Thread: Thai Dhupp and Princess Joy's Thai House Build

Originally Posted by Airportwo

Think to the future Thais are virtual noise machines! sound proof and insulate as much as you can, double or triple glazing (no sliding doors or windows!) - there will be noise!
I built a house that backed onto a small Soi in Pattaya, wasn't even paved when we moved in, sold the house 7 years later as the road was just too noisy, development happens fast here, with no planning or thought in most cases!

Let me be the first to add about no zoning rules, no fence limitations or potential businesses that can just start up butted right up against your land coupled with some will actually hang their roof line right at the neighbors wall so the rain flows right into the neighbors yard...I have witnessed it.

I was renting a nice little house in Cha Am about 200 yards from the beach (Some older TD members remember this story). I was really considering buying the place. My wife and I liked the location and we had been moving all over Thailand and renting homes to see what suited us best. One day the guy behind us decided to take up raising chickens. Not 10, not 30, well over a hundred and the wind always blew down from the mountains towards the ocean so that chicken shit smell rifled right through the house. You cannot stop this from happening. We moved out in less than a month.

After all that moving around we decided to build on her land as there were many perks. it was an older mature quiet neighborhood, The street dead ends at our gate Only 2 houses on the street and they do not have cars only scooters so no through traffic the area is extremely quiet. The houses near us are smaller homes with small yards so not likely to have a chicken farm or pig farm.

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

hey have boot add ons with metal rods that fit in the holes in the poles

Hope you bought them a "cherry picker" so they can work safe in the future
They are back in the dark ages in many respects, this isn't a poor country anymore, watching them perform like this you would never guess!
Least you have a unobstructed view now - well done!

Originally Posted by Airportwo

Hope you bought them a "cherry picker" so they can work safe in the future
They are back in the dark ages in many respects, this isn't a poor country anymore, watching them perform like this you would never guess!
Least you have a unobstructed view now - well done!

lol..yeah AP2... we were er...."persistent" and Sometimes thats whats needed...never give up!

It's moved ....exactly as we wanted.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Let me be the first to add about no zoning rules, no fence limitations or potential businesses that can just start up butted right up against your land coupled with some will actually hang their roof line right at the neighbors wall so the rain flows right into the neighbors yard...I have witnessed it.

I was renting a nice little house in Cha Am about 200 yards from the beach (Some older TD members remember this story). I was really considering buying the place. My wife and I liked the location and we had been moving all over Thailand and renting homes to see what suited us best. One day the guy behind us decided to take up raising chickens. Not 10, not 30, well over a hundred and the wind always blew down from the mountains towards the ocean so that chicken shit smell rifled right through the house. You cannot stop this from happening. We moved out in less than a month.

After all that moving around we decided to build on her land as there were many perks. it was an older mature quiet neighborhood, The street dead ends at our gate Only 2 houses on the street and they do not have cars only scooters so no through traffic the area is extremely quiet. The houses near us are smaller homes with small yards so not likely to have a chicken farm or pig farm.

i remember you telling about that issue with the chickens... nightmare.

I don't know exactly where you are but in Chonburi they are pretty strict. i had an info handout about not building up to the boundary and not letting water run into adjacent land. When I submitted my plans the OBT engineer checked my roof was not within the exclusion zone and what gutter arrangements i planned. He actually drew my house location onto my plot to ensure we complied.

I guess there are differences in different parts of the country.....

Damn... I've been off line for a few days as PJ thought she would check to see if my laptop 2 liked vegetable sauce as much as she did. Turns out the keyboard REALLY didn't like it and stopped working altogether. One trip to Seacon later and I am without computer (which had all the pictures on it) while they try to locate a replacement.

Again...these things are sent to try us.

To conclude the pole move tale, yes it was moved and we paid the local boss who actually did the work. 5000 thb which i think was worth it.

one pole now off the frontage.

Onward onward....

And....we have concluded the research into bathrooms and WC's.

After trolling round the local shops and big chain stores, we bought it all at Bunthavorn. 1. they had it all. 2. times are hard so they were falling over themselves to do a discounting deal esp when they understood just how much stuff I wanted. 3. free delivery was included. 4. their prices were not OTT to start with.

In fact, Grand Home was even more desperate...we went to the main store and i swear... we went there 3 times and were the ONLY customers in the place each time. Some of their prices were better than Bunthavorn (before discounting) but they did not have EVERYTHING and the sales team did not have the gumption to organise the missing items...i wonder why they have no customers.

