Anyone has experience build new home in Thailand but still living abroad during the construction time ?

[AMichigan]

I plan to visit 3-4 times during the construction ? Is that possible ? I have young kid in school and busy with working here so can't stay in Thailand for more than 2 weeks at a time. Anyone has that experience similar like this ? how did you handle to make sure the building is still smooth or less chaos as much as possible.

 

I have family there lives close by where going to build the new home, but they are busy with their lives as well. Try to not bother them much ????

 

Thank you very much.

AJ

[user343434]

Get a reliable Supervisor who is every day present otherwise you end up building two houses. 

Yours and the one of the construction workers.

Or you pay for Q-Con and get Cinderblocks, or your electrics/plumbings/cement bags getting stolen as nobody cleared after the work.

 

In a short but serious word.

 

FORGET IT!! 

[thequietman]

Can't be done unless you are here or you have someone you really trust.

 

It will take twice as long and cost 3 times as much.

[villagefarang]

I certainly wouldn't do it but I know a guy who set up cameras so he could watch from overseas.  The detail was not good and the house hasn't held up very well.  We were onsite everyday when we built and there were things which needed to be handled nearly daily.

[Kwasaki]

39 minutes ago, AMichigan said:

I plan to visit 3-4 times during the construction ? Is that possible ?

A Big NO..NO  The only thing possible is you being ripped off big time, wait until your able to be here until house construction is completed.

[Kenny202]

You will probably get a lot of negative comments here but I have seen it go pear shaped here twice with two of my friends. Not only design, construction and quality problems but everyone had their fingers in the cookie jar, from the father in law (overseeing construction) down. Problem is even if you trust your wife and you were sure she wasn't benefitting from it her first loyalty will always be to her family and unless she is a particularly strong girl with your interests first she will more than likely keep mum even if she knows you are being stung.

 

A friend of mine did the same thing village I was living in. Apart from the huge mistakes that were made he was ripped off from the very start. First of all he paid 4 times more than what the landfill actually cost. Then the father insisted the builder needed 200k up front to get started. Phone call a month later from my friend to ask why the build still hadn't started. Builder had disappeared, need more money for new builder. Just got worse from there.

 

What I didn't understand was that his wife seemed to be aware of it. They are legally married with 2 kids of their own. Her family are not exactly poor, have land...a decent home etc. I just don't know what purpose it serves for the girl to rip off her own immediate family (husband and kids). Any money the family extracated from the farang was probably pi$$ed up the wall on grog and lottery or cards. I think it just comes down to the fact that they can't help themselves. Thais are opportunists. Never give them an opportunity. 

[Crossy]

Plus 10,000,000 on the earlier comments. With only occasional visits you could be in a world of hurt (and poor construction).

 

We had an excellent contractor (who is still a family friend) and were on-site most days. 

 

Even then things went awry particularly when I was away working to earn a crust in order to pay for all the teak Madam was specifying.

 

By the way, the construction crews were Khmer and Burmese, only the occasional Thai graced the worksite.

[Thainesss]

36 minutes ago, Crossy said:

By the way, the construction crews were Khmer and Burmese, only the occasional Thai graced the worksite.

 

This here is probably the most frustrating part of it all. 

 

The typical foreigner only speaks english, his wife usually has limited or reasonable english (or even pretty good english) but the problem arises constantly where you are needing to use very specific english terminology (because thats all you know) for tools, measurements, procedures etc... and trying to explain these things to your wife who has NO IDEA what the hell youre talking about (because the words your using are too technical and specific) so that she can try and explain it to Khmer/Burmese crew in yet another 3rd or 4th language (or even them trying to understand her in Thai which is probably their 3rd or 4th language) to get your point across in a way that wont leave everything all jacked up.... Is.... Exhausting and frustrating. 

 

After a few builds here I have learned the following:

 

Keep the house plan very simple. Squares and rectangles on a 4x4 or 5x5 grid. 

 

Use materials and techniques that they are familiar with and let them get on with it. 

 

Dont try and push in your own special ideas unless your there to do it yourself. 

 

Most important bits IMO are electrical, insulation, and water system. Be there for those. 

