Thread: Building an extension onto the front of your terraced house.

Actually that Delta bucket is a collectors item mate.

As far as I know they are out of business these days.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

Actually that Delta bucket is a collectors item mate.

As far as I know they are out of business these days.

Really ............? Hmmmmm , so if I give him 50 baht for it can I interest you in a very nice example of a vintage Delta bucket for a reasonable mark up ?

( waif not included )

Best Bucket picture I have seen, LT should be buying that off you!
Great thread.......

Someone has stolen your car number plate ...

Simon

come on BY, wheres the update?!?!?!?!

Originally Posted by sunsetter

come on BY, wheres the update?!?!?!?!

Well, I'm only posting a few pictures of each days progress and today the builder worked from 8.00 until 6.00. Very happy with his work so far. Keeping my fingertips crossed that the bricky who is up next is as good as this bloke who will be finishing off his part of the work tomorrow.

I overestimated the cost of the tiles as well so the end price is going to be just about 70,000......a saving of a couple of thou. ( Tempting providence by saying that )

So....end of day 4 ......roof almost complete.




And the neighbours Lanna style thing is taking shape as well. They started at 7.30 a.m. with a hammer drill........nice





I think I mentioned already that they are using 34 pilings for this construction which were the longest I've ever seen. In fact.......too long as they hit bedrock at about 20 feet and had to cut about 4ft of ever single one. They didn't tell the absent owner though as they lugged of the incriminating evidence the same evening.

I was also very shocked at the exploitation of child labour going on next door. Heartbreaking to see kids being employed for heavy work at this age .




He confided in me that his only renumeration for a hard days hod carrying is a few sweets , a bit of rice and a plastic toy at the end of his contract.



Wiping the tear from my eye I'll just show another standard extension around the corner. Now IMO they have gone a bit overboard with pilings and concrete posts here considering they don't have any brick wall to support. Five in all and 10 pilings sunk in. Similar builds start at 20,000 but just use the front wall as a footing for the metal support posts.

DaY 5

Rain slowed things today but the finishing touches were put to the roof. Cement seal at the top edge to keep out the rain plus the side edges and corners were tiled.




The double roofed thingy on the neighbours roof also got finished :




The partition on the right was also put up :







And the pest of the west continued to run amok. Won't be seeing her again as her dads part of the job is complete.




So far so good.

Day 6

Bricky turned up at 7.40 today so had to get up early again for a chinwag. Nice bloke but all these early mornings are killing me. Gonna hit the sack at 11 tonight as we're both suffering from lack of sleep.

Anyway....nice steady worker despite the rain. No spectacular progress but moving forward nicely. The two walls about half done.




The skys opened about 3.00 in the afternoon an exposed a slight leak at the front of the L. Closer examination revealed a mistake on the roofers part :



The water flows from the top of the roof, around the concrete seal and dribbles over the edge and leaks back into where the ceiling is going to be. The proper solution is to remove the last roof tile and cut a new one about 3 inches wider so the water continues down a grove. This will mean a new tile, two new front facing boards, some wood spacers and a couple of hours work. I'm sure the builder will suggest grout but going to have to insist on these minor changes.

34 piles sound massively excessive. Surprised they're using piles at all, is it reclaimed land?

Originally Posted by ChrisInCambo

34 piles sound massively excessive. Surprised they're using piles at all, is it reclaimed land?

Bangkok in general is on very low land only a few feet above see level. The land is soft . The use of pilings always shocks people who have done building projects elsewhere where the land is higher and harder.

Preuksa Real estate have just built 3 villages in this immediate area containing about 1300 homes. Every single one of those homes is built on 20ft or more piles.
I can't remember how many they use on each home but I tend to agree with you that 34 seems excessive for our neighbours extension . We only used 6 for our little job and I think 20 would have been enough next door but i'm guessing they figured the double roof was heavy, pilings are not massively expensive, and they wanted to err on the side of safety . Thats my best guess.

Where we used to live , 3k away , there was a village of detatched houses. I noticed that one owner built a single story kitchen on the back without using any piles. A short 3 months later, his kitchen was well detatched in its own right with a four inch crack where it had been joined to the house but had come away and was sinking !

They don't call Bangkok airport ' Swampy ' for nothing

Originally Posted by Bangyai

The use of pilings always shocks people who have done building projects elsewhere where the land is higher and harder

they are a good thing in land like that, although it must be difficult to calculate exactly what is needed, unless you go right down to bedrock

Originally Posted by DrAndy

Originally Posted by Bangyai

The use of pilings always shocks people who have done building projects elsewhere where the land is higher and harder

they are a good thing in land like that, although it must be difficult to calculate exactly what is needed, unless you go right down to bedrock

Which is what they do. As already mentioned, the neighbours piles were too long and 4ft had to be cut off. You know you're through the soft stuff when they won't go down easily any more ( see video ).


So days 7 and 8 ( only half day today ) were spent finishing off the walls and rendering the outside of one of them. Yesterday the roofer returned and re did the roof to our satisfaction by cutting a new roofing tile 3 inches wider. Problem sorted.

Its turning out much brighter than we had hoped as well. We had feared it might make the living room a bit dark but plenty of light still getting through. Will get even better when the front picket fence is returned to normal and everything is painted in light colours.




