kitjohnson

Thanks, John. That does make sense.

Point taken, Joe, but I'd still like to get this done if I can. When I bought the bike I went to the land office on my own and had no problems.

@Johng, I'm not sure why you couldn't see my annotations…I'm attaching it again here in JPG format:

I really can't understand what to write on the power of attorney form. I've attached an annotated version of an English translation. (Also attached the original Thai one.)

Here is the situation. I am Kit. I want to sell my motorbike. The person who wants to buy my motorbike is conveniently called Mr Buyer.

Whose name to I write in the boxes I've labelled:

• Person A
• Person B
• Person C

Please don't just guess - I'd like to really get this correct or it will be a headache for Mr Buyer when he gets to the land office to transfer the bike over.

Power_of_Attorney_TH.pdf

Power_of_Attorney_EN-annotated.pdf

Loads of great responses here. It's great to see that people here are actually using and enjoying these things!

Good to hear a mixed bunch of replies here. My preference is to keep things simple, so use the electric heater that comes with the jacuzzi, but I also really like the sound of Arjen's DIY set-up.

Then there is the question of "Do I actually want a jacuzzi?" I just set-up this poll to see what proportion of people have a jacuzzi actually use it.

I am debating whether to have an indoor jacuzzi (bathtub with jets) installed in the house I'm building with my wife.

When in England I love reading books in baths, and in Thai hotels I always take a bath when they have one. But so many people install jacuzzis only to find they don't actually use them. I'd like to know the situation in Thailand, so please answer this poll and post your comments!

I'm planning a new build house for just two people to live in in Sai Mai, Bangkok. Water pressure here is bad, so I think that means we'll need a water tank. The in-laws who live nearby don't have one, and the shower often reduces to just a trickle.

We take cold showers most of the year, so just getting individual electric water heaters for each shower will take us through the cold months. But we're thinking about getting a bath (jacuzzi-style with jets), and I don't relish the thought of heating up all that water with an electric heater.

One thought I had was to have two separate outdoor water tanks. One would be shaded as much as possible to give cooler water, and the other would be in direct sun, perhaps painted black and with other modifications to keep it as hot as possible. I only ever would take baths in the evening, after it's had all day to get hot.

I just wonder if this adds significantly to the complication of plumbing. Most Thai houses just have cold water, but if we had two tanks then would we want to run two pipes into all the bathrooms?

I've spent an hour reading through threads on these topics, and a lot of people say the expense of a proper solar hot water system may not in some cases be worth it, as the initial outlay is high. The systems seem to have been designed for maximum efficiency - much more than is needed for the climate of Bangkok. Particularly since we are only two people and won't be using much hot water except for this bath.

I feel like this thread has gotten old now, so I will probably create new threads when I get a specific question. Like whether a 20 degree pitch for the roof is too shallow - just posted that question over on Cool Thai House.

I just wanted to say thanks to William Pierce and Khun Per for the helpful comments. The architect we've hired had very similar comments to you, Khun Per.

Notes on plans:

• I notice the section plane for the first floor plan didn't cut low enough, and we can still see some roof where we shouldn't. The staircase does take the full 2 metres.

Notes on elevations and 3D:

• A couple of windows appear to be missing their transparent blue shading
• there are a bunch of artifacts from my inexperience with this program (e.g. horizontal lines that run around the house)
• I haven't drawn the front door. it's just a grey rectangle right now.

After a great deal of discussion and thought, we've come up with a preliminary plan. Here are the plans and elevations. I drew this in Sketchup, and as you'll see, I'm a real beginner. I deliberately didn't draw wall thickness as it makes it much easier to change at this stage. When things are more firmed-up I'll redraw it with real thick walls.

The plan is based on a design we found in a book, though with quite a lot of customisation. Some basic details - like how high we'll raise it from the ground, window placement, wall materials and thickness, ceiling height, roof design, etc. - we hope to sort out in discussion with an architect.

I'm attaching this plan in case anyone has any helpful comments about stuff we should consider changing before we approach an architect. I'm particularly thinking about orientation of the house on the land, but any comments are really welcome.

