - his father in law was the chief of police.

    I planted about 600 teak trees, around the place which now must be 40 foot high, the wifes friends often ask - "How can you stay there with those trees full of ghosts in your house and all of those ghost trees around your home?"

    I think it must be something to do with that ghost the Thais fear (The one I'd love to meet) Pee Kanon - she hides behind trees in the dark and then comes out and fucks you to death.....the ammount of time I have wandered aimlessly amongst my lovely trees but she never appears. (I even take off my shorts but she seems not to be interested) I hang around the bigger trees and shout BOO! Fuck Me Bitch! - nothing seems to work. I must admit that I do worry about enticing that other nasty piece of work Pee Sua, the ghost with a head and dripping entrails - looks like the wifes mother - doesn't fuck you in the main sense of the word - she just eats you!
    Last edited by Mike Hunt Hurts; 03-05-2012 at 12:28 AM.

  2. #127
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    The most expensive thing was the damn roof, a huge mistake!
    What was your mistake regarding the roof, have you any pictures of it?

  3. #128
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    If you don't like it, don't read it!
    Thanks for the advice , but I can make my own mind up about what I want to read etc .

    I wasn't criticising what you had posted , merely pointing out it was worthy of its own thread .

    However having ( mistakenly ) read your last load of self opinionated twaddle I have changed my mind .
    I'm proud of my 38" waist , also proud I have never done drugs

  4. #129
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    ^

    Come on ladies, behave yourselves ! We don't like catty tantrums here.

  5. #130
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    Budget builds have risks though. We just had twenty truck loads of fill delivered and we got a price 50 baht less than the last time. Trucks were full, good dirt, but then the tractor guy, included in the delivery price showed up. My better half said right away that he was not "a hundred percent" so we had to follow him around telling him where to pick up dirt and where to push it, and to protect the house and other things. He rarely looked behind him when backing up and almost tipped into the pond at one point. At the end of day, we had covered up the septic tanks with dirt by hand with only the blue PVC clean out sticking out. Tractor guy forgets where they were and backs right over it, caving in the lid. Swearing time. Got it all reworked this morning, but that tractor driver had to be the lowest bidder for the trucking contractor. Next time we are going to make sure we get a good tractor operator.
    You Make Your Own Luck

  6. #131
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    ^ Good advice TL

  7. #132
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    Quote Originally Posted by nigelandjan View Post
    ^ Good advice TL
    Thanks Nigel..... Like I said in an earlier post, had I known what building in Thailand was like, I would never have engaged. We were just plain lucky to get a good crew to build our place. Our luck ran out on some of the sub-contractors though!

    For any of you folks reading this thread, make sure you have a VALID reason to build such as wanting something that is not available. There are so many houses and complete resorts for sale right now that you can save yourself a ton of grief and money by buying something already done rather than throwing the dice on a build.

  8. #133
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    Agree with Thailazer, budget building your own house can be stressful ( to say the least ) having a cool head and finding a good crew of builders is the key.Coffeecorner has replaced his builder because of their quote and replaced them with a crew that is half the price......Has he made the right choice ? ( I think so as the quote was so high for his small build )........will the new crew that a friend has recommended be up to the job?.....As Thailazer has said is sometimes like throwing a dice. Lets hope Coffeecorner gets a 5 or a 6 and not a 1 or a 2 .

  9. #134
    Member Mike Hunt Hurts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    The most expensive thing was the damn roof, a huge mistake!
    What was your mistake regarding the roof, have you any pictures of it?
    Two main mistakes - The Ayara roof tiles are way too expensive, I could have built a small home for the price of the roof tiles alone. (As I said earlier - I was conned into using them by the guy that designed the place as he told me that once the plans had been passed, the roof could not be changed - turned out he had a friend high up at the company that makes the tiles - he was arranging for Ayara to come out and take a photo for their advertising - he was sacked before this could happen as he fucked up my floors - shimming uneven boards with matchsticks and slivers of wood!