 

Water level is a very effective survey tool. 

[OneMoreFarang]

Let's say it like this: Even if you would be at the construction side 24/7 you can be sure they will be able to <deleted> up certain parts.

And from far away...

[Langsuan Man]

If you can't be here during construction forget it, full stop

 

I was on my house site everyday and if I showed up late something got screwed up while I wasn't there.  You can get the best builder in the world and I can guarantee you that even he won't be there every day, since to survive in business he has to have more than one project going on at any one time

 

It is not Thai bashing to say that most construction workers don't have a lick of common sense.  Crafts aren't a problem it's the simple things that will go wrong and with the way Thais are trained they can't think independently and it becomes a matter of "face" for them to say three simple words;  I don't know

 

Here is just one of many dumb things that were done when I was late: A wall sconce installed flush to the ceiling !!!!

 

 

 

 

[baansgr]

You have to be on site everyday. Wait until you have enough time to be here to oversee full construction. Whats the rush to build, if you already have the land, just wait.

[sammieuk1]

What's app IP cameras and anything is possible in an less than ideal scenario ????  

[BritManToo]

3 hours ago, Kenny202 said:

What I didn't understand was that his wife seemed to be aware of it. They are legally married with 2 kids of their own. Her family are not exactly poor, have land...a decent home etc. I just don't know what purpose it serves for the girl to rip off her own immediate family (husband and kids). Any money the family extracated from the farang was probably pi$$ed up the wall on grog and lottery or cards. I think it just comes down to the fact that they can't help themselves. Thais are opportunists. Never give them an opportunity. 

When I was trying to buy a house for my wife she upped the sale price by 500,000k, to be split equally between her and the seller. 

 

Message to OP, don't do it and read this .........

 

[Saltire]

We had our house built while I was still living and working in Cambodia. My Thai gf is the landowner (as her father is not Thai) and a big plus was I could trust her 100%. She designed everything and bought everything in person from the local merchant  paying cash and getting receipts for every purchase, photographing them and sending them to me daily - her idea not mine. Another big plus is we agreed to go 50/50 on costs, and add to that the best local builder was her cousin. He is always busy so we had to wait a long time to start but he completed ahead of time. For electrics he used the only qualified electrician in the village, which meant we also had to wait a bit for him, but he did all the wiring and air con etc over a Songkran holiday. She has a small family and none were interested in her house. They assumed she was spending her own money.

 

The builder lives round the corner, the electrician across the street so they weren't going to do a runner anytime soon. 

 

I visited just 2 times during construction and it all went well and to plan. I came on weekends when they didn't usually work, so was not seen by many.

 

BUT the big plus was she told no one about me before the house was complete. Big surprise when I showed up 3 years ago to live here. The cousin builder was in no way upset at missing out on losing some Farang money and has helped a lot since I moved in. Its a great house, total cost just under a million Baht.

 

We have only had minor repairs required, mainly on the blue plastic plumbing which is inherently problematic.

 

So it can be done but I guess depends on who you know and who you can trust, 

 

Good luck with the build if you go ahead.

[BritManToo]

8 minutes ago, Saltire said:

and bought everything in person from the local merchant  paying cash and getting receipts for every purchase,

You do know they'll write any amount you ask on the receipts?

The extra charge is generally split 50/50 between supplier and 'girlfriend'.

 

Although 1Mbht sounds a reasonable price for a 3 bedroom house build, so you can't have been ripped off by much (if at all).

[scorecard]

3 hours ago, Kenny202 said:

You will probably get a lot of negative comments here but I have seen it go pear shaped here twice with two of my friends. Not only design, construction and quality problems but everyone had their fingers in the cookie jar, from the father in law (overseeing construction) down. Problem is even if you trust your wife and you were sure she wasn't benefitting from it her first loyalty will always be to her family and unless she is a particularly strong girl with your interests first she will more than likely keep mum even if she knows you are being stung.

 

A friend of mine did the same thing village I was living in. Apart from the huge mistakes that were made he was ripped off from the very start. First of all he paid 4 times more than what the landfill actually cost. Then the father insisted the builder needed 200k up front to get started. Phone call a month later from my friend to ask why the build still hadn't started. Builder had disappeared, need more money for new builder. Just got worse from there.

