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  1. #1

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Building your own swimming pool in Thailand

    Well here is how to build your own swimming pool in several easy steps.

    Now first off you need to dig a great big hole, and believe me this aint easy, best to pay some Thai guy with a digger to do that, anyway this hole obviously needs to be bigger than what your specified swimming pool size will be.

    So lets say you want a pool by 10 meters long and 5 meters wide for arguements sake, well it's not for arguements sake actually but it just so happens that is what we are building at the moment, ok so the pool is 1.8 meters deep in the deep end, but you need to dig deeper than this to get the old footings in there some how, so lets say we go 3 meters deep for the footings, these we chuck in every 2 meters, this is cos swimming pools are really heavy and fat people jump into them, should swimming pool owners charge fat people a surcharge?

    Anyway here is a nice picture of a hole.




    As you may have guessed we got this job half way through it's construction due to the Thai contractor doing a runner with the money, yep this is the job before we started, he has actually done quite a good job and all we changed was the wiring for the lights, but that was due to the customer buying high wattage lights, and we have to extend the rebar as most of it is too short, yeah I foked up there as I didn't notice that when I quoted for the job, still, must be able to slip that into his bill somewhere at least I foking hope so.......

  2. #2

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    This pool has the problem that all the side steel work is completed, well the Thai guy assumed it was completed, but he didn't check with a level, now this causes us the problem of doing the form work, normally we would leave 80cm tails from the floor to tie up with the wall steel work to make it easy for us to do the exterior form work, now we got to fok around trying to lay blocks for the form in a tiny little space,cnut.

    Anyway as you can quite clearly see in this next picture the steel is double layered, this is cos swimming pools are heavy and fat people jump into them, did I mention that before?

    This rebar is 12mm, I personally would have just stuck in 16mm rebar just for my own peace of mind, 12mm is ok for this size pool but for the extra expense it is worth going for the bigger stuff, but then again customers can be cnuts and keep asking can it be done cheaper, infact all customers should be executed at birth, but then I wouldn't have any work

    Last edited by dirtydog; 23-03-2006 at 04:34 AM.

  3. #3

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    You maybe wondering about all those pipes, well I do wonder about them quite often, I mean if one of them has a hole the the pool is foked cos the water will leak out of them, infact as I sit here typeing away I am wondering if the Thai guy done erm right.

    The black rubber thing you can see in the above picture is the thing that you hope saves you from leaks, your ground pour of concrete goes like quite a way up that and then 10 days later your wall pour of concrete goes in, trouble is it don't always work, that's when you got to start foking around with waterproofing cement, although all you have ever ordered is water proofing cement and the foking stuff don't work.

    Back to the pipes, these you chuck in between the layers of rebar, the yellow ones are for the electric runs for the swimming pool lights, on this job we had to change all the foking wiring, luckily I guessed this already and didn't quote for this so I aint gonna lose on that one...

    The blue pipes are for the pump to pump in water from the resevoir, I really don't like this set up as they have like 3 runs connected and coming out as one pipe, you know in 10 years that at least one pipe will have a problem and then you could just cap this pipe, but the way it is set up you would have to cap 3 pipes, if customers weren't so cheap then each run would be a seperate run and you would just cap the one pipe and get a few more years out of your swimming pool, but of course customers are cheap and then they complain, anyway here is a nice picture of the pipes coming out of the form work



  4. #4

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Next up you got to pour the concrete for the base, now you got to remember this takes a lot of weight and pressure, so it has to be pretty strong, especially if you have obese american friends, this also has to be poured in one go, there aint no foking around with this, it has to be one go, we need it strong, this has to be done with the old lorries that supply concrete, this aint something you can mix up yourself, we need consistencey and we need quantity, but fok they really do charge the money, hell you wanna pool you got to be rich so stop your whinging.

    Well here we are going into our first pour, it should have been 10 cubic meters of concrete but worked out to 12, who the fok is gonna pay me for the extra 2 cubic meters I might ask? actually I shall measure the cnut of the pool tomorrow and see if the customer lied to me...



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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    The problem with the lorries is that you have to supply your own means of getting the concrete to where you want, lucki;y this place is a building site, so we borrowed somebody elses pipe, it was either that or build our own



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    Dougal's Avatar
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    Thanks for this DD. A couple of questions if I may.

    I take that the footing were already in when you took on the job - was more steel used there or is that just a big concrete raft?

    You mentioned a reservoir somewhere in the thread; is that already built or will you be building that later?

    Can you expand on the use of the rubber strip; it isn't clear to me how it stops leaks.
    Lord, deliver us from e-mail.

  7. #7
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    And there's some **** on here saying this place ain't informative!!!!

  8. #8
    Thailand Expat Texpat's Avatar
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    Shall we also charge Dogs extra for pissing in the pool?

    10x5x1.8 -- pritty big swimmin hole; how much?

    Good stuff dd, cheers.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal
    I take that the footing were already in when you took on the job - was more steel used there or is that just a big concrete raft?
    Yep, the footings were already in and also the goundbeam, the ground beam is to support the sides, obviously there is rebar in the footings and the ground beam.



    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal
    You mentioned a reservoir somewhere in the thread; is that already built or will you be building that later?
    Once we have the walls up for the concrete pour we need to let the walls harden up a bit for when we do the pour, that's when we shall start digging out the reservoir.





    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal
    Can you expand on the use of the rubber strip; it isn't clear to me how it stops leaks.
    the wall pour will be done in about 10 days, by this time the ground poor will be pretty hard and pretty dry, sometimes the old concrete doesn't stick as good as you would like it, also the concret nearest the floor will dry quicker than the rest and there could be srinkage, the rubber is just another precaution to help against leakage.



