Encid

Time to talk about our 3 internal doors... we have 1 for the bedroom which is 90cm wide, 1 for the bathroom which is 80cm wide, and 1 to exit the house to the Thai Kitchen on the south side deck outside, and all are 220cm (or 2.2m) high. This is the style of door that we wanted, as it closely resembled the kitchen cabinets and would provide a nice modern appearance combined with our 3m high ceiling line as opposed to the typical 200 cm high doors that you see on display in ThaiWatsadu etc.: Unfortunately despite the big stores advertising on their websites that non-standard door sizes can be made to order, they won't do it. Anything that is not either 70, 80, or 90cm wide and 200 cm high... forget it. They are not interested. Our builder recommended getting the doors custom made in seasoned timber with a melamine finish to get the results that we wanted. He said that they will fit perfectly and will only cost a little bit more than the composite doors that they sell in the big stores (although he hasn't exactly mentioned how much extra they will be). So we agreed, and he went off to get the custom doors and frames made. This is the colour/finish that we selected: And here they are in fabrication progress:

Our building site experienced a strong local storm last night... the temporary accommodation for the workers suffered as a result, and they took refuge in our carport. Thankfully nobody was hurt.

Thank you. Yes I would have liked to have been on site more, but my other house and business meant that I could not, hence regular visits at regular intervals. Having the in-laws take photos of progress and sending them daily gave me a good idea of progress and problem areas, and we were able to discuss the issues in the evening with our builder using the LINE app. Regular meetings and discussions on site with the builder included progress, rectification, plans, modifications etc. and it all has gone pretty well so far. For sure there have been mistakes but what job (especially house building) ever goes 100% error-free? The most important thing for me was to restrain myself and not get frustrated... I continually remind myself that the workers are not university or trades-school graduates, and that their experience is an on-going learning process, so some aspects of our build may have been new to them. Our builder is very accommodating, and does not get upset or angry... and has never knocked back a request to change or rectify anything due to construction errors on the part of his team... I highly recommend him if anyone else is considering building within 100km of Khon Kaen city. He has also been fair with his pricing for extras, which we have negotiated with him to a standard rate of cost plus 10%, which I feel is very reasonable. If anyone is interested in using him please send me a PM and I will forward his contact details to you. Yes... this is our guest house... and I intend to be living in it full-time and being on site every single day when the time comes to build our main house.

Thanks for the suggestion @Muhendis I will convey that to the builder immediately. I know that they are returning to site tomorrow morning after the holiday. I will be there the week after next as the uPVC windows and doors will be arriving, and I want to make sure that everything is fitted correctly, the right way around, and in it's correct location.

And while we were there I took the drone to perform a brief flyaround to capture the progress to date: Building Site 27 July 2023.mp4

As the PEA had not been specific about the "electrical problem" I was suspicious of their motives and reasoning... I observed them walking around our property and they were taking a good look at everything including the roof (possibly looking for solar panels?). I heard one of them mention the word "solar" and our builder was quick to point to our solar powered bore water pump about 200m away across the rice fields, and they were pretty dismissive in their manner, so I gathered that that wasn't what they were looking for. After they left, I drove around to the meter box (about 2km by car) and look a look to see if there were signs of anyone "borrowing" our power, but there were none. However, I was alarmed at the speed that the disk on the meter was turning... 20230725_125722.mp4 The rattle noise in the background is from the Mitsu Pajero behind me, but have you ever seen a meter spin so fast? I reckon that the cables (and earthing rod) were reconnected incorrectly after last year when they all fell down during the wet season. I reckon that they have gotten their wires crossed and have incorrectly connected the earth to the active incoming feed instead of the neutral feed. I reckon we have an earth leakage somewhere... any other guesses? As all the workers are now on holidays for the 6 day weekend, our builder has promised to fix it immediately after the holidays. I think that I will also be presenting him with the electricity bill when it comes later this month.

