dendijk

Well corroded steel is very hard to weld, almost impossible. And if you see holes in it then sure it's crap. If corroded parts have flakes come off then also it's no good.

But it's simple though, you paid for new steel so that's what you should get, nothing else and also no galvanised steel if that's not specified.

If i were you then smash the whole carport down and buy a new one. For 140k baht + the demolition you'll feel much better i guess.

It's very hard to find a reliable contractor in Thailand, farang or not. Even the ones who work for hi-so thai deliver crap quality.

Hi Thian,

i am afraid it is worse than that. There is a team of licensed surveyors going through the home inch by inch now. In about a week we expect their report.

Considering the concrete they used i am afraid everything done has to come down and be redone.

Yup, well look at the bright side of it. Your problems will be over once it's done. It all looks crappy.

But you can't compare western quality with what the Thai make/do.

Worst thing that could happen is the whole carport collapsing with an expensive car or person under it. You sure don't want that i guess.

If you can get any money back you will be lucky, if not then you'll have to swallow the loss i guess. But then it would be nice if this whole thing is over ASAP so you can continue with your life.

Yes i am somewhat glad that it has been stopped but unfortunately 5 months and 2 million baht to late.

Even though this is Thailand, I wonder if it is allowed to build structures that can be potentially dangerous to people?

Well corroded steel is very hard to weld, almost impossible. And if you see holes in it then sure it's crap. If corroded parts have flakes come off then also it's no good.

But it's simple though, you paid for new steel so that's what you should get, nothing else and also no galvanised steel if that's not specified.

If i were you then smash the whole carport down and buy a new one. For 140k baht + the demolition you'll feel much better i guess.

It's very hard to find a reliable contractor in Thailand, farang or not. Even the ones who work for hi-so thai deliver crap quality.

Hi Thian,

i am afraid it is worse than that. There is a team of licensed surveyors going through the home inch by inch now. In about a week we expect their report.

Considering the concrete they used i am afraid everything done has to come down and be redone.

Part 2 of pictures

I think you should have paid about 100k less and got new steel.

Still Iam not seeing anything in the pictures to suggest the steel has been reused though.

Hi Don M

i agree with you that it is always difficult to get the real feel of something of pictures.

You should see it with your own eyes and get close to it.

The 1 thing i am really worried about though that if this is 'new' steel what is used steel going to look like in Thailand?

@IMHO and everybody else still interested in this thread.

It has been an exhausting day.

Been up on the ladder through the better part of it. With the camera of course

It was extremely hot so i will not do the long version now. I will try to give you that tomorrow but look what i found today

To me it looks like we are having (part) of our old thai kitchen being sold back to us as the new carport and other new roof extensions

Does the quotation specifically list new steel to be used ?

Goodmorning.

Nope it does not.

It only says new carport and has a pricetag of 141.277 baht.

Thats why i have put up my original post; 'Does anybody here think that is expensive?'

Do you think we should have gotten new steel for 141.277 baht?

Gutted for the OP but at least he's kept his sense of humour throughout the saga.

Good luck mate.

Thanks for the heads up buddy. I really appreciate it !

Take care

@OP, I've just reviewed your photos again. I still can't see any evidence that the steel used on the carport trusses has ever been used before.

Goodmorning IMHO

you are absolutely right. Through pictures it will always difficult to see the real picture here(no pun intended). Everybody interested is still warmly invited to come have a look with his or her own eyes.

Yesterday afternoon i took some time away from this 'nightmare'. Needed some time to clear my head.

Before that i was at the site though. Luckily for me the contractors' subcontractor was not only cutting corners but also sloppy and lazy.

They have left many material hanging and laying around which should have been removed long time ago before the renovation started but they didn't.

I have found a small part of steel roof left from the old thai kitchen on an outside beam of the house.

Now i am of course not capable of matching the DNA here but what i can already see is the beams have been cut with a torch. The same cut we are finding at the steel used in the carport where they put the wooden ends in. Where as the cuts on the steel of the bedroom extension is nice and straight.

So what i will do today is try to match the torched cuts. Yesterday i have bought some waterproof sandpaper.I will take the ladder today armed with my sandpaper and i will try to sand layer for layer at many different spots on the carport steel to see what it will reveal on this beautiful sunday.

It might take a day or so to sort out the pictures but for sure i will update you on my findings.

Have a nice day!

Wait a minute, that steel has been there for years, in a house near the coast, covered in oxide paint that "only lasts 15 minutes" ?

ROFL.

