Thread: Aussie Style House Build

Progress Update 01.07.23

It was a significant day today. With the final work to complete the waste water system, Ko-Kay Constructions finished the build contract. Work still outstanding by them, by way of a separate variation, is the construction of a wheel chair access ramp (we are planning ahead...).
I cannot speak highly enough of the company lead by Khun Pu. Apart from the render, which was less than satisfactory, the build quality as at today is highly satisfactory. The naysayers amongst readers of this thread will say, "Just wait 12 months." I'm sure there will be some problems, but how many buildings don't have problems 12 months on from completion? I'm confident our place will be fine (fingers crossed on the render).

Other work before we take occupancy:
- Installation of three A/C units, scheduled for 04.07.23
- Installation of Solar PV, confirmed for 03.07.23
- Kitchen installation, scheduled for mid August (see separate post below re Index Living Mall experience)
- Security screen and fly screen door installation, scheduled for early August.

Starting tomorrow I'll start carting up all our possessions from Australia that I can fit in the father in law's Hilux from the in-laws place to the house.

Following are photos from the last couple of days:

Local excavator operator back filling the waste water pipe trench

Waste water system pipe installation detail

Khun Pu and Change Nhy with a very happy owner at the completion of the build contract.

Originally Posted by peciacake

Progress Update 26.06.23 - Pt 2

The painters arrived this morning and were straight into it, putting a second coat on the interior and exterior walls and sealing the doors with a clear epoxy. We were too late in advising Khun Pu of wanting the doors sealed with Teak oil - the painters on site early today before we had a chance to talk with Pu. They reassured us three coats of clear epoxy will be more than adequate to keep the door surface sealed and looking good for many years.

Front doors looking good - two more coats to go,

Attachment 104047





































Back door with first coat of Buffalo H&W Wood Coating
Attachment 104048Attachment 104049

Love those front doors

Originally Posted by BLD

Love those front doors

Yep, me too. Very pleased with them. Fulfils a long held goal of owning a house with a set of good looking teak front doors
Appreciate the comment BLD

Buying a Designer Kitchen from index Living Mall - A Cautionary Tale

Regular readers of this thread will no doubt be aware of the pecking order of this build: kitchen first and what ever else then on. Yuri (SWMBO) made it clear the order of business was always going to be what ever else needed to be done must take its place after the kitchen design was locked in. As a designer Yuri is very good - she has been invaluable in translating the "Queenslander" design into our build. But when it came to the kitchen all bets are off. Through no less the six design iterations we final agreed on a kitchen that would suit her requirements, and would hopefully cost something less than the national debt of a small Pacific Island nation. It took its toll i can tell you - a real test of the relationship.

Then came finding someone to build it. We spent time following up recommendations from Teak Door members, friends and relatives etc. on where to find some one who could build to the design Yuri wanted, finally settling on Index Living Mall, Surin. Our first visit was positive - they have a great 3D modelling tool and took us through it in detail. The next step was a site visit where they used a laser level to check the bedroom for the wardrobes we bought off them - impressive. They measured the kitchen space in detail - another green tick of approval. They sent through their first design almost a week later: no quote, just the design. Was it what we talked about with them? Well no actually, it was their "interpretation" of Yuri's design.... Hmmm.... "This isn't looking good." says Greg to himself. Then the back and forth started. After about the third or forth design was sent I suggested perhaps we should see what Ikea were offering.... if looks could kill....

On the fifth attempt they got it where we wanted it: a simple functional kitchen with great usability and practicality. Things were looking up.

The quote arrived two days later. Luckily I was sitting down. At a touch over 400.0 K THB here's me thinking, "I'm sure we didn't ask for gold plated cupboard handles."
To shorten the process we took a drive into Surin yesterday and met with the Sales Rep we'd been dealing with since the first time we spoke with Index. We wanted to understand why it was so expensive. It took over three hours to find the problem, and it only came out once she showed us a detailed break down in a pro-forma invoice. It is produced via an Excel spread sheet, that should automatically calculate the correct totals. It turns out she'd over-ridden the formulae and was hard punching numbers. I sat beside her and reinstated the formulae she'd over-ridden: she had no Excel training other than how to punch in a number so it was no surprise the total was so far out. After getting the spread sheet looking the way it should (Greg gives himself a pat on the back) the total came in at just on 230.0K THB, which was around what we were expecting. The Sales Rep was relieved that she kept the sale, and Yuri was relived she will have the kitchen she designed.

I do wonder how many Index Mall Surin customers paid over the odds because of the spread sheet error. No doubt there will be some.

One other point to note with Index Living Mall is their Terms and Conditions. Unless your spending mega-bucks, it is 100% money up front, AND, no warranty on damage in transit. You pays your money and takes the risk. Had to swallow hard after reading that. Happy wife, happy life was ringing in my ears...