    The second mistake was using wood for the roof laths, normally you use steel for these tiles and they are supplied with special self cutting screws that cut into the metal - they however do not self cut into wood - there are three screws per tile so they are pretty solid once fitted.

    The guys fitting the tiles had never ever fitted these tiles into wood so we had quite a few problems here. The screws come with two small butterfly ends on the tips of the screws which simply would not drive into wood.

    We tried various different screws but in the end, me and the wife had to sit all day clipping the butterfly ends off the screws with a pair of pliers! What a pain in the arse. Also, the wood laths are not as straight nor as true as steel, so the odd screw misses the lath.

    Another annoyance was the guy fitting the roof employed about 15 Burmese labourers who were not that bright.

    They carried all of the roof tiles onto the wood laths and stacked them and then disappeared overnight - we then had the normal rain adn windstorms as Chiang Mai does in the hot season and about 100 tiles were blown off the roof and blown about 100 metres from the house - pretty deadly trying to walk around on a windy day.

    You could do it a lot cheaper using a standard tile - they are however not as secure as many of the normal roof tiles are only pinned about 1 out of 6 tiles. The Ayara has three pins per tile.

  10. #135
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    but most Thai builders get lorry loads of earth, pile it up and level it, then build the concrete on top of it, they do not dig down or put in piles.
    not in my experience

  11. #136
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    reckon the whole village could shit here for 10 years and it would never fill up....notice the architects little cheat...no concrete on the bottom....oh how he lied to the planning people. They wanted turd / piss resistant bottom layers so that those blokes in the shit sucking wagon could come around and charge 250 Baht to suck up our poop! Well fuck them - they have been done over!
    maybe you should have considerd the more advanced concept of the septic tank

    never needs emptying anyway

  12. #137
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    MHH... some great info. My experience to date has been that Thais do indeed want to simply add earth, leave for one rainy season and then simply add a concrete pad on top.

    The engineer who designed our retaining wall doesn't consider compaction as necessary either... Given we are going with piles all the way down beyond the in-fill and into firm material, he is probably right. However, that will be extremely deep and I am not convinced that the material below the in-fill will be that firm anyway (this is right beside a river, so I assume what is down there is just 1,000s of years of river silt). Your method might be the better option... huge footings around each post.

    Now I just need to figure out how to source the wood... anyone got a few decent old village wooden houses for sale near Uthai Thani?

    Septic tanks... In Norway we used to just have several layers of sand that acts as natural filtration. The various layers plus natural bacteria filtration resulted in potable water... of course it only works if you have a large enough plot of land.

    On the pain of building in Thailand... I find it just as painful here in Australia. There is a mining boom so all the decent contractors are up on site and it is mostly just the crap left... even on a simple back yard renovation, I have had nothing but pain, with shoddy work, having to constantly look over contractors' shoulders, etc... I don't think it is that different any more... only a few of the contractors I engaged here actually took any pride in their work and most instead just wanted to get paid and get away with the least amount of work/time as possible.

  13. #138
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phrakhanong
    My experience to date has been that Thais do indeed want to simply add earth, leave for one rainy season and then simply add a concrete pad on top.
    makes you wonder why they sell those preformed columns

    must be for something else

  14. #139
    Member Mike Hunt Hurts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrAndy View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Phrakhanong
    My experience to date has been that Thais do indeed want to simply add earth, leave for one rainy season and then simply add a concrete pad on top.
    makes you wonder why they sell those preformed columns

    must be for something else
    If like me you live in an area that is prone to flooding then you would understand what I am on about.

    People around here tend to live on the flood plain, where the local roads are 5 metres above their ground level.

    Most of them have held land here for years for rice planting or other farming, then they decide to build a house on it.