We also were paid a surprise visit by the PEA, who told us that there was a problem (without being specific) and they wanted to inspect our wiring. Our builder was on site too so we were quite happy for them to come in and look around. After inspecting all the connections from the meter to the consumer unit they left, but called my wife the following day saying that there was still a problem and that they could fix it for a fee. My wife told them not to bother as it was our builder's responsibility to find and rectify any and all faults, and that we would not be paying any extra money for them to come and fix it. Our builder was 100% agreeable with this.

We were on site again on 25th July as the Mazuma water filtration system I had bought was to be installed. It was a surprise to me as I was under the impression when I bought them that I would be installing them myself, but apparently the installation by Mazuma including first fills were free. It is a relatively simple filtration system to make our raw water supply from the bore cleaner, clearer, and softer... but will not be used for drinking purposes. The raw water is supplied via a 1" PVC pipe, which is then passed through the filters into a 2000L water storage tank which has an internal float valve fitted, then the filtered water is then pumped to the house via D32 PPR piping. The individual filtration components are as follows: 1 x CLEANFLOW 10G-R30 (BLACK) 30 micron particle Filter 1 x B19 DB AUTO FLOW-RS 20L Resin Filter +SAT100 salt regen tank 1 x B19 DB AUTO FLOW-CB 20L Activated Carbon Filter

That is why we went with Daikin... spare parts are readily available all over the country. Our initial preference was Mitsubishi Electric (not Heavy Industries) but due to a shortage of the exact model we wanted and a forecast 6 month lead time for new supply, we opted to go with Daikin. No other makes or models were entertained (even though some suppliers tried to sell us alternative models or old stock). Do your homework first... and stick to your guns when shopping... the results will be exactly what you want.

For both Mitsubishi Electric and Daikin cassette type AC units the height of the physical units range from 270-345mm and are supported by rods suspended from the roof steelwork, so only 500mm space or more is require to mount them flush with the ceiling. See the recent installation of our 24K BTU Daikin unit below:

Nice installation Looking at the road quality in your photo, the reflective markers on the posts either side, the overhead power lines arrangement, and the gum trees in the background etc. I'd hazard a guess at being located somewhere in Oz... one of the Eastern states perchance? Is that a LiFePO4 battery I see next to the inverter in the control housing?

Our temporary meter is also about 1km from the house, but we do have a clear and direct line of sight to it. Rather than walk across the rice fields to take a look at it, I have used the drone on a couple of occasions to fly over and zoom in on the meter to determine the current reading. Because it is out in the open on a public road it would be easy to spot if someone was trying to "borrow" our power.

Eventually all our domestic electricity will be solar powered... however initially (or until we get our house number and the PEA changes our usage rate) I will not be installing any visible PV panels. We may have a few solar-powered lights dotted around the property and perimeter wall, but nothing too serious. I'd rather give the PEA nothing to be concerned about when they visit our property so we have the greatest chance of keeping our existing spinning disk meter. Most electric gate openers range from 370W to 1200W (depending on the weight of the gate that it has to move) so it is definitely an item that would benefit from being powered by solar power.

According to the data for that particular pump (from Mitsubishi Electric's website here) it is a constant pressure pump with an automatic pressure control switch. There is a user manual (in Thai language) here.

I can assure you that all walls are perfectly straight and vertical. I know... because I used a laser level to verify them (as did the builder too).

I hope that ours will be considerably quicker than that. It was the PEA that made the suggestion originally... ie. a temporary meter and rate. I posted about it here back in March 2022. I believe that all we have to do is to apply to the local government for a house number, then a rep will inspect the property and in particular the sewerage plans and details, then we can notify the PEA, then they will change the charge rate. All the power poles and cable from the PEA meter on their pole to our guest house were paid for by me... and they are not on public land.

Not Bangkok but just down the road in Pattaya... ARC. They are currently producing some double glazed sliding windows and doors for me. They have had customers from all over Thailand... including Bangkok. Recommended...

There are 1" PVC valves that are used to regulate the water flow rate for drip irrigation systems that might work for you... relatively inexpensive too.