Here are some passive cooling features that we've tried to build in:

• minimise glass on the south and west sides, and shade these with trees
• we are considering cavity walls on the south, west, and east sides
• the staircase is on the south side of the house, and with a window at the top, the hot air from the ground floor will have a way to escape the house
• the ground floor kitchen, dining and sitting are one big room, and we hope to open up windows and doors to this area during the morning when the air is cooler. When the outside air gets hotter, we'll close up the windows and folding doors.
• if we want to run air-con in the sitting room, we'll close the folding doors that separate it from the dining area. This makes a much smaller space to keep cool.
• the master bedroom has a separate dressing area. Again, running air con during the night we are dealing with a smaller space (16 square metres) rather than cooling a combined bedroom/dressing area.
• my idea for the roof structure is to have two gable ends, with louvres, to allow hot air to escape from under the roof. I have no idea if the roof as I have drawn it is feasible.

I've got one specific question: In the main house the maximum distance between columns is 4 metres. However, ideally we would make the dining area a little bigger. Could we increase the span between columns (2) and (3) to 4.5 metres without adding significant difficulty/extra cost?

That's it. Thanks everyone so much for your help on this thread so far.

Get a better builder - not the cheapest. Medium size operator preferable to a big operator. Look at some of his recent jobs. Has he done many farang quality work?

Drainage - important

Insulation - similar

Mats - the best you can afford

Architect, books etc - No unless you are spending B8-10+m. Look at project homes & modify the plan.

Watch carefully that the mats purchased are in accordance with the agreement.

One level v 2 level - personal preference.

Ensure that your personal relationship is rock solid. -

Ensure that your missus has both feet on the ground.

Contact an astrologer - you need a lot of luck! Get 2 astrologists.

Whatever your budget is, add 20-50% extra.

Time - add 1/3 & be careful re rainy season.

Assess the optimum direction the house is facing.

Don't employ relations/friends of family

Other then the above, it is very easy.

Thanks a lot for the advice!

We've decided against using an architect because for a quality one we would need to pay a lot. Our budget is under 3 million. But our next thought was books - choose a plan and modify it to suit us. You said to go for 'project homes' - what's that?

Plans 53 & 56 have little to no roof overhangs = hot. Plans 50 & 55 are soul-less, style-less boxes. Keep searching - you can do a lot better than this. Try an SE-ED bookstore.

I just chose those plans to think about the staircase design and placement. I wasn't considering them for us at this stage. We're going to have a better look at them this weekend, and maybe get off to a bookshop too :-)

Two Storey Cons:

* More direct sunlight hits the ground floor walls and windows, because the roof overhangs are so high up - can be mitigated with 'skirt' roof sections.

* Heat rises - which means the second floor is generally hotter than what a single storey house would be - that can be mitigated as well though. We have now built a few houses where the staircase ends adjacent to an upstairs terrace area - so the hot air just flows right out of a screen door. In those houses, the staircase is usually the coolest room in the whole house, and the other rooms upstairs or no hotter than what a single storey house would be.

* Construction costs per sqm are about 10-20% more than single storey.

We've switched fromm one storey to two. I was keen to raise the whole house a whole storey, traditional Thai house-on-stilts style, with an open ground floor. However we thought for the cost of doing that, and of putting in a nice floor, why not put in some walls and - hey, we have a two-storey house. Is that over-simplifying things?

With two storeys comes staircases. I remember IMHO said something interesting about that - quoted above.

With almost all of the two-storey house plans we have looked at, the stair case is a U-shape (bending back on itself) and ending slap bang in the middle of the second storey. This seems problematic since heat will rise and it will get trapped there. There is an example of this over on a site for free government (Public Works Department) house plans. Plan 55.

Incidentally, that site was a bit of a gold mine for me. I was aware of the a bunch of free government plans, helpfully linked to from this post on the Teak Door Forum. However the plan I linked to above appears to be part of an new set of plans, many of which look more modern.

Back to the staircase issue. I've read a bit about whole house fans. If you put a whole house fan in the ceiling above the landing on the second floor, right at the top of the staircase and in the middle of the house, my guess is that you could get a good current of air through the house and into the attic. With a well ventilated attic, the problem might be solved.

The other solution is to go for something like IMHO mentioned. There are some examples here:

• Plan 53. The staircase is one one extremity of the house and so heat buildup wouldn't affect other rooms so much (I guess).
• Plan 50. The staircase ends by an exterior wall on the second floor. Open up a door or window and hey presto, somewhere for the hot air to go.
• Plan 56. A staircase with no bends, also ending by an exterior wall on the second floor.

