Coolthaihouse Photo Gallery

The most common material for the inside ceiling is regular hung sheetrock. The sheetrock does come in a variety of qualities, with a special sheetrock available for high moisture areas such as bathrooms. The sheetrock is hung on a aluminum frame that is supported by wires secured to the roof truss. After the rough hanging is complete, the workman adjust the roof to be level prior to taping it. The taping covers all of the roof joints. Typically there is one designated framed access point to the attic area (that is, the area above the ceiling material).

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. The picture at right shows an example of ceiling tiles.

Another great idea is a sheetrock ceiling done with recessed areas, ie. 2 levels. These look really nice and can be done fairly inexpensively by a company that specializes in ceilings.

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GRC (glass reinforced cement) sheeting is applied to a wood foundation to form the underside of the roof overhang (eves). Below is a sample of how the underside of the eves are prepared for the grc sheeting and how the grc sheeting is then applied. The example also covers the grc sheeting application to form a ceiling over a carport.

The main thing to watch for with grc sheeting is that the wood foundation is made of the proper wood. The wood should be 1 1/2" by 3". Using coconut wood, which is commonly done to squeeze a cent, is not recommended. It will degrade quickly if it comes in contact with moisture and is not very durable. The coconut wood which is often used (as shown below) is about 1/2 the size of the standard 1 1/2" by 3" wood.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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