Originally Posted by peciacake

I cannot speak highly enough of the company lead by Khun Pu. Apart from the render, which was less than satisfactory, the build quality as at today is highly satisfactory.

Pleased to hear that and don't lose sleep over the render. It will be fine.

Originally Posted by peciacake

One other point to note with Index Living Mall is their Terms and Conditions. Unless your spending mega-bucks, it is 100% money up front, AND, no warranty on damage in transit. You pays your money and takes the risk. Had to swallow hard after reading that. Happy wife, happy life was ringing in my ears...

Hope the best for you

They just tried to screw you out of 170000, so........

I had left; angry wife or not

Although it's always good to have union-valves to be able to take parts of the system out if they fail, I don't think they're necessary for Norton's setup with regards to cleaning maintenance.
There's a 3-way valve on top with 3 pipes. Without knowing the specs of the filters, I'm pretty sure that's:

1. Water Inlet
2. Water Outlet
3. Backwashing/cleaning outlet

The valve settings would then be: Open/Closed/Backwashing.

Cheers,
Luc

Originally Posted by Schuimpge

Although it's always good to have union-valves to be able to take parts of the system out if they fail, I don't think they're necessary for Norton's setup with regards to cleaning maintenance.
There's a 3-way valve on top with 3 pipes. Without knowing the specs of the filters, I'm pretty sure that's:

1. Water Inlet
2. Water Outlet
3. Backwashing/cleaning outlet

The valve settings would then be: Open/Closed/Backwashing.

Cheers,
Luc

You're right about the 3 connections (in/out/backwash). These types of filters, apart from regular backwashing, need to be topped up occasionally with whatever medium is inside (carbon etc). Without unions in place to disconnect the pipework to the control head, you would need to cut the pipes to unscrew the head fromt he filter body. Also good to have valves in place to isolate the filter.

Originally Posted by PAG

You're right about the 3 connections (in/out/backwash). These types of filters, apart from regular backwashing, need to be topped up occasionally with whatever medium is inside (carbon etc). Without unions in place to disconnect the pipework to the control head, you would need to cut the pipes to unscrew the head fromt he filter body. Also good to have valves in place to isolate the filter.

Good point sure..Think I found the filters. Pictures of it shows them connected with union-valves as well...lol

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Cheers,
Luc

Originally Posted by peciacake

I do wonder how many Index Mall Surin customers paid over the odds because of the spread sheet error.

Isn't it curious that these 'errors' always seem to raise the cost? If they were random then you might expect some costs to decrease. Is she on commission?
Well done you for following it through. I'd probably have told them to Foxtrot Oscar and ended up with a couple of planks balanced on some old bricks for a kitchen. Which wouldn't be too much of a problem in my case, that's at least as good as the gf's village house kitchen.

Progress Update 04.07.23: Solar PV Installation

Ticked off another milestone today in the long-held plans of building an energy efficient home in Thailand. Solar Solutions of Hua Hin completed the supply and installation of 12 X 540 W solar PV panels, a 6.0kW hybrid inverter and a combiner box. Clive and his crew arrived at the normal start time for contractors (in my limited experience) in Thailand at 10:00 and set about putting 12 panels on the South side verandah roof. inside the house, two licensed electricians mounted the inverter and the combiner box while also setting up the DC input and AC output plus a CT monitor. The whole job was completed by 16:00. Clive made sure their work was top quality, insisting on no short cuts or rough work.

We opted for a hybrid inverter: the intention is to add a 10kWh battery at some point in the future (code for when funds are available). In the meantime battery technology will continue to improve and LiFePo4 battery prices will come down as popularity grows.

It wasn't possible to do a full load test today as we only have low-demand items (lights, fans etc) installed. A full load test is planned for tomorrow after three air con units have been installed by Home Pro. This will drive demand right up and should give a good indication of the savings we are likely to achieve. While we are not expecting our PEA bills to be zero, we do expect monthly bills to be in the low hundreds rather than the thousands: a pretty quick payback on a 187.0K THB investment.

Following are some images from today.

Panels installed and ready to be connected to the inverter

All panels wired up and in the process of being connected to the inverter. Note the truck loaded with 30 X 540W panels for a big job in Buriram being installed 05.07.23

Wiring up the inverter and combiner box. Neat job, done to a high standard. It ain't rocket science but attention to detail is critical. The battery will fit nicely under the inverter.
Although it's spec'd to run as an outdoor unit, I've opted to put the inverter inside, well out of the weather. Hopefully it will not attract Geckos that may inadvertently fry the mother board. Will need to get some moth balls into the cable ports ASAP to keep the little buggers out.

