Thread: Budget Build - Nong Khai

Originally Posted by david44

Comhing , slab looks sound, thanks for sharing

Thanks. Slab looks solid but still not sure about the foundation. Regret not hiring a local contractor to inspect each stage before moving on but wife insisted we not do it at beginning Of project. He could have - checked depth of pillars, checked depth and amount of rebar in below grad foundation, checked the rebar and ensured cross brick pattern in foundation, ensured cement was poured correct at each stage, ensured mortar was even, and that the builder was following the the right plans and prevent walls going up wrong places, piping being placed in correct location and the installation of pipes in the kitchen (completely absent). The cost of paying for a manager would certainly saved us headaches and long term concern.

In any event, there has been movement. Roof is on and some walls are up.

Apparently there is no clause in the contract to keep the site clean and free of debris!! The unusual lack of beer bottles is both promising and concerning. Maybe they are taking less interest in project?

I don’t think I put in the final floor plan for the house. You may recall I created a fairly simple 100 m2 3BR, 1 BR, outdoor kitchen/laundry which I proposed we build. It had room to put a second bathroom later at the back of the house. Wife decided too small and 2nd bathroom was necessary now so a new layout was chosen. However, MIL and builder failed to follow the second plan when putting in the pillars and so we had to come up with third plan. Our final plan is below. 3 BR, 2BR, Buddha room, kitchen and pantry, 134.75 m2 including the large covered front porch (where family will likely spend much of its time). Not perfect but as the pillars were already set so we did the best we could. All the pillars are spaced 3.5 m. 2 ceiling fans on porch and 3 in the living and dining room.

Joe
The layout of your final plan looks good except I don't see an entrance to your "pantry" / "storage room".
Hope the builder left a gap for you to crawl through.
Cheers

Originally Posted by ootai

Joe
The layout of your final plan looks good except I don't see an entrance to your "pantry" / "storage room".
Hope the builder left a gap for you to crawl through.
Cheers

Your right about that! More like a sealed vault in the present form! Builder made storage/pantry 25 c larger than plans which reduced correspondingly the width of the adjacent bathroom. The bathrooms are fairly tight and we are considering collapsing all or part of the utility into the bathroom. Family is going to send us pictures to determine what will work best. A few pictures of the storage and bathrooms follow. As noted in earlier posts the builder is pulling out and reinstalling the pipes in the bathrooms to the correct location.

Walls are up for the most part. Wife picking paint and tile and seems to be going the contemporary route.

Joesixpac
If it was up to me I would make the "small" bathroom next to the pantry/utility room into a "Thai" style bathroom i.e. a squat toilet and a tap with a hose on it for use as a "bum gun" and a shower. That way you wouldn't need a wall to delineate the shower cubicle and as long as you tiled the whole floor it would be plenty big enough for the Thai's to use as a bathroom. Meanwhile you would or could make the second bathroom more "civilised" for your use.
Cheers

First time to this thread. Liking what I see. Building our own home in Nan province at the moment.

hi Joe... moving along nicely now...

seems to have shot up quick - when do you think you will be finished?

Originally Posted by BoganInParasite

First time to this thread. Liking what I see. Building our own home in Nan province at the moment.

Thank u! Posting some progress picture today. Hope ur build is going great!!

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

hi Joe... moving along nicely now...

seems to have shot up quick - when do you think you will be finished?

thanks Dhupp! Going kind of slow. Using a local builder and this is the largest house he has built (and this is pretty small). So he has struggled on a few issues. And we aren’t there so communication isn’t good even though wife is on the phone about 2 hours per night w MIL (frankly they talk about soap operas and lottery about 1/2 times).

Here are some progress photos of ceiling.

Here are a few shots of the exterior.

Here are a few interior pictures of walls and outlets. They needed to chisel out the walls a little to recess wires, outlets and switches.

One thing that drives me crazy is that they put all the outlets up so high and so few outlets in a room. We instructed the builder to put more in which he did but wife disagreed that outlets should be close to the base board. I suppose there is a reason but it looks cluttered to me when cords are hanging down.

Originally Posted by Joesixpac

One thing that drives me crazy is that they put all the outlets up so high and so few outlets in a room. We instructed the builder to put more in which he did but wife disagreed that outlets should be close to the base board. I suppose there is a reason but it looks cluttered to me when cords are hanging down.

Welcome back! (thought you had been kidnapped)...

Knowing the 'Thai way' of one socket outlet per room and then fill in the requirement with one or two gang sockets out of it, when I did our electric plan, i went (maybe) OTT with what I wanted.

lol...sockets everywhere, and all doubles. eg.. kitchen got 8, , living room got 5, etc etc.

Builder sees the plans, says nothing to me, but i heard from PJ he questioned the need when a gang socket was so easy!
yeah.... electrician also passed same comment - I guess its hard to change culture. they see it as waste, I see it as safety and future-proofing.

