Whats up with Isaan construction business these days?  Need a Bluescope roof on the in-laws house south of Ubon, can get the material no problem but no crews available, and Bluescope doesn’t seem to care. Got a sparky to re-wire their house but that took some patience with my wife's friend from Bangkok when he was home for a commercial job.  Need a septic tank replacement and some plumbing in Buriram, three been to look, no callbacks.  Need a concrete driveway in Buriram, two been to look, getting stupid prices, 1000 baht/m2 labour plus material. More jobs to do but not wasting any more time until I find someone that actually wants to work.  Many will say welcome to Thailand but my wife and I cant believe the complete lack of interest - and thats before they find out I am falang. 

If they can get away without working they will.

Lazy buggers.

Same in Australia.

In England it has got so bad. They'll do a sloppy job, overcharge and deny all responsibility. Could it be the English have learnt from the Thais?

They're willing to work. 

 

But the OP doesn't seem willing to pay their price.

 

10 hours ago, impulse said:

They're willing to work. 

 

But the OP doesn't seem willing to pay their price.

 

And he probably does not have a work permit to be "working".

Its planting season. All the workers are working on the farms. You'll also experience worker shortage at harvest time.

The workers must all be at my seed warehouse building site in Ubon! Sorry about that. Got to pay well and give them lunch. 

The workers must be all at my seed warehouse building site in Ubon! Sorry about that. Got to pay them well and give them lunch.

10 minutes ago, Michael Hare said:

The workers must be all at my seed warehouse building site in Ubon! Sorry about that. Got to pay them well and give them lunch.

Nice, clean site. Looks good.

Forget it. Not in the rice season, some people haven't been able to sow yet. 

My son-in-law does a lot of building in the village, but now it's "after rice". He will then get drunk for three days and start work again.

Experienced/skilled craftsmen are hard to find as they leave Isaan to work elsewhere for better money. Maybe within Thailand or the popular countries for immigrant workers.

 

There is plenty of building work going on in our area east of Sakon Nakhon. So no shortage of tradesmen willing to work.

 

But as mentioned above, everything is slowing down during the rice planting season. 

I can't get anything done because I won't pay the 'farang price'

 

They call me key-nok cause I won't pay more than the going rate. There is no rationale to their thinking, so my home stays the same.

Learn to do the smaller jobs by you tube. The big stuff either hard to find crew or you find them get a quote and they don't show

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In England it has got so bad. They'll do a sloppy job, overcharge and deny all responsibility. Could it be the English have learnt from the Thais?

In England you can name and shame...here ?
Also England has consumer protection laws and trading association's + a professional qualification system....yes everything cost an arm and a leg..but you have some legal rights.

On 6/5/2019 at 10:12 PM, impulse said:

They're willing to work. 

 

But the OP doesn't seem willing to pay their price.

 

Yep, that's what I saw, reading between the lines. 

On 6/5/2019 at 9:48 PM, DaRoadrunner said:

In England it has got so bad. They'll do a sloppy job, overcharge and deny all responsibility. Could it be the English have learnt from the Thais?

Or the Thais from the English? ????

OP - I live in Korat, not far from the Buriram border, and I've learned two things since moving here.

 

Firstly, do as much of the work yourself as you possibly can. Not only will it be done when you want it done, but it'll also be done better. There are a lot of good tutorials / how to... videos on YouTube. I've learned a lot from these. It really is a great feeling to be able to look at a driveway, a wall, a fence, etc. and say "I did that". 

 

Secondly, as others have pointed out, during certain times of the year there simply aren't any labourers around as they're back home planting or harvesting rice or cassava. While I wait for them to come and do the tasks I can't do, I just sit back, look at what I've achieved and pop open my next bottle of beer and watch the sun setting. It can be frustrating, I know, but if we don't go with the flow, it'll just upset us too much. 

 

Good luck. 

First word you learn in thai construction is “prung nee”. It’s always tomorrow.


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On 6/18/2019 at 6:00 PM, djayz said:

Firstly, do as much of the work yourself as you possibly can. Not only will it be done when you want it done, but it'll also be done better. There are a lot of good tutorials / how to... videos on YouTube. I've learned a lot from these. It really is a great feeling to be able to look at a driveway, a wall, a fence, etc. and say "I did that". 

I can understand your thinking but having spent a lifetime in construction of one kind or another, a lot of it physically involved, I'm quite happy to give the opportunity to others to stand back with pride and say they have done a great job! it's proving to be quite difficult ???? 

When I built my little hotels in Phuket I employed Burmese women for most of the general labor tasks, as well as semi-skilled tasks such as laying tiles. The only Thai worker employed was my dysfunctional Thai BIL who produced very shoddy work.

 

I did all electrical wiring, plumbing pipes, septic tank system.  (Oops, where was that work permit?).

 

18 years later or so, the Burmese and my contributions are still functioning fine. My Thai BIL's efforts have all had to be reworked/repaired - by Burmese workers.

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 4:46 PM, thequietman said:

They call me key-nok cause I won't pay more than the going rate. 

Don't you mean khee niaao or stingey.

 

Khee nohk means lo so!

On 6/6/2019 at 8:16 AM, thequietman said:

I can't get anything done because I won't pay the 'farang price'

 

They call me key-nok cause I won't pay more than the going rate. There is no rationale to their thinking, so my home stays the same.

I’ve had several building jobs done the difference between the ‘farang price’ and the ‘thai price’ is because the Thai won’t complain to much about a shoddy job, so for the farang they will probably do a better job to save complaints and charge accordingly.

On 6/19/2019 at 9:38 PM, LosLobo said:

Don't you mean khee niaao or stingey.

 

Khee nohk means lo so!

Say again! 

They sent all the Myanmar laborers packing back home.

3 minutes ago, wisperone said:

They sent all the Myanmar laborers packing back home.

i don't really care much what the govt does or doesn't do......  but chasing the Myanmar workers away is really stupid.     Good workers and nobody else to hire !  crazy world

Here is one Construction company who is building and reconstruction houses or businesses and buildings

I know they are about finalize one farang house in Sisaket area and when it comes to any season in Thailand they do construction work, not rice farming and head designer is Thai who is excellent in English and the price is always normal Thai price and all contracts and bill's in English and explain in details what every sector cost. 
Check it out as they have contact details in they page https://www.facebook.com/fiberoptichouse
I got my house build 20yrs ago and i know the suffering is in the air in here all the time and i only heard good feedback from this company, so check them and it might be the one for you.