New Build in Khon Kaen

[Jeffrey346]

5 hours ago, cheeryble said:

 

IF expense is unimportant and the hot water outlets aren't close together how about the luxury of a circulating hot water system?

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Haven't thought about it.

5 hours ago, cheeryble said:

 

 

4 hours ago, Naam said:

waste of energy if piping work is not properly insulated. there's nothing more effective than individual heaters in each bathroom except a central combined solar/electric unit and piping via ceiling in single story homes.

I am considering solar. From what I have read, the cost here in Thailand is very high compared to most other countries. But, I will check it out..

[Naam]

4 minutes ago, Jeffrey346 said:

Haven't thought about it.

 

I am considering solar. From what I have read, the cost here in Thailand is very high compared to most other countries. But, I will check it out..

cost in Thailand is indeed outrageous and what is offered does not suffice for a big home with 5+ bathrooms and 2 kitchens. i did not provide any piping when building otherwise i'd build my own system as i've done for heating our pool. actually i did not build the system myself but it was done according to my design and specifications.  using a big insulated underground buffer tank would even eliminate any additional electric heating.

[sirineou]

 

4 hours ago, Naam said:

cost in Thailand is indeed outrageous and what is offered does not suffice for a big home with 5+ bathrooms and 2 kitchens. i did not provide any piping when building otherwise i'd build my own system as i've done for heating our pool. actually i did not build the system myself but it was done according to my design and specifications.  using a big insulated underground buffer tank would even eliminate any additional electric heating.

With the amount of sun in Thailand I don't know why they are not used more, We were vacationing in Greece last summer and they were on almost every rooftop (Greece has some of the most expensive electricity in EU) . I asked about costs and were told that systems start at 800 euro and that average units run about  1,000 euro. I guess scale of markets reduces costs.

I was looking at a unit on a roof top ,right across a litle vila we were staying in at Salamis island

and half of it was covered with a piece of carpet, , I suspected the reason but asked anyway, and was told that in the summer the water got so hot . they covered it to reduce the temperature and extend it's life.

 Notice the carpet covering the top half 

Anyway, electric is so inexpensive in Thailand I can afford so splurge! 

Some times I take as many as 12  showers a year 

 

[lkn]

On 2/13/2018 at 6:52 PM, sirineou said:

Excellent idea!,  One large AC in a room that long would create an unbalanced system and where the unit blows might be uncomfortably cold.

My a/c units are hidden above the ceilings with one long grill in one side of the room and the cold air distributed by splitting the ducts above the ceiling.

 

It does however require you to have enough space above the ceiling for this.

 

Works very well for me, and my units are Daikin, I have no complaints, i.e. quiet and effective units, but have nothing to compare them with, as I never used a/c before Thailand.

 

[lkn]

12 hours ago, Naam said:

waste of energy if piping work is not properly insulated. there's nothing more effective than individual heaters in each bathroom except a central combined solar/electric unit and piping via ceiling in single story homes.

Minor downside with the individual heaters is that the temperature of the discharge is relative to the temperature of the incoming water and the volume of water passing through the unit. These things depend on hot/cold season and water pressure.

 

There is a dial to adjust how much the heater should heat, so I adjust it so that water is never scolding, but it means I have to adjust it during the year, and if I open a water faucet with minimal water pressure, it might still be scolding.

 

But if I were to build a house from scratch, I’d have to do some calculations about estimated energy usage for maintaining a water tank at 60° degrees year round.

 

Another upside with the central tank is that the pressure can be much higher, which is mostly useful when drawing a bath.

[sirineou]

I have both type of systems . In My Florida home I have a central electric hot water tank of the kind al in the US are  familiar. (in NY the home heating boiler makes the hot water) And in Thailand we always had the On-Demand hot water heaters we are all familiar with.

Nam is correct about the pipe system necessary to deliver the hot water to the point of use, and the insulation needed to keep it warm on transit.

