House build, part #7

Posted on September 1, 2024 by Mike

Sorry for the delay in this story ! To cut a long story short the house is finished and we have moved in, but didn’t have internet access for quite a while so I had to leave you all in suspense. But as of yesterday we are now connected to the modern world so it’s time to post.

Day #104, and it’s time to start fleshing out the kitchen. In Thailand, because of the humidity and termites, most domestic kitchens are made of concrete blocks or bricks rather than chipboard or melamine, with uPVC doors and shelving or cabinets inside. So the first step is to lay up the formwork for a concrete counter, lay the rebar and pour concrete.

Half the formwork done.

Concrete poured, with cut outs for sink and stove..

Then leave it for a couple of days before filling in the counter walls underneath.

Counter top tiled, but nothing underneath !

Meanwhile the ceiling guys were just about finished, at long last.

There was a lack of communication with the finishing touches of the ceiling, both bedrooms had downlights missing, The wires were there, but the ceiling panels had been put up and no holes cut for the lights. Also there were no access manholes…person holes?…in the ceiling, so they had to be cut out.

Next on the schedule was tiling, but after 2 days of that almost the entire builder’s crew came down with COVID and work stopped for a week.

I think our choice of floor tiles raised a few eyebrows, as instead of the usual glossy, slippery tiles we went for a matt finish throughout.We wanted the same tiles through out the main living area, and being an open plan layout we either had to have slippery tiles in the kitchen or the matt tiles everywhere. Ever since I got knocked off my bike and fractured my pelvis a couple of years ago the wife has been a bit paranoid about me falling and breaking something, after all we don’t bounce as well at my age as we did when younger! So matt, non slippery tiles it was.

Eventually the tilers came back to work, and by day 142 they had just about finished the floors, but still had the bathroom and laundry walls to do, plus the kitchen when they get around to finishing the counter.

The outside tiling almost finished, just a few small trim bits and the grouting at the far end to do.

Meanwhile the doors on the kitchen cabinets were being installed…with a minor hiccup that I picked up soon enough. Can you see the problem?

Door on the left is correct, the other is upside down with louvres facing the wrong way.

Luckily those doors can easily be removed and turned, as the frames were cemented down. AAC blocks were cut to size and used for infilling the gaps.

By this time it was only ten days until the contracted completion date, highly unlikely at this stage !

We had scheduled our traditional house blessing for 3 weeks time, the workers assured us that they would be finished by then.

Working day #152, and the scheduled completion day rolls around still with work to be done. But the electrical fittings such as fans had been installed, and the kitchen stove. It’s just a pity they installed the extractor hood WAY too high !

The wife couldn’t reach the controls, and it was much too high to be effective so….take it down, read the installation manual and try again. Next day was much better, although a few centimeters lower would have been even better.

OK, that’s long enough for one post … be back soon with the next episode !

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Episode 6, 100 days and counting

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Mike

Last episode finished with the walls rendered, and the basic shell of the building completed. Since then it has been slow progress for the last two or three weeks. The builder’s workforce has shrunk to just two painters priming the walls inside and out, and an electrician occasionally coming in to put in the electrical conduits and pull the wire through them. He must have another job on at the same time as it is sometimes days between visits here.

No, we are not using child labour ! He is short (even for a Thai) and the ceilings are 3m high.

And then all the concrete crew returned, it was time to pour the apron/path around the house. I think we had about 10 or 12 workers laying formwork, compacting soil, cutting rebar, trying to get ready before the first concrete truck arrived. They really should have done that the day before !

When the first truck arrived half the crew were spreading that load, while the others continued the preparation. So it was a race…spreaders v preppers. The preppers just won, laying the last bit of rebar as the second concrete truck was reversing in to position.

You had better hurry guys, this is the last bit and the first truck has already started unloading !

And then the sub-contractors who are doing the decorative mouldings around windows and doors turned up ! They drilled a few holes for the rebar that holds the mouldings in place, and left…not to return for 3 days. That seems to be the norm here…do a little bit of a job then disappear.