Power from the sun this afternoon on a cloudy overcast day, guaranteeing a relatively short pay back. Not that this was the only consideration in deciding to install Solar PV. Once we can afford a battery we will be running off-grid as much as possible, free from the dreaded blackouts during the rainy season.

Looks a great job, and the solar panels easily accessible. Hopefully you'll eventually get the savings that you envisage.

Water filter clean day for me today, so thought I'd capture principally the cartridge filter doing its job. This is the cartridge before I scrub and rinse it:



and after cleaning:



The cartridge body is then emptied of the captured sediment etc, and again rinsed and cleaned before reinstating the cartridge. Next on was a backflush of the media filter. Not too bad today.



After about 30 seconds, started to run clear. One thing I forgot to mention, when you liven the system for the first time, putting water into the filters, have the valves set on backwash for a few minutes. The media inside will not be compacted yet, so if you go straight to 'filter' some of the media will be washed into the tank.

Originally Posted by PAG

have the valves set on backwash for a few minutes

Thanks for the tip PAG. Nhy, the builder's Chang did go through the filter set up and maintenance after he finished the install. "Backwash every 7 days for a couple of minutes for 4 weeks." was his advice.

Progress Update: Air Conditioning Install Day

We purchased 3 X air con units from Home Pro a week or so ago. Got a good price for 1 X Samsung and 2 X Mitsubishi Electric inverter units. The price included the first 4 metres of pipework for each install. Plus another 6,800 THB for the extra length of pipework required.

As per usual with Thai trades men, the installation crew rocked up just after 10:00. Why they like late starts beats me - I'd much prefer to get into it early so I can knock off at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. They took their time getting started as they hadn't done the install survey, something that could have been a problem. We spent a good 45 minutes going through the pipework and condenser positions. Time well spent as they were wanting to do it differently. We insisted on having as much of the pipework run hidden above the verandah ceiling, as per the original survey, of which they had copies....

Full credit to them. Once the install plan was accepted, they got stuck into it. It was pleasing to see they worked to a high standard. This being particularly important to me as I caused world war three with Yuri's family when I opted not to accept a quote from a very good friend of the family, who was going to charge us 12,000 THB more for the same spec as Home Pro supplied. It took a few weeks for things to settle down after the eruption let me tell you. Never come between a friend of the family and the opportunity for them to make money out of a farang seems to be one of the unwritten features of Thai culture.

I digress, back to the air con units. Three units fully installed and working like a charm by 18:00. The Home Pro Surin team did a good job, with only one blemish where a ladder was dropped leading to a cracked skirting board - easy enough to fix. Like any job, with the right crew and some careful planning things usually go pretty well. We were fortunate once again to have had a good crew.

Image below of our Mitsubishi Electric 23,000 BTU fan unit. It covers the living / dining / kitchen area: 52 m2. Set it on auto at 24 degrees and let it run this afternoon at around 14:00. Took about an hour for the fan to drop to low speed. All the time using power from the Solar PV system.

The condenser unit in operation with the drain still to be finished, hence the water over the path. Have to work out how to keep assorted insects and geckos from getting inside. Don't want any circuit boards getting fried by a stray gecko. I'm told moth balls work well.

Now all we have left to do inside is Yuri's kitchen, due for installation in mid-August. In the meantime we'll start to move items brought from Australia into the house. Not exactly according to Buddhist traditions, as this is technically considered to be "moving in" but we're not worried about upsetting the spirits albeit Yuri's mum is.

Stay tuned for the next update, probably on one of the following: security screens, guttering or moving in.

^ Looks good, those were obviously not the final photos as those stupid stickers are still on every item

Originally Posted by peciacake

Like any job, with the right crew and some careful planning things usually go pretty well. We were fortunate once again to have had a good crew.

The fact you and Yuri were there imho is most important when building a home.

Progress Update: House Ceremony and Moving In

As foreshadowed above, Yuri's mum wasn't about to have us start moving anything in without a house blessing ceremony first. She was onto us early this morning, telling Yuri she wanted a small ceremony to keep the spirits happy: she had prepared everything very early this morning. So we loaded up the truck with enough food to easily feed a dozen of us, and plenty of drinks - apparently spirits like a drink. Plus plates, cups, candles and plenty of fruit.

The image below shows Yuri's dad as the Ceremony MC on the right. He made sure the spirits were going to enjoy themselves today, cracking jokes all through the proceedings. In the background is Pon, a villager who does a terrific amount of work for us. A humble, generous man who we are blessed to have to assist us. See the following post about the garden beds he made for us. His wife Blin with her back to the camera is in the foreground - she was too shy to look at the camera. A wonderful lady who always has a smile. Yuri is assisting her mum, making sure the spirits, in this case Yuri's grandparents, had plenty to eat and drink.

