Cheapest possible way to build small dwelling…

[johng]

50 minutes ago, Mywayboy said:

Lean to cabin style home in Timber won't last long in Thailand termites will eat it in two years.

 

That has been my experience too,  there are hardwoods that stand up to pests but they are nowadays "very expensive"

years ago most all Thai homes where made of wood  the hardwood houses still survive to this day and can be found in villages out in "the sticks"  you need a permit to cut down or transport  certain "hardwoods" around the country   even if the tree is on your own land  you can't chop it down..well ok T.I.T

[ncc1701d]

3 hours ago, JESSVANPELT said:

What part of the country is the new home to be built?

Are you in Thailand to over see the building? and possible be involved with purchasing materials?

Has the land actually been transferred to your girlfriend legally by the Government office? it sounds as if the land has to be rezoned first. If it has not been actually transferred then DO Not build a thing......the structure you could be building might just end up with the original owner and not your girlfriend

 

Drp me you email and we can sort ylou out easier then listening to all these negative and unhelpful opinions.

 

Yes I built a home up country a few years back.

 

 

It’s in the middle of no where Sanam chi Khet district. Unfortunately I’m not in Thailand and probably won’t be any time soon with all the restrictions on travel. Not only does Thailand, but also the country I live are going to have to relax quarantine rules before I will get enough time off to travel again. So I have to organise all remotely.

 

My girlfriend has used a lawyer before in that area and using the same one again to organise the partitioning of the land. They’ve sent me the diagrams which have been drawn up, she just has to go sign some documents. Allegedly no major restrictions on building… allegedly! Lol.

[ncc1701d]

4 hours ago, natway09 said:

I am not sure where you are, but if yu drive from Bangkok to Tak you will see many small prebuilt homes.

They will transport, prepare the ground & secure to the ground as part of the price

Just ebsure on high ground.

For a few thousand Bht you can add a shower room to outside with a small kitchen

& septics

Unfortunately I’m stuck outside of Thailand with all the travel restrictions. But now that you mention it, I do believe I’ve seen those small house yards when driving about. Probably best to leave it to the girlfriend and brother to do the negotiating with prices etc. 

[ncc1701d]

3 hours ago, Excel said:

Absolutely admirable of you to help out in this way. Pity there were not more like you. Are you able to speak to a local builder ? they are generally the cheapest and know the area. In our village a government grant given to the village boss resulted in two people having a roof over their heads. The local builder did the work for free as they were village people and the grant paid for all materials. The cost without labour or the land cost around 80,000 baht for a post and blockwork dwelling with corrugated roof containing a living/sleeping area, toilet and a covered cooking area. Size was about 4 mtrs x 8 mtrs and was adequate for a Mum and daughter. By adequate I main safe and watertight with basic amenities.

Thanks for this information. It’s often the case that after I find something like this out and I mention it to the tgf, she will then say “oh, yes, i know you can do that” - well thanks for letting me know before I shelled out all this money ???? so I will bring it up with her and see what they can find out. Very good to know - thanks ????. 
 

“By adequate I main safe and watertight with basic amenities.” - yes this is exactly all I need.

[Excel]

4 minutes ago, ncc1701d said:

Thanks for this information. It’s often the case that after I find something like this out and I mention it to the tgf, she will then say “oh, yes, i know you can do that” - well thanks for letting me know before I shelled out all this money ???? so I will bring it up with her and see what they can find out. Very good to know - thanks ????. 
 

“By adequate I main safe and watertight with basic amenities.” - yes this is exactly all I need.

Glad it may be of help to you and hopefully provide relief to those you are hoping to support.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Excel

[BTB1977]

There are small houses here called knock down houses.  I checked into them around Korat. The most basic started at 125,000 baht. And up. 

We built one for the in-laws so they could live next to my sister in-laws home. I paid for the materials and the family put in the labor.  Steel frame.  

My total cost was just over 100,000. 

[LosLobo]

Google บ้านน็อคดาวน์ or search for this on Facebook!

