Thread: Baanpong House Build

Originally Posted by jonnyenglish

If the bathroom isn't used for a while, the room fills up with a methane smell

Did your plumber put in a vent to your septic tank? One of my bathrooms septic tank is

not vented and stunk. Had to put in an exhaust fan.

yes, the tanks have vents... will see how we progress today

Originally Posted by misskit

Did your plumber put in a vent to your septic tank? One of my bathrooms septic tank is

not vented and stunk. Had to put in an exhaust fan.

Yep that will do it. Should be toilet/sink/shower vent pipe in both bathrooms.

OK, so update on smell in the bathroom, the builders took out and re-seated the toilet and this seems to have done the trick. I have closed the door and window of over an hour since and no whiff! hurrah!

Originally Posted by jonnyenglish

OK, so update on smell in the bathroom, the builders took out and re-seated the toilet and this seems to have done the trick. I have closed the door and window of over an hour since and no whiff! hurrah!

Uh oh, spoke too soon. Smell is back.

Well at least I have identified where it's coming from, definitely the toilet seal. I stuck my head around the back of the loo at floor level, something hasn't been sealed correctly, so the builders will have to come back again (again again again). If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well... ('well', at least 4 times it seems!)

Toilet smell now fixed, Noarng had to go in to speak with the chaps at Cotto, apparently this model is quite tricky to install as it is a closed-sided design and the access space at the back near to the wall is very limited, seems that many builders are having issues getting the rubber seal to fit properly.

I also chucked half a container of EM into each septic tank to help things along, I did put some in before I moved in, but probably not enough.

Enough about bogs now... high time for other more pleasant things!

And so it continues... the somewhat epic saga of the en-suite bathroom.

Having solved the riddle of the stinky throne, the next episode to tackle was (or should I say "is") setting the floor tiles so that water flows from the floor and down the plug holes, instead of just collecting in pools in the middle of the main floor area and the shower.

One has to wonder how tricky this can be, as the main floor area is only 5X7 tiles and the shower area is 4X7. After all the guest bathroom has a larger floor area and it was installed with no problems.

I did point out during the initial installation that the shower plughole is raised too high, and this is not the usual design when one wants water to flow down the drain. My comments were of course ignored.

After the 4 attempts to seat the toilet correctly and the 3 attempts to get the floor right, Noarng finally admitted that the tiles needed to come up and the whole thing done again.

I have also requested that the rather tasteful porcelain tiles not be butchered with an angle grinder leaving over-cutting and a ragged edge when this 4th attempt of tiling is attempted. We shall see.

Hi Jonny.

What's EM?

Originally Posted by cyrille

Hi Jonny.

What's EM?

Hi Cyrille, EM stands for 'effective microorganisms', it's a brown liquid soup full of life... you can add it to compost heaps etc to speed up the biological breakdown of stuff. I bunged it in the septic tanks to get some activity going in there. Gardening and farming supply shops sell containers of it.

Ten months on: an update.

So after living in Baanpong country club for nearly a year, having also experienced a pretty heavy rainy season, I'm glad to report no major issues with my house build.

One element that needed attention was the soffit. As the metal frame expands and contracts with heat and cold at a different rate to the Shera board, cracks appeared at the joins and some of the boards were working loose. The solution was to use batons over the joins, glued and screwed in place, then filled and painted. This should have been done by the builder before, but there was a discussion at the time to add oversized hardwood (Mai Daeng) batons as architectural details, but as I ran out of cash , we decided that Shera board batons would suffice... this was conveniently forgotten about. Anyhow, all fixed now. I will add the wood details another time.

I still have decking and a sala to build, and some more landscaping/planting etc., but busy paying off my debts first.

For those interested in how the pond and garden is working out, here are a few shots:



Plenty of shady spots.


Pond attracts all sorts of wildlife, fresh water terrapins, tortoise, frogs, snakes, birds, insects, crabs, eels etc. Lots of edible fish in there, including Tilapia and Tab Tim, but also catfish and snakehead to keep the numbers down a bit.


Marginal plants all doing well.


G&T area with mountain views


Back of the house with large Yukka in pots (photo doesn't give a correct idea of scale, they are pretty big)


Lastly, a shot of a village in the next valley along, about 5 minutes by bike from my gaff... Rice is almost ready to harvest and the smell is so sweet... and people ask me why I live in Thailand

Lovely looking place mate.

You must be well pleased.

Absolutely fantastic Jonny.... that pond looks like its been there forever.

Great-looking place too - we will be having those same type of folding doors on the master bed balcony, the dining room x 2 and the living room upstairs.

My builder is just making them up now...hope they look as good as yours

Cheers guys!

All the woodwork has stood up to the damp conditions with very little movement, even places that get some rain and then lots of sun. I need to re-seal/re-varnish the window frames that receive the most sun, but wood itself is still solid.

The pond still needs to have waterlily plants in pots in the water, and I need to divide up some of the papyrus and bull rushes etc and plant them around here and there. Some flowering marginal plants I put in didn't do well at all, no idea why, they just upped and died... A learning process I guess.

My friend is currently building a small house near the gateway on my land, a right little community going on over here out in the boonies!

congratulations, really a great job and good taste.

Great thread, enjoyed every page, ruffly how much was the bare House, we are thinking of moving away from the city, cheers

Originally Posted by Lofty

Great thread, enjoyed every page, ruffly how much was the bare House, we are thinking of moving away from the city, cheers

Hi Lofty, the build was 2.5 million, but if I had chosen a cheaper roofing material, cheaper floor tile and used an alternative to Mai Daeng hardwood for doors and windows, plus built on a pad rather than raised, I reckon I could have built it for well under 2 million (possibly as little as 1.5 million). Additionally, I didn't haggle with the cost of the land, I had looked about a bit and hadn't found anything that felt right, so when this land turned up, I just paid the man. In retrospect, I think I could have just gone for 1 rai and a cheaper build, I could then have done a similar house for 2.5 all-in cost.

Originally Posted by ciccio

congratulations, really a great job and good taste.

Thanks! Still have to finish the landscaping and various other bits, but getting there (very slowly).

As I mentioned to Lofty, in retrospect, I think I would have done a few things differently... maybe next time

Love the doors - a really nice feature you don't really see too often in Thailand house builds.

Originally Posted by jonnyenglish

Ten months on: an update.

So after living in Baanpong country club for nearly a year, having also experienced a pretty heavy rainy season, I'm glad to report no major issues with my house build. Lastly, a shot of a village in the next valley along, about 5 minutes by bike from my gaff... Rice is almost ready to harvest and the smell is so sweet... and people ask me why I live in Thailand

Jonny, great thread and the build has come out really well. The site is fantastic with great views - and for the money you paid you have a lovely place. Hope all is well on the home front, seemed touch and go for a bit.

Originally Posted by NamPikToot

Jonny, great thread and the build has come out really well. The site is fantastic with great views - and for the money you paid you have a lovely place. Hope all is well on the home front, seemed touch and go for a bit.

Hi NPK, thanks for the kind words... Always more to do with a house and land, slow progress getting to where I want it to be. As to the "home front", it's still not ideal, things have settled down a bit, but I'll wait and see what happens.

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

folding doors

Similar folding doors (and a large fixed screen) by oak frame I have installed at my house making use of a half of the original large terrasse to create an inside sitting corner (for Thai TV). The folding doors are meant for a possibility to open the area for an occassional larger event.

And in turn, extended depth of the terrasse by teak floor (appreciated by the dogs on the guard).

^ an unusual place for an air-com unit?

Works well?

^Yes, it works well, why not? It's well hidden, where else could it be better? The connection goes embedded under the terrasse floor and vertically inside the wooden frame to the inside fan unit above the large screen.