    Quote Originally Posted by Texpat
    10x5x1.8 -- pritty big swimmin hole; how much?
    From start to finish about 6 to 800,000baht.

  10. #10
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    impressive DD... Do you still "get your hands dirty" these days or do you delegate? I find laying bricks therapeutic, you know "is it plum" and all that.

    Do you work mainly for farangs?

    How many "dream homes" have you built for old sex tourists only for their Pattaya "lady" to turn around and turf the t.wat out and install their Thai husband of 10 years?

  11. #11
    Have you got any cheese Thetyim's Avatar
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    Dougal, are you considering building a pool ?

    If you are, then please speak to me first and I will put you right on the cons of having a pool.

  12. #12
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    Dougal's Avatar
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    Tell me the bad news then Thetyim.

    I should explain that the main motivation for a pool is that one of our sons is autistic and needs watching like a hawk to make sure he does not escape and wander off. As he is part fish we hope that at least with a pool we can contain him in one place.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal
    As he is part fish we hope that at least with a pool we can contain him in one place.
    I'm sure a fish tank would be cheaper.

  14. #14

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mad_dog
    Do you still "get your hands dirty" these days
    Of course not, na it's too bloody hot.


    Quote Originally Posted by mad_dog
    Do you work mainly for farangs?
    Last few years has just been for farang customers.

  15. #15
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    What about the wh.ore wives question... you must have some tales to tell DD

  16. #16

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Not on this thread mad dog, this thread is about building your own swimming pool

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Well we had to take all the steel apart and bend it down to do the exterior form work, this is just done using cheap blocks, today we got most of the exterior block work done but now we have to retie all the rebar back and then start on the interior form work, should have all that done by the beginning of next week hopefully then it's back to hole digging time for the reservoir, probably get a mini digger in for that as the ground is rock hard, in the top right hand side corner you can see a circular type of hole, this will be a 60 cm deep sitting area in the pool, if it was my choice I would chuck a jaccuzzi pump in there and make a bit of extra dosh


  18. #18
    Have you got any cheese Thetyim's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal
    Tell me the bad news then Thetyim.
    Well its like this Dougal.
    I 've got a 7 x 12 pool and it is the curse of my life.
    If you are rich and can afford a servant to attend to it each day then fair enough but if you are poor like me then you will have to do all the work yourself.
    You would not believe the ammount of crap that drops in the pool everyday and just one leaf floating on the surface makes the whole thing look bad.
    Everyday you have to spend two hours in the sun 'vacuum cleaning' the bottom. Filters must be cleaned every two weeks, thats a real messy job and you have to monitor the water condition and add chemicals as needed. I would never consider having another pool it just isn't worth the effort.

    Obviously your situation is different because of your son but If I HAD to have one then it would be an indoor job or at least fully covered.

  19. #19

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    I think here pool keepers charge 3kbaht per month plus chemicals, also if you can buy a machine thingy that monitors the chlorine/salt content and this adds it all itself.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thetyim
    Obviously your situation is different because of your son but If I HAD to have one then it would be an indoor job or at least fully covered.
    We've tried keeping him indoors Thetyim but he just climbs out the windows.

    Can't keep him covered either.



    Thanks for the advice. I'm not rich but I guess it will be cheaper than buying a house on the beach.

  21. #21
    Have you got any cheese Thetyim's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dirtydog
    I think here pool keepers charge 3kbaht per month plus chemicals
    That sounds quite reasonable.
    Problem is, as soon as the attendant walks out another leaf will drop in the pool and you will be taking them out for the rest of your life

    Dougal, do you have your own bore/well
    If not then you will be paying per meter of water, and a pool uses a lot of water everyday because of evaporation.

    The filter pump is a big drain on the electric and has to be run several hours every day.

    All these things will mount up.
    Work out your monthly running costs carefully.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougal
    Quote Originally Posted by Thetyim
    Obviously your situation is different because of your son but If I HAD to have one then it would be an indoor job or at least fully covered.
    We've tried keeping him indoors Thetyim but he just climbs out the windows.

    Can't keep him covered either.



    Thanks for the advice. I'm not rich but I guess it will be cheaper than buying a house on the beach.
    What a wonderful picture, Dougal!

    (I'm not sure what GoW was doing at your gaff though....)

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thetyim
    Dougal, do you have your own bore/well If not then you will be paying per meter of water, and a pool uses a lot of water everyday because of evaporation. The filter pump is a big drain on the electric and has to be run several hours every day. All these things will mount up. Work out your monthly running costs carefully.
    Thanks Thetyim I will look at it more seriously when we are out next month. I am told that salt is the best way to go rather than use chemicals.

    A bore hole should be no problem; the neighbour has one and we are at the bottom of the range of hills, I know one chap who supplies about 10 houses from his land which is at least 300m higher. Leaves shouldn't be an issue either.

    I will report back later and you have my full permission to say 'Told you so' if I make the wrong decision.

  24. #24
    Have you got any cheese Thetyim's Avatar
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    Yes you can have a salt water pool but then you will have corrosion problems with anything that is not 100 percent stainless steel.
    Another option is an ozone machine which halves your chlorine consumption and makes the water a lot more pleasant.

  25. #25
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    Thetyim, since you already have the pool in, you might think of just roofing over with a clear or even tinted sheeting to cut down on your leaf problem. It would seem to kill a few birds with one stone.

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