[khunPer]

The small bungalows many Thais live in don't costs more than around 200,000 baht to make (excluding a well/bore), your link talks about $6,000 cost, which is pretty close to that.

 

A local building constructor should be able to come ud with a suggestion and quote.

 

There are some Facebook groups and posts about very affordable houses, I found for example this one...

 

 

 

-which according to the poster costs 220,000 baht.

Quote

บ้าน 220,000฿

ราคานี้รวม ตกแต่ง+รั้วบ้าน+ค่ามือช่าง รวมทั้งหมดในราคานี้

-พื้นที่บ้าน 60 ตรม.

-ห้องนอน 2 ห้อง ขนาด 3*3.5

-ห้องน้ำ 1 ห้อง ขนาด 2*2.5

-ห้องครัว

-ห้องโถง

-ระเบียง

-รั้วบ้าน

....

ขอขอบคุณที่มา..เฟสSirinpon Noimor

House 220,000 ฿

This price includes decoration + fence + mechanic's hand fee. All included in this price.

- House area 60 sqm

- Bedroom 2 Room size 3*3.5

- 1 bathroom size 2*2.5

- Kitchen.

- The hall.

- balcony

- The fence of the house.

....

Thank you for coming.. Facebook Sirinpon Noimor

Link to Facebook source HERE.

[LosLobo]

6 hours ago, khunPer said:

The small bungalows many Thais live in don't costs more than around 200,000 baht to make (excluding a well/bore), your link talks about $6,000 cost, which is pretty close to that.

 

A local building constructor should be able to come ud with a suggestion and quote.

 

There are some Facebook groups and posts about very affordable houses, I found for example this one...

 

 

 

-which according to the poster costs 220,000 baht.

Link to Facebook source HERE.

If you read any of the comments about this price you will soon realize it is B/S.

Building costs are about 10k a sq/m.

For 200k you would be lucky to get 1 bedroom with a bathroom and balcony.

Anyone who has built with village labour knows it's problems.

At least with a knockdown house you will get a quick result of reasonable quality.

[sometimewoodworker]

16 minutes ago, LosLobo said:

Building costs are about 10k a sq/m.

That’s high for Thai and low for foreign houses, locals are building at 5k sq/m

 

13 hours ago, ncc1701d said:

Allegedly no major restrictions on building… allegedly! Lol.

Our house had no requirement for plans to be checked and isn’t so small, so the allegedly is probably correct. 

a police helicopter pilot took this for us

[seancbk]

@ncc1701d  I think what you are doing is wonderful.

What about something like this?

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/437356311030657/

 

[khunPer]

5 hours ago, LosLobo said:

If you read any of the comments about this price you will soon realize it is B/S.

Building costs are about 10k a sq/m.

For 200k you would be lucky to get 1 bedroom with a bathroom and balcony.

Anyone who has built with village labour knows it's problems.

At least with a knockdown house you will get a quick result of reasonable quality.

You can built for less the 10,000 baht a square meter in a village, more likely 5,000 to 7,000 per square meter, but not what you expect as Western-style for that level of money, which will rather be from 10,000 baht and up, but Western-style was not the question here.

 

It was an example from a Facebook group with with more than 200,000 member, if you check the postings you'll find many examples if fine small house houses for affordable cost. Might be worth checking posts about small affordable constructions for ideas and eventual contacts, you can get quite a lot for around 200,000 baht in a village...????

 

A few more examples...

Quote

สวยทน เล็ก กระทัดรัด ดูดีมีสไตล์คะ

ราคา 180,000

ขนาดตัวบ้าน3x7.50

ใส่ฉนวนให้พิเศษ2ชั้นคะ

1ระเบียงหน้า

1ห้องนอน

1ห้องน้ำ

คิดถึงไม้ คิดถึงเรา

ร้านสุนันท์ค้าไม้เรือนเก่า&ขายบ้านน็อคดาวน์ อ.บ้านผือ จ.อุดรธานี

ยินดีต้อนรับทุกๆท่านนะค่ะ

สอบถามเพิ่มเติม

083-8519389 เกตน์

Beautiful, durable, small, crunchy, good looking, stylish.

