Thread: Chris's Villa Build in Phnom Penh Cambodia

I'm not an electrician so I couldn't give an expert opinion and I've never lived or built anything in Thailand but my impression is that the general standard of wiring is poor here, but it's more a case of getting what you pay for. You see very different standard here depending on the type of house, with some shocking ;-) things in basic houses and then getting more advanced the more expensive the property is.

The local electricians will suggest things like lightening rods and earth leakage protection without being prompted. The electrician on the current house was even prompting me to put a large conduit out to the street for power in case I ever wanted to upgrade to three phase.

For this house I've had a Dutch friend who's an electrician with a large contracting company here do the design, so hopefully will be up to scratch.

Good luck.
I only hope that your Dutch friend realises the ambient temperature of Thailand (as compared to Holland) as well as the type of 'earthing systems' used here.

He's been here 10 years working for a large firm doing the electrical plans for embassies, bank headquarters and such, if he didn't know what he was doing I'm guessing he wound have been found out already.

Originally Posted by EssEffBee

Chris, there has been many a foreign 'electrician' in Thailand who did not apply the correct application of electrical installations in Thailand.

Whilst what I'm saying MAY be equivalent to 'losing face' for the foreign electrician, this is no excuse for an incorrect electrical installation.

In any situation, the first thing that MUST be determined is the 'Earthing System'.

Is it IT,TT or TN?

If it is IT, RCD's MUST be used on every circuit, since Thailand does legislate IMD's (Insulation Monitoring Devices) for IT systems. This is the only way to ensure some form of safety with this system. Also, RCD's are electronic devices & can easily fail (storms etc). This means that RCD's used within an IT installation (or ANY installation) MUST be checked AT LEAST every month by pressing the 'test' button.

A TT installation requires a somewhat different approach.
All cabling (wiring) from appliances back to the consumer unit, must NOT exceed certain ohmic values as well as the circuit breaker(s) MUST be correctly sized according to 'trip times'. This will ensure that the circuit breaker (not RCD) will trip in the appropriate amount of time, which is a minimum of 0.4 seconds for any fault.

For this reason, 'Earth Fault Loop Impedance' tests are carried out, which 'prove' that circuit breakers CAN trip in less than 0.4 seconds, under possible fault conditions.

In a proven TN (C+S) system, the 'Main Neutral' can be connected to the 'Main Earth Bar' in the consumer unit, which will greatly help the operating speed of circuit breakers but is VERY dependant on 'polarity'.

In Thailand, the PEA have published a document (in Thai), which I translated.
The document essentially said how a domestic installation should be wired. According to their document, it should be wired according to a TN (C+S) earthing system.
The contradiction is that many new installations are according to the IT earthing system in suburban Thailand. The practice of the PEA compared to THEIR published document proves that they DO NOT care about or monitor electrical safety.

As a result, it is HIGHLY recommended that RCD's be used on EVERY circuit in Thailand.

I would suggest that if Cambodia has the same approach, RCD's MUST be used on EVERY circuit to ensure electrical safety.

BTW, 'earthing' does not matter in IT installations.
In any other installation, it DOES matter. The way that correct 'earthing' is implemeted is according to the 'know how' of the electrician & his/her ability to establish which 'earthing system' is used.

Also, there is no such thing as a 'legislated' Thai Electrical Code. The closest thing to this is a book, in Thai, called the Thai Electrical Code. This book was written by the EIT (Engineering Institute of Thailand).

Here is a link to this amazing book, which is in Thai.
Google Translate

You remind of someone I know. Is your name Steve by any chance?

The brickwork is looking good now Chris ,, good luck looking good

Quick update, I just sacked the outfit doing the plumbing and electrics. They seemed to be fine with the electrics but had serious problems sticking to the plans when it came to the plumbing.

They'd already messed up once, so have been told to not glue the pipes on the downstairs drainage until I'd the person I'm using for plumbing supervision inspects it. He came to inspect it again today and found a string of errors such as the traps being too high, one pipe that was going up hill and a load of T joins being used where the plan clearly showed Y's. To top it all off he had already glued it prior to inspection despite being clearly told not to. It's probably cost me $500 in already paid labour and wasted pipes, but that's nothing compared to what it will cost to get it repaired in the future.

Just wish I'd canned him the first time around and saved a lot of time and money.

Chris, interesting thread and it appears the building methods there are close to what we see in Thailand. I have a good friend in the Bangkok area that built a nice villa with all Cambodian workers. It was challenging, but no more than most builds you read about.
Thanks for all the pictures and details since I continue to take all the comments and store them in my memory banks for my build next year. This includes all the comments of the posters as well. Lot's of valuable lessons to be learnt here.

Rick, yes from what I've seen the techniques are almost identical. Challenges and all, I've been lucky and have found a good contractor.

I imagine building using Cambodian builders in Thailand would be challenging, I don't think you exactly get the cream of the crop crossing the border, then I'm guessing your friend doesn't speak Khmer, that would be tough :-)

^^No not yet it's all been quiet the new year holiday and the builders are just back today, the next step will be to put the roof on which I imagine will begin in the next week or two.

^^^ Top advice - wish I had some like this advising me when I did the hand over house inspection.

After the best part of two weeks lost for Khmer New Year, the crew are all back on site and things are rolling again. The 1st floor formwork is now all down do I get to have my first proper look and get a first hand feel for the space.

First impressions, the balcony size is perfect but the 16m2 landing is probably a tad excessive. Might cut into some of the space with some additional built in wardrobes from the bedrooms.

Here are some pics:















Next up is rendering and the roof. Should be fun!

