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| GeneralGeneral information and stories regarding building a house in Pattaya, Thailand. |
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| BasicsThe basics of building the house, including the foundation columns, concrete pour, walls, windows and the roof. |
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Basic Materials: Cement
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Cement is of special import since it is the primary component which adds strength to the house. Normally for smaller projects cement is hand mixed and poured, but there is a company called CPAC which will come and pour to the grade and quantity specified. The hand mix cement normally comes in 50 kilogram bags, which is then mixed with sand and stone. In some applications, such as affixing tile to the wall, no stone is used and the product is called cement. If mixed with stone, which adds strength, it is called concrete. There are many different brands and grades of cement. A low quality cement will cost about 80% of a high quality grade, which I point out, since this is a very poor way to save money and is of course used by corner cutters to the disadvantage of house buyers. As of this date a 50 kilogram bag of cement ranges in price from approximately 90 Baht to 130 Baht. A standard durable recommended brand is tiger green label (suua). A 100 square meter house might use 300 bags at most, with an approximate budget of 34,500 Baht, using a low quality cement would save just 6,000 Baht on the entire house.
9 files, last one added on Sep 28, 2011 Album viewed 149 times
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Basic Materials: Metal Rebar
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Metal rebar normally comes in long circular strands of 10 meters each. The unit of measure is the 'hun', each hun being 3 millimeters in diameter. The number of hun of the rebar determines its thickness, for example a metal rebar 4 hun would be 12 millimeters thick. Above 2 hun, there will be various designations of full, normal or light. These refer to the grade of the metal, with full being the best. The rebar is the backbone of house construction, it is what gives the finished product strength. It is used in the foundation columns, floor, walls and other areas. As an example, normally the rebar used in the foundation column should be 4 hun full or more. In flooring 2 or 3 hun strands will be used and tied together in a criss-cross pattern. For more information on the hun, visit the blog article that here --> hun: unit of measure for metal rebar .
2 files, last one added on Sep 28, 2011 Album viewed 35 times
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Roof: Materials
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One of the most important decisions you make about the house you are going to build is the type of roofing material you use. There are two major ways to go here, tile or synthetic roof sheets.
Heavy tile: Nowadays this is the material of choice. It is very pretty and durable. Tile roofs add value to your house and put it in a different price category -- this becomes important should you decide to sell at some point in the future. The downside for tile is it is extremely heavy, and this requires a large and sturdy metal substructure which is expensive. Tile also cracks and chips easily if it is walked on. This normally isn't an issue except for cases where roof access is required. It is not secure in the sense that someone can easily gain illegal entry to your house by misplacing a few roof tiles.
Synthetic roof sheets: If you know you are building a house to live in forever and are simply not worried about resale value -- this may be the way to go. The roof sheets come in a variety of qualities, materials, and colors and will end up being a lot cheaper to install. As far as I know there are no downsides, EXCEPT (and it is a big except!) it isn't as pretty and if you've built a high quality house with sheet roofing the resale market won't be there.
This is one of those rare instances where paying more money doesn't lead to an increase of quality. If I were put on the spot and had to answer the question, 'Which roofing material is of better quality?', I would have to answer 'Synthetic roof sheeting'. This being said, in the future I will continue to use heavy tile since it is functional and the marketplace demands it.
The heavy tile roofing is all pretty good quality and starts at about 8.2 Baht a piece. One thing I did notice is that they gouge you when you buy the special pieces, ie. the corner pieces or top pieces (which can cost 4 or 5 times as much as a standard piece). When choosing the store and tile you are going to purchase I advise getting a price on all of the pieces up front so you won't be surprised later.
Another option which is recommended and commonly used today, is roofing insulation. This is especially appropriate if you plan to use air conditioning and have a low profile roof, as it will retain much of the cold air and lower your electricity bill.
9 files, last one added on Sep 28, 2011 Album viewed 31 times
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| DetailsThe details of the house, including ceiling layouts, roof eves, the kitchen, bathrooms, and electrical. |
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Kitchen
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The idea of the cool thai house is basically to show how to build a quality good size house for under about 1,000,000 Baht. This will limit the type of kitchen you build. If you go with the modern European kitchen you can easily spend upwards of 300,000 Baht on the kitchen alone. There are a lot of stores which specialize in European kitchens, if this is the direction you are heading my only recommendation would be to shop the complete kitchen first, including stove, counter etc. and work with the architect to design the appropriate kitchen area. Homepro recently added a European kitchen design center, and has several kitchen displays to give you an idea of this option.
Normally the Thais cook outside. I've seen some nice European house designs which incorporate an outside kitchen, the kitchen being roofed but not enclosed. Cooking outside can solve a lot of maintenance problems and solves problems with the ever present ants and flies. It might be an idea to consider having an inside and outside cooking/kitchen area.
