6 hours ago, thaiguzzi said:

Get some different quotes, plenty of builders about and try and see some of their previous work. 

Always best if you are there on site every other day, cheaper if you buy all materials yourself, so the builder is only charging you labour.

very good advice.   of course the problem is often that the farang building his first house (here or anywhere) usually doesn't know what is good work and what isn't .  Like ME  when i had my first house built.  Add to that the language barrier,  the "thai way" of working.  overbearing owners, and many other variables. 

If you don't have a friend who has knowledge of these things (not the gf or her family) then try to learn as

much as possible.  If one does have experience then thaiguzzis advice should help.  I found a few builders

by looking at houses in progress, liking what i saw,  and took a shot on that builder.  HINT:  head builder should be of good temperament so you can work with him ( ha ha   another hard thing to discern)  

On a small house like yours,  i think 50k baht labor cost one way or the other should NOT be the main factor in your decision.  Go with who you think will do the best job.

some off topic bickering removed.

5 hours ago, simoh1490 said:

Don't let them do the electrics or the wiring, do that separately and select your own electrician for the work, preferably one that has worked overseas in the past.

Always a potential problem for sure.   I did finally figure out NOT to let builder do the electric...and chose

an electric firm to do it.  Yes, better job !   But one still has to have an idea what is professional or not.

Even in my village the company that did the work 3 years ago did a proper job of grounding the system...

ten years ago poor or no grounding was common.......and maybe still is ?

Even Government assessed value of building costs are higher than what is being quoted here, and they are on the low side. If you look at International QS companies (Davis Langdon or whatever they are called now, Meinhardt, Warnes & Associates) quoted costs for various building types they are higher again. I presume much of this is to do with variances in what is and is not included in the 'build', the complexity of the build and of course where it is being built.

In my experience, Most contract builders do not do the electricity themselves - they bring in a contracted 'expert'. Its the same with the flooring, ceiling, roofing, guttering,painting, windows, curtains etc. A separate gang comes in and does its specialist job.

 

The builder's gang usually does the grunt construction work including the fencing, clearing, leveling, foundations, concreting, brickwork, tiling, external plumbing etc. Around our way, an outside labourer gets paid 350 Baht per day. When doing inside work they get 550 Baht.

Well that price for labor Is definitely too high.
For our second house in Chiang Mai I paid 1500 Baht for labor per m2.
Building this way you have to buy all the materials yourself which in the beginning is quite easy you can have steel and cement,sand, stone e.g delivered from your local supply shop usually for free.

Of course for many things you cannot do the shopping yourself otherwise you pay “Farang “inflated prices.

It gets really tricky ones you have to go and purchase all those thousands of little things.

Our builder brought in his own electrician who charged a reasonable fee for each electrical outlet and painters which was not included in the price of 1500 Baht per square meter but all at reasonable price.

You can save a lot by building this way - as opposed to hiring a professional company to do it all for you.
But as somebody else mentioned already you have to be there all the time and really all the time to stop and correct them when they screw up or use shortcuts.

Also you need a pick up truck to pick up all the materials that are not delivered - And you willvery likely drive thousands of kilometers during the building process.

Everybody that you encounter during the building process will try to make some money of you in one way or another.

The entire process can be nerve-racking and if you ever come close to a divorce in your life it will probably be during this time of building!!
But like I said it can save you a lot of money.
I built a 590 m2 house for approx. 900.000 Baht Labor cost.

And make sure you pay them as little as possible through the various stages otherwise you will find that you have paid for labor for the entire house but it’s only half finished!
They will drag out the building as long as possible and the builder / foreman will ask you for money every 15th and at the end of the month and since they know that you want your house finished you will keep paying them.

Also for a simple house don’t employ some big-time architect who will probably try to charge you 40, 50 or 60,000 for the detailed plans.
Send a Thai to your local OrBorDor and ask the resident architect if he could do the plans for you. You will save at least 50% this way and he she is usually the one who issues you the building permit.

I could write for hours here but slowly it’s all coming back to me now and I’m sure I’m going to have nightmares tonight! Hahaha

But once your dream home is finished you will find it has all been worth it!
Good luck!



Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Very true comments above:

It gets really tricky ones you have to go and purchase all those thousands of little things. 


But as somebody else mentioned already you have to be there all the time and really all the time to stop and correct them when they screw up or use shortcuts.

Also you need a pick up truck to pick up all the materials that are not delivered - And you will very likely drive thousands of kilometers during the building process.



The entire process can be nerve-racking and if you ever come close to a divorce in your life it will probably be during this time of building!!
But like I said it can save you a lot of money.