I'm interested in creating something like a chimney effect, where the staircase draws warm air from the ground floor and exhausts out of a second storey window, door, or screen.

If anyone has any thoughts on this then please do post. We're getting closer to knowing exactly what we want from our layout, but issues like this are key to creating a house that is cooled efficiently.

I spat coffee over my screen when I read how much you're paying for plans. WOW.

Sorry, but this next bit is going to be very blunt. You need to understand this.

The quality of the workmanship has absolutely nothing to do with how much you pay per sqm - building costs vary because of material costs, not labour.

Lol. Well, I thought it was steep, but well, yes. It's expensive. But we haven't agreed to anything or signed anything yet.

I actually had to read your sentence about workmanship a few times to get it. But I can see what you're saying now. Whether we go for cheaper materials or more expensive materials, the workmanship will be whatever the team we choose gives us on the day. So finding the right team is what it's about.

Will any of these plans adapt to your purposes Kit? http://www.crossy.co.uk/Thai_House_Plans/ they're FREE and signed off ready to build

Our home came from one that was adapted by me (under instruction from SWMBO) and is most definitely not cookie-cutter

To answer your questions:-

Lots of glass plus a flat roof = a very hot home unless you have large roof overhangs and a well insulated roof or a separate flying roof as a shade. The glass can be mitigated using one of the thermally insulating glasses (expensive) or loads of shade plants (which of course will reduce the view). Oh, and flat roofs have a nasty tendency to leak, not good in a place with tropical rains.

If you intend installing solar later, put it on the garage roof, a 6x6 double car port has room for about 5kW of solar, there's a couple of interesting solar threads over in the Electrical forum.

Why not post a couple of general views from your architects initial design for more directed comments?

EDIT If you're in Sai Mai our contractor may be of interest, we're in Chiang Rak (20 mins drive). K. Dusit is a well respected local guy with a crew of Cambodian workers and (amazingly) is still a friend, drop me a PM if you want to nip over for a natter and a beer or two.

Thanks for the link. I actually just went to a book store at the weekend to look at more designs specifically made for Thailand. It seems there is quite a lot of free stuff on offer, and quite a bit that is interesting. We've got a couple of books to pore over. We also got one book written in Thai specifically about eco housing.

Thanks for your comments on the roof. I hadn't thought about putting solar on the garage. That's a nice idea, and gives us more flexibility to go pitched with the house roof, especially since we're considering an extra room to attach to the garage.

I can't send any views from the architect's design because he didn't want to hand them over, understandably, since we're still at the stage of initial discussions. That's why my hand sketch was done from memory.

Thanks very much for your offer of meet-up and a potential crew of builders. That sounds great.

I'm going to be a little blunt again, sorry

After all the planning and forethought put into this, I'm surprised you're still lining up to make some serious mistakes:

1) All that South facing glass. Any hope you had of a cool / energy efficient house has just, literally, gone out the window.

As Crossy notes, there are some good/expensive products that will help mitigate a little of the disaster - e.g. Solartag+ glass, and double glazing - but none of them are going to fix the problem all that exposed glass area is going to create.

2) Flat roof.

Nothing guarantees a scorching hot ceiling like a small crawl space. It doesn't matter how well you implement radiant barriers and/or insulation, the heat from the roof surface will get to the ceiling.

IMHO, no need to apologise. I really appreciate your advice.

I suspected that the glass would be an energy disaster, and it looks like the architect has gone for form over ecological function. Perhaps I didn't stress to him enough how much I value low-energy living.

And on the flat roof, it looks like it could be the same deal.

I haven't forgotten this thread. It's still a testament to the awesome helpfulness of people on the Internet.

In the last few months we (my wife and I) have done a fair amount of fact-finding. Or so we hope. Here's what we've found:

1. Several companies will just build your house for you. Look at the brochure, pick the one you want, pay them about 17,000 per square metre (well, this is the figure we have for the house we are looking at), sign a contract, and move in a year later. Seems hassle-free, but we're struggling to accept that price given the fact that the end-result is a house that looks like any other new-build house these days. The designs are very pedestrian, and they don't even have any one-storey options. This price is also their medium-level spec, and I think there are several ways I would like to upgrade it (double walls, for example). This could come in incredibly expensive.