Rebar is driven into the wall, then bent over to provide an anchor for the mouldings to be cemented to the wall.

Concrete laid, and that crew have left until it’s time to lay the driveway, in ??? days.

The 2 painters continued with their work, slowly. Once the interior walls were primed with 2 coats the ceiling contractors could start. In Thailand ceilings are generally attached to wire hangers, which are attached to the roof steel work. So there were lots of wires to hang :

The “bua boys” (aka moulding guys) returned, with kids in tow as it is the long summer holiday here. The daughter, about 10 or 11, was given the job of mixing mortar but she must have found it too much like hard work as I found her asleep in the corner of the bathroom. Thais can sleep anywhere !

Working day 100 arrives :

Still priming exterior walls and painting the cladding.
Still a few of the decorative pieces to put on the poles, but the “bua boys” are getting there.
Front view of the house, day 100.

The contract says a completion date of 180 days from the start, which was January 11. I am not clear whether that is working days or total days. If it is total days then we are up to about 120 days already with only about 2 months to go. At a guess there are about 300 sq.m. of tiles to lay on floors (inside and verandahs) and walls, that’s going to take quite a while to do. And then there is all the painting, approx three quarters of the house primed has taken nearly 3 weeks so the final coat should take longer unless the builder finds more painters.

Then there are all the fittings to install, so that deadline is looking precarious. We have a roof over our heads in our rental place, so I am not too worried about going over schedule. I would rather have a good finished job than a rushed one, but last rainy season this rental place had a leak in the roof, over the wife’s side of the bed so I do hope we have moved in by August when the heavy rains usually start.

The rainy season from July to about late September or early October is also the best time to get trees and shrubs planted in the garden, to get them established before the long dry season and then the hot period of April and May. This year we had about 3 weeks of max temperatures over 40 Celcius and 30+ minimums, it was hard work keeping anything alive among the fruit trees in the back garden. We lost 2 papaya and 2 banana, and I just gave up on the vegetable garden and let everything die.

But the weather has turned, the first rain has arrived briefly, temperatures are down to mid thirties and soon it will be time to start the vegie garden again.

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Episode 5, the walls go up!

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Mike

Once the roofing crew had done most of their job, with only the finishing touches to do, the blocklaying gang started. And they started in earnest, with about 10 people on the job on the first day. 4 sections of wall going up at a time, somebody mixing the special mortar used for AAC blocks, somebody cutting the odd sizes needed in places, another young guy carrying blocks from the palette to where the work was and a foreman trying to keep check on everything. In fact they were getting in each other’s way, to say nothing of tripping over all the electrical cords everywhere!

The next day it was down to 6 people but the walls were still going up quickly, one of the advantages of using the AAC blocks over old fashioned bricks or cement blocks. Another of course being the much better thermal efficiency of AAC.

Day 61, and the first wall blocks are laid.

Sometimes the work went a bit too quickly, as they forgot to leave a back door to the kitchen ! Luckily I spotted that before they got too far along and they only had to take off a few blocks which hadn’t set in place yet anyway.

They also missed leaving 3 small windows in the bathroom and gym room. They said that they were going to come back and cut them out later, as it was easy to do. But then they did do the same small windows in the laundry and storage room, so I don’t know whether they did forget them or always planned to come back later.

A week later it looked like this:

And inside:

And after another couple of days the plasterers turned up :

There should have been a window on the far left …mai pen rai

If there is one thing that Thai builders can do well, it would be the rendering. These guys were getting perfectly straight corners and windows without using edge beading, just their hand tools.

First part of the electrical had also started with some of the conduit channels cut out, but then that worker went AWOL before finishing the job. So the plasterers just rendered over where conduits were supposed to be. Again, mai pen rai, don’t worry can come back and do later.

One of the locals watching over the job site. It probably thinks the neighbourhood is getting too crowded.

By day 76 most of the house interior had been rendered, apart from some of the columns.

Day 76, the same interior view as above, but now rendered.