It was a short, simple ceremony, with a lot of laughing and joking. Well worth the 20 minutes it took.

Then we got stuck into moving a lot of the stuff we brought from Australia: it has been sitting in an old shed owned by Yuri's dad since April 2020, so we were pretty apprehensive about the condition of the soft furniture. After about 10 trips in the Hilux we started unpacking. Surprisingly little was affected: the removalists did a great job wrapping and sealing everything.

The image below shows my favourite chair, bought way back in 1978, a year before Yuri was born. It still looks great and I'm looking forward to relaxing in it as often as possible.

18 cartons, just for Yuri's kitchen. To be fair, Yuri is meticulous with her packing. I will be very surprised if there are any breakages.

By comparison, my desk & four cartons. The PC will be set up over the next week or so. Looking forward to that I can tell you - all I need to keep me busy when it's too hot to be working outside.

Pon's Garden Beds

As mentioned in the post above, we are blessed to have Pon available to do any work we ask around the land. He works tirelessly and does a terrific job. Doesn't matter what it is, he just gets on with it. He's been a great help to both Yuri and I - if he wasn't available yours truely would be doing the work. While he's working for us, he also has his own rice farm and six water buffalo. And he's not young, we're not sure but we think he's 77.

The image below shows the garden beds he built for Yuri during May and June. Even during the hottest days he kept plugging away despite Yuri asking him to only do 4 hours in the morning. And a wonderful man to go with it - humble, funny and very generous. He's happy to work for us too - his buffalos never run out of fresh grass, which he and Blin cut together when we don't need him to do anything for us.

Peciacake,

If I may from numerous experience events, On your AC compressor assemblies outside. In the bottom of the case they have large drain holes and typically on the side the area where the copper plumbing and power lines enbter they have some openings. These are easy homes for birds to make nests and large toads to climb in. I encourage you to get a hunk of window screen and lay some in there. this way it blocks the creatures from entering them I held the screen in place with basic clear adhesive.

I had one I missed that is on the ground and the other night I was woke up as I heard the fan banging and rattling. I headed on out and a large toad found its way in and happened to be sitting and the fan activated. well the toad was frapped and heaved all around inside. So it was a clean up and then a screen install. On the side where the plumbing and power comes in birds make nests. The danger with that is the birds around grab up anything and that can include metallic and that could short out the power leads.

^^

That looks good !

Originally Posted by Stumpy

These are easy homes for birds to make nests and large toads to climb in. I encourage you to get a hunk of window screen and lay some in there. this way it blocks the creatures from entering them I held the screen in place with basic clear adhesive.

Many thanks for the tip Stumpy. Very much appreciated. I'll pass it on to a mate, who had to replace his AC unit after a gecko fried the circuit board in the condenser. The cost of a new compressor was 9.0K THB so he opted for a complete AC for 12.0K THB. Plus he switched away from an inverter type - no circuit board in the condenser.

Man Cave / Shed Update.

There is an earlier post on the shed I had built before we started building the house. Since then it's become a store room for all the excess building materials Khun Pu kindly left behind. Mainly floor tiles but also gyprock / plaster board and roofing. As a result the shed's pretty full so I'm keen to sell some of the items we will no longer need. There is some very high quality fencing and a near new one-owner post hole auger that's drilled about 550 holes, and a roll of barbed wire and a roll of fencing wire. All are in excellent condition. If anyone needs to build a fence I can recommend the fencing. It is very strong and looks good too. For anyone interested please drop me a direct message and I'll send full details.

In the meantime, here's a couple of images of the shed taken this afternoon. Unpacked the tools I brought over from AUS and returned the old ones belonging to the father in law that I recovered from the floor of his old shed. About all that's missing is a bar fridge - it's on the list.

And the reverse angle. Note the router sitting up above the door. If I'm banished for bad behaviour at least I'll have wifi...

Originally Posted by Norton

The fact you and Yuri were there imho is most important when building a home.

most definitely Norts, you'd be mad not to be there - i've seen the short cuts inc substandard concrete pours and lower spec rebars Thais will use to shave money off all in prices.

Originally Posted by peciacake

If I'm banished for bad behaviour at least I'll have wifi...

You know that Pre-nup you didn't bother with... only joking - You have proved that ensuring you are there and engaging with a builder they won't take you for a ride.

Originally Posted by peciacake

Man Cave / Shed Update.

It's not a mancave until there's a fridge full of beer. It's the rules.

White tile on the deck of your cave? Real men have unfinished concrete!

It's looking great, I can't wait to see the garden started.

Originally Posted by peciacake

For anyone interested please drop me a direct message and I'll send full details.

Will be down your way in next few weeks. Sure there is something there I could use.