We bought 1 consolation item from them and i had 7 sales assistants help me to complete the transaction.

One stop shopping always the best. Any particular brand?

So...the last time we were on site, the electrician S/C also arrived to check out the location. Lucky we were there 'cos K.Pot was at his other job. 1 black Mark for him.

Electrician was asking about socket location and I kept referring him to the approved plans. The contract clearly states that socket and switch locations shall follow the plans and shall not be altered or reduced.

He kept asking in every room, I kept referring to the plans. he kept commenting in Thai. Turns out that his view was there were far too many sockets and what was wrong with using an extension gang socket if we needed more!?? You see how old habits die hard?

he nearly had a kitten when i told him we needed 7 sockets in the kitchen plus some spur wired items.

We have something in common! we also have Mogens $hitters, they work well

With the Sparky, make sure he knows what height you want the sockets, some seem to think that you are expecting a 1m flood and put them far to high for my liking, also saves them cable!

Originally Posted by Airportwo

We have something in common! we also have Mogens $hitters, they work well

With the Sparky, make sure he knows what height you want the sockets, some seem to think that you are expecting a 1m flood and put them far to high for my liking, also saves them cable!

Hey, AP2...the height for everything is clearly stated in the plans BUT k.Pot was not there so they did not have access to those plans. 25cm from floor for the sockets and switches, i think we're 130cm from floor. The kitchen sockets are about 20cm above the worktop.

So..the Mogen toilets are ok!?

Good news ...I was getting bowl overload after staring at different units for about 2hrs. Plus I just got into the swing of assessing when I felt the need to visit the 'gents'..

Psychological I know.....

There was another interesting conversation with Mr.Electrician when we were talking about the distribution box (consumer unit). i started talking about zone 1 upstairs light circuit and socket circuit. same downstairs and I think he got that. Then we got on to individual circuits... cooker, fridge, washing machine. etc but when I mentioned the spur wire requirement for the oven all the faces went blank.

umm. will the electrician please step forward?.

..what was so revolutionary about a spur wired cooker circuit? i.e not a plug. jeez..what did he plan to do?

what surprised me more was the OBT engineer who was with us and who had been translating was also unsure of it. even when i drew a some circuit diagram.. no... still blank looks. said he had never seen such an arrangement

i got back to an internet connection with self doubt but no... There it was on line. So I sent the pictures of a cooker switch and spur unit to be messaged back with..." ok...where do we get that?"

question time... what have you all done with your ovens etc that belong on spurs??

thanks in advance.!!

Thai Dhupp
After reading your comments here regarding the power point locations being on the plan and all he has to do is follow the plan, I was reminded of the following situation when we built our house.


I was blown away when Isaw this. The power point was installed before the window border and somethingdidn't quite fit, so their solution? I (the wife did anyway) asked the builderto move the power point lower and to fill in the cutout bit of the border.d somethingdidn't quite fit, so their solution? I (the wife did anyway) asked




Sorry about the size of the picture it has been a long time since I posted any here and I haven't learnt how to do it since they changed. The old way was not easy but I managed to learn how to post pictures. I used to have a lot of pictures in my Albums here on TD but they have now gone as well must have been part of the change.

Anyway if you are interested here's a link to our build back in 2010.

https://teakdoor.com/construction-in-thailand/70329-ootais-wife-builds-a-house.html

I'm back again just to explain the strange text in the previous post. I was cut and pasting and because the text was black I didn't see it all to edit it out.
Anyway hope you understand.

In a previous post you made a comment that your builder was ahead of schedule, well I hope for your sake it stays that way.

I am sure in your line of work you fully understand the 80/20 rule.
That is the last 20% takes 80% of the effort. I found that Thai builders do the bits they understand i.e. beams, posts, roofs and walls well but when it come to the detailed work they seem to lack the inclination to be particular and get it right. Hope I am wrong in your case.

Originally Posted by ootai

Thai Dhupp
After reading your comments here regarding the power point locations being on the plan and all he has to do is follow the plan, I was reminded of the following situation when we built our house.


I was blown away when Isaw this. The power point was installed before the window border and somethingdidn't quite fit, so their solution? I (the wife did anyway) asked the builderto move the power point lower and to fill in the cutout bit of the border.d somethingdidn't quite fit, so their solution? I (the wife did anyway) asked




Sorry about the size of the picture it has been a long time since I posted any here and I haven't learnt how to do it since they changed. The old way was not easy but I managed to learn how to post pictures. I used to have a lot of pictures in my Albums here on TD but they have now gone as well must have been part of the change.