 

What I didn't understand was that his wife seemed to be aware of it. They are legally married with 2 kids of their own. Her family are not exactly poor, have land...a decent home etc. I just don't know what purpose it serves for the girl to rip off her own immediate family (husband and kids). Any money the family extracated from the farang was probably pi$$ed up the wall on grog and lottery or cards. I think it just comes down to the fact that they can't help themselves. Thais are opportunists. Never give them an opportunity. 

 Another one - a buddy tried it, paid a retired Thai engineer who spoke perfect English to be on site at least  a few hours every day with authority to tell the contractor what to do, what not to do, what to do again, etc etc.

 

Problem was the farangs BIL was determined to change the plans to create 2 extra very small bedrooms, to remove the western style kitchen and more and as fast as the employed engineer / supervisor told the contractor to not change the plans the BIL was paying the workers to change the walls etc.

 

Fairly quickly the retired engineer / supervisor told the farang that unless he told the BIL to back off / prohibit him from coming to the the lot the engineer would resign.

 

Within a short time the engineer / supervisor did resign. Farang had to put construction on hold (nothing done) for about 6 months until he could take some extra leave and be on site all day every day. 

 

 

[Saltire]

3 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

You do know they'll write any amount you ask on the receipts?

The extra charge is generally split 50/50 between supplier and 'girlfriend'.

 

Although 1Mbht sounds a reasonable price for a 3 bedroom house build, so you can't have been ripped off by much (if at all).

Hi yes I know that - happens everywhere not just Thailand! You would need to know my gf she is the most frugal person I know, her goal in life with me is to stop me spending money! Incidentally she spent every satang of her savings to get her dream house built. She and her family rely now on my support, this was the deal we made before settling in together. She is very aware my presence can put the price up for many things. 

[Kenny202]

I think like most things in Thailand you need to ask yourself would you build a house in your own country with very limited supervision from yourself. And be aware it always seems cheap at first but as most things here even a written quote can be only a suggestion of what the finished price will be. Even mistakes made by the builders, the cost will be expected to be born by you.

 

One of the main issues will be communicating plans and ideas through your wife. Without seeming too sexist most women in any country do not have a clue about sizes, specific terminology etc. If she is from a village with little education and the language barrier between you and her you can magnify that by 20. I drew a mud map of where I wanted an air conditioner installed on a floor plan. The builder actually seem to think my missus wanted him to install it on the floor! and she didn't have enough nouse to sort it out herself.

 

I did build a house here very cheaply and was happy with the result. They were bush builders but overall I was very pleased with their work. I was more concerned with structure and strength etc. Husband and wife team, wife was the boss. I started giving instructions through my then wife but she had no clue so started dealing directly with the builders wife. She didn't speak a lick of English but we had no problems at all. Lovely people, never put their hand out for a cent more. Always showed up. Still some of the nicest people I have met anywhere and I consider them now to be my Thai family. I gave them regular bonuses as they always appeared to be working too cheap. They never took advantage once. They were sourcing most of the goods from the local hardware and I knew they were getting 10%. Standard practice anywhere.

 

Word to the wise. As someone else stated be very careful about what they do with your water supply. They have no clue here at all. Last home I was involved in had indoor waterfalls coming up from the slab when they first connected the water. Not only is that cheap blue plastic pipe not pressure rated they do not clean any of the joints before glueing. It will fail within 2 years and thats only if you are lucky. The blue pipe is ok for crappy mains pressure and if run around outside of the house as they used to do. These days they are running it under slabs etc and will not sustain the pressure from a pump for any length of time.

 

Spend a small amount extra and get the proper black poly pipe and fittings. Use as few fittings as possible. If you can, run the pipe around the house and not under the cement. Make sure they don't cement tap fittings, shower taps etc in. If you have any mechanical ability at all do the plumbing yourself. It's really pretty easy, even installing pumps, tanks etc and you will get plenty of advice on here as I did. They just have no clue, even major constructions here have problems with plumbing.   