2 hours ago, boonrawdcnx said:

Well that price for labor Is definitely too high.
For our second house in Chiang Mai I paid 1500 Baht for labor per m2.
Building this way you have to buy all the materials yourself which in the beginning is quite easy you can have steel and cement,sand, stone e.g delivered from your local supply shop usually for free.

Of course for many things you cannot do the shopping yourself otherwise you pay “Farang “inflated prices.

It gets really tricky ones you have to go and purchase all those thousands of little things.

Our builder brought in his own electrician who charged a reasonable fee for each electrical outlet and painters which was not included in the price of 1500 Baht per square meter but all at reasonable price.

You can save a lot by building this way - as opposed to hiring a professional company to do it all for you.
But as somebody else mentioned already you have to be there all the time and really all the time to stop and correct them when they screw up or use shortcuts.

Also you need a pick up truck to pick up all the materials that are not delivered - And you willvery likely drive thousands of kilometers during the building process.

Everybody that you encounter during the building process will try to make some money of you in one way or another.

The entire process can be nerve-racking and if you ever come close to a divorce in your life it will probably be during this time of building!!
But like I said it can save you a lot of money.
I built a 590 m2 house for approx. 900.000 Baht Labor cost.

And make sure you pay them as little as possible through the various stages otherwise you will find that you have paid for labor for the entire house but it’s only half finished!
They will drag out the building as long as possible and the builder / foreman will ask you for money every 15th and at the end of the month and since they know that you want your house finished you will keep paying them.

Also for a simple house don’t employ some big-time architect who will probably try to charge you 40, 50 or 60,000 for the detailed plans.
Send a Thai to your local OrBorDor and ask the resident architect if he could do the plans for you. You will save at least 50% this way and he she is usually the one who issues you the building permit.

I could write for hours here but slowly it’s all coming back to me now and I’m sure I’m going to have nightmares tonight! Hahaha

But once your dream home is finished you will find it has all been worth it!
Good luck!



Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Ahh,  very good !!  all true.   don't try to do this if you are getting old ????    you will ask the workers what materials do you need,  run around buying everything,  get back and someone will say we don't have any 2" nails....etc etc.    then tell you at end of day what they need for tomorrow morning!   then they will not show up that morning      not for the faint of heart !   and fights aplenty trying to get the work done ""according to what was agreed".    (gets a little easier after you do it a few times  hahaha)

6 hours ago, kamalabob2 said:

if you ever come close to a divorce in your life it will probably be during this time of building!!
But like I said it can save you a lot of money.

The divorce you mean? ????

 

19 hours ago, boonrawdcnx said:

Well that price for labor Is definitely too high.
For our second house in Chiang Mai I paid 1500 Baht for labor per m2.
Building this way you have to buy all the materials yourself which in the beginning is quite easy you can have steel and cement,sand, stone e.g delivered from your local supply shop usually for free.

Of course for many things you cannot do the shopping yourself otherwise you pay “Farang “inflated prices.

It gets really tricky ones you have to go and purchase all those thousands of little things.

Our builder brought in his own electrician who charged a reasonable fee for each electrical outlet and painters which was not included in the price of 1500 Baht per square meter but all at reasonable price.

You can save a lot by building this way - as opposed to hiring a professional company to do it all for you.
But as somebody else mentioned already you have to be there all the time and really all the time to stop and correct them when they screw up or use shortcuts.

Also you need a pick up truck to pick up all the materials that are not delivered - And you willvery likely drive thousands of kilometers during the building process.

Everybody that you encounter during the building process will try to make some money of you in one way or another.

The entire process can be nerve-racking and if you ever come close to a divorce in your life it will probably be during this time of building!!
But like I said it can save you a lot of money.
I built a 590 m2 house for approx. 900.000 Baht Labor cost.

And make sure you pay them as little as possible through the various stages otherwise you will find that you have paid for labor for the entire house but it’s only half finished!
They will drag out the building as long as possible and the builder / foreman will ask you for money every 15th and at the end of the month and since they know that you want your house finished you will keep paying them.

Also for a simple house don’t employ some big-time architect who will probably try to charge you 40, 50 or 60,000 for the detailed plans.
Send a Thai to your local OrBorDor and ask the resident architect if he could do the plans for you. You will save at least 50% this way and he she is usually the one who issues you the building permit.

I could write for hours here but slowly it’s all coming back to me now and I’m sure I’m going to have nightmares tonight! Hahaha

But once your dream home is finished you will find it has all been worth it!
Good luck!



Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Excellent advice, thanks. For saving money, do you advice me cinder blocks, double wall with cinder blocks or a simple a wall with white superblocks ?