13 – 19 December 2014, this was the week that the shape of our house became a reality with both the roof structure and concrete slab completed. Day 43 Saturday, the concrete slab team of four guys turned up first thing and started the preparation work to get the ground levelled and the sand down ready to lay out the rebar for the slab.
The preparation work starting.
Levelled and black plastic being laid out. All plumbing complete including P-Traps!
Conduit in place.
Slab formwork starting to be put up. A one meter surround to the house outside the walls. 260 m2 of concrete.
Struggling to make sure the beam is vertical while Ming welds. Everything is checked on this build.
Workers above and below.
A separate area being built at the back of the land next to the bore for water tank, filter and pump.
Each join done individually. Not the most interesting job.
Tying rebar together. All done in good spirits, which is something they also consume in amazing quantities at the end of the day!
Here you can see the center beam in place and the start of the roof structure happening.
Starts to look like a roof.
From the road.
Building in Thailand eBook
When my wife and I bought some land in Isaan, which is a region in the north east of Thailand, and then started to build our house I started to record the daily events of construction life. For twenty six weeks I wrote a weekly blog update about all the aspects of the build and included as much detail as possible for others who might be thinking of going down the same path. I was surprised by the number of readers I attracted as a result of writing on this subject, many of whom followed the entire build from beginning to end.
Based on this continued interest I thought I would revisit my original words and bring them all together under the one heading in the form of an eBook. Included in this process has been some extensive updating and expansion of many of the original posts and the addition of the many COMMENTS, which are designed to expand your knowledge and save you time or money or both!
Read more HERE and find out how to obtain the eBook.
I am loving your book – just on my second read at the moment, to make sure that I didn’t miss anything first time around (which actually it turns out I did!).
Just a note of thanks at this point ……. I am a fairly methodical sort of bloke, but there are many issues which your book highlights which I just wouldn’t have thought about – or if I had, I may well have assumed they were “standard” building practice [U-bends, drain positioning, barge-board alignment] – if it hadn’t been for your excellent descriptions!! I will probably still “miss” something – that’s the nature of building/design – but thanks to you, it shouldn’t be anything too mission-critical.
The income from my eBook pays for the upkeep of this blog, which is otherwise commercially free unlike so many others.
You said earlier that you designed the layout, did you also do the roofing design ? Or did you get help there ?
The missus tells me we don’t need plans approved for our future house, I’ve got the room layout, wall design, plumbing and electrical sorted, everything below the ceiling but I would not have a clue about steel strengths and sizes. Planning on colorbond too but having difficulty convincing the missus !
Hi Mike. No I didn’t. It was done by the draftsman (the head of planning in the local Tessaban) who drew up my plans. I am not sure how much technical knowledge he had to base the roof plans on. I was requiring longer spans than would ever be considered in a Thai house. Why have long steel framework when you can just stick a column in the middle of the room! I suspect he just doubled up on the steelwork when i doubt. It seems to have worked so far as there has been no sagging or any indication the roof won’t outlast me.
My understanding is that you only need planning permission if you are building within a Tessaban area (a town boundary). You can usually tell if you are inside or out by the services you get. Tessaban will normally have some form of street drainage and collect your garbage (a very rough guide and I am sure open to challenge). We were definitely outside Tessaban and therefore no permissions were required. I did however get the stamp of approval from the OrBorTor (the sort of local council office outside Tessaban – they look after roads and planning on a larger scale). It wasn’t strictly needed but I thought that being a farang I would be safe rather than sorry. It was easy to do and cost 100 baht (?).
I can send you a copy of my roof design and specifications if that would help your situation.
Regards.
Tony
Thanks for the info ( all of it here ! ) It seems there is a family friend who has a friend in the Ubon town hall who can get our roofing plans done for a “few” baht. Heading up there next week so will try to get more details about this friend then. The design is for a simple rectangular bungalow, with no long spans and a lightweight colorbond roof, so nothing out of the ordinary. Once again, thanks for all the help you have given everybody.
Thanks for posting your house build it gives an idea what it will cost.
We are going to build in Burriram. Do you have a contact to start the project and a cost. We need to do a slab 15meters by 14meters and then start brick work
Cheers Rick. I am a fair way from Burriram and the crew I used are local. They would be prepared to look at projects around this area but wouldn’t travel that far. Have you checked out the forums on coolthaihouse.com or thaivisa.com? If you do a search on Buriram you might come up with someone who has already built there. I know Alan the Builder operates that way but believe he is expensive. Sorry I can’t help more. Toony
Great progress Tony! I was watching your spread sheet last week and thought “Tony is about to top 1/2 a million B”…this week well on the way to a million!! But you made some major purchases on high dollar items like slab and block and payment to Ming…I saw in your spread sheet “purlin screws”, these are screwed to the rafters and not welded? I am learning alot from your blog for my future project…thanks so much for putting in the time to do it!!
It sounds impressive doesn’t it “I’ve just got going on my house and spent half a mill already!”. Yes the purlins were screwed into the rafters, self-taps that seemed to work fine. I don’t know anything about metals but the purlins are aluminium. Perhaps a welding option wasn’t available or maybe screwing was just easier and as effective. I am pleased to be of help with your project. Tony