[simon43]

My small hotel builds were not quite the same as a private house, but the same rules apply.

 

- First hotel: I'm not on site all the time, ignorant of the scams that are pulled etc.  I got ripped off on material costs, thanks to Thai wife etc.  The Thai labourers were worse than useless, the Burmese workers were eons better, especially the women.

 

- Second and third hotels:  I'm on-site all the time and personally designed and installed all electrics, septic tanks, water system etc.  Still got ripped off on material costs since my workers were in cahoots with the material suppliers to up the price.

 

- Fourth hotel:  I'm on-site all the time.  No wives to 'muddy' the project. I personally buy all building materials and bring them on-site using my pick-up. I design and install all electrics, sewage, water system, doors, windows etc.  The Burmese workers only do the concrete, floor tiles and roof.

 

Next time round (which will be a private house, I'm tempted to only use a couple of Burmese workers to do the foundations and I'll do the rest....

 

update:

 

...they do not clean any of the joints before glueing.

 

Oh so true!  My first build had water pipes running under cement and tiled bathroom floors, which had to be broken up 2 years later to effect repairs to the water pipes.  Now all my designs place water pipework on the outside wall only, to enable easy repairs.  My workers could never figure out why I wore white cotton gloves and used tons of lint-free cleaning tissue when I was preparing and gluing water pipe fittings...

 

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, Saltire said:

Hi yes I know that - happens everywhere not just Thailand! You would need to know my gf she is the most frugal person I know, her goal in life with me is to stop me spending money! Incidentally she spent every satang of her savings to get her dream house built. She and her family rely now on my support, this was the deal we made before settling in together. She is very aware my presence can put the price up for many things. 

 Nice points.

 

Several times I have got into a taxi with my adult Thai son in Bkk,  I tell the driver our destination, then (not every time of course) the driver says 200 or whatever, which I know is way over the typical metered fare.

 

My Thai son hates corruption, he would never be rude to anybody but in situations like this he intervenes quickly and politely says that it should be 60Baht / 80Baht or whatever, and politely reminds the driver he should be using the meter.

 

Driver reaction, a few times, 'yes but you should be helping me to cheat the farang'.

 

Son's reaction 'the farang is my father, show some respect to my father'. and demands the driver stop and we get out. 

 

 

[rocket3rider]

Get house plans drawn up by an architect.

 

Get footings designs drawn up by an engineer.

 

Check references for any builder and get three detailed quotes.

 

Get the development approved by the Amphur.

 

Get an engineer from the Amphur (on the side) to supervise construction to lock up stage. They'll do it for around 4Kbaht per month.

 

Make sure any wet areas (bathrooms) are poured lower than the main house floor level.

 

Make sure they use approved moisture barriers in wet areas.

 

Buy quality paint and cement render sealer and don't let them water it down.

 

Only pay the builder an initial deposit and then progress payments based on agreed stages.

 

Don't use dark coloured roof tiles, if it was up to me I'd use metal. Cement tiles retain heat long after the sun goes down.

 

I could go on with more but that's for starters.

 

 

 

 

[Blue Muton]

Not entirely, but I was back in England for a lot of the early part of the build. 

 

Before we started I insisted upon a few of things. Firstly I required "proper" detailed plans drawn up by a qualified architect. Secondly i needed a builder who was prpared to agree a contract with set payments/milestones. Lastly I went to see some of the houses that the prospective builder had built/was building. Despite the above I think, looking back, that we were still quite fortunate to have found a decent builder.

 

I was here for the first couple of weeks, then had to return to the UK to work, leaving Mrs BM to oversee the project and to source the materiel. Mrs BM has a good head for shopping and negotiating and she and the builder worked well together. For a short period Mrs BM joined me in England, leaving her brother to look out for us. They would send me plenty of pics every day during this time.

 

IIRC they had completed the footings, ground floor walls, stairs and first floor when I returned.

 

A couple of words of warning, like you I have inlaws living next to us. They would never admit to not knowing something and would just spout BS rather than say "I don't know". Make sure you keep the BS detector switched on. I've heard others talk about kickbacks from shops and builders merchants to the builder, be aware. If the builder says "can't do "x", do some research and get back to them with more information.