Sample Kitchen #1
What follows is an example of a low cost kitchen which relies on common materials used in house construction. This example allows for a space of about 3 by 3 meters. There is a surrounding counter constructed of red brick supports with tiled cement surfaces. The layout used here breaks up the counter to allow space for an oven, with space on either side of the counter for a refrigerator and hot water tank. The materials cost for the kitchen, not including the hot water heater, would be around 17,000 Baht as follows, ceiling fan = 1,000, exhaust fan = 1,000, tile = 4,000, sink = 3,000, cement = 1,000, hot/cold faucet = 2,000, plumbing = 1,000, cabinet doors = 4,000.
Sample Kitchen #2
This shows a very simple kitchen designed for a small house. There isn't very much in the way of materials required here, this kitchen could be done for about 5,000 Baht. The budget would be as follows: cold water faucet = 700 Baht, cabinet door = 1,000 Baht, tile = 2,000 Baht and cement = 1,000 Baht.
23 files, last one added on Sep 28, 2011 Album viewed 51 times
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Bathrooms
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One of the things I really got out of the cool thai house prototype is that the bathroom really has to be well laid out prior to starting construction. The plan (or house blueprint) will include some of the bathroom layout, but it is meant to be an overall guide and not exact. You can't really lay out the bathroom until you decide on all of the things which will go in there and have measurements for everything, including toilets, bathtubs, shower enclosures, and sinks. This same thing applies to everywhere in the house where cabinets and fixtures are going to be installed, but is especially true in the bathroom.
The first thing to decide is: Will each shower will have an individual hot water heater, will there be a central water heater. A central water heating unit isn't all that much more expensive than a good individual shower unit, but there are a lot of added expenses in plumbing it in and in additional hardware. The plumbing for the hot water should be copper, although there is also the option of using heavy metal pipe. The problem is this: it will probably rust out after about 10 years and as it is encased in cement, this isn't a very good option. You could design it so the copper plumbing runs above ground, but this isn't the way it is normally done. It seems that there are a lot of people that deal with hot water plumbing who are really expensive, to the point of being in the rip-off category. One copper plumber came to bid on doing the bathroom and related plumbing for the cool thai house and he wanted 10 times what the job eventually went for. Another thing which drives up costs is that hot and cold faucets are much more expensive than normal cold water ones. The bottom line here is that central hot water is nice but needs to be budgeted accordingly.
Since the bathroom and plumbing is one of the more expensive parts of the house, professional developers often try to cut corners. What comes to mind are plastic bathtubs with poor quality drain kits and no 'p-trap'. Plumbing in a bathtub is a lot of work and it isn't an easy thing to get at the under the bathtub plumbing once the tub is enclosed. To save say 5000 Baht by using poor a poor quality bathtub and accessories isn't worth it. A better option than a plastic bathtub is either a good acrylic bathtub or no bathtub at all.
Septics are another area to keep an eye on. It is so cost effective to add a couple of drainage rings at the onset of building that it is almost always better to be safe than sorry. The normal depth is 4 drainage rings, 5 or more is probably better. Septics are normally pretty trouble free, but I've had past experiences of the water not seeping into the soil because of hardness of the soil. There are companies that will bring a truck and pump out your septic for you, but this should only be required rarely.
Shower enclosures are gaining in popularity, and there are a lot of models on display at Homepro. They range in price from about 8000 Baht all the way up to 100,000 or more. A good quality one of tempered glass can be purchased for about 10000 Baht. I can't see any advantage to buying the acrylic drain panel, which is an option, as a concrete and tile base seems to be very sturdy and works great. If you purchase one an Homepro you can contract with them there for the labor, which is a good idea if you plumber hasn't done one before. This may well be the case (your plumber not having ever installed a shower stall before), since these only started becoming popular recently.
Lastly, sink enclosures. You can purchase sinks that come with a base, or a sink that is to be mounted in a enclosure. The enclosure idea seems to be a good one as it looks pretty good, is durable and cheap. Materials include cement, red bricks, tile, a door made or waterproof material and of course the sink itself. The most expensive part of doing it this way will be the door itself, which will cost upwards of 1000 Baht.
30 files, last one added on Sep 28, 2011 Album viewed 42 times
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Electrical
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During the building of a house, adding grounded electrical is not expensive. The additional cost would be the cost of the ground wire, which will need to be run to each receptacle, the cost of the grounding rod and wire, and the cost of grounded sockets. Grounded sockets are quite a bit more expensive than ungrounded, but they still are not very expensive, ie. a ungrounded socket costs about 8 Baht, a grounded one costs more than 70 Baht. If a house is done without being grounding it would be very expensive to redo it later to add the ground. One of the primary motivations to build a house (for me) instead of renting is that previous rental houses didn't have grounded electrical. I would get shocked just by looking at my computer! OK, maybe that is a bit of an overstatement, but with the computer, if I wanted to hook up something (like a USB device) I would shut the computer down and turn off the electric surge protector. Even after the surge protector was turned off I would still get shocked! And touching the computer when turned on would lead to a nasty shock. Now, after living in a house with grounded electric, I would never go back to ungrounded.