The next progress payment was due to be paid when the walls were completed, and the builder was hoping that would be before Songkran, which is the traditional Thai New Year and a long holiday where the country just about stops for 5 or 6 days. They didn’t make it though so work stopped with a few columns still to be rendered and those windows still to be cut out.

The builder did ask for the payment but the wife played hardball and said no, not until you have finished all the wall work, and done the small roofing jobs that he promised would get fixed soon when we gave him the the roofing payment.

Money talks, even the promise of money, and right after Songkran the roofers were back to finish fitting the last small pieces of fascia and the plasterers to render the last columns.

OK, now you can have your money. 😊

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Episode 4…A roof over our heads.

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Mike

The last part finished with the concrete crew departing, and the roofing guys supposed to start a few days later. As it happened, there was a delay of several days due to them running late on another job.

We did have 2 workers turn up about 5 days later, but they only worked a half day before the site was empty again. They started to weld the load bearing plates onto the top of the column rebar, which is a slow process as it involves getting every plate exactly level with the other plates.

After doing a few plates on their half day of work, they vanished for another 5 days before returning with extra workers, the pace began to pick up (slightly). At long last, on day 41, the roof frame started to rise :

Rear view of the house, with first roof beams in place.
Evening a few days later.
As if walking on the roof beams in flipflops isn’t bad enough, this guy was welding right next to his bare feet.

Day 49 comes around, and I drive out to the site in the morning to see a roof in progress !

With a crew of 10 on site the roof went up quickly, one of the advantages of metal sheets over tiles.

We had chosen a greyish colour, backed with 35mm PU foam for insulation. Personally I would have liked a lighter colour but “happy wife, happy life” and let her choose this medium grey. The foam insulation seems to be doing it’s job as it was a lot cooler under the roof. I climbed the scaffolding to have a look at the roof fittings, the roof surface was too hot to touch but the underside was barely warm. The workers thought it was ok under the roof as they quickly moved their hammocks and chairs under it!

The next few days there was only 4 guys at work, fixing the fascia boards to the ends of the roof beams. This project has two speeds…slow with only a few workers on site, or sometimes faster with a full crew. And sometimes a dead stop with nobody on site except me! While we do want to have moved in before the rainy season starts in about 3 months, I would rather have a good job done than a fast one.

And then today when we were the only people on-site again, doing some landscaping in the backyard, we were surprised with this:

The first 8 pallets of AAC blocks for the walls.

1600 AAC blocks arrived, and none of the building crew here to sign for them. A phone call to the boss brought him here, it’s his job to verify the order is correct and intact, not ours. Will the wall crew be here tomorrow ? Somehow I doubt it, as the roofers are still working overhead, but we will see.

OK, that brings us up to date here, which is more than I can say for my attempts at Youtube. I’ve only got up to the first pole day there.

A timelapse of progress so far :

https://www.facebook.com/mike.nottingham.52/videos/784570919753820

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Episode 3 of our house build ….rebar, more rebar and then lots of concrete !

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Mike

After the columns had been erected and concreted into place the next job was to connect them together with the ground beams. This was going to be a long slow job as each ground beam had at least 6 pieces of rebar, most of them had 7. And there were just over 200 linear meters of ground beam ! So that was around 1.4 kms of rebar that had to be fed through the uprights, the casings and then tied all together. When I added up the total rebar, including the footings and the columns, we had used around 3 kilometers of DB12 rebar. Plus all the smaller casings at 6mm (?) at 20*10 every 15cm for the ground beams….70cm at 6/m * 200=840m, plus the columns at 10*10…50cm at 6/m * 4.5m * 40 columns is approx. another 540 meter. Which totals well over 4km of rebar used in this house, sounds incredible doesn’t it?

At least we are helping to keep the Chinese steel mills and the iron ore mines back home in Australia busy.

early stages of rebar assembly.
Starting to do the formwork.

Finally, after several days, it was all assembled and time to start on the formwork beginning with the laundry/storage/gym building and then moving on to the main house after those beams had been poured.

