Thai Home Build – Weeks 22 & 23 Update

They call it the rainy season for a good reason – it rains a lot. The last two weeks has seen regular rain daily & particularly overnight. While it is good for the water table it has had devastating effects on communities in the north of Thailand and now for towns along the Mekong River, that are experiencing flooding of many communities & billions of baht in damages. This past weekend saw lots of rain from a tropical storm that travelled through our location,

The only impact to our build site is that it is really muddy & walking about is a challenge with thick mud clinging to your shoes. It will remain this way until the house is completed and the concrete paths around the house are poured & some landscaping/grass is laid down. We have to access the build site from the roadway now, we can’t use the banana forest path due to water & mud.

Our builder also provided an updated construction schedule that indicates a completion of building on 27 November followed by a potential 2 week defect correction period with occupation on 10 December. So if this holds true, only a few more months to go.

House Build Week 22 (September 9 – 15, 2024)

YouTube video channel – this weeks video of building activity offers a visual summary of the progress being achieved. (Check out the video – click) – Week 22 House Build

The main achievement this week was the installation of the soffits and ceiling inside and outside of the house. The ceiling team early in the week finished the metal C line metal channel installation & completed the soffit install with SCG fiber cement boards. They also used acrylic sealer on the soffit areas to fill between the boards & wall & to cover the screws. When that was complete they set about to install the moisture resistant gyprock to the front & back porch ceilings.

Then they commenced the install of the R38 (150 mm) SCG insulation in the internal ceilings. It turned out that they had enough of the insulation to complete all but the study & the walk in closet. 7 more rolls are on order to complete the work.

Then it was the beginning of the placement of gyprock in some of the house rooms. Both on the outside porches & inside they used a special ceiling tape and gypsum paste to seal between the boards, cover screws & to seal between the boards & walls. Next week they will finish the ceilings & sand the filler paste to make it smooth for painting.

The building team last week got a start on building the carport storage room but only minor progress was made. They used AAC blocks to construct the walls of the 3.5 & 4 m room. It will have a window and some glass blocks on the back wall for internal light – along with electricity & lights. For some reason this small structure has taken some time to get completed. This week it was mostly completed, but some further work to be done next week. Not sure why this is dragging along.

The other milestone this week was the commencement of the tiler & his wife, who will be doing the bathrooms & kitchen tiling work. He will also be building the concrete kitchen counter. Apparently in Thailand when they render the walls of a house, they do not do the bathrooms. The rendering of bathrooms is left to the tiler, who needs to finish the render in certain way to lay tiles. This week much of the bathroom rendering was completed & ready for tiles.

The Cat 6 internet cable was also installed this week to various rooms of the house that will run from our AIS providers router in the utility room. This will allow for wired internet to each room for TV, computer & WIFI connectivity.

We also had the power lines from the PEA main line strung to our utility pole that was previously installed. Everything is now ready for PEA to connect power to the house when the timing is right with our builder. The workers who do this work are off duty PEA staff that we must pay separately. All up the cost to get power to our lot was made up of – 6000 THB for 9 m utility pole, installation & labor; 2000 THB for parts & 3000 THB for 50 mm power cable.

Our builder also had a backhoe (Makro) do work to clean up the builders rubbish around the house and to level the land surround the house to the correct height for later walkways & to get slight sloping away from the house for runoff. The Makro was on site all day & did a great job. He will need to return towards the end of the build for further land works.

It was necessary this week for us to also confirm for our builder some of the finishes for the house. He needed to know the final paint colors for outside & inside. As well the builder asked that we confirm the tiles we wanted to use for the outdoor porches, kitchen & bathroom tiles. In the tile picture below, from left to right – kitchen floor tile, house flooring LT by Cotto wood look SPC, brown porch floor tile & light beige bathroom floor tile. We had also selected the required wall tiles to compliment the flooring.

We had previously confirmed that the internal floor covering would be the LT by Cotto, an SPC limber technology flooring that resembles real wood in texture & colors. It has a strong surface, is waterproof, termite proof, easy to clean, absorbs sound & is scratch resistant.

House Build Week 23 (September 16 – 22, 2024)

YouTube video channel – this weeks video of building activity offers a visual summary of the progress being achieved. (Check out the video – click) – Week 23 House Build

This week our ceiling team finished off all they could before departing, with a plan to return later when they can finish off the remaining work – 2 room ceilings, carport & storage room. The ceiling insulation was supply was short and when 7 more rolls were delivered it wasn’t enough – 3 more rolls of insulation are required before the 2 ceiling can have gyprock. The ceiling team are also waiting for the construction team to complete the storage room and complete the electrical install in the carport before they can finish off these ceilings.

Not sure when the ceiling team will be back, but flooding along the Mekong River is impacting on many with some towns & villages being flooded with the rising river waters. Our ceiling teams town is affected so they are not likely to return until the flooding is over.

The construction team finally focused on the carport storeroom with works to complete the block work, render the walls and install the electricity (power & lights) completed. It took about 2.5 weeks & some complaints from us to the builder to get it completed. It was holding up work of others.

The floor & wall tiler & his wife have been working this week on building the concrete kitchen counter & lower cupboard space. He uses AAC blocks as supports & poured concrete to make the counter framework, temporarily supported by wooden frames. Then he uses 60 x 60 floor tile as a base for the 10 cm poured concrete counter top. He followed the Kitzcho cabinet blueprint for the size requirements.

We also had a visit from a local curtain shop to measure and quote on curtain installations for our house. They were very responsive and after a visit to their shop to look at samples they came the next day to measure the house and discuss our various ideas and requirements. They have offered an initial cost estimate but we need to visit the store to discuss in more detail.

We also contacted a company that does fencing with contractors all around Thailand. We had spoken to our builder about fencing and he indicated he was interested in providing it for us. After repeated requests for a quotation after discussing the plan, but not receiving any feedback we are looking at a separate fencing contractor. We have had a sight visit & discussion as well as preliminary costs. Further site visit and firm plan with a final cost is needed, but that will likely be later in November, prior to moving in but towards the end or our build.

We also had a trip to Mukdahan for some Homepro purchases and scouting accessories that we want to use for the kitchen & bathrooms so our builder can make the purchases when the time comes.

The painters & skim coat team arrived on Sunday 22 to begin the task of skim coating the internal walls. They apparently apply 2 thin coats of special concrete mixture to the walls and sand the 2nd coat. This technique makes the walls very smooth & allows for a nicer paint finish. More on this next week.

That’s a wrap for another 2 weeks. Looking forward to weeks 24 & 25 that should see the completion of skim coating, initial primer coat of paint on the house. As well the tiles for the kitchen, bathroom & porch are due to arrive next week so our tiler can get to work on tiling – that will take some time.

I will leave this post with a few drone images of a large wetlands that is not too far from our property. We drove there one evening for sunset views. Cheers.