2. We are lucky to have found a trusted guy (well, we hope) who is a contractor. He will do it for 10,000 or less per square metre. We have done a lot of asking around and it seems no-one would recommend the person that built their own house, until we met this guy. The downside is that I get the feeling his team (Cambodian immigrants) won't pay enough atention to detail. Just the feeling I get from chatting to him. He doesn't seem to have specialist plumbers, just one general do-it-all team. Could cause problems down the road.

3. We have found another person who again came recommended: an architect/contractor all-in-one. His first-draft design (a one-storey house) was absolutely brilliant, but he's asking for a lot for doing the plan: 250,000 baht. That would include all drawings, 3D, structural stuff, and he would get the design approved at the district office. He's worked on many large projects (e.g. Sansiri developments) and seems totally professional. He's said that 15,000 per square meter would be do-able with the team he works with. Of course the actuall cost depends on specifics that we haven't worked through yet.

Before we make a decision I wanted to run some things by the knowledgeable people here.

Roof. The architect knows that we are trying to save money and he suggested a flat roof. It also fits in with the design ideas that we like. (You can see what we showed him on our Pinterest board.) He says that it will function approximately as well as a standard pitched roof in terms of keeping the house cool. I was surprised by that. However not only is it cheaper but it could make it easier to install, one day, solar. (I asked a solar company and they said maximum pitch should be about 30 degrees.) I would like to know what people's experience/knowledge of flat roofs is for a Thai house.

Glass. As you can see on our design inspiration board, we like very open-plan designs with lots of glass. The land is surrounded by rice fields, we'll have trees: basically, a nice view. We also like the spaciousness that you get from having glass walls. His design really does look brilliant. However I'm concerned that this might make for terrible insulation. On this thread several people have mentioned the benefits of having aerated concrete blocks, even double layers with insulation, to protect against the sun and to insulate rooms when air conditioning is turned on. My feeling is that glass cannot compete with that. Even though we will get trees up, and even though the roof overhang of this one-storey design will do some shading.

I've just attached my own draft sketch which shows the basic layout of the house (which doesn't do any justice to what he came up with!). The floor area is approximately 180 sq metres I think.

Basically my concern is that with the amount of south-facing glass (basically that whole south side is currently going to be glass) we will be living in a greenhouse. Sliding doors to the rescue? The house does seem to work well with the prevailing winds. But it's dusty out there, and if we really rely on opening up the house every day, it could make for hard work cleaning.

When it comes to air-conditioned rooms (bedrooms, office), surely the more glass there is, the more expensive they will be to keep cool?

I'm blown away by the response on this thread. Three cheers to everyone.

It's going to take me some time to digest it all, but I will.

Have you considered a Thai style house raised a couple meters on piles? I lived in one in Pattaya and it was very comfortable. The raised design gets you above the floods and also gives you a large shaded area underneath which can be used for bbq's etc. The raised design also gets you somewhat above the mosquitoes. A wooden floor will also hold less heat then a concrete pad and cool quicker at night.

Yes, we definitely considered that. I'm still open to the idea. Most of the houses in the surrounding area are raised either a few inches or a couple of metres off the ground. You've spelled out some of the advantages there. Are there many disadvantages - other than the inconvenience of having to walk up stairs every time you move in/out of the house? That's fine when you're young and healthy, but when we get older, it could make life difficult.

I just want to say thank you to all the help. I really am a beginner to this type of thing, and your comments have really helped me get a feel for what I should be looking for.

There are a number of pros and cons when talking 1 vs 2 storey:

One Story Pros:

* Roof overhangs are able to shade more total wall area

* Construction cost is considerably cheaper

* Easier to create shade for the whole house with trees

Two Storey Pros:

* Downstairs is generally cooler, because nothing really beats the double-insulation of a concrete floor and a roof above.

* Wind flow - the second floor generally gets much more of it, with less trees, garden, fences etc to block it. That's only beneficial when wind temps are low enough to help with cooling though

Two Storey Cons:

* More direct sunlight hits the ground floor walls and windows, because the roof overhangs are so high up - can be mitigated with 'skirt' roof sections.