 

Whilst I said above that I bought detailed plans, listen to your builder, they may well have good ideas that you might not have thought of in the early stages. Our builder and his team were great, we just did some little things to make thngs a bit easier for them - a constant supply of ice and drinking water, occasional cups of tea or coffee or some fruit or "kanom". They were very appreciative and it helped motivate them.

 

Good luck with your project.

[worrab]

No way. Far too big a risk. Even with good builders there are things that can go wrong. When I had mine built even with very good drawings, twice I had to pick them up on misreading them. Would have been a massive problem if I had not been there. Too big a gamble for you even with the best will in the world. Go with the majority of posters on this subject. Don't do it!!! 

[boonchu]

I built a 4 storey building in Bangkok, most of it done while I was away. I hired an architect to oversea the job for 50k bt and had no problems. The building is 10 tears old now and still no problems.

[finnishmen]

dont newer believe thai constructer, if not have on to house eweryday, come what come,bad guality and miss and fail many think, thai not can build anythink good or need be itself looking alltime. and tell what need do. and if you want somethink you own plan, thai not make because not can,understand,and want do.and not newer believe you wife wather, him want say all and then all come shit and wrong, and lot scam money, normal 3 house,2bathroom, little house cost under 500 000b but if father and thais buuild whit you money come scam cost 3 million B , all take ower prize lot and wife and father take own pocket lot money too. my friend build house what cost 500 000 B and full him need pay 800 000 B because thais scam lot money to own pocket. wife and family.

[Crossy]

11 minutes ago, boonchu said:

The building is 10 tears old now and still no problems.

 

I know that's a typo, but it's oh so apt for this thread ????

 

[finnishmen]

Newer not build or pay  building if not have married whit thai first some year, only idiot build or pay house to girlfriend, only if has marry and sure can live whit this woman many many year. or if have lot lot money waste ewery girlfriend new house,idiots have.

[NancyL]

Ask yourself if you'd agree to have a house built in your home country if you couldn't personally check out the project from time-to-time?  Hubby and I did this during our first year of marriage in the U.S. and the project was a disaster.  We lived and worked 30 miles from the site, so we couldn't go to see it every day or if we did, it was after work, nearly dark and no workmen were around.  We were young, didn't know the area and got taken by the general contractor.  The quality of construction was shoddy and it didn't turn out at all like we expected.  Plus, we were newly-wed and not really operating on the same wavelength.  All this was in our native country.  

 

Hubby said the only way we'd ever build a house together again was if we could pull a trailer onto the job-site and live there 24/7 to oversee the project.  From then on, all our houses were existing ones we bought that were close to what we wanted and had remodeling done to make them closer to what we wanted.

 

Now, 43 years later and in Thailand, we are, at last, doing what comes the closest to having a house built.  We've acquired a condo in the same building where we live, had all the interior walls removed, spent months working with an architect and laying out various room configurations with tape on the floor and come up with VERY complete plans, especially for the electrical switches and lighting.

 

We've lived here for 11 years, so have many contacts to make inquiries about builders and so far, have been very happy with the builder and his crew.  Yet, I'm in that condo several times a day, not to catch errors, but to make decisions about things like "warm white" or "bright white" for which LED light fixtures, exact shade of stain for doors, etc.  I can't image trying to do all this from abroad, even with a good builder.

 

 

 

 

[steven100]

It really comes back to a couple of important points :

Firstly, trust between you and your wife with money and payments,

and secondly, having her or a relative who has proper adequate building knowledge to be on site as much as possible.

I had a house built being overseas in the same situation. Now although not ideal, the house was completed, all looks quite ok although some welding from the re-bar in the corner concrete posts to the roof purlins/beams is very tacky or rough, but he did complete it all and the roof is still on.

As mentioned earlier, it was a local builder guy from the village so we couldn't be choosy to pick who we wanted ... it had to be him or wait months for another and maybe pay 2x as much for travel costs. Anyway, it's a house, 2 bedroom, block and tile, zinc roof.

[oobar]

OP, you have been adequately warned.  Do not do this.