Building a house in Thailand

[OneMoreFarang]

21 minutes ago, RocketDog said:

Also, it gives me an excuse to buy more power tools!

Yay!

That is a very good reason.

I just counted in my head. I think over the last 3 years I bought 7 Bosch Power Tools. Good tools make work so much more enjoyable.

[Ralf001]

On 1/4/2025 at 6:34 PM, Lacessit said:

 

 

It has three private hospitals. None appear to be part of a hospital chain, such as Bangkok Hospital.

 

One of them is a Bangkok Hospital.

 

[atpeace]

It's complicated but I took a different approach than most above.  Rented for 10 months in the area and after I knew I was OK with living long term, built a house.  I live in a beautiful area and a small local tourist town is a couple kilometers away.  Make sure you like the area!!!!! Life is too short to waste away in a area you don't love.

 

The building process is too difficult IMO. With that said, I'm very flexible and can easily deal with imperfections.  Extremely  easy to fix most problems by simply paying for the fix.  I would take it slow on the build and add additions as needed. 

 

As the years pass, you will have numerous locals that your wife can call to do whatever.  Yesterday I had a well drilled.  Two months ago a 11mx3m patio extension, three months ago a complete off (on if I want) grid solar system, and next month a car garage with a work area.

 

My advice is just have fun with the build.  My biggest mistake was electrical wiring installation.  I just assumed the guy would do as I asked.  That can be fixed also but with the wiring in the walls, will be a pain in the butt.  

 

 

[rwill]

There is also the Building in Thailand facebook group.  It has about 16K members.  The guy that runs it sells a book about building in Thailand.  But you can get lots of good info there without buying the book.

 

 

One thing if you are building a house here is you pretty much need to oversee it every day.  Make sure problems get corrected before it is too late.  If you tell them how you want things and they say they understand and you leave it will get done how they want it.

[Toby1947]

Don't do it, within 6 months your wife will move her boyfriend in pretending to be her brother. Next come Mama & Papa, Aunts & Uncles with a multitude of kids. Closely followed by dogs, cats, chickens and of course the obligatory buffalo. You will be slowly move out.🤣😂👍 thinking thank the lord for that. 😂🤣

[marin]

6 minutes ago, Toby1947 said:

Don't do it, within 6 months your wife will move her boyfriend in pretending to be her brother. Next come Mama & Papa, Aunts & Uncles with a multitude of kids. Closely followed by dogs, cats, chickens and of course the obligatory buffalo. You will be slowly move out.🤣😂👍 thinking thank the lord for that. 😂🤣

Sounds like you definitely made the wrong choice in women.  

[AustinRacing]

You’ve received some good advice already. I would add:

1) try stay clear of direct negotiations. The price of building stuff will go up if they know a farang is involved.

2) actual workers will most likely be inexperienced migrant workers. So watch out!

I would rent first, get a contract for building done, once work starts be there to watch them do it 

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, atpeace said:

Extremely  easy to fix most problems by simply paying for the fix.

Sorry, no.

In fact it is difficult to find workers who even know how good quality work looks like. Most seem to have this "I can do this" attitude without knowing much about the subject. I.e. I am also sure I can lay tiles, somehow. But maybe they are not straight, and maybe they don't last and lots of other little issues. I don't do it because I know I don't know enough about it. But I am sure lots of Thai workers, with less knowledge than I have, would confidently claim that they can do it.

 

And with some issues it is not a big deal to do it again, i.e. silicone around the bathtub. But other issues like water pipes in the wall and tiles and many other issues can't easily be fixed. It takes often a lot of time and money and involves lots of dirt. That is a problem. 

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, rwill said:

There is also the Building in Thailand facebook group.  It has about 16K members.  The guy that runs it sells a book about building in Thailand.  But you can get lots of good info there without buying the book.

 

One thing if you are building a house here is you pretty much need to oversee it every day.  Make sure problems get corrected before it is too late.  If you tell them how you want things and they say they understand and you leave it will get done how they want it.

 

I agree. Additionally it seems many workers are very sensible how you tell them what they did wrong and how to do it better.

I once saw one of the "nongs" using a hammer on my large expensive bathroom tiles. I told him "STOP! Don't do that." in Thai. Later I was accused of being impolite with that guy. Really? Things like that need a lot of patience. Sometimes I have this patience, but some other times there is just too much going on to stay cool. 

[TimBKK]

An enjoyable read with lots of great advice - is this really AN or am I dreaming?