    In order to avoid being flooded, they begin by shipping in lorry loads of earth that they usually pile up about 1- 2m above the surrounding flood plain. They then leave this for a few months to "settle" Then they get the precast poles, it has nothing to do with pre cast concrete, it is the fact that they try to raise the ground level by 1-2 m and expect the forces of nature to compact their soil to a suitable manner to built on - then they wonder why the houses crack!

    They build the pre formed columns on the fresh uncompacted earth!

    Any decent building would not use pre formed columns anyway - they would build them on site.

    Ask yourself how big are the average preformed posts, then ask yourself how high is a typical Thai house - You will probably be able to work it out from this that preformed posts are probably less than a half metre into the ground.

    Most houses built around here use shuttering and cast the columns on site. (and if you have ever bought any preformed posts here and had an opportunity to crack one - you will find the rebar they use is usually thinner than a coathanger!)
    Last edited by Mike Hunt Hurts; 03-05-2012 at 07:24 PM.

  15. #140
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    They build the pre formed columns on the fresh uncompacted earth!
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    Most houses built around here use shuttering and cast the columns on site
    I mentiond the columns as a pointer towards the fact that the houses would not be built directly onto the dumped earth

    and, as you say, most houses use their own home made columns; these would normally be much longer than any new earth and also have "feet" at their bases

    hopefully, these columns would rest on old very compacted earth

    if not, get another builder!
    I have reported your post

  16. #141
    Member Mike Hunt Hurts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrAndy View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    They build the pre formed columns on the fresh uncompacted earth!
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    Most houses built around here use shuttering and cast the columns on site
    I mentiond the columns as a pointer towards the fact that the houses would not be built directly onto the dumped earth

    and, as you say, most houses use their own home made columns; these would normally be much longer than any new earth and also have "feet" at their bases

    hopefully, these columns would rest on old very compacted earth

    if not, get another builder!
    Usually the pre fab columns have a pad at the base rather than the "on site jobbies" I don't believe that the uprights are the main problem here, it is the beams that they cast directly on top of fresh laid soil (the beams that run laterally between the uprights) that has had a rainy season to compact that causes the cracks. (I cannot understand - and not just Thais - a lot of Farangs think the same - that the soil that they pile into these constructions will be magically compacted if left alone for a year!!!)

    It doesn't matter if they put the uprights into the ground as far as the earths core, but if they simply cast the base beams along soft ground then something will give and as I said in an earlier post - there is plenty evidence in my village to prove it.

    Wooden houses seem to fair much better, they bend and twist to a certain degree, these cheap concrete jobs just cannot flex enough. It is like building a tree house on a growing tree....it will distort.

    Have you ever seen Thais build a house of any size with pre cast columns? not me. Have you ever seen a Thai builder bring in earth as a filler and roll it with a road roller every two or three inches to compact it? Not me.
    Last edited by Mike Hunt Hurts; 03-05-2012 at 08:17 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    I don't believe that the uprights are the main problem here, it is the beams that they cast directly on top of fresh laid soil
    if you examine any concrete structure with columns and beams, you may notice that the beams are tied onto the columns, so that it is the columns sunk into the ground that support the beams, not the earth

    that can sink as much as it likes, the beams will remain strong and the house will remain square (unless the columns are badly laid)

  18. #143
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    Have you ever seen Thais build a house of any size with pre cast columns? not me.

    not recently although I did demolish one a couple of years ag

    Have you ever seen a Thai builder bring in earth as a filler and roll it with a road roller every two or three inches to compact it? Not me.
    no,why would they want to?

  19. #144
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrAndy View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    I don't believe that the uprights are the main problem here, it is the beams that they cast directly on top of fresh laid soil
    if you examine any concrete structure with columns and beams, you may notice that the beams are tied onto the columns, so that it is the columns sunk into the ground that support the beams, not the earth

    that can sink as much as it likes, the beams will remain strong and the house will remain square (unless the columns are badly laid)
    I agree... with the column and beam style structures (which seems to be the traditional method dating back beyond my days) the beams at base level, first level, etc are all attached to the columns. The issue then is tied to the depth and footing of columns.