* Heat rises - which means the second floor is generally hotter than what a single storey house would be - that can be mitigated as well though. We have now built a few houses where the staircase ends adjacent to an upstairs terrace area - so the hot air just flows right out of a screen door. In those houses, the staircase is usually the coolest room in the whole house, and the other rooms upstairs or no hotter than what a single storey house would be.

* Construction costs per sqm are about 10-20% more than single storey.

The basic concepts of a cool house are pretty simple:

1) Use shade as much as possible - blocking/limiting direct sunlight is the single most effective weapon you have. Trees, roof overhangs, even solar panels and solar hot water systems help.

2) What you can't shade, reflect - e.g. using foil under roof tiles and Solartag reflective glass.

3) What you can't reflect, insulate - e.g. using double brick cavity walls, exterior wall claddings, double glazing, ceiling batts/insulted gypsum (Thermaline)

4) Design your house so it's able to take advantage of prevailing winds (which flip direction for half the year) so you can ventilate when it's cool out, but stop that ventilation as air temps rise.

This is awesome advice. Thanks for spelling it out so clearly. Especially the 'basic concepts' bit.

The land is in Sai Mai. It's pretty open - rice paddies surrounding it at the moment. There's quite a lot of land: 1,500 square metres.

Sounds as if you have about 1 rai of land.

I know the area, its up by Rangsit/LamLukKa, you are correct about it being basically paddy fields.

One area of concern you havent mentioned is drainage/flooding, that area was hit pretty bad back in 2011.

I dont know the elevation of your land, but I rai is a heck of a lot to raise, I would consider having the house elevated by at least 1 meter.

I dont know if you have included piling in your budget, depending on design, you can easily add at least another 200k++ baht to the cost.

Yep, it was hit badly by the floods. A meter or so of water for months. Horrible. The mother-in-law has raised about half the land already (the patch we want to build on), about 75cm I think (I need to measure it). I suppose one advantage of a two-storey house is that even if flooded, at least you have someone dry to escape to.

I just found out what piling is. If I understand correctly, any house build in the Bangkok area would need that, so yes it'll be budgeted for.

Build using q con blocks and a metal insulated colorbond white roof with well vented roof space, you will not get temps lower than ambient no matter what any smart arse tells you, with good insulation you can open doors windows at 6.30 am trap the cool morning air but good sealing up of the house is essential to keep that air in.

banana plants grow fast and will shade you well in 12 months.

Build on the ground its cooler than the air on a raise d house as long as any surrounding path of concrete does not touch the house base.

What I'm planning is the ability to seal the house and insulate (for when we want to use air conditioners) as well as have the ability to open up windows and doors to let the air flow through and circulate through the house, when it's cool enough.

Mahogany trees! You can buy a 3 meter tall tree for about 500 Bht.

They look good, provide lots of shade, and grow fairly fast.

If you have rain gutters, keep them at least 1o meters from thehouse.

Mahogany, thanks for the tip. They do look good and for a three meter tall tree that sounds like a bargain.

At the moment we're working on a provisional design with a housing construction company (Built to Build group). I've got some ideas for where to put the land on the plot, and where to put trees. I'll post that here when it's ready.

Once again, thanks everyone for this advice.

The biggest problem is the West side - all year around it's going to get hammered by the afternoon sun. Next is the South side, because it's going to get hammered for half the year. The East side will of course get morning sunlight, but it's less of an impact than West and South, because it's generally cooler in the morning anyway - it might still pay to minimize glass area on that side though. The North side usually doesn't need any special considerations, unless it's two or more stories - in single story, a 1.0-1.5M roof overhang will keep most of the North sun out.

The next thing to think about is positioning the house on the plot so you are going to be able to plant trees strategically too. Insulation is good, but shade is always better

That's exactly the kind of advice I was hoping for. Thank you!

Since the land is spacious and we love trees, we can think about creating as much shade as possible with trees on the west and south sides, and controlling the amount of glass we put on those sides too.

Another question I've got (since you mentioned stories), is what impact does number of stories make? Most family houses I've been to in Thailand are two-storey, and the second story is horribly uncomfortable without aircon. My guess is that the heat from the ground floor rises, and the sun beats on the roof, and so it becomes an oven up there. Could that be alleviated through more efficient (cooling) roof design?

But if we went with single-storey, we would still have the issue of a hot sun on the roof all day.

