Thread: A "not so Grand Design" in Ubon Ratchathani

Ok, I'm stupid...what do you mean by "rendering", is it putting the top coat of plaster/concrete on the walls?

^ usually yes

Originally Posted by Topper

Ok, I'm stupid...what do you mean by "rendering", is it putting the top coat of plaster/concrete on the walls?

rendering = plastering. Applying either a sand and cement mix over brick walls, or using a special pre-made mix for AAC blocks as we have.
Such as this stuff:


I think the americans call it "stucco" ?

^I think stucco refers to a certain type of finish, from what I understand how it's done here in PH. You can choose not to paint over a stucco-finish wall. (from what I've seen in projects here)

Rendering = plastering = "palitada" in Tagalog (for Topper)

From what I've seen here in PH, after the wall has been made using CHB, they render it using a cement-sand mixture. Then if not skimping on money, they apply a skim coat before painting with primer. (If low budget, sometimes they skip the skim coat.) They apply 2 coats of primer then the top coat.

@mike - I hear you re: choosing tiles & whatnot. I've been to a Wilcon Depot (large depot here) and there are so many tiles, paints, bathroom fixtures etc to choose from! I wasn't doing a house build then but the depot was near an office that I visited, so I made the detour. I've taken pics of the tiles & paints that I fancied. Lol.

Thanks for the updates!

Originally Posted by mikenot

Never again will I subject myself to that trauma.

I'm hearing you Mike. Loud and clear. Compared with the rest of the fit-out, tile selection stands alone as an item that still causes my blood pressure to rise. Never again.
At least 10 trips to Do Home, Home Pro, Global House and various tile stores in and around Surin, including a trip to Prassat.
Then there was getting stock from other stores as Do Home Surin didn't have enough in stock for the tiles we selected. Luckily they were able to scrape together enough to fill our order.
All in all very energy draining. Fortunately we had a master tiler. He and his wife are an excellent team, and made up for all the hassle in selecting the various tile combinations.
We ended up with a great result; the best part of the build.

I like your stove and range hood selection using your experience. Wish I had a similar level of knowledge. SWMBO took charge of ours, so I'm not sure what our range hood will be like once it starts getting used.
We opted for an induction stove rather than gas. Still not sure whether it will prove to be a success as it hasn't been used yet, 8 months on....

Great updates!

Progress report for the last week or so :

The people doing the decorative mouldings have been irregular visitors. As mentioned before they turned up a week ago while the regular crew was pouring the concrete apron around the house, took the next day off before returning for a bit more work and then disappearing again. 2 days ago they got about 2 thirds of their work done then told the wife they needed an advance of 10,000 baht to buy supplies. This is one of the "extras" not included in the builder's price. After sending them the money we have not seen them again, causing the wife a bit of worry. so she talked to the builder who said they are reliable, and are regular sub-contractors for him, don't fret...we will see.
The ceilings are under way, all the hangers and framework for the house ceiling has been completed but we haven't seen them for a couple of days either. Still got the verandahs and outbuilding to do though.

All the electrical wiring in the house is in place I think as we have not seen the sparky for a couple of days either.
Do they have some secret method of knowing what wire leads where, or will it be trial and error when it comes to connecting circuit breakers and switches ?

But looking at that more closely I can see a couple of unused conduits so perhaps he has not finished yet?

The tiles have been delivered and one of the crew told the wife tiling would start on Monday (yesterday) but no, nothing happening there. I guess they cannot start on the floor tiles until all the scaffolding is gone from inside, which means we are being delayed by missing workers. He has another job not far from our rental house so we see all the workers coming and going to that job ! There is a 180 day deadline for completion in the contract, and we are up to almost 4 months now. I think tiling and painting is going to take up a lot of the remaining 2 months or so so Khun Ae had better get his workers organised. Personally I am not that worried if it goes over schedule as we have a roof over our heads now, and I would rather have a good job done than a rushed one. The wife is not so forgiving though, and she had quite a "discussion" with the builder this afternoon when we were out at the site.
"Why only 2 people painting the cladding and many people at other job?"
"Look at all these chips in the walls " (where people have knocked scaffolding and ladders against the walls)
The "bua people" have vanished
"The drains are full of sand and rubbish" (because nobody put the lids over the inspection holes)
Blah, blah, blah.....
She was not a happy camper.
I'm expecting a larger work crew tomorrow

Day 100/ 4 months later


Well today was working day #100, 4 months on from our "first pole day". Still a fair bit of work to do but the wife is a bit more relaxed now. The "bua" crew didn't do a runner after getting that 10,000 baht advance , they were back at work today with a full crew. They even had a teenage daughter mixing up the mortar for a while but it must have been too much for her as I later found her propped up against the bathroom wall fast asleep.
Just a couple more of the window mouldings to do, and the upper piece around the posts:

The builder had one of his guys scoop out the sand and rubbish from the drains that the wife complained about, but still no cover over them! More heavy rain will just wash more dirt into them, why cannot people do a job properly in the first place ? Yes, I know, labour is cheap here.
He had also doubled the number of people painting, nearly all the fascia and cladding is painted and most of the exterior walls have had at least their first coat of primer. Waiting for the bua guys to finish and move their scaffolding out of the way to prime the rest of back wall. Also just started a second coat of primer inside.

Don't trust HomePro's website when it comes to checking stock in store ! Two days ago we went into Ubon to get some 18 inch Hatari orbital fans for the verandahs so before leaving I checked the stock on hand in HomePro and Thai Watsadu. HomePro claimed to have 4 in stock but when we got there they just had the one on display. The wife checked with the staff..."mai mee". Are you sure? No have.
OK, Thai Watsadu is just down the road so we head there. Their website doesn't give a number for stock on hand, it just has a graphic ....yellow bar=limited stock, green bar=stock on hand. In this case it was green....but they only had one in stock plus one on display. Down to Global House where they just had one on display.
Go back home and look up the websites again, and HomePro still claims to have 4 in stock, and thai Watsadu still green. So while on the computer I check Lazada, and find there is an official Hatari store and they are selling cheaper than retail. Ordered 3 and delivered just over 24 hours later !

I did suggest that we get some ordinary ceiling fans for inside the house but there was a firm NO from the wife. Apparently they are too dangerous because the blades might come off and chop her head off....or so she was told by one of her FaceBook "friends" who heard it from somebody else who read about it on the internet . Facebook has a lot to answer for !
I told her that was a load of rubbish but it was still a NO. These orbital fans are OK according to her, they are safe because they have a guard around them
She did rightly point out that we have more than enough ordinary floor fans, 7 of them including 2 freebies for house building purchases that we have not opened yet. So I guess she has a point there !

Good progress!

Coming along. Cheers.

You will far better when its all behind you and you can then figure out how to landscape it.

I am wondering if it is worth continuing this thread, what with the current unreliability of TD and all the forecasts of it's imminent death.

Mike carry on. It's been interesting. If for example SeekingAss worried about TD carking it we'd not get to enjoy his travel, cooking and condo maintenance threads.

Thanks for the updates, Mike. Nice to see that your house has a bit of "lipstick" already.

^^ Mike. Who's wearing the skirt in this relationship? Aren't those mouldings missing going to give you a Herbert lom eye twitch?