Price is 180,000

Home body size 3 x 7. 50

Insulating extra 2 layers.

1 front porch

1 Bedrooms

1 Bathrooms

Miss you. Think of us.

Sunan shop, old wooden shop & sell knock down house, district. Ban Phue, province. Udon Thani

Welcome everyone

Further inquiry

083-8519389 Gate

 

Link to the Facebook group บ้านหลังเล็กราคาไม่แพง HERE.

[ncc1701d]

5 hours ago, seancbk said:

@ncc1701d  I think what you are doing is wonderful.

What about something like this?

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/437356311030657/

 

Thanks Sean - I’ll check these out. It’s been suggested here that they can be as low as ฿40,000… so that’s what I’m targeting. That may be just for the “house” and not include delivery and set up. I’ll have to follow up. ????

[ncc1701d]

59 minutes ago, khunPer said:

You can built for less the 10,000 baht a square meter in a village, more likely 5,000 to 7,000 per square meter, but not what you expect as Western-style for that level of money, which will rather be from 10,000 baht and up, but Western-style was not the question here.

 

It was an example from a Facebook group with with more than 200,000 member, if you check the postings you'll find many examples if fine small house houses for affordable cost. Might be worth checking posts about small affordable constructions for ideas and eventual contacts, you can get quite a lot for around 200,000 baht in a village...????

 

A few more examples...

 

Link to the Facebook group บ้านหลังเล็กราคาไม่แพง HERE.

Excellent, thanks KP. I’ll research those. Maybe my ฿40,000 level is wishful thinking ????

[BananaBandit]

On 5/11/2021 at 11:40 AM, ncc1701d said:

Edited Tuesday at 11:53 AM by ncc1701d

 

How easy/hard is it to add electricity & plumbing to a place like that?

[ncc1701d]

2 minutes ago, BananaBandit said:

 

How easy/hard is it to add electricity & plumbing to a place like that?

that’s a very good question. The electricity is more or less impossible. It would probably have to run off the nearby farmers house. He would charge a set price for use every month. I’ll think about that later. The only plumbing would be an external tank being supplied by either bore water or a pipe running from the nearby farmers home. I’ve opted for the bore water. I’d prefer them self reliant. 

 

the story has moved on. Girlfriends brother went to fix the leaking roof and ended up collapsing the entire structure ????. So the old lady and 6 year old (who I found out is actually 5 years old) moved in with the girlfriends family while I have paid to have a completely new structure built. 
 

the new structure is supposed to be a two room, plus toilet and shower area for 80,000 all inclusive + another 15,000 for labour. The bore water hole, pump and tank was another 16,000. Using 7 people I’m told It will be done within 10 days - 8 days left (believe it when I see it). 
 

I’ve bought insurance for the 5 year old and she’s going to get a physical next week sometime. Dentist etc. 

 

I’ve been promised some photos of the construction etc, so I’ll post them here once it’s all done. 
 

Looking back on everything, I shouldn’t have rushed into buying the land. They certainly don’t need 400 square meters. I could have probably paid the same amount for a much smaller land size, but more convenient to schools, shops etc. oh well… we live and learn. Might be able to sell this in the future and start over closer to the girls school later. Then again… I’m told they get their food from the land - clubbing frogs and whatnot. So maybe they are better off where they are. It’s all a bit grim for me to imagine to be honest!

[BananaBandit]

47 minutes ago, ncc1701d said:

I’ve been promised some photos of the construction etc, so I’ll post them here once it’s all done. 

 

yes, do please. am curious to see.

[Joinaman]

On 5/13/2021 at 7:58 AM, LosLobo said:

If you read any of the comments about this price you will soon realize it is B/S.

Building costs are about 10k a sq/m.

For 200k you would be lucky to get 1 bedroom with a bathroom and balcony.

Anyone who has built with village labour knows it's problems.