Some other things which should be considered before starting on your building project. Normally the electric is run directly from the street into the roof of the house. A somewhat fancier option is to run the wire underground from the meter into the house. The approach should be decided at the onset of construction. This now brings us to an important topic, the electric plan. Normally it is done on the fly, but I can see the advantage to having an electrician do up an electric plan up front. The electric layout is not a part of the regular plan (blueprint) done by an architect. Depending on the complexity, it might be useful to have a official plan done before starting construction. It isn't hard to find electrical subcontractors who will do a plan, but I'm not sure of the cost involved. As an alternative, talk to the electrician about all the options up front and have him rough sketch the plan with you.
Electric is necessary during the construction process for tools and other necessities. An application can be made at the electric office for 'temporary' electric which the regulations state should not be used more that 6 months. Your electrician will prepare a place for a temporary meter on the nearest electric post. The electric department will then come out and inspect and, if it passes, hook up the temporary meter. You can then have the electric wire run from the meter to the building site. There is a deposit required at the Bang La Mung electric department (Pattaya) to activate the temporary electric of 10,000 Baht.
Whether buying or building a house, a good thing to check for is electrical conduit. There are two types, PVC and metal. It shields and the electric wire from all kinds of things, and because of the fact that there really are no inspections here, it is often omitted.
12 files, last one added on Sep 28, 2011 Album viewed 29 times
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| OtherThe details of the perimeter wall, water system and gate. |
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Gate and Security Metal
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For the most part getting a metal gate and metal security fencing made and installed is a pretty simple process. Make a trip to a few different metal shops to get bids. They will come out and measure the area before giving the bid. As far as the style, they have books with hundreds of different styles to choose from. From ornate to simple, it is just a matter of picking out the design. The simpler designs save on labor time and can be just as attractive. As I describe in the cool gate write up, in my particular case I had day laborers on-hand who were skilled in metal work and could do the job. If you find yourself in this situation realize that normally in this type of case the gate and metal security fencing cannot be very ornate. There will be limitations on bending metals and shaping design work. In the stated case all materials needing to be specially shaped were purchased from a shop who sold prefabricated designs.
As far as cost and style, the most basic decision is whether to go stainless or not. Stainless is better quality and will not rust. Except for the detail highlights stainless isn't painted, so there is no paint to wear off. The downside is that stainless is very expensive, probably at least twice the cost of using regular metal. Not only that, on less than large luxury houses I don't think it looks that good, being that it is kind of pretentious and gaudy looking. Besides, if regular metal is properly primed and painted, rust is not that much of a problem.
The most critical part of the gate, in my estimation, is the wheels. I've been in rental houses with the cheap 1" wheels, and they are produced to last about 6 months. After that the bearings start to go, and it is a painful ordeal to open the gate. If you going to the trouble to put it together, use good wheels. The really good wheels are made from stainless and are difficult to find in and around Pattaya. I bought the ones in this example on Theppasit road, and paid a really inflated rip-off price. Then later I saw good quality 3" stainless wheels at Homepro for under 400 Baht each, less than 1/2 what I paid.
13 files, last one added on Sep 28, 2011 Album viewed 44 times
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Last additions - Original Coolthaihouse Info |
The front gutter system. (15-Aug-04)dozerSep 28, 2011
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The rear gutter and down spout.(13-Aug-04)dozerSep 28, 2011
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Added the final gutter on top of the patio. (23-Jun-04)dozerSep 28, 2011
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Interconnected gutters. (19-Jun-04)dozerSep 28, 2011
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Random files - Original Coolthaihouse Info |
The back of an switch panel showing wiring, the red is positive, white negative and green is the ground. (31-May-04)dozer
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Metal is used to add strength to the floor. The metal that comes in rolls is cheaper but is not very good and should be avoided if possible.dozer
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WALL EXAMINATION: A good enough looking wall section but can you notice two things? The posts are far apart (3.5 meters) and the fact that you can see the imprint of the underlying blocks indicates that the stucco layer applied was very thin. (06-Jul-04)dozer
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Stainless gate. (24-Jun-04)dozer
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There are two basic types of hung ceilings, one being sheetrock and the other made from prefabricated ceiling tiles. The prefabricated tiles are easier as far as maintenance since they are not permanently affixed and can be adjusted as required. Each tile is supported in a square frame. Should a tile break or discolor, it simply is removed and replaced. This picture shows an example of ceiling tiles.dozer
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Here is a heavy duty but simple design on a regular metal walk in entry with the gate to the left. (26-Jun-04)dozer
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Installing sheetrock. (11-May-04)dozer
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This shows hot and cold PVC pipes which are to be poured in cement on the back of the house. (07-Jun-04)dozer
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