Thread: Building a house in Suratthani province

I have read a lot of the building threads, and many of them is really ironical and funny.

We bought a land with 2 chanote divided by a little road 10 years ago. The main plot is about 1 rai, and the other plot is about 160m2 that was reduced by the ocean erotion

When we bought the land it was a sandy beach, but the local goverment decided to build a seawall there 6-7 years ago. So we lost the sandy beach that was there, but got back the land the ocean had taken.

The main plot was planned and filled up so it could be built something there in the future.

Now we have started the building process.
I'm going to use worst practice.
We are not living in Thailand, and will not be there during the build process.

I told my wife how I wanted it, and she called her brother so he could get it drawn and fix the paperwork.

So we havn't even seen the drawings
It's 3 rooms teakhouse in front, and in the back its 2 bathrooms and a kitchen.

So let the process start
Hopefully I'll get some pictures during the buildprocess.
I cross my fingers that BIL has done the important stuff like picking the right day for starting the build.

Originally Posted by 6kon

So let the process start
Hopefully I'll get some pictures during the buildprocess.
I cross my fingers that BIL has done the important stuff like picking the right day for starting the build.

Not going to be here during the building? You MUST have photos - No if's and's or but's. Good luck 6kon!

Best of luck to you , have you got grey hair ? , if not you will have very soon ,

Hopefully, you will make some visits during construction. If not, the house will be built to your brother's satisfaction, not yours.

Good luck !


Steve

..not so much hair left to get gray

Actually it a prefabricated wooden house that we extend on backside with concrete building with bathrooms and kitchens.

We have a house that the family built for us 16 years ago at the farm my wife came from about 40 min drive from this new land. Its not a fancy house. My only demand was to have a normal toilet and shower .

This time I demand a toilet that doesn't have holes that snakes can come in as a cobra hijacked my toilet in the old house when I was following my youngest daughter to the toilet once.

After that experience I always looks twice before I enter toilets in Thailand.




6kon

Originally Posted by 6kon

Now we have started the building process.

Good stuff. Another building thread starting. Well done for starting off the thread 6Kon.

Originally Posted by 6kon

I'm going to use worst practice. We are not living in Thailand, and will not be there during the build process.

This gets better and better .

We did exactly the same when we built our place in Thailand last year. So far it's still standing.

Originally Posted by 6kon

I told my wife how I wanted it, and she called her brother so he could get it drawn and fix the paperwork. So we havn't even seen the drawings

Ah, a very hands-off approach. You are a brave man.

Originally Posted by 6kon

Hopefully I'll get some pictures during the buildprocess.

Indeed.

Joking apart, the best advice I can offer to anyone who will be overseas when they build a house is to buy an iPad or some other tablet with a decent 3G connection for whoever is running the construction. Get yourself something similar and then you can have them send photos each day, and video call you when they have questions. You can also sketch stuff out, photograph it and email it over which saves on explaining to the wife who then gets confused and explains to the BIL who double guesses what the wife is trying to say and does the wrong thing (this happened to me a lot..)

In the great scheme of things the cost of being connected is minor compared with the overall build costs, and will probably save you money in not having to redo things the way you want them to be done at a later date.

My biggest frustration when building our place was not getting regular updates, then finding out about two weeks after the event that things had been done differently from how I wanted them.

The other bit of advice is to know when to stop. You really need to be there to choose things like floor tiles, paint, fixtures and fittings etc. We got out place to a very basic lock-up and leave state (roof, walls, windows and doors) then reckoned we would finish it off when we got out here - or at least that's the plan, we've been here four months now and it's still a bit of a construction site...

Good luck with the build, I look forward to seeing more of it as things progress.

Originally Posted by snakeeyes

Best of luck to you , have you got grey hair ? , if not you will have very soon ,

I believe so....
A personally unsupervised house build is a chance.
Especially when family is involved.


Good luck to him anyway....

Actually its not as bad as it sounds

My BIL has been visiting us a couple of times and helped us with house renovation by western standards.
He built a house for another sister that is a very nice house with a swimmingpool..
He like to do things proper, and not like somechai's fast solutions with workarounds to hide mistakes


I'm going to get some pictures from my niece later in the process.



6kon

Originally Posted by 6kon

We are not living in Thailand, and will not be there during the build process.

That's the only way; everything will work out just fine; what could possibly go wrong?

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Originally Posted by 6kon

We are not living in Thailand, and will not be there during the build process.

That's the only way; everything will work out just fine; what could possibly go wrong?

Yep

One big problem is hat I'll not be there when the important blessing of the build take place.....


6kon

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Originally Posted by 6kon

We are not living in Thailand, and will not be there during the build process.

That's the only way; everything will work out just fine; what could possibly go wrong?

Guess they'll find out when they get in...

Hope this thread has a continuing story * play-by-play, sort to speak...

I do not see the beach on your photos ?

Originally Posted by stickmansucks

I do not see the beach on your photos ?

Fixed the links
Thanks

6kon

Good luck mate. We bought the SIL a decent phone and we have picked up many problems from the pics she sends.

Found a picture to give an idea of how the house hopefully will look like.
The house in front will similar to this one:





And hopefully not like this one:




6kon

We decided to go for a prefab woodhouse adding some toilet and kitchen in June.

My BIL told them what we wanted, and they made a drawing to get approved by the land office. So in July they started building the house.

The land was filled and prepared some years ago.
BIL fix poles that house would stand on, and sth to keep the termites away.

The prefab part was finished last week. This week they should transport the house and put it on the poles.

There was one placeon the road there was some trees that needed to be taken care of so the house could get past it.

It was so tricky that my wife had to find a solution.....
She called a magician so he could send his good vibes and spells to fix it

Monday the house came on place, and now they have started to mount the rest of the house.


6kon

Originally Posted by 6kon

I'm going to use worst practice.

A great start to a building thread!

Good luck 6kon, keep the thread updated.

I have still not seen a picture of the build process.
But my MIL says the house looks very nice.

I might get some pics next week, if my niece takes a trip from Koh Samui to the mainland. I'm really looking forward to see some pics It's like when I was young waiting for the packets on xmas, hoping to get what I wished


MIL told that the house had been used as a fruit collector under the transport
It had picked up some papaya when passing a tree.

6kon

Some local food picked up at the land:

The area have had some serious erosion before we bought the land.




When we bought the land it was build a road as a seawall. It had this road when we bought the land:


Later the government decided to build a bigger seawall:




6kon

When we started the process. The house building company would have 30% for contract signing and the rest when finished.

My BIL is managing the project, and take care of the financial transactions.
The house builder company use a little more time on the finishing than they expected. Big surprise

They asked BIL if we could pay part of the rest 70%, but BIL said he wanted to follow the contract.

Finally I'm getting some pictures
I havn't seen this before today. So its as fresh for me as it is for you:




I was told it was prefab, but looks like most of it gets put together on the build site. I'm happy that its not blue roof at least


6kon

The build from another angle:


I guess the powerline is borrowed from the neighbour.
If the house gets finnished sometime, I hope to set up a sala at the beachside of the road.

As this it not a royal palace I guess the total size of the house is less than koman's bedroom

6kon

A picture from inside:





Looks like the use standard safety shoes



6kon