Anyway, if you look in my contract (on page 16 of my build thread), signed by all,

3. The Contractor is contracted to build a 2-storey Thai Style (Lanna / Ayutthaya) house, exactly following the approved plans provided by The Employer

4. The contract shall strictly follow the details in the approved plan 62/2559, issued from Orbortor Office in

26. The electrical plans (within approved plans 62/2559) shall be followed exactly. The type and number of electrical sockets shown in the approved plans in each room must not be reduced and the socket locations must not be altered.

27. Some light switches work of a 2-switch system (e.g. top and bottom of the staircase) and these 2 switch arrangements shall be followed exactly.

you can see the benefit of really labouring the point. luckily I knew how they wanted to do it so the contract stated how I wanted to do it.

I even had one if for keeping the site tidy:

53. The Contractor is responsible for the removal of all construction wastes generated from the project
(thanks to TD members for that suggestion)

Originally Posted by Joesixpac

all the outlets up so high

Flooding? Don't know

Ours are about a metre off the floor.

I think as mentioned there are two reason, one yes, flooding and the second is to stop kids putting their finger or poking anything in them

Just came across your build, looks like it's coming along pretty good. The only thing I seen that will be a problem is there wasn't a p-trap on the shower drains, smell and mosquitoes unless you keep it covered. Wife and I are just in the process of getting things in line to put up a house in Roi-Et. Choke Dee on your completion.

Originally Posted by dennis4558

Just came across your build, looks like it's coming along pretty good. The only thing I seen that will be a problem is there wasn't a p-trap on the shower drains, smell and mosquitoes unless you keep it covered. Wife and I are just in the process of getting things in line to put up a house in Roi-Et. Choke Dee on your completion.

Yes, your point is well taken. Traps on shower drains and below the sinks have been an issue. They failed to use the correct plan (MIL apparently provided contractor earlier plan without consulting us) which resulted in them having to dig out and reinstall some pipes. They put in new pipes only after some conflict which my wife hates but she did get them to do it. However, it doesn’t look like traps were put in the shower drains. Can’t get wife to revisit the issue but am working on a fix from the outside, which isn’t nearly as simple as if they had installed the traps and correctly placed the pipes at the beginning!! This build has been fairly slow, except if there is a fix, then it is usually done at lightning speed so we don’t get to see the underlying work until it is completed.

Hope your build is successful!! Our project progresses. Here Are recent pictures of the porch which is 7x3.5 m. Contractor forgot to put electrical outlets there so they are putting in now. I suspect this is where family will spend most of time so they need electricity for phones, etc. ignore the highlight - that is just us trying to figure out how to make the unexpectedly large facades covering the pillars look smaller. For now we are only putting in lights above, but we plan to put in outdoor fans when we can find ones we like.

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

Welcome back! (thought you had been kidnapped)...

Knowing the 'Thai way' of one socket outlet per room and then fill in the requirement with one or two gang sockets out of it, when I did our electric plan, i went (maybe) OTT with what I wanted.

lol...sockets everywhere, and all doubles. eg.. kitchen got 8, , living room got 5, etc etc.

Builder sees the plans, says nothing to me, but i heard from PJ he questioned the need when a gang socket was so easy!
yeah.... electrician also passed same comment - I guess its hard to change culture. they see it as waste, I see it as safety and future-proofing.



!!
Anyway, if you look in my contract (on page 16 of my build thread), signed by all,

3. The Contractor is contracted to build a 2-storey Thai Style (Lanna / Ayutthaya) house, exactly following the approved plans provided by The Employer

4. The contract shall strictly follow the details in the approved plan 62/2559, issued from Orbortor Office in

26. The electrical plans (within approved plans 62/2559) shall be followed exactly. The type and number of electrical sockets shown in the approved plans in each room must not be reduced and the socket locations must not be altered.

27. Some light switches work of a 2-switch system (e.g. top and bottom of the staircase) and these 2 switch arrangements shall be followed exactly.

you can see the benefit of really labouring the point. luckily I knew how they wanted to do it so the contract stated how I wanted to do it.

I even had one if for keeping the site tidy:

53. The Contractor is responsible for the removal of all construction wastes generated from the project
(thanks to TD members for that suggestion)

They can complain and grumble all all they want but I completely agree you can never have too many strategically placed outlets (or light switches for that matter).


I love the fact that your construction contract is so detailed and outlines the responsibilities of the contractor. Our contract only outlines the owner’s responsibility to pay the contractor. I kid you not!!
I nearly blew a gasket when I saw it. It says payment will be made to contractor in 4 installment following the completion of w, x, y, z!! Nothing about start and completion date, scope of work covered, workman standards, warranty or anything else. ��. I have been assured however that these things are already understood by the parties.

No any Update? :-/