Bday Prang

I don't know him at all, and I seriously doubt that any other people on here do either. But I have a healthy disregard for anything said by all politicians,

What I find astonishing is how many on here seem to have taken to this guy, based basically on just two things, the words that come out of his mouth (forgetting that he is just another wannabe, very wealthy PM candidate, and just as capable of lying as any other politician) and the dislike and animosity shown to him by the established politicians. He is not going to improve things one iota for any foreigners living here, probably just the opposite, Don't let his bambi faced innocence fool you , he is not your friend, anymore than any of the others.

A new UK passport can be applied for at any time, no need to wait until it is full or nearing expiry, you could even apply for one because you don't particularly like your current passport photo

The "surveyors" he refers to are only there to mark out the "foot print" of the building , It is quite possible and even normal to build on uncompacted land if piles are to be used and the correct design has been calculated, The filled ground however must be stable enough to support the heavy equipment which is required to install such piles

The higher the building the more likely it is that cracks will appear, due to the principle of leverage, a small movement at ground level is magnified many times due to the lengths of the structural members involved. I have seen 2 and three storey houses built here on foundations that would be considered inadequate for a phone box in the west. Foundations are without doubt the most important part of any structure, get them right and there will be no problems, get them wrong and disaster, or at least major inconvenience will inevitably ensue. One saving grace here is the absence of cold weather, if water were to get into a crack and behind the rendering and then freeze due to frost o whole new world of hassle would be waiting

Indeed, the forces generated by distortion due to movement can be considerable, and cracking invariably occurs initially at the weak points, ie corners. Thats why ships generally employ round windows (port holes) to avoid this happening. If movement continues over time cracks will also start to appear at the joints between concrete beams and columns. and where block walls connect to columns too

That sounds like the sort of foundations required, proved by the lack of cracks you have reported, some hairline cracks in rendering are always to be expected and occur due to the shrinkage that takes place as the rendering dries

Silicon is the best solution, there are other industrial rubber based compounds available, but they will not be sold at homepro etc and will be expensive. Flexibility is the way to go, but at the end of the day one is not curing the problem, merely temporarily hiding the symptoms

Despite what anyone might tell you, you cannot expect to build a house on 2m of relatively uncompacted clay no matter how long it has been left to stand. Sand fill would be a different matter as a few rainy seasons would provide a degree of "hydraulic compaction" if managed correctly. Anybody considering spending a large sum of money on building a house which will be founded on clay ground would be well advised to take some independent professional advice regarding the foundations, especially if intending to build more than a bungalow. If the foundations are under designed problems will inevitably arise in the future, the average Thai house builder knows little about this and cares even less

You were wasting your time to be honest, you should really have used something like this, throughout the original filling process, but nobody ever does here, they just run a tractor over it a few times as they level it out. even this beast has a compaction depth of only around 250mm when used on clay The device you used is only suitable for granular fill materials like graded stone or sand and due to its light weight. it has an effective compaction depth of about 50mm. But It is pretty much useless for compacting clay type materials The pilons (or piles as they are normally called) should have been driven into the ground until they reached the bedrock, they would then be acting as "end bearing piles",if that was not possible due to the depth of the rock they would be acting as "friction" piles" relying on their contact with the surrounding ground to provide resistance to settlement. This would require a ground investigation survey and some calculation to establish the required length its not all about settlement when building on clay, as the clay will swell and contract forever based on its moisture content, in the dry season it will shrink. in wet season it will swell.both scenarios will cause cracks to appear On the bright side, I seriously doubt your house will ever fall down, but unfortunately will always be subject to cracking, so you will continually playing catch up. You could try filling the cracks with a flexible material like silicone which will be less likely to crack again, filling them or covering them with mortar or fiberglass tape will only ever be temporary Any permanent remedial work like underpinning would be of limited effectiveness and prohibitively expensive

never heard of him

So people who moved to live in tourist ghettos are surprised that there are a few fellow foreigners around?

Somebody exactly the same as , or considered to be superior by the tossers who use such phrases

Does somewhere have to be "culturally rich " to be considered to be the real Thailand? Is Milton keynes less " English" than Stonehenge ? Of course not All these people moaning about "not the real Thailand" what they mean is , where they ended up did not match their preconceptions, and they couldn't handle it. Its all the "real" Thailand

So tell us "where" is Thailand

Very difficult to explain anything to a blind man , but sometimes its even more difficult to explain to somebody how stupid they look , Fortunately they eventually realise for themselves, Just watch any fashion victims when they see photographs taken of themselves 5 or 10 years ago, "Oh my god look at me " " what was I thinking" are common exclamations, as they hide there faces behind there hands out of pure embarrassment. and quite rightly so. I was obviously wrong when I assumed that anybody posting on here would be old enough and wise enough not to allow themselves to be carried away by nothing more than some social media fuelled trend that has now been jumped on by some influential factory owning Thais who probably stand to make money out if this, if only from the free advertising I doubt I will be heeding your advice to be honest, I'm not one for spending daft money on clothes to be honest, buy the day I start wearing 32baht trousers is the day I will end it all. Neither do I have any interest in complete strangers , presumably also dressed in these clothes "warming to me " or "smiling more" that would be weird The fact that you know the prices on Lazada indicates that you are actually too embarrassed to queue up with the teenagers at the market. Quite rightly too

In what way are these people "quality expats" they moved to Phuket , didn't like it , and then ran all the way home, There is a lot more to Thailand than tourist ghettos, They don't sound like quality "anything " to me just people who are unable to adapt to living anywhere outside their home country.

The bit where they go to enjoy a good lunch after all the hard work

Again, but in english please

What a strange comment, perhaps you could enlighten me as to how a pair of cheap trousers could ever be considered as "fun" please enlighten me as to how this "fun" manifests itself, The concept, of clothing as "fun" is totally beyond me . With the exception of lingerie (when worn by a woman) You probably consider a baseball cap worn backwards as "fun" it is not , it is beyond ridiculous especially on a geriatric, just like elephant pants

on the contrary Thais use the same word for "work" as they do for "celebration"

The arrival in the Philippines of 1000's of cantankerous old men , mostly ex special forces of course, will have a negative effect on tourism there too, Jesus what a thought

Are there really "ex pat" bars so LARGE with 1000's of customers. The conversation must be riveting Why do they bother ?

"oh I wish it could be Christmas everyday" as the song goes So once the Thais have got bored with it by April the 4th or 5th what will actually happen on the 12th, 13th and 14th ? how exactly do they intend to keep the party going ? Will tourists be required to throw water amongst them selves ? What will the "i'm locking the gate and staying in the house with a couple of boxes of chang" brigade do this year? buy more Chang I guess

If the OP thinks that Thais no longer stick together, let him go out into the street and start a fight with one and see what happens. Petty bickering and minor unrest between individuals is perfectly normal in any society, It is when threatened by an out side force that people unite. Furthermore its normal that newcomers here remain largely oblivious to Thai on Thai conflict. that is how the TAT can promote the "land of smiles" rubbish, people who have been here a lot longer are much more likely to notice what is really going on day to day. That said Thais do share a common love of their country and remain fiercely patriotic, something I am actually quite jealous of , as in my home country such sentiment is now almost considered a crime