Experience buying building materials in China

[PommieOz]

Building a new house. Does anyone have experience or knowledge of buying tiles house and pool, sanitary ware, glass, lighting etc in China. 

After the virus ends I am willing to travel to Foshan which is the tile and sanitary ware capital.

Opinions would be welcome on having a single or double (cavity wall) build and recommended eaves width.

Many thanks for any help or suggestions

 

[bankruatsteve]

A lot of those products come from China.  What would your purpose be in going there?

 

The advantage for a cavity wall is that is makes running PVC for water and electric a lot easier than having to cut a race.  The thickness of the wall (including any cavity) is what really helps on insulation property.  With AAC, a cavity is insignificant to the total R value.

[coollife99]

Hi, the exact place is SHUNDE, few km from foshan, yes its cheapr, but you have to calculate your shipping fee  import taxes and so.

If you buy only small quantity, its not sure you will get acces to the models you want as the shps / factory there usualy ask for MOQ usualy bigger than one simple house project.

 

i live in Guangzhou who is next to Shunde/ Foshan and i know what im talking about,

 

nb, some of my friend who build last year a villa in Samui, import almost all stuff from there, and they got some big trouble importing the goods, the container was blocked in Thai customs, with a lot fo feee and so on, . so act wizely.

 

 

[neeray]

Don't be afraid to buy locally and support the Thai economy.

Besides, saving a few baht is probably not worth the hassle.

 

This reminds me of the story of a person who imported a container load of computers. They didn't work upon arrival. When the Chinese manufacturer/shipper was advised, the response was, "very sorry, we try harder next time".

[Bandersnatch]

I have recently finished building a house here in Thailand. Tiles were one of the last things that we fitted and we changed our minds several times about what tiles we wanted where and even what we wanted tiling.

 

I actually thought that tiles in HomePro and ThaiWatsadu are pretty reasonably priced and they can deliver them to your house. I wouldn't have wanted to deal with arranging shipment from China and import duties. We were also able to buy extra tiles as we needed them. 

 

We built with foam filled cavity wall with wide overhangs to shade the walls.

 

You can see more photos in my blog https://ecohousethailand.wordpress.com

[kamalabob2]

The Op would be wise to heed the posts above. Importing goods which are readily available would seem like a waster of time and effort. How much cheaper do you want a toilet?  Parts for your "imports", well good luck. hard enough to get parts for the Chinese goods sold as "exclusives' at builders merchants.  All those "house brands" have different manufacturers on different batches, and the parts may not be the same. Porcelain tile is readily available for 127 baht a square meter at Thai Watsadu. Lighting in Thailand can be dirt cheap with quality to match. Global House has tons of lighting fixtures from China in stock for a pittance. Now importing high end special marble for a high end home or some elaborate stereo gear is a different can of worms. Getting a shuffle board table made in Texas and then the graft at customs to get it to Isaan when you use a proper freight forwarder and customs broker. The Op can meet plenty of Chinese suppliers if he attends the Architect Expo in Bangkok and visits the booths from China. They will be happy to help him. I am very familiar with importing several million baht of DC submersible pumps and solar panels each year. It is no walk in the park, and always container loads. What happens when a large custom inverter from China has a service issue?  it is not any fun. Building a swimming pool, you would be amazed at how imported pool tile fades.  The made in Thailand Kera Pool tiles I bought in 2008 look great 12 years later. Even Do Home can get burned on a container load of defective (pick a house brand name) Chinese chain saws with no real recourse.