The central columns look fragile now but once rendered and rough brick tiled on the front will be plenty strong enough.




A nice semi outside private area to read a book in. The roof above will be insulated to help keep the heat coming through.

Nice thread Bangyai.
do you know offhand what it cost's for each sunk piling?

I live in Bang pli and my driveway is sinking. The problem is the corner is on one of the house pilings , so that is not sinking with the rest , so has cracked off.
I'm going to have to break the whole driveway up , sink pilings and then rebuild.

cheers

Originally Posted by storm1fishing

Nice thread Bangyai.
do you know offhand what it cost's for each sunk piling?

I live in Bang pli and my driveway is sinking. The problem is the corner is on one of the house pilings , so that is not sinking with the rest , so has cracked off.
I'm going to have to break the whole driveway up , sink pilings and then rebuild.

cheers

To be honest I'm not sure of the exact price per piling because they were included in the quote and I have not enquired myself. However, I can say they are not massively expensive. Our 6 pilings as shown in the thread ( first few posts ) cost me 2500 baht including the cost of delivery, digging holes and putting them in. That money was returned to me by the builder who was busy that day so I happened to pay for them myself.

The guys who put them in do this job exclusively....nothing else. They have very long trowels to dig out the holes and all the gear for the job. Drilling machines are never used as they are not needed in this soft clay. To tamp them down I have seen upto 7 guys standing on a plank doing the dance thing. It depends from area to area.

For what its worth, a friend bought a detatched house a few kilometres away and pilings of course were used but nonetheless, several houses suffered from the same problem as you .....sinking or cracked driveway. The building company redid them all under guarentee so not so bad for my friend.

I'll say again that people who have not done a build in or near Bangkok cannot believe how soft the clay soil is !

Echo Icespikes comments BY ,, were in the same boat mate ,, very humble but very happy as you will see when we start to build our home a bit later on .

Green sent for your honesty and reality

Thanks for the quick reply m8

In this area the ground subsides up to 100mm per year.

The houses are built on those massive plies that are driven in by a tall structure with a great big lump of metal that hammers them into the ground ( I think this is whats called a pile driver but could be wrong) , so no problems with the house , its just everything that's not attached to it.
Any chance that you can forward me a contact number for the people that do the piles.

thanks again

Originally Posted by storm1fishing

Thanks for the quick reply m8

Any chance that you can forward me a contact number for the people that do the piles.

thanks again

I think Bang Pli is too far from Bangyai for these guys to travel as they get plenty of work locally.

Your best bet is to look in your local area for a builders yard that sells pilings in various sizes. Here, you will able to get the price on them and its a pretty sure fire bet that he will have the contact number of local people who put them in as they will be the ones doing the buying from him.

Days 9 & 10

Slowed up a bit doing the rendering around the windows but finished today and also had time to do the tiling in front of the door before knocking off.







Will be starting the driveway tomorrow after moving the outside tap and possibly a bit of electrical work. Be glad when its all over as the novelty of it all is wearing thin.

Great post, Bangyai. I just love your technical terminology! Makes it so easy for us laymen to understand - you speak my language!

Originally Posted by BarnacleBill

Great post, Bangyai. I just love your technical terminology! Makes it so easy for us laymen to understand - you speak my language!

Thanks Bill ..... I try.

Back to the subject of pilings. The washing machine man has decided to stick something on the side of his house and the piling people turned out in force. Didn't count them all but it was a lot , stacked up in three er....... groups.







Piles of pilings !!

And talking of obsessions with extensions you can see that the house behind washing machine man started life something like this




but now has completely disappeared , engulfed by add ons . Work started 9 months ago and is still progressing at a snails pace.




Apparently, this is going to be a little eatery. Good idea in completely the wrong place as this is a gated village and is empty all day.

This should be a lesson to anyone buying a terraced home. In the sales blurb they tell you that this sort of thing is not allowed. In reality, no one takes a blind bit of notice.

Days 11 and 12

Finished all the tiling work and moved the outside tap. Also ran an electric point to the outside area. Tomorrow the ceiling goes up and Friday the painting will be done. Hopefully done by the weekend.

Lovely thread mate. Thanks. A bit of an eye opener too. I've never seen the like of those piling blokes. Amazing. Cheers

^^
What sort of cat do you have ?
That's one hell of a cat flap.

Originally Posted by Thetyim

^^
What sort of cat do you have ?
That's one hell of a cat flap.

Arrr ...... that be the cooberd under the stairs TY which is just behind the car port wall. Surprisingly spacious and even fitted with a light as standard. I toyed with the idea of putting a mattress in there and making it nice for the mother in law but its already full of junk so she'll have to use one of the spare bedrooms on her visits

Very caustic is the mil ( leaving out the f as totally non applicable ).
On her last visit Ms Bangyai cooked a lovely spread of Thai food. Delicious as usual. However , mil is used to a different diet ( boiled vegetables to combat her bile , of which she is full) and pronounced :

' Mai aroy '

and then taking a large swig of water

' Dtair nam aroy '

Sarky old bitch.

Day 13

Ceiling went up. Hopefully , project finished by Sunday.