Also you all probably remember that I sacked my plumber/electrician.

Anyway hired the guy who was overseeing the plumbing to put a crew together to do the plumbing work, he was a bit pricey at $1800. That's $1000 more than the last guy. Seems like it's going to be worth every penny though, his guys came in ripped out the cocked up effort of the last guy, salvaged what they could and reinstalled it to the letter of the design in a day. They also know how to weld PPR pipe for the hot/cold water system, so I'm hoping that will be just as straight forward.

Also hired a new electrician yesterday, he clearly understood the drawings and seemed to know his stuff. I was sure he was going to come in with a high price, so I was quite taken aback when he first said $1200, then dropped to $900 when my wife pushed him for a discount. Result! He's my wife's best friends brother in law which probably explains the strange behaviour.

Quite exciting at the house now, we're starting to move past the structural stuff with the plumbing, electrics and door frames going in:

Here's the first door frame to go in, we've gone for a 2.2x.8 hard wood door:



Here's some shots from the plumbing, really happy with the plumber all the pipes have a trap and he's done it in such a way that it's only 60cm from the pad at it's lowest point, which I'm pretty happy with:

Hi Chris
Really enjoy your build, all though I don't think I will ever do it myself,looking forward to seeing the end result.

^ Thanks for the feedback, good to know there are still people following along.

Chris,
Your build is coming along at a good clip and looking good. Seems your new plumber is knowledgeable and does good work. Congrats on that decision. I'd give him a bonus upon completion and testing, might pay off downstream when/if any problems crop up.

One of the previous comments mentioned "earthing" in IT work wasn't an issue....... bullshit, as a retired data comm. guy, IT earthing is as vital to data as to a home or even more so. I think your friend will do nicely as an electrical designer.

Keep up the good thread, lots of us are watching and envious. Good job!

Jim

^^ Sure, I definitely want good earthing. My current house isn't earthed properly and I get static shocks from a lot of appliances, especially my computer.

Plumbing Tips

During the last few weeks I've learned a lot of new things about plumbing, I'm no expert but I want to share some of these things with you all as I might have overlooked them had they not been told to me and they are not standard practice in most builds here.

Traps:

Or what I always knew as a U-bend. They are designed so that they constantly contain water, that stops bad smells traveling up the pipe from the septic tanks below. They are standard on all toilets and are fitted on some sinks, but they are often missed on floor drains. You need to have at least one trap between every opening (drain, sink hole) etc and the septic tank to prevent smells. Several drainage holes in one bathroom can also all share the same trap to save on pipe.

This didn't used to be such an issue years ago when it was standard practice to have two drainage systems, one for black water and one for gray. In those days you only needed to worry about traps for the toilets, which already have them built in. But nowadays most modern builds have a single drainage system, so the pipe on your sink will go direct to the septic tank and the smells will come back the other way without a trap somewhere in between.

Also a specific problem to this part of the world is evaporation, drains that rarely have any water flow down them (like the floor drain in a downstairs toilet) should always share a trap with a drainage pipe that gets more use (like the wash basin in that downstairs toilet). The reason for this is that a trap for an infrequently used drain will dry out within a few day in tropical climates and the smell will get in. Sharing the trap with a more frequently used drainage pipe will keep the trap topped up with water.

Air Admittance Valves:

Have you ever used a bathroom where the water splutters as it goes down the drain? If you have you've used a system that has a trap but doesn't have an air admittance valve. It's a bit like turning a big water bottle upside down and pouring the water out, it comes in glugs as it needs to suck more air into the bottle in order to let more water out. The same thing is happening with the trap. To solve this you need an air admittance valve somewhere between the trap and the septic tank. The valve is one way, so it allows air into the system but prevents bad smells from escaping.

Slope:

It's not surprise that slope is important in plumbing, but I never realised how important. If it's not steep enough waste gets stuck, if it's too steep waste also gets stuck as the liquids move much more quickly than the solids and the solids need the liquids to help them get down smoothly. For most pipes the gradient needs to be between 1 and 2 percent.

Clean Outs:

You don't want to have to rip up your floor or knock out your ceiling and cut open pipe work to remove blockages. Every straight piece of 100mm (toilet pipe) should have a clean out which can be placed under a tile and opened so a snake can be pushed down the pip to clear the blockage.

Looks like we're finally going to get to the fun part of the build now that the super structure is up and all dividing walls are in. The roof should be going on next week and the window bars I designed are finished and the first ones being installed as we speak, can't wait to see the doors:

thanks for this thread... i am really enjoying it

pretty bars...but You put the window bar inside ? and what about the window ?

Originally Posted by Phuketrichard

BARS!!!! yech!!
When i built my house had to fight my contractor not to put them on as i hated the idea of looking out thru bars.

So looks like your windows will go outside the bars. Where will the screens go outside the windows then? or inside the bars?

From the photos it appears one big kick will knock the whole thing out. Usually the bars go inside a metal frames which is placed outside the wondow so they cant just be kicked in

Bars are the norm here, like any security feature, you don't want to be the first on the block to do away with it as you then become the softest target, especially in hot climates where you leave the windows open at night. You can't really see it in the shot as during this shot they are just lining it up and haven't welded it all yet, but what they do is set a six inch long 20x20mm steel bar into the brickwork and then weld the window bars to those at eight points, then when the builder renders it will be flush and level with the inner wall. I think even Beckham would have a hard job kicking that off.

The placement of the bars was a tough one, we're having UPVC windows, so it was a toss up between outer bars and sliding windows or inner bars with casement windows. UPVC sliders loose a lot of the benefits so we went with inner bars. Once the interior is rendered they will be sprayed white.