Thread: Concrete Piles into Water

all sorts

Ruby fish love them, Tilapia, any free swimmers that feed from the surface

Originally Posted by Wasp

Necron99 ..... sorry I can't email directly yet ..... but your friend who built in the middle of her pond ---- she isn't somewhere near Korat is she ? That would be interesting to see . Thanks .

No, but I'll see if i can find a pic.

All she did was excavate the pond and build a normal stilt house...

so

DRAIN THE POND

and all will be easy

then refill after building

Sadly it's too expansive to be called a pond even though it's only 3 feet deep . It's a lake . We have a section of it but it's vast in surface area so the subtle advise to drain the pond won't apply here . But many thanks .

now you tell me!

OK try driven piles, or the cantilever method, which would look better

make sure the load is calculated fairly exactly for the latter

I don't know that I would trust a local Somchai to do the cantilever, they usually can't build a house without pillars every three and a half meters...

if you give them a nice drawing, then they can follow it - supervised!

A cantilever is just not possible . No room (Well maybe two foot . Enough to rest the edge on but not enough to be doing cantilever . ) So driven piles it is . Will 2.5 metres between each one be a reasonable enough gap ? . I've decided to go 10 metres by 10 metres .

Originally Posted by Wasp

Will 2.5 metres between each one be a reasonable enough gap ? . I've decided to go 10 metres by 10 metres .

2.5 meters should be ok. You could go wider depending on the load.
A rough drawing of the floor plan and overhang would help you get better advice here.

Originally Posted by Wasp

A cantilever is just not possible . No room (Well maybe two foot . Enough to rest the edge on but not enough to be doing cantilever . ) So driven piles it is . Will 2.5 metres between each one be a reasonable enough gap ? . I've decided to go 10 metres by 10 metres .

don't ask that here! get someone who is familiar with the soil in your area to help, someone who may know something about loading and piles

we have a house built in a pond near us that has started to lean over and will eventually fall

Will do . Thank you.

Early in my enquiry you told me to read the thread about Dr.Andy's wooden house in the pond . Which I've begun tonight . It's excellent .

Sorry ..... that should be Dr. Andy's Wooden Cottage in the Ricefield .

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Originally Posted by Mid

Originally Posted by Wasp

And assuming we have 3 feet of water how far into the mud do I need to get the piles driven ?

until they stop sinking

It a funny sort of way you are correct. the term is called refusal

piles should be driven to refusal or to a certain load bearing capacity (engineer will give you that number based on a few variables)

your answer is of course the right one

I know this is an old post and I wonder if anyone is still reading it .....
I also am wondering if there's any issue with humidity from the pond being right under the house. At first this seemed like a good idea to me and then I wondered about the humidity thing. Anyone ?????

we had a wooden deck quite close to the water (about 30cm) and it rotted after 5 years

I think with a bigger gap and some ventilation there should be no problem...oh, and maybe treat the wood with anti-rot

Just use Azobé wood, this is what we use in the Netherlands for anything standing in the sea and it will never rot. The only problem is, it doesn't grow in Asia.

Lophira alata - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

if the pond can be drained,do that,dig down to get out of the sludge then put in some reinforced concrete pads on the bottom about 1-1.5m square 8" thick and come up out of the water with your cast concrete legs,put a ring around the top to join the whole house footing together and it wont go anywhere,build your wooden house on top

sorry if the pond is too big you could dam up around where you want to build if its only a few feet deep with soil/clay pump it out build then dig out the soil again when your done

or if you own part of the pond just dump soil or stone in there to make your plot bigger

what was the outcome of your small plot over water?

Sorry . I've not been around to read the comments as I was dealing with somebody rather young passing away in the UK . To answer : What became of this situation ? Well .... while I was away some road diversion started near the property . And just like Irish labourers two of the guys offered to bring truckloads of soil , sand , stones and fill. 550 Baht a truckload .... delivered and dropped . Which seemed good . So I ordered 20 truckloads to see how much that is . Haven't paid yet and they haven't started delivering yet . But soon . ( They took a lot of orders !! )

..any chance of a photo's, before during & after ?

Wasp, take a copy of Norton's picture of the wood house on the water and show it to several builders and see what they say. If you have a Thai lady, then let her do all the talking and looking.

Building a wood house over the water is not something new to the Thais and I would think there should be plenty of builders able to do this. If your Thai family is not afraid of ghosts, see about buying an older wood house in the village and use that wood for your new house. Plenty of examples on this site such as Dr Andy's house in the country.

Stay out of sight as much as possible until the house is built and do not expect western standards. It is much less expensive that way and will suit your Thai family fine.

You folks really are very helpful . Rickschoppers - I'll do exactly as you recommend . And Dead Metal ..... yes . I'll get photos of the build before and after . But I think it will be a while . My wife owns a sixth of this land . It's a very big piece of land with most of it flooded to maybe 3 feet but the grandfather has only recently died and now is the time to divide the land in a fair way . Nobody else has the money to pay for a survey .But me of course . And no matter how fair we try to be we expect squabbling .

Even delivering the soil will be a problem as some will doubtless say wherever we drop it we are making a claim . So we'll start around the existing structure . The first truckloads will be costing 11 000 and that structure is probably worth 2 000 !!!!

The whole thing has become an interesting issue because it used to be just another piece of basically rubbish land on the outer edge of a busy area ~~ but suddenly in 5 years there has been an explosion of development and their land has been surrounded by developments . ANYBODY looking to build more would want this land first . The food market is in view from here . Song Taows stop outside . They could sell it for many millions . But did you ever see " Local Hero " ? It's like that . They don't want to sell because they are perfectly happy there . They don't want to sit counting their money in some desolate spot 4 miles away . Good for them I think .