The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

dirtydog

Now in Pattaya, Jomtien and even Bangkok most people have sinks in their bathrooms, obviously out in the sticks in places like Korat, Chiang Mai and Phuket they probably are not considered a necessity, but they are quite handy things to have, in Thailand they even have affordable sinks for those of you living in those corrugated iron shack buildings, so onto the first one and cheapest one.

These sinks in this picture are about 400baht, they are held up by 2 tiny little brackets which will eventually pull away from the wall due to bad building practises or by putting too much weight on them, the pedestal is an extra which costs around 600baht, still doesn't make it strong enough to put your lady of the night on it though as certain members have mentioned, all the fittings are considered extras and are bought separately, taps start at 100baht, yes that is cold water only and these sinks only take one tap, cheap plug and waste pipe comes to just over 100baht.

So that's the poor of Thailand sorted out with an affordable bathroom sink, lets have a look at something with a bit of class and style.



This sink counter is a nice easy one and really cheap, the sink is around the 700baht mark, that marble is 100baht a square meter to buy, all else you need is some rebar, bricks, sand and cement, obviously the only bad bit about these 10cm by 20cm slabs of marble is the color variations, if you look on the floor by the counter that looks a bit of a mess with the block of dark grey marble together, lack of forethought by whomever laid the floor marble.

The sink has a 250baht tap and the plug is one of those nice ones that also cost around the 250baht mark, for the wastes on these there are generally 3 types, a crappy plastic one for 50baht, a crappy chrome imitation one for about 150baht, and a nice stainless steel one for around 300baht, go on, splash out and treat yourself to the best

This counter is formed into the wall, probably cut out about 10cm's width of tiles and drilled in some rebar, put up some form work and done a concrete pour, all in all I reckon your looking at around 5,000baht for having something like this built for your bathroom.



Thailand is now really getting in some high end bathroom fittings and with the cost of these sinks it's easy to stay in the fashion stakes and beat the next door neighbours, price wise they cost a couple of months salary for the average Thai worker and I personally think these see thru sinks are ugly, luckily we haven't all got the same tastes though, I really can't remember how much this sink and faucet cost but it was much more than I personally would pay if it was for my house.

Hot and cold water tap and you wont not notice any leaks.






This is probably the most expensive way of building a vanity unit in your bathroom, that black granite is around 5,000baht per meter length to buy, the carpentry work for that little tiny unit another 5,000baht, hot water heater around 12,000baht, but this water heater does feed all that bathroom, sink and tap plus odds and ends another 4,000baht, thats a lot of money for something that takes up less than 1 square meter of floor space.



Also you have the problem of the cabinet being wood, dampness destroys wood real quickly, personally if it was mine I would have gone for a cheap granite slab for the top, concrete or block sides and tile them, maybe plastic doors.



The perfect place for a water heater in this cabinet is behind those drawers, ie short drawers and then the water heater is out of the way and not likely to get wet, although why these drawers are so deep I have no idea, tall stuff can go on the shelves or under the sink or be layed down in the drawers, still, not my bathroom I suppose.

__________________