In FL before I get hot water to my shower head I have to turn the shower on and walk away while all the cols water is vacated from the pipes. ( that's waste of water) then after I am done I leave the pipes leading to the hot water heater full of hot water, to eventually cool down until next use, (that's waste of energy) .  Furthermore  the system has to always be on to maintain temperature on the holding tank. and if you have a lot of people showering in the morning it can run out of water.

I never had any of the above issues with the on demand units in Thailand,.

 Simplicity of design,        Plus it does not burn electric when we are not there, which is a considerable length of time, since I work outside Thailand, and since I plan to travel between the US, (i am keeping one house there) Thailand, and friends in Europe when I fully retire..

When starting to build a few months ago , I considered all options, and decided to stay with the ON-demand system for some of the above reasons. (chief reason simplicity)

I subscribe to the K.I.S.S. rule . I know, I know .you all wish I had used that rule on this reply LOL

For others with different requirement a different system might be more desirable.

 

[Naam]

8 hours ago, lkn said:

Minor downside with the individual heaters is that the temperature of the discharge is relative to the temperature of the incoming water and the volume of water passing through the unit.

easy to fix with a thermostatic mixer valve (Amazon 30.- Dollars).

[Jeffrey346]

1 hour ago, Naam said:

easy to fix with a thermostatic mixer valve (Amazon 30.- Dollars).

Awesome.. This valve feeds 2 points? ie shower and sink?

[Jeffrey346]

11 hours ago, lkn said:

My a/c units are hidden above the ceilings with one long grill in one side of the room and the cold air distributed by splitting the ducts above the ceiling.

 

It does however require you to have enough space above the ceiling for this.

 

Works very well for me, and my units are Daikin, I have no complaints, i.e. quiet and effective units, but have nothing to compare them with, as I never used a/c before Thailand.

 

How easy is it to clean the filters?

[sirineou]

4 minutes ago, Jeffrey346 said:

Awesome.. This valve feeds 2 points? ie shower and sink?

 It is installed at the water tank. You disconnect both hot water and cold water feeds from the tank , connect a T at the cold water inlet to the tank then reconnect the cold water feed .

Install the thermostatic mixing valve at the hot water outlet of the tank.

connect a pipe from the cold water inlet of the mixing valve to the other side of the T you installed earlier  at the cold water feed inlet,

Now you have cold water going in the hot water tank and mixing valve.

Then reconnect the hot water line to the mixing valve

 

[lkn]

1 hour ago, Jeffrey346 said:

How easy is it to clean the filters?

There are utility hatches to allow for this.

 

Ideally you put the units in adjoining bathrooms (or similar) so that the utility hatches are not visible in your main rooms, which also has the advantage of moving any potential noise from the unit to another room, although noise has not been an issue with my units, I practically can’t hear them.

 

Only exception was one in my bedroom, they had the drain pipe touch the metal frame of the ceiling, so when the pump started, the part of the ceiling frame would vibrate (and create noise), but this was fixed with a few cable ties, to keep the pipe away from the metal frame.

 

[Naam]

2 hours ago, Jeffrey346 said:

Awesome.. This valve feeds 2 points? ie shower and sink?

there's only one outlet and two inlets (hot and cold) which are mixed by the thermostat valve. usually it's only required for the showers.

 

Quote

Minor downside with the individual heaters is that the temperature of the discharge is relative to the temperature of the incoming water and the volume of water passing through the unit. These things depend on hot/cold season and water pressure.

no problem at all in our case as our water tanks are below ground (virtually no seasonal temperature change) and continous water pressure and volume by means of 2 pumps (second pumps kicks in when pressure drops 0.3bar).

[Jeffrey346]

4 hours ago, Naam said:

there's only one outlet and two inlets (hot and cold) which are mixed by the thermostat valve. usually it's only required for the showers.

 

no problem at all in our case as our water tanks are below ground (virtually no seasonal temperature change) and continous water pressure and volume by means of 2 pumps (second pumps kicks in when pressure drops 0.3bar).