BTW, your last builder wasn't too good either - there doesn't seem to be any attempt to paint over the welds on those battens.

Goodmorning early bird

The home has only been bought in September 2014. The old thai kitchen was put in by the previous owner before. As i recall he had that kitchen build about 7 years ago.

I am no party in the difference of opinion you are having with member orpheus454

My one and only question i have here is does this steel belong on our carport?

Look at this guys/girls.

Like i said before my gut feeling is that the c sections for the roof are used/reclaimed/recycled and this is also the opinion of the people that had a look at it with their own eyes and have construction knowledge.

I am still sorting the 700 pictures that i have and then all of a sudden it hit me looking at pictures of the old thai kitchen that they knocked down.

Please look at the C sections/U beams (whatever you call them) used in that and then please look at the C sections used in carport and extensions(many pictures in previous posts).

They look awful familiar don't they?

If so that would be one of the most clever tricks i have ever seen.

You take some steel at the back of the house put it as new in front of the house and charge top dollar new prices for it.

Damn.... thats chalaat

The roof I mentioned was quoted by SCG for over 300,000 baht...

For how many m2 was that?

SCG offers nice roofing between 1300-2000 per m2, 10 years guaranteed and completely finished. They use all galvanized steel.

The question here was and still is, did we get our moneys worth for the quoted 142k baht.

All non-galvanized steel needs to be costed in oxide paint, otherwise it will corrode. In some of your photos you can see patches where it has not yet been fully covered. These need to be finished properly.

This is just rubbish.

Oxide paint will protect beachside steel for about 15 minutes.

Minimum hot dip galvanised.

OP, you have some seriously sub-standard work there, requiring major re-building.

Yes i am slowly but surely getting more and more aware of that every day.

So far everybody that has been looking at it with their own eyes and have knowledge is positive that it is reclaimed steel.

We will have 3 different independent licensed surveyors assessing the whole situation.

The same style cement as the crumbling doorpost has been used throughout the home. All contractors looking at it are saying ' sorry buddy but we ain't finishing/fixing this'.

Basically everything has to be demolished and to be start over.

Thanks for the input, i really appreciate it.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=306111

This whole roof, steel construction, foil for isolation, roof tiles (tra chang SCG) was just over 100,000 Baht...

I think you are really being robbed by this builder!

Hi Somtam,

i dunno why but your link constantly forwards me to a login page on thaivisa forums. I cannot see the picture you attached.

On our house the concrete has bit of paper and wood in the beams, not fallen down, yet. At least that re bar looks OK only you should not be able to see it, sometimes they used chicken wire!

We now have alot of paper(seems like they are the cementbags) in between connections of beams. Especially those who are connected to the existing home.

Does anybody have more suggestion of why the concrete shown in the picture can be of such poor quality. I have already shown pictures of the whole before but here is a very close-up from the rebar inside.

We can just pulverize the concrete by hand.

I heard suggestion of 'old' concrete(being handled to late), not curing enough, wrongly mixed.

Anybody?

Hard to tell from a photo without actually feeling the consistency of it, but my best guess is way too much sand, and not enough cement in the mix. Next suspect after that is improper curing. I suspect both happened - that is horrifically bad quality.

You absolutely must demand that gets smashed apart and rebuilt - it very clearly has zero structural integrity.

Yeah tell me about it. It can be broken up like blackboard chalk.

Unfortunately this is not the only place in the home where the concrete is in this shape.

If anybody is interested i will gladly send you a piece of our house renovation by Thailand Post.

Nah.... just kidding

Does anybody have more suggestion of why the concrete shown in the picture can be of such poor quality. I have already shown pictures of the whole before but here is a very close-up from the rebar inside.

We can just pulverize the concrete by hand.

I heard suggestion of 'old' concrete(being handled to late), not curing enough, wrongly mixed.

Anybody?

Some more sections where we are unsure what todo with the rebar sticking our or being very visible.

Especially the ground beam which carries the weight of the floor and roof above it.

@IMHO

Do you reckon we should take the wood out of the ends first before we let them be brushed and overpaint or just paint them as a whole?

Those wood ends are there to support the "chern chai" (fascia boards in English?) - and what you see is fairly typical for Thai construction. The better way to do this is to use 90 degree angle iron section, welded to the truss to support the fascia boards, but it's very time consuming so most builders don't do it:

fasic-board-supports.jpg

Ok thanks. Since this home is right at sea and the SCB ATM at the 7/11 on the corner is totally rusted out because of the sea fog do we need to worry using these type of c sections or just paint over them to last another 20 years?