    However, looking at some of the newer styled houses, including those built with the newer light-weight blocks (super block or something similar? I forgot the name) they don't necessarily use the column and beam method at all, but instead simply lay a concrete pad (with footings around the areas that will carry the weight of brick walls) and then simply lay the blocks and then render over the top. In that scenario, it is just a concrete pad with minor footings, built on uncompacted earth.

    I suspect Thais think cracking is just normal.

    I am still thinking wood is the way to go out in the country and I really like MHH's extra large footings for each column. I've now decided that is the way I will go.

    How much would the wood cost if I tried to acquire it "legally"? Or is that not even an option? How do most villagers acquire their wood?

  20. #145
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phrakhanong
    I am still thinking wood is the way to go out in the country
    It's the only way. As it has been mentioned timber from a house has a resale value, concrete and blocks do not.

    Secondly if your life goes tits up you can dismantle and re erect on a second plot of land.

  21. #146
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phrakhanong View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by DrAndy View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Hunt Hurts
    I don't believe that the uprights are the main problem here, it is the beams that they cast directly on top of fresh laid soil
    if you examine any concrete structure with columns and beams, you may notice that the beams are tied onto the columns, so that it is the columns sunk into the ground that support the beams, not the earth

    that can sink as much as it likes, the beams will remain strong and the house will remain square (unless the columns are badly laid)
    I agree... with the column and beam style structures (which seems to be the traditional method dating back beyond my days) the beams at base level, first level, etc are all attached to the columns. The issue then is tied to the depth and footing of columns.

    However, looking at some of the newer styled houses, including those built with the newer light-weight blocks (super block or something similar? I forgot the name) they don't necessarily use the column and beam method at all, but instead simply lay a concrete pad (with footings around the areas that will carry the weight of brick walls) and then simply lay the blocks and then render over the top. In that scenario, it is just a concrete pad with minor footings, built on uncompacted earth.

    I suspect Thais think cracking is just normal.

    I am still thinking wood is the way to go out in the country and I really like MHH's extra large footings for each column. I've now decided that is the way I will go.

    How much would the wood cost if I tried to acquire it "legally"? Or is that not even an option? How do most villagers acquire their wood?

    Floating slabs are fine if done properly.

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    he is saying they are not, as they are laid directly on uncompacted earth

    once again, the footings should be laid onto compacted earth otherwise you may get some differential movement

    many houses in the UK are built that way, in areas where the ground is suitable, but many others need more appropriate foundations

    as for cracking, that is often seen in the infill walls and is not important (except cosmetically) but not seen in the basic structure of columns and beams (except of maybe the render)

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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Phrakhanong
    I am still thinking wood is the way to go out in the country
    It's the only way. As it has been mentioned timber from a house has a resale value, concrete and blocks do not.

    Secondly if your life goes tits up you can dismantle and re erect on a second plot of land.

    Not all of us have to do that - I am content to leave behind what I have spent, because I will only spend what I am prepared to leave behind.

  24. #149
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    Quote Originally Posted by coffeecorner View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Phrakhanong
    I am still thinking wood is the way to go out in the country
    It's the only way. As it has been mentioned timber from a house has a resale value, concrete and blocks do not.

    Secondly if your life goes tits up you can dismantle and re erect on a second plot of land.

    Not all of us have to do that - I am content to leave behind what I have spent, because I will only spend what I am prepared to leave behind.
    Coffeecorner.... Certainly wise what you are saying, and that is what makes a budget build a good thing. I disagree with the other posters saying wood being the only way to get your money back though, as a well designed concrete house in a good location has good resale value. Getting a nice house in concrete is a lot easier than doing it in wood.

  25. #150
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    Quote Originally Posted by thailazer
    as a well designed concrete house in a good location has good resale value
    I bow to your obvious superior experience regarding the Thai real estate market.

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