Planning a House Build

[Karlo]

For those members who have gone through the process of having a house built In the south of Thailand and I am seeking your experience on a range of things.

Firstly, I am looking at Q-con blocks for the external walls one option is to construct walls with 25cm wide blocks, or alternatively double skin walls using 12.5cm blocks with a 10cm air gap. The cost of materials is very similar but of course double the labour costs, and if I go for the double wall what about insulation in the air gap as I am concerned about insect infestation. I look forward to receiving your advice and hearing your experiences. Does anyone have any recent experience of the cost per m2 to lay q-con blocks and the cost of rendering per m2.

 

Secondly, any advice on window frames and doors, the area where we are building is rural and very quiet so I am not sure if it warrants double glazing or not, and should I go for upvc or aluminium windows.

 

I am sure over the next few months I will be further seeking advice from members here who have already or currently going through the process of building.

[dddave]

When I built a house years ago (yes, with an Ex but no regrets) there was one thing she did that impressed me.  She spent several days driving around nearby villages and anytime she saw a new house she liked, she'd ask the owners if the builder had been reliable and had stuck with the contract.  

As a result, we ended up with a terrific builder, never a day late or unexplained days off.  House completed a week prior to schedule for exactly what we were quoted.

[blackcab]

An off topic post has been removed.

[sometimewoodworker]

5 hours ago, Karlo said:

Firstly, I am looking at Q-con blocks for the external walls one option is to construct walls with 25cm wide blocks, or alternatively double skin walls using 12.5cm blocks with a 10cm air gap. The cost of materials is very similar but of course double the labour costs, and if I go for the double wall what about insulation in the air gap as I am concerned about insect infestation. I look forward to receiving your advice and hearing your experiences. Does anyone have any recent experience of the cost per m2 to lay q-con blocks and the cost of rendering per m2.

You will find full details of my build in a thread titled 

“Workshop and house, Non Sa-At ½ way between KK & Udon” on a website specifically targeted at building cool Thai houses, most of your questions have been discussed at length there, it is non commercial so no competition to this site.

my user name is the same.

[carlyai]

The time that I built QCon blocks were not in my area so we built double brick cavity (those small red brick) walls with air gap between. If I was to build now I would use QCon 7.5 blocks cavity walls. You can really feel the difference with a cavity wall. Put your hand on the outside wall (before all the trees grew) and too hot to touch in full sunlight, but the inside wall was easy to touch.

I used the 12.5 QCon blocks for the garage build later (mainly because I wanted to cut all the conduit into the walls and thought 7.5 too thin). 7.5 are just fine.

You must lay the QCon as per the instructions, not what the bricklayer thinks, and you will have minimal problems.

Insects between the cavity hasn't been a problem.

Also with a cavity you can install all the conduits, water pipes and data cables in the cavity. Hot air will rise thru the conduit above the bond beam and air flow from the eves through the ceiling will help dissipate the hot air.

Do install data cables, better than wifi. Wifi signals suffer from attenuation and signal fading.

Insulation is a major problem, needs great thought as with heat you put up barriers and hopefully when all these barriers eventually fail it is then the afternoon.

So for a roof, metal seems to be the go now, but I used the large Monnier concrete tiles that absorbe the heat (1st barrier), R15 or the best insulation resistance foil (2nd barrier), ceiling insulation (3rd barrier), air flow thru ceiling (4th barrier). I didn't use ceiling insulation as I had a small ceiling with a cathedral roof, but the more heat barriers the better.

I'd say double glazed windows as well. I didn't use them but my son's place has them and they're magic for sound as well as heat I would think.

Also plan for solar. Maybe a fireproof room for the inverter and batteries and sun tracking panels. Some inverter fans ar noisy so plan accordingly.

[Karlo]

14 hours ago, dddave said:

When I built a house years ago (yes, with an Ex but no regrets) there was one thing she did that impressed me.  She spent several days driving around nearby villages and anytime she saw a new house she liked, she'd ask the owners if the builder had been reliable and had stuck with the contract.  

As a result, we ended up with a terrific builder, never a day late or unexplained days off.  House completed a week prior to schedule for exactly what we were quoted.

We have a good builder in place having seen their previous builds and they are currently working on my wife’s parents property renovation so I can more easily monitor their work. 

[Karlo]

@carlyaiI appreciate your response, you made some good suggestions. I will add data cables as the property is over 500m2 and WiFi could be a potential problem. I am planning to put solar panels on the nearby garage roof, for ease of access. The plan is to have a gable roof using SCG fibre cement roof tiles facing east and west and install quality insulation. I would like some form of solar water heating but I don’t see it regularly used here as they do in Mediterranean countries, so if anyone has any experience I would like to hear from you.

[Pogust]

I have built 3 houses using 20 cm Q-con or same blocks of other producer. One story buildings with lightweight roof constructions. No need for 25 cm walls in this climate. 7,5 or 10 cm for inside walls. Fast and easy building if the workers understand how to glue AAC blocks. There was G4 load bearing blocks available some years ago, don't know now. Anyway a light construction with 20 cm works in most cases with G2 if you have some concrete beams involved.

 

If you build two story house of course it's another construction with lots of concrete and rebar.

 

I used both steel roofs and the SCG fiber. Steel roof with the insulation glued to it helps with heat. I found that a 5 cm insulation mat above the ceiling is all I need, even with the fiber cement roof.

 

Looked at both alu and plastic windows but went with quality hardwood in the end.

 

If you are in the south you are probably not far from the sea and don't get so high temps as up in Issan. Thus no need for extreme insulation.

 

If you send pm I can supply pictures and explanation of my constructions.