Might demolish an old concrete Thai house. Help please.

[jack71]

The wife and I are interested in buying a small plot of land that has an old thai style concrete house on it with the old (ugly) ceramic tiles. 

We think it would be better to demolish it and build a new house in the same area. 

 

I have limited building knowledge and thus seek opinions from any retired builders out there
1.    After they completely remove all building materials that are above ground, what about the footings underneath. Should we be asking for them to remove the old footings as well?
2.    I think the house is on city water but unsure about the septic situation. I assume we want them to completely remove any sewage system that exists underground? Or do we just get it pumped out and keep the old system. 

 

I think we might have to get access again and get a builder in to ask about the above but thought I would ask here to get some knowledge prior hand. 

 

Thanks for any opinions
 

[blackcab]

Before you even start, you are required by Section 23 of the Building Control Act 1979 to obtain permission to demolish the building. You should be able to obtain this permission from the District Office.

 

Demolishing the house will more than likely cause the current house registration to be cancelled, which will in turn change the tax liability for the land from a residential house or second house to vacant land.

 

Unless the house and/or land is incredibly expensive this won't be too much of an issue unless you leave the land vacant for many years.

 

To answer your questions, you would normally remove both the superstructure and the substructure in its entirety.

 

It is extremely unlikely that you would re-use a foundation of unknown origin and composition for a modern house. For starters, you probably would not even want the same floor plan.

 

Also, there is little to be gained from building a modern house and using an unknown and antiquated septic tank. The cost of a new replacement will be a very small part of your future build costs.

 

You should find the demolition costs to be quite reasonable. The cost of carting away and disposing of the waste material is normally much more, although you may receive a combined price for the job.

 

During demolition someone needs to be on site to check the demolition crew do not use an excavation machine to dig a big hole and bury a large portion of the waste material to save themselves the effort of carting the material away.

[Chris.B]

Remove everything. The concrete can be re-used as fill if you break it down to sizes less than 75mm, say.

 

Any metal you can sell as scrap.

Edited November 27, 2021 by Chris.B

[Kwasaki]

11 hours ago, jack71 said:

After they completely remove all building materials that are above ground, what about the footings underneath. 

This is what we did to remove old house and rebuild new in Sukhothai other provinces may be different.

As said take house book or land deeds to local govt and tell them what your doing, we could keep the same house number & address.

They will want to see the drawings so I require set from a neighbour  and as a builder myself I drew up our own from them of what we wanted. 

So you will need to get a draughtsman or architect and pick a house plan you require for yourselves. 

 

As for your foundation maybe keeping it or added to it can be determined when all cleared and getting to that stage. 

 

Flooded accessment can be made too as to what height your foundation needs to be. 

 

If the septic cess waste set up is old better to install a properly designed new system.

One of the first things to do while foundation work is being constructed.

 

If you have govt water good. 

Do you have electricity ready to be connected.?? if not get that reinstalled.

 

See what neighbours are in the area who have had new houses built, you maybe can be referred to a good builder or find a local competent builder and your good to go. 

As you not know much about building yourself you surely will have some idea while it's being built in the end. ????