We have also negotiated with our next-door neighbour (my wife's sister) to obtain a small amount of land next to their farm to enable us to install some sliding gates at our boundary wall. We will be extending the existing 2m high RC slat panel wall one more bay (2.5m) then erecting a couple of 40x40cm square columns 4m apart to act as the gate supports, then add a couple more bays of the 2m high RC slat panel wall which will hide the gate when it is in the open position. The 2m high gate will be electrically operated by a 220V motor inside the gate and controlled by hand-held battery-operated remote controllers.

And then the back-hoe got to work preparing the surface. These photos are from yesterday... 21st July, and you can see the result of the recent rains.

And work has started on the construction of our access road. It will be a 4m wide reinforced concrete road rising up a 1.6m high ramp from the government road to the corner of our Guest House, then head South in a straight line to another ramp down to access the farm. The road will have a spoon drain on the East side and will be designed and built to support the load of a fully laden sip-lor truck (10-wheeler) (30,000kg or 30T empty plus a load of 18,000 kg or 18T = 48T total). I don't think that we will ever see any machinery heavier than that accessing the farm. Both the ramp from the government road to the building site and the ramp to the farm needs to be a 15-20% maximum slope, with a 50% of slope transition at both ends of the ramp. My builder scratched his head a bit when he saw this diagram, but after we discussed the reasons for the transitions he agreed that this would be a very good ramp design. The RC access road needs to be built in sections nominally 8m long x 4m wide, with construction joints fitted every 8m to cater for expansion and to eliminate cracking. We intend to use some neoprene water seal strips to act as the construction joints. The RC access road will be located 2m from the West wall of the Guest House and run in a straight parallel direction to the farm, where another ramp is required. The future Main House will also be accessed from this road. Some photos of the early preparation work:

I also used CAD to indicate the type of finished surfaces we want on the outside of the building. Using AutoCAD I referenced in an aerial photo I had taken with the drone, then drew lines and text etc. on top of the raster image to show our builder what we want. I had already calculated the areas required for the "copy stone" and "copy wood" surfaces, added 10% for contingency, and ordered the material from Thaiwatsadu... they get delivered to site early next week. After discussions with our builder we agreed to do this work after the uPVC windows and doors have been installed, so there are no complications from incorrect positioning of any cladding. Just out of interest, this particular photo was taken at midday on July 4... which was about 10 days after the solar solstice. This particular solstice means that the Earth's Northern Hemisphere has tilted as far as it can toward the sun and the sun's rays are reaching as far North as they possibly can, giving us the maximum amount of sunlight we will get all year. Our build location is about 16° North... and you can see from the shadows in the photo that the North face of our building is receiving some direct sunlight (albeit minimal and only for a short duration).

Me too! I am continually trying to be yen-yen dealing with the daily issues, but I must admit that my wife is subjected to my true nature (in private) when I discover something done wrong or badly. She knows that I get frustrated with stupid errors, but supports me in getting the problems sorted out to my satisfaction with the builder. She pours the oil on the troubled waters...

If you have been taking much notice of the developments in this thread you will see that I am trying to build a dwelling that is of reasonable quality. There is absolutely no way that I would consider using any products from Mr DIY where most of their merchandise is cheap, Chinese-made, and of inferior quality with no warranty. I bought a 75 baht 1/2" garden tap for the farm from them once... as soon as the water line was pressurized (by a domestic water pump) the tap body just exploded... no warranty, no refund, no return custom from me ever!!! All our bathroom and kitchen fittings will be American Standard, and sourced from a reputable dealer like Boonthavorn with associated product warrantees.

Your uPVC frame type is similar to ours: We have ordered all our uPVC sliding doors and windows from ARC-CMR who use components sourced from Belgium. Their products have an expected life-cycle of over 40 years. I have been very happy with their understanding of our requirements, their product knowledge, and their professionalism. They visited our building site on 22 June to take final "as-built" measurements of all the door/window openings in the house shell. We are expecting the first shipments to arrive in site at the end of the first week in August when installation will begin.