Ages ago I rented a house that had a below ground tank. I opened the tank and found what looked like slime on the walls of the tank. Everyone I call said they don't clean below ground tanks.  How do you have your below ground tank cleaned?

[Naam]

1 hour ago, Jeffrey346 said:

Ages ago I rented a house that had a below ground tank. I opened the tank and found what looked like slime on the walls of the tank. Everyone I call said they don't clean below ground tanks.  How do you have your below ground tank cleaned?

never experienced any slime because the water is chlorinated in the (plastic) tanks before reaching a simple water treatment and the pressure pumps. some sediment that accumulates is removed every two years by rinsing the tanks and emptying them with a submersible pump.

[sirineou]

11 hours ago, sirineou said:

 It is installed at the water tank. You disconnect both hot water and cold water feeds from the tank , connect a T at the cold water inlet to the tank then reconnect the cold water feed .

Install the thermostatic mixing valve at the hot water outlet of the tank.

connect a pipe from the cold water inlet of the mixing valve to the other side of the T you installed earlier  at the cold water feed inlet,

Now you have cold water going in the hot water tank and mixing valve.

Then reconnect the hot water line to the mixing valve

 

Looking at the above I can see how it might be confusing,   My bad.

as far as know There are two types of mixing valves 

The manual type that are installed at the point of use  (shower)

 

and the  thermostatic mixing valve that Nam suggested which is installed at  the HOT water tank , automatically mixes cold and hot water to a preset temperature and serves the whole house'

 

such valve is installed on top of the hot water heater tank. where the hot water comes out.

Where the cold water goes in to feed the tank it is split with a T fitting , One side continues to feed the hot water tank and the other side diverts water to the mixing valve to temper the water temperature for the whole house, If desired a temperature gage can be installed on line to get an actual reading. 

The above thermostatic valve looks a litle different than the one Nam posted ( I posted this because it shows a simple setup)  but the principle is the same.

On the hot water outlet there is a thermocouple that expanse as it is heated by the passing water. pushing a piston up or down thus increasing or decreasing the amount of cold water mixed . On this one you turn a small screw that sets the temperature.

If I was installing this type I would put an on line temperature gage 

Something like this

at both homes in the US where I have whole house hot water (most houses do) , I use the manual mixing valve faucets  at the point of Use.It gives you the capacity to get hotter water as you need it, but it does have the danger of scalding yourself in the shower if you are not careful.

 

 

 

  

 

[Jeffrey346]

I find during the hot season that the cold water isn't cold. It's warm to hot. In fact we rarely use our heaters.

I guess underground tanks solve that issue..

 

[cheeryble]

3 hours ago, Jeffrey346 said:

I find during the hot season that the cold water isn't cold. It's warm to hot. In fact we rarely use our heaters.

I guess underground tanks solve that issue..

 

After a warm day air movement sure made me chilly swimming last night.....or rather when I got out of the water.

Therefore perhaps a wall fan in the bathroom might aid your refreshment.

 

ps saw a meteorite whilst doing backstroke.

[sirineou]

As much as I praise  Dook , (my builder) he cant be there all the time (he has other projects also), And the wife is doing a wonderful job supervising but the poor girl dont know much about building , and you all know how Thais are with going along and not making a fuss. 

Let me say this,

YOU NEED TO BE THERE

I was lucky and I have a good builder who is easy to communicate, And for the most part everything is going to plan But that's not always the case with most builders, and not always the case with my build.

Case and point.

Wife calls me (1 am US time) I wake up from a good dream (Hot chick from "The Detour" show has to wait LOL) 

Me: What is it Honey are you ok?

Wife: Metal guy wants to know the height of the hand rails on the balcony

Me: What? They are on the plan. Code here is 34-42 inch but he should make them like the plan.

Wife: Plan don't say

Me : Sure they do, I remember seeing it 

So I wake up, walk to my home office and look at the plans.

 

 

 

So I Call back

Me: sure it say , 1m high . Here look at picture.