And after a couple more days the forms were removed from the beams, and more shuttering for the columns sprouted up:

And then each column was filled, bucket by bucket :

The camera is crooked, not the formwork !

After a couple of days the shuttering is removed, and the columns wrapped in plastic to slow down the curing process …slow is good !

Day 20 :Laundry/storage/gym/workshop on the left, main house on the right (rear view)

Finally, all is revealed (looking from laundry door across the side verandah) ;

Day 22, all shuttering off and columns wrapped in plastic

Now that the skeleton of the house is complete, it is time to start filling in between the beams.

Fill laid and spread, and now being soaked by the wife to compact it.

Several truckloads of soil were brought in, spread around by a tractor, and then compacted by soaking thoroughly and then by machine (an unusual sight in rural Thailand!) :

No gender discrimination on Thai building sites, this woman can out do most of the guys when it comes to manual labour.

And then when it was thoroughly compacted it was time for the slab to be poured. That’s a big job so the outbuilding, carport and verandahs were done first, and the main part of the house the next day. Altogether it was 17 “cubes” (cubic meters) of readymix used for the slab.

Front and side verandahs poured.
First truck of the day.
No, not a bunch of sundials ! Evening of day 31 and the slab is poured.

So after working day #31 the major part of the concreting is done, now to let it cure for a few days before the steel crew take over for the roof building. As I go out there to water the garden every morning I also hosed down the concrete to aid in the curing …slow is good !

So that takes us up to the present, next up in episode 4 will be the roof frame…stay tuned !

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Our House Build, Episode #2

Posted on January 17, 2024 by Mike

Well, we are officially under way ! The traditional raising of the first column marked day 1, which is considered the start of the contract even though the builder and his crew have been working on the site for a while. In episode 1 a couple of weeks ago the first markers had been laid, and then relaid when the wife wanted to change the positioning of the house.

When that was all settled stringlines were set up, defining the spots for all the support columns which were marked with stakes. That was just before the long New Year holiday so work stopped for a while but then restarted with a vengeance. The backhoe turned up one morning, and by midday the site was looking like a battlefield full of craters.

The top meter or so was sandy fill soil from when the the land was raised so he had to go down into the more solid original soil for good footings. Stringlines had to be relaid, and the center of each footing marked.

As the auspicious date of Jan 11 got closer my wife began to stress about the event but everything turned out fine. She was up at around 2.30a.m. to go to the market and start cooking, I had the luxury of sleeping in until about 5 ! Then it was load up all the chairs, tables, mats, cutlery and crockery and off to the site to set up. Then back into town to pick up the respected elders who had been invited to attend, including the guys responsible for the traditional decorations for the poles, and the first ceremony for the land spirits.

Then the Abbott of the local temple took over to do his part of the proceedings, blessing the rebar columns, the holes, and everybody present. The wife, stepdaughter and I threw money and marigold petals into every hole for luck, plus gold leaf paper, “jewellery” (actually just shiny plastic beads !) and a buffalo horn in the first hole.

The stepdaughter throwing money away…again LOL

Then, with everybody either holding on to the pole, or symbolically helping by pulling on the lucky white cord attached to it, the first pole was raised to loud cheers.

The second pole followed, then it was time for lunch….and celebratory drinks (not for the monk, of course). The builder’s crew knocked off a bottle of Sangsom during their lunch, before going back to work ! While we packed up, and took the monk and elders back to town, the labourers started on erecting the other poles, all 3 dozen of them. By evening they had all of them set and concreted in, then the next day they started on the formwork for the lower part of the poles. Day 3 saw the concrete trucks arriving to fill those forms, by day 5 the forms had been removed and the holes back filled, and well watered to compact the soil again, leaving the above ground rebar skeletons pointing skyward. We were out of the ground !

The next step is to construct the rebar framework for all the ground beams, that’s going to be a long slow job sitting out in the hot sun…glad it’s not me ! That will be a 3 or 4 day job I think, so see you then in episode #3.

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