Thread: Do I need to leave topfill to settle or not?

Good morning all,
I have recently purchased a rai of land near Nongkhai .
My intention is to raise the level of this land by approx. 3 foot , leave for 12 months and then build a house on it .
Some-one has told me that it is not necessary to leave filled up land for this long before building work can begin .
My question therefore is , is it possible to build on land which has been raised before a waiting period of 12 months ?
Thanks for reading and any response would be appreciated.
Rawky

I say no. Even if you build on a conrete raft you will get subsidance. To build on uncompacted ground, I'd wait at least 2 years. Your choice, your money.

Once ground is broken it can not be returned to the original 100% state.
If you fill a block dig down into the fill and then a further 1 metre in the natural
ground for your footings you can suspect an almost floating slab which is supported as per engineers instructions. (load chart)
You may believe at some stage that the ground is compacted, just let
it rain a few seasons and watch it schrink.

Best to fill now, then when you come back and are ready to build. lay it out and drive pilings at the corners and every 2 meters and where your load bearing inner walls will be, and scatter a few in the open spaces where your concrete floor slab will be supported.
Then maybe you will have a house that will not be all cracked to hell and will last you more than 20 years as most house expectant is here.

The rate at with the fill settles is determined by the type of soil and the amount of water.

In 2003 I filled an area where my house was to be built with mostly clay soil. It sat in the weather until late 2006 (four rainy seasons) and had fallen about 30-35% of it's original height. It's still settling, albeit much more slowly.

Based upon my experience, and when building in Thailand the subterranean structure of the base ground is most important and when planning your foundations.

I have built houses and pools on reclaimed land (and from rice paddys with 10-20 metre pilings) and also built double storey houses on solid ground/ rock base (with 3 metre deep steel re-inforced footings).

You should only raise your land and for the purpose of storm water run-off with the height being determined by the adjacent property levels.

I have no idea about the condition of your land in Nong Kai nor what type of house you wish to build so to properly advise you would be impossible.

A bit more information would help rawky.

Piling is cheap, I would go with blackgang's suggestion.

Yes we can see that it only settled about a meter more on the right than on the left,, standard for Thai construction.

You got it all wrong! The builder was Kee Mao after building it and couldnt hold the camera upright.

I dont give a damn once my gargle doesnt tip over on the upstairs veranda, or whatever you call it, the upstairs patio, or something.......... The place where I drink upstairs, al fresco.

Originally Posted by Sir Burr

Piling is cheap, I would go with blackgang's suggestion.

Piling is cheap?

I would suggest that most of the buildings constructed in the bangkok area, (and with respect to the costs invoved) the piling and foundation costs represents 30-40% of the total build outlay.

Again how you prepare the build foundation footprint depends on what you are going to put on top of that footprint.

Fcuk up on your foundation preparation and your will be bitten nice and hard in the future.

One of my next offerings will be a picture thread about how to fix a cracked pool.

My mate built a house on the side of a Klong and the pool cracked about 15 months after it was completed. (No warranty) Again the builder didn't add pilings and the major and expensive repair job is now my next project.

We are talking houses here, not skyscrapers. piling down to 5 or 6 metres isn't expensive.

I have pilings to six metres (they couldn't drive them any further) and footings and I've had no problems. I remember the additional cost of the pilings wasn't very much.

Probably not very relevant but just saw this and thought it might be of some interest to some of you.

Bangkok's Independent Newspaper

Yes, that is revelant, that is exactly what is being discussed, The need for good footings or you will have a fucked up building if you do not have good footings.

The Thai Mantra is "Throw some cement,water, sand, and gravel, mixed in any combintions, on the ground and then stack some blocks and you have a house"

anyway, they don't use pilings in Isaan

the way it is done is to dig holes down to stable subsoil, about 1metre square

the depth will depend on the soil itself, although usually 2m is enough - check with local builders

the position of the holes will depend on the building itself. Your architect should know all that structural stuff. It is worth hiring one of those anyway, to get the proper plans etc for P permission and the builders drawings

Those holes then have the ironwork across the bottom, and the iron for the upright posts, put in. Then the concrete work is done. You can see this process in several building threads already done

so you get a pillar supported on a wide base which makes for a stable foundation.

yes sir and the Thai will mix any amount of sand,cement gravel,dirt and mud,and water and when it is sufficently wet will pour it in a hole, some of the columns in the house we had built were damn near straight cement in some spots and dry gravel in others,so after that experience I had every ounce of concrete redi mix delivered and still even with that altho cheaper than hand mix it was still a different slump in every load, now you have to really work at it to get different mix in every batch when everything is weighed before going into the mixer, the thing is,, A Thai Just does not give a fuck and will do most anything to keep from doing a first class job and doing craftsmanship work.

^
The English used to mix Ox Blood in the concrete to make it stronger

If you don't believe me do a google

Ya Know, when we set that little deck thingy on the pilings at INOC oil terminal at Basrah we drove 48 inch steel pilings with 1 1/2 wall thickness over 100 feet into the seabed in 90 feet of water.
Pilings never hurt..

There is piling and theres is piling. In many instances here I have seen piling done by using the mens body weight jumping on a peice of wood attached at an angle to the piles .Then I have seen piles being drien by a pile driving derrick.
In neither case have I seen piles being driven with the result of the hammer load being measured. Simply driven in untill they are at ground level.
The result of the final hammer strike is what tells you if the pile is adequate.
Not exactly rocket science and having regard to many high rise structures being built in BKK thia recognised method must be the norm with reputable Thai builders.
There is a huge hole in the market for the smaller builders but will people here pay to have the job done properly?