Wife : dont worry we already called Dook and he say 1m also

Me:Grrrrrrr. and now I cant go back to sleep and my dream.   

 

Another case:

Wife: We are going to do the cement on the side of the house, how do you want it

Me: I will send you picture with red arrows showing where I want water spigots. 

 Wife: They did Cement, here is picture.

Me: How is that anything like the picture I send you? Cement is not like I send you, and water spigot is not where I put red arrow.

Wife: Confused

Me: It's ok honey, you are doing a great job , I know it's a lot and I should be there. Let's try and fix it a litle.  Cut it now that cement is still wet and it is easy. Cut it like this.

 Poor girl is doing the best she can and IMO a great job, I am very proud of her, and it is teaching her to take charge. I am a lot older than her and I will not always be around.

Anyway , they cut it , not exactly what I wanted but close enough for Thai work LOL

. Long story short . If you can . YOU NEED TO BE THERE.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rdrokit]

Yes, you definitely need to be there. We came almost everyday at noon when the workers were eating lunch and would bring food and non alcoholic drinks for them as most only had a small portion of rice to eat. We were going to put different colored tiles downstairs and upstairs. The upstairs sq. meters is larger than downstairs as downstairs there is a carport. So we come over to see how the tiling is going and they are installing the upstairs tile on the downstairs level. Lucky the cement wasn't dry so it was easy to pull up the tiles. Then the foreman tells us he was wondering why there was extra tile for the downstairs and not enough tile for the upstairs.......duh, common sense should have told him there was a problem. The tile company that supplied the tiles had the tiles marked wrong on the invoice so they gave us some free tile as some were damaged pulling them up.

[Naam]

2 hours ago, sirineou said:

If you can . YOU NEED TO BE THERE.

true! but my 11 months being the first one on the site and the last one to go took its toll

[sirineou]

28 minutes ago, Naam said:

true! but my 11 months being the first one on the site and the last one to go took its toll

 I am not there,  it's only being three months and it's beginning to take its toll. So I can imagine.

Thai workers mean good, and they try to do a good job, but i wish that rather than go ahead and do what they think is right, I wish they will come to the wife , or me if I was there, and say,

"I know you said you want it this way, but I think it would be better a different  way" to which I can either agree or disagree.

And take a minute to look at the plans. The plans are there for a reason, they are simple plans , and the part that pertains to what they do is only one page. 

It would save as both a lot of aggravation.

Me because I would get it the way I want it, and I would not have to complain to people I like,

Because I like these people , overall they do a great job. (hard working , pleasant, nice people)

and they because they would not have to hear my complains and have to do it twise.

Anyway , all small things! a couple of weeks and this whole thing will be over with. 

I miss my wife, she is my best friend. and can't wait to have her back in the US ! I did not think I will miss her as much , but I do.

[lkn]

59 minutes ago, sirineou said:

Thai workers mean good, and they try to do a good job, but i wish that rather than go ahead and do what they think is right

Just had a painter do a wall for me.

 

He was supposed to paint the back wall, but managed to get a little paint on the adjoining wall.

 

So he decided to paint the adjoining wall, but it’s not the same color, so he paints half of it, and doing so, he gets paint on yet another adjoining wall, but this one is too big to start to paint in full (5 meter high), so he just leaves it as shown here:

 

Worst part is that the first adjoining wall he got paint on, will be covered by a cabinet that I will install, so there was no need to even start painting it.

 

For the records, he did fix the paint left on the wall, but I had to actually point it out, otherwise it would just have been left like in the photo.

 

[Naam]

2 hours ago, sirineou said:

And take a minute to look at the plans. The plans are there for a reason, they are simple plans , and the part that pertains to what they do is only one page. 

i made the same mistake. from a certain level downward they can neither read a plan nor interprete a simple drawn picture. my general contractor was a Farang with absolutely no technical knowledge who's English was worse than the actual Thai contractor who spoke fluently English, had an excellent technical background but was hardly ever present at the site. when we were 70% through construction and a dozen near-death experiences and heart attacks i found out why none of my written suggestions and explanations  (meant to facilitate progress and save the Thai's contractor's money) were followed. the Farang mentioned coolly "he speaks but... he can't read English". 