Anyway if you are interested here's a link to our build back in 2010.

https://teakdoor.com/construction-in-thailand/70329-ootais-wife-builds-a-house.html

Hi Ootai...I have read your thread already... looks like a great place and nice to have access to that pond too. I remember seeing a pond like that one on a build that featured on YouTube...was that you too?

lol I completely relate to your post count and responses too... Sometimes it's like am the only person on TeakDoor and I am talking to myself! Especially since I have the only build thread going at the moment ( I think another is coming though...). I'm not paranoid, honest! and i have had a lot of really useful comment suggestions and advice in the past from the helpful members here so I cannot complain.

Just wish I could make it more interesting sonetimes but I can only tell the tale as fast as it gets built!

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

question time... what have you all done with your ovens etc that belong on spurs??

Interesting, my answer is we don't have any "spurs" in the house! I have spent most of my adult life in Asia, its not something you see, least I have never seen, nor had a house fitted with same, something I never even thought about! & not something they would install without being pushed.
Obviously possible, but may well prove to be a challenge?

Are spur lines a British thing ? Like ring mains ? I am not a sparky but every house that I lived in in Oz had a dedicated, hard-wired circuit for an electrical stove, with its own breaker.
With your sockets and switches I would suggest using a marker pen and drawing on the walls to show exactly where you want them, or it might become a case of near enough is good enough.....near enough being on the same wall !
Have you given any thought to wiring for AV media/smart home stuff ? Although we are months away from starting I have been reading up on this, prompted by recently buying an NVIDIA shield which comes with Google Assistant and all that it can do. I know we will need Ethernet and hdmi between the tv area and my little office area, plus speaker cable in the walls between tv/home theatre and the rear speakers.....cannot stand cables draped everywhere. Which is why we will also be having lots of powerpoints instead of extension leads !

Originally Posted by mikenot

Are spur lines a British thing ? Like ring mains ? I am not a sparky but every house that I lived in in Oz had a dedicated, hard-wired circuit for an electrical stove, with its own breaker.
With your sockets and switches I would suggest using a marker pen and drawing on the walls to show exactly where you want them, or it might become a case of near enough is good enough.....near enough being on the same wall !
Have you given any thought to wiring for AV media/smart home stuff ? Although we are months away from starting I have been reading up on this, prompted by recently buying an NVIDIA shield which comes with Google Assistant and all that it can do. I know we will need Ethernet and hdmi between the tv area and my little office area, plus speaker cable in the walls between tv/home theatre and the rear speakers.....cannot stand cables draped everywhere. Which is why we will also be having lots of powerpoints instead of extension leads !

yeah Mike.. lots of power points (sockets) is what i planned but it's alien to the average thai sparky who wants to save on permanent fittings and provide additional connectivity via an overloaded gang socket!

the spur wire is nothing more than a hard wired connection.. no plug to pull out of a wall. a dedicated circuit with dedicated on off switch... just no plug break in the line. sounds like we are talking about the same thing!

Originally Posted by Airportwo

Interesting, my answer is we don't have any "spurs" in the house! I have spent most of my adult life in Asia, its not something you see, least I have never seen, nor had a house fitted with same, something I never even thought about! & not something they would install without being pushed.
Obviously possible, but may well prove to be a challenge?

so... how did you connect your oven then!? (assuming you have an oven)

In our place we have the water heaters in both bathrooms hardwired with the switches outside the bathroom door. So they must do that sort of thing here as I never asked for it.

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

the spur wire is nothing more than a hard wired connection.. no plug to pull out of a wall. a dedicated circuit with dedicated on off switch... just no plug break in the line. sounds like we are talking about the same thing!

Hi Thai Dhupp. I think you calling it a spur is a bit confusing (spur is used in electrical circuits for something else). It is a radial circuit you are thinking of and describing.

Thai Dhupp, I assume you want the switch to look something like this ..




And the cable to the cooker/oven to come out lower down the wall through something like this...

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

so... how did you connect your oven then!? (assuming you have an oven)

Its just plugged into a socket.
I'd never thought about this so much before but on a few occasions I have wondered why they didn't use a junction box rather than a plug and socket, I have now realised why - they don't know any better! I was thinking I was wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!