All non-galvanized steel needs to be costed in oxide paint, otherwise it will corrode. In some of your photos you can see patches where it has not yet been fully covered. These need to be finished properly.

Ok thanks a lot for taking the time to seriously answer my questions. I really appreciate it.

If you ever in the neighborhood of jomtien beach let me know.

I am buying

@IMHO

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately there are sections that need to be knocked down and rebuild.

It is exactly what you say. If you are paying an estimate of 3.5 million or above that for a renovation one would expect a faster a better endproduct. Especially when the contractor is pocketing about 30% profit for himself.

At first i suggested that knocking the building down and build new would be the best idea. He said it would takes much longer then the renovation. Now we are 5 months in the build and basically still have nothing.

What would your advise be for outside beams and pilars where the rebar is sticking out like these pictures?

I cant imagine that just putting cementfinish over it will give a long and lasting result?

Not very flattering photos.... I can't say I can imagine why those rebars are exposed like that - some of them appear to be standby for other additions. Either way, not all is necessarily lost - so long as they end up under at least 15mm of cement, they will be protected from further corrosion (the high Ph of cement inhibits steel corrosion) and will have the proper level of protection from fire damage.

Ok thanks. These are the outside walls. There are other outside sections with similar problems.

On that extension the foundation is at some point about 5-6 cm more out then at other spots. We reckon the wood forms didn't hold the mass or weight during the pour or the drying.

@IMHO

Do you reckon we should take the wood out of the ends first before we let them be brushed and overpaint or just paint them as a whole?

Those wood ends are there to support the "chern chai" (fascia boards in English?) - and what you see is fairly typical for Thai construction. The better way to do this is to use 90 degree angle iron section, welded to the truss to support the fascia boards, but it's very time consuming so most builders don't do it:

fasic-board-supports.jpg

Ok thanks. Since this home is right at sea and the SCB ATM at the 7/11 on the corner is totally rusted out because of the sea fog do we need to worry using these type of c sections or just paint over them to last another 20 years?

@IMHO

Do you reckon we should take the wood out of the ends first before we let them be brushed and overpaint or just paint them as a whole?

Looks better built than a few condos I've seen.

Why didn't they put the electrical yellow plastic conduit inside the wooden formwork. before filling with concrete ! Must have been a hell of a job to channel the concrete out afterwards.

Goodmorning.

Yes, we spoke about that before.

I asked him that and he literally said that it is way to difficult to put the pipes in before the pour.

@IMHO

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately there are sections that need to be knocked down and rebuild.

It is exactly what you say. If you are paying an estimate of 3.5 million or above that for a renovation one would expect a faster a better endproduct. Especially when the contractor is pocketing about 30% profit for himself.

At first i suggested that knocking the building down and build new would be the best idea. He said it would takes much longer then the renovation. Now we are 5 months in the build and basically still have nothing.

What would your advise be for outside beams and pilars where the rebar is sticking out like these pictures?

I cant imagine that just putting cementfinish over it will give a long and lasting result?

Goodmorning everybody.

Just 3 days before the contractor decided it was time to move on the 'plumber' ripped out a drain pipe for whatever reason resulting a lot of small debris falling and being stuck in the blue pipe that goes into the ground.

Can anybody recommend how we can get that debris out of the whole pipe going in the floor?

We have been thinking about trying to suck it out with a vacuum cleaner or trying to find another end and blowing high pressure air through with an air compressor.

Suggestions anyone? Without ripping the whole floor open of course

If what you are referring to is the blue pipe in photo #2, it's way to small to be a drain... Based on the fact there's a PPR pipe beside it, my guess is it's a cold water supply - in which case, a nail and a hammer to loosen the cement, and some water pressure from the other end should clean it out.

In any case, photo #1 looks like the "after" shot, so the workers have probably already handled this.

IMHO

if in the meantime you think i am being a hassle just let me know, i will not address my questions directly to you anymore.

Here you see 2 pictures of green polyweld been laid towards what should have been the future 3000 liter watertank and into the future kitchen.

You could really be right about the blue 'drain' pipe inside(also the kitchen) actually being a waterpipe but then the more strange it is that they bring green pipe inside first.

I am almost starting to think that they were putting green polyweld there where it would be highly visable before the finished job and blue pipe where we can not see it anymore.

That blue pipe from previous pictures goes into a newly poured and raised floor. To where it goes we don't know, thats why i am worried it being filled with debris.