[Naam]

2 hours ago, sirineou said:

Thai workers mean good, and they try to do a good job, but i wish that rather than go ahead and do what they think is right, I wish they will come to the wife , or me if I was there, and say,

"I know you said you want it this way, but I think it would be better a different  way" to which I can either agree or disagree.

i experienced this several times and most of these times i agreed that their method and/or result was better or easier achieved than mine. had an excellent electrician who followed my tiniest details and even improved them, excellent marble and tile workers, but a shoddy aircon installer and the worst plumber in whole South East Asia.

[sirineou]

47 minutes ago, Naam said:

i made the same mistake. from a certain level downward they can neither read a plan nor interprete a simple drawn picture. my general contractor was a Farang with absolutely no technical knowledge who's English was worse than the actual Thai contractor who spoke fluently English, had an excellent technical background but was hardly ever present at the site. when we were 70% through construction and a dozen near-death experiences and heart attacks i found out why none of my written suggestions and explanations  (meant to facilitate progress and save the Thai's contractor's money) were followed. the Farang mentioned coolly "he speaks but... he can't read English". 

Another thing to look out with Thais is that many times we assume that they know what we are talking about and they will not tell you that they don't,

Case and point:

This morning I was talking with the wife about the water faucet spacing.and she kept on telling me  "show me what they are" and I would say " I already send you the plan look at it", then I send her the plan again,  and she kept asking the same. 

Finally we work it out. I had inadvertently switch my language from water spigots to "water faucets" and wife did not know what  "faucets" are (usually if she doesn't know what something is I google it and send her an image) , So what she was saying was  for me to show her what a faucet was.

In the past 10 years her English has gotten so good, that sometimes I forget that some of these things are new to her, and  things that I take for granted are not known to her.

I think many times we all make that mistake with Thais.

 

 

[Destiny1990]

9 hours ago, lkn said:

Just had a painter do a wall for me.

 

He was supposed to paint the back wall, but managed to get a little paint on the adjoining wall.

 

So he decided to paint the adjoining wall, but it’s not the same color, so he paints half of it, and doing so, he gets paint on yet another adjoining wall, but this one is too big to start to paint in full (5 meter high), so he just leaves it as shown here:

 

Worst part is that the first adjoining wall he got paint on, will be covered by a cabinet that I will install, so there was no need to even start painting it.

 

For the records, he did fix the paint left on the wall, but I had to actually point it out, otherwise it would just have been left like in the photo.

 

Do u have his phone number? I will ask him to paint a wall in my kitchen so with his style he will end up repainting my whole condo.

[Destiny1990]

I once had guys to change some locks and fix my sliding doors they looked confused from the start and they brought the wrong locks materials still he drilled 2 holes in my slide door frame. I asked why u drill the holes this will never fit still no answer seems he just wanted to do something. I asked can u please stop with this job and so they left. I tried another company the next day excellent job so i use them for all window issues.

[rvaviator]

Great posting about the various house constructions. I thought the discussions about insulation and thermodynamics especially interesting. Sitting under a huge carport that is like a heat absorbing storage heater ... : -) . Something that I have to get sorted out.


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[sirineou]

59 minutes ago, rvaviator said:

Great posting about the various house constructions. I thought the discussions about insulation and thermodynamics especially interesting. Sitting under a huge carport that is like a heat absorbing storage heater ... : -) . Something that I have to get sorted out.


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 I think the opposite, It is my opinion that the shady area under the house would be a cool area to hung out at, The back and one side is shaded by the fence and the front is shaded by the balcony and stairs . Also that the air flow would help keep the upstairs cooler also. 

[Naam]

1 hour ago, sirineou said:

It is my opinion that the shady area under the house would be a cool area to hung out at

from april to september it all depends on the quantity of ice cubes added to the tub in which you sit when hanging out.