I expect that single storey would be more expensive, because the total roof area would be much larger, plus lots more foundations to lay.

I'm grateful for all the replies.

The land is in Sai Mai. It's pretty open - rice paddies surrounding it at the moment. There's quite a lot of land: 1,500 square metres.

I agree that it's probably good to take it slowly. We're keen to get started, but better to be patient now and get it right than have major headaches later.

I've spent a fair bit of time in bookshops already, but haven't seen many books that are dedicated to eco designs for houses in humid tropical climates. I'll keep looking.

Thanks so much for the info on sun angles. That was actually a question I had in the back of my mind. So if I understand it correctly, we should take care that the southern side is prepared to receive sun from September to March, and that during the rest of the year we should think about how to prepare for the morning and evening sun (from the East and West).

I'm looking to build a 3-bedroom house with my wife just outside Bangkok. Our budget at the moment is about 2.5 million but we could bump that up to 3.5 million.

I want to make it as ecological as possible. From what I've seen so far when speaking to a few contractors, architects, and companies, the market here doesn't seem overly concerned with reducing electricity bills through ecological design. I guess that will happen in time. By 'eco design' I mean:

* thought paid to the surrounding environment to make best use of sun, wind, and trees
* money invested in good insulation where that would help keep the house cool
* good airflow throughout the house
* a roof that keeps the house as cool as possible
* modern style and conveniences. We're not going to live in an earthen hut :-)

I'd like to get started building soon, and I'm not sure of the best way forward. I have zero experience in this area. If anyone can recommend any of the following I'd be really grateful:

* architects, contractors, or construction companies who are experienced in ecological house design, preferably with a track record of doing a thorough job and not cutting corners
* books on eco house design specifically for tropical climates like we have in Bangkok
* anything else to help get this project started

I really am grateful for any help that anyone can give, as so far, with the people I've spoken to, I haven't found any promising leads for an ecologically-designed and built home.

(I have searched this topic already on this site but most of what I found wasn't exactly what I'm asking here.)

Thanks very much. I'll go check it out.

The house will be in a district which floods, so a bit of clearance from the ground (like on the cover photo) might be a good idea!

"I'm going to build a house, and am not sure whether to hire my own contractor/architect, or go through one of the companies that will do the whole process for you.'

Be careful whichever way you decide to go. I did a lot of research via this forum, other building forums, and talking to people who had built houses in Thailand, and found out it is very easy to be overcharged for the finished product.

My wife and I are having a house built in Saraphee, just outside of Chiang Mai, due to be finished next month. We found a book of house plans at a bookshop and were lucky enough to find one which was ideal for our block of land, all we did was add one bathroom.

We found a qualified draftsman who drew up the plans based on what we showed him, and our builder is the Father of a good friend of ours. He is doing a really good job and seems to be building everything according to the plans.

We submitted our plans to the government department, not sure what it is called, and that was easy enough.

All in all I am glad we went the way we did and we were very lucky to find a good honest builder.

Hope your building experience is as easy and hassle free as ours has been so far, and best of luck.

PM me if you need any additional information, photos etc.

Thanks very much for saying that. I must say the whole process can seem overwhelming, and that the people who have told me their story of building a house in Thailand only have negative things to say about getting ripped off and shoddy work. So thanks for putting a positive light on it. If only I could find a contractor here in Bangkok who is as good as the ones you've got...

What was the name of the book of plans that you used? I've been to Asia Books and Kinokunia and couldn't see anything like that in the architecture section.

Thanks, IMHO, for your advice. I took a photo of the worst air bubbles I could find. Most of the concrete looked better than that. I just have no mental image to compare them to, so I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.

It sounds like the rust isn't much of a problem either.

Thanks again!

I'm going to build a house, and am not sure whether to hire my own contractor/architect, or go through one of the companies that will do the whole process for you.

I went to an open day by Built to Build group. We looked at show homes as well as their factory. I was quite impressed, though the prices are impressively high to match.

As we were going around the factory I took these two photos. One shows air bubbles in concerete posts, and the other shows rust on the metal bits that come out of the concrete posts. (You can see I'm not exactly what you'd call a construction expert.)

I just wondered whether these air bubbles and rust are normal, and represent the high quality workmanship that they kept telling us about on this open day.