[Lacessit]

5 hours ago, Ralf001 said:

 

One of them is a Bangkok Hospital.

 

My bad, when I checked it was not mentioned as part of the Bangkok brand.

 

Please put away your cat-o-nine tails, kind sir.

[RocketDog]

10 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

That is a very good reason.

I just counted in my head. I think over the last 3 years I bought 7 Bosch Power Tools. Good tools make work so much more enjoyable.

When a left America two months ago after going back to sell my house and cut my roots I left behind quite a few high quality tools and power tools. Too heavy to be worth shipping and 120VAC powered.

Profit ftom my house means I buy what I want now and I like good tools. The problem here is finding them because few people will pay for them here. So I stick to Bosch,  Makita, and DeWalt mainly.

 

Hand tools are a loss. I keep them until they rust apart in a year and then throw them away and buy more garbage from China. The only way to keep it is to wrap the tools in rags soaked with WD40.

How do the like the "stainless steel" so ubiquitous  here that turns brown in a month? If I'm shopping for anything stainless I take a magnet with me.

 

[OneMoreFarang]

10 minutes ago, RocketDog said:

When a left America two months ago after going back to sell my house and cut my roots I left behind quite a few high quality tools and power tools. Too heavy to be worth shipping and 120VAC powered.

Profit ftom my house means I buy what I want now and I like good tools. The problem here is finding them because few people will pay for them here. So I stick to Bosch,  Makita, and DeWalt mainly.

 

Hand tools are a loss. I keep them until they rust apart in a year and then throw them away and buy more garbage from China. The only way to keep it is to wrap the tools in rags soaked with WD40.

How do the like the "stainless steel" so ubiquitous  here that turns brown in a month? If I'm shopping for anything stainless I take a magnet with me.

 

 

I bought most of my Bosch tools from this company. I have very good experience with them.

TCL TOOLS Sales & Services - Assembly of Perfection

https://tcltools.com/en/

[OneMoreFarang]

11 minutes ago, RocketDog said:

120VAC powered

Almost all my tools are battery powered - including heavy duty tools. No problem.

In case I would move to another country with different power I would only need to buy one new battery charger. 

[RocketDog]

On 1/9/2025 at 6:14 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

 

I bought most of my Bosch tools from this company. I have very good experience with them.

TCL TOOLS Sales & Services - Assembly of Perfection

https://tcltools.com/en/

Thanks. I'll check it out.

Asia retired EE I have grown watery of battery powered tools that just don't have the necessary power or deplete the batteries very quickly. I love my 20v DeWalt drill but for angle grinder and hammer drill I use good old 220vac.

Batteries Wil get better someday but they're not there yet. I spent a lot of my career studying battery tech and I'm still waiting.

Almost everyday there are breathless articles about some new battery development that  will change the world. I'm still waiting.

 

But if it works for you go for it. Portable power tools are sure convenient but short battery life and expensive battery replacement cost discourage me.

[OneMoreFarang]

49 minutes ago, RocketDog said:

Thanks. I'll check it out.

Asia retired EE I have grown watery of battery powered tools that just don't have the necessary power or deplete the batteries very quickly. I love my 20v DeWalt drill but for angle grinder and hammer drill I use good old 220vac.

Batteries Wil get better someday but they're not there yet. I spent a lot of my career studying battery tech and I'm still waiting.

Almost everyday there are breathless articles about some new battery development that  will change the world. I'm still waiting.

 

But if it works for you go for it. Portable power tools are sure convenient but short battery life and expensive battery replacement cost discourage me.

 

Almost all my tools are 18V Bosch, including an angle grinder, a SDS Hammer (GBH 18V-26 F) and a circular saw. At least for all the work which I did until now they have enough power, and I was/am surprised for how long the batteries last before I have to recharge them.

The only mains power "tool" which I bought was a Festool dust extractor.

I would buy them all again, they work great. 

 

[RocketDog]

3 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

 

Almost all my tools are 18V Bosch, including an angle grinder, a SDS Hammer (GBH 18V-26 F) and a circular saw. At least for all the work which I did until now they have enough power, and I was/am surprised for how long the batteries last before I have to recharge them.

The only mains power "tool" which I bought was a Festool dust extractor.

I would buy them all again, they work great. 

 

When I was chopping out gobs of concrete around my pool plumbing to get at a leaking pipe ( I note that pvc plumbing requires solvent welded joints everywhere in the world except the Kingdom apparently) I used my hammer drill for hours. