Foreword.
Well folks some will be aware i spent a couple of weeks over in the Land of Laughs being variously Ill for about the first 7 days whilst setting myself the task of building a car port on one of our....erm the Mrs bits of land in the first 2 weeks.
This is not going to be a detailed all encompassing build thread because it is just a Sala for the BiL but the build aims to be structurally more robust than Betty's Bamboo and Plastic one; sorry Betts. The photos don't cover every stage so apologies but to be honest my focus was on getting the job done and controlling how much I was blowing out me arse and sweating.
Now it has already been mentioned in another thread..
Q.Why the hell are you putting yourself through doing this shit and not paying someone else to do it?
A.I just don't trust people to do the right thing and as such and in my experience you have to watch them like hawks, the minute you turn your back and crack a cold one they move into Thai Fuk Up mode andall the direction you gave them goes out the window.
An example of the above was the roof trusses, simple in design are sloped and were to be seated facing the prevailing wind. I got a couple of chaps to lend a hand raising them and felt confident enough to pop out for a couple of hours only to find that when I got back they'd put them up the opposite way round…..i was just speechless...but we all know its no good losing your rag so we calmly went about spending the next 2 hours reversing the error.
I start this with some trepidation as since the forum upgrade me photos seem to post up the size of postage stamps.
The Concept
The idea is was to basically put up a high roofed structure sloped to face the largely prevailing wind direction and a concrete base which will take the weight of a couple of pick ups and stand up to seeing me out of this world which means no Thai shitty hand mixed stuff.
The Pu yai had a few years back put in a raised concrete road which meant the gated entrance was effectively nearly a foot below the road leveland so if i didn't splash out and put in a deep base there would always be water and mud streaming on the car port during the wet season and in my experience concreted ramps or and steel alternatives never make satisfactory long lasting solutions so I was going to have to bite the bullet and splash the cash on more concrete.
The basic requirements were therefore;
1.A high roof > 3.5m.
2.The base to be 8M x 9M.
3.A concrete base using ready mix which ensured the carport surface was level with the road.
4.Be able to be completed by me and help in less than 2 weeks.
5.Ready bought concrete uprights to keep things simple and save sometime.
6.A light galvanised steel roof to keep the steel costs down.
7.Try to stay within a 65K THB budget.
The Build.
Things started so well, i landed, got to the place and the very same day secured the services of a Burmese chap who we know to help with some of the heavy lifting and shifting.
I was also was able to order the 8 concrete posts which are the standard 4M high ones with a stand on the bottom and they were 690THB I think,I also ordered standard Road Mesh to put on the bottom of the base which is 9M x 6M at something like 900THB and 10mm Rebar which sits with another mesh layer and provides the real strength.
The second day started with me feeling a bit jaded but I put this down to the flight and crunching a few Changs with some Som Tam and Moo Yang the night before. The bonus though as most there in Thailand at the time were aware, it was nice and cool....at the start......
The first job was mark out the post holes and dig them. They were c2M centres and 60cm deep by 50 square. Quite small in a way but they were being incorporated into the concrete base so would also be anchored further.
Mmmmm Ditch Digging...Ooohhh Lower End English…. It was Mr Sausages wet dream of a day, actually it took longer than a day as the ground was so hard it had to be watered.
The photo below is the uprights in place. To achieve this we dug the holes and added a concrete layer to even the hole heights and used the tried and trusted clear plastic pipe method of water finding its own level to get them trued up. The old methods still work.