At least with a knockdown house you will get a quick result of reasonable quality.

glad i don't live near you

i built a couple of small units for the sisters to stay, 1 around 6x6 m and the other 5x3

the small one comprises one room and a shower,. toilet room Cost approx 30,00 baht 

larger one, small lounge, bed and separate shower toilet room, including air con, concrete waste tanks, tiles floors, decorating, windows and fans was less than 60,00 baht

Both built by myself, but a local builder could build in a few weeks without any problems, and low labour rates, maybe an extra 20,000 baht labour ?

Small one was built on concrete pad, with steel frame and roof, with block walls  rendered

larger one was built on pad with concrete posts and rendered block walls

[Mr Wong]

Building has been a lifetime hobby for me. I never stop building. If you do all the work yourself it will be amazingly cheap. One can pretty much work out the exact cost of a project. I have built many houses. The absolute cheapest method here is:a mixture of thai and farang method.

1. raise floor level a couple of feet by using fill . .   280 baht buys 5 cubic metre truck load.

2. concrete slab . .   1850 baht per cubic metre.

3. rebar for slab . . . 9mm (sahm huhn) is sufficient at 400 centres . . . 135 baht per 10m length.

4. concrete blocks for walls and columns (sows). I incorporate a column in the corner of the walls and later fill with concrete . .   it sames renting formwork (bab mi)

5. rebar for inside columns . . . 4 pieces of 9mm.

6. skillion roof is cheapest . . . 3" × 1.5" x 6 m lengths  . . . 400 baht per length.

7. Metal sheet roofing 770mm cover width 100 baht per metre.

8. floor tiles . . . i like to use those large format porcelain tiles 129 baht per sq metre.

9. windows, doors, PVC pipe, toilet, etc.

10. septic tank . . . five 1 metre diameter x 400mm high concrete rings delivered and placed in the hole for just 220 baht each.

11. etc etc its not that hard to add every little item and price out the total job.

 

The end result can be a very beautiful and comfortable house for a very low price. The house I am sitting in now looks quite impressive and if I told people how much it cost they would not believe me.

 

Most contractors want 2000 to 3000 baht per square metre just for labour.

Doing all the work oneself with the girlfriend helping is a lot of fun.

 

Most of a house is empty space.

The concretre in one square metre of floor costs 180 baht.

The metal sheet for the roof one square metre costs 150 baht.

A 4 metre long x 2.4 metre high wall contains 120 blocks cost 600 baht

Sand one cube 500 baht = 180 of those little black buckets. 13 buckets to one bag of cement can lay 80 blocks.

[CharlieH]

Troll comment removed.

[BananaBandit]

16 hours ago, Mr Wong said:

Building has been a lifetime hobby for me. I never stop building.

 

Am a bit jealous. I wish I had learned.

 

Would like to give it a go.  But the wife thinks I'd screw it up. And she's probably right.

[phetphet]

Those concrete breeze blocks are not very expensive here, and most Thai builders could knock up a one or two roomed home pretty quickly. Build raised a bit to avoid flooding.

 

Spome info on Google and Youtube.

[ncc1701d]

I haven't forgotten about this thread. But I was hoping to post more than the below photos. As an update, I was initially told B80,000 "for everything". Then was told "everything" didn't include the labour costs... So another B15,000. Then the old lady decided to electrocute herself while staying at my girlfriends place during construction as she had no idea how to use electrical appliances and the circuit breaker didn't trip. Won't go into it more than that, but she's alive and being "educated"... (5 year old did have cancer in her eye and it's been removed. How so many people in my girlfriends family have gotten cancer is very weird to me. genetics I can understand, but this is next level. anyway, I digress).

 

Because of what happened, I made enquiries as to what electrical protections there were in the house being built - none (of course), so I insisted they sort that out - another... B5,000

 

Will try and add more photos of the completed house (which was all done in 10 days). But here a a few for now.

 

400 sqm Land Cost and all fees associated with TX of title B45,000

house parts: B80,000

labour: B15,000

Water pump, hole and tank: B15,700 

upgraded circuit breakers B5,000

Total B160,700

 

I do find it hard to believe it costs this much and I'm intrigued by Mr. Wong's post above. I think I would enjoy doing such things... maybe something I can do in retirement.

 

I will post more pictures when I get them. After recovering from covid 19, girlfriend just got the delta variant and back into isolation. It's one disaster after another.

[sometimewoodworker]

18 minutes ago, ncc1701d said:

Then the old lady decided to electrocute herself while staying at my girlfriends place during construction as she had no idea how to use electrical appliances and the circuit breaker didn't trip.

It’s not the job of a circuit breaker to stop Electriction, it is there to protect the cables, are the cables overheating? No? Then the MCB isn’t interested. 

To reduce the time of electrocution (usually less than 30 milliseconds) is the job of an RCCB (or one of the many alternative names for it)

 

I’m not being callous or insensitive. But pointing out why the breaker didn’t trip and probably wouldn’t have stopped death or serious injuries even if it did. 

Edited July 11, 2021 by sometimewoodworker

[ncc1701d]

1 minute ago, sometimewoodworker said:

It’s not the job of a circuit breaker to stop Electriction, it is there to protect the cables, are the cables overheating? No? Then the MCB isn’t interested. 

To reduce the time of electrocution (usually less than 30 milliseconds) is the job of an RCCB (or one of the many alternative names for it)

Whatever was supposed to work - didn't. Doubt it's even installed tbh.

 

What does RCCB stand for and do you know what the Thai equivalent would be? I want to make sure it's in the new house.

[sometimewoodworker]

18 minutes ago, ncc1701d said:

Whatever was supposed to work - didn't. Doubt it's even installed tbh.

 

What does RCCB stand for and do you know what the Thai equivalent would be? I want to make sure it's in the new house.

There was probably nothing installed. 
the most common name is “safe-T-cut” but every shop knows them RCCB RCBO RCD are common names. They all have a switch and test button. 
they are mandatory for all new installs and have been for years but TIT so people can bypass that

this is a standalone version, available with different power ratings

this one is in the CU

@Crossy most likely will be along shortly to post the pictures from the Thai install manual. 
 

EDIT note to self I must find where I have my copies of those pictures. 

Edited July 11, 2021 by sometimewoodworker

[Crossy]

Since it's been mentioned this document from PEA might prove useful ????

 

Groundwire Mk2 book-Manual.pdf

 

The important diagram with English translations.

 

Any locally purchased consumer unit / distribution board should come with a diagram showing how to wire it up.

 

You can buy pre-populated boards with the relevent safety devices already installed from any on the big-box resellers for example;- https://www.homepro.co.th/p/1108507

 

 

 

[ncc1701d]

Thanks - that's excellent.

 

(And I can all but guarantee that hasn't been done).

[driver52]

On 7/11/2021 at 5:46 AM, ncc1701d said:

upgraded circuit breakers B5,000

Total B160,700

 

I do find it hard to believe it costs this much and I'm intrigued by Mr. Wong's post above. I think I would enjoy doing such things...

#metoo! I've looked into building a few times but never managed to pull it off

I do have some friends that are building a small wood house (only like 6metres x 3 metres) in the Frenchy countryside and they are doing it very cheap.

One thing I have learnt, if you know some guys with a digger and a tractor for lifting the materials it gets even cheaper!

Not sure why those breakers are so expensive, in Europe they're only like 20€!

Also, have you looked into solar panels? You can pick up 400watts for not much money now, use it to charge 'phone battery packs', you can pick up like 10k-20k mAh packs for cheap now too and they can run LED lights, a radio (make that out of a raspberry pi!) a cheap computer etc

i'd love to get out there and start building, I have so many ideas lol

[driver52]

On 7/11/2021 at 6:19 AM, sometimewoodworker said:

this one is in the CU

I understand Thailand is 240volt? so that RCCB at 50amps can pull 12,000 watts! ie totally crazy and if you only had a 10amp breaker you could still run 2,400 watts, which would still be enough to run a kettle and a microwave simultaneously

you need a lot less power than most folks realise with modern devices that consume a lot less wattage than in years gone by.....ie look at modern TVs compared to old CRT stuff, you can justify a new TV on the grounds of 'money saved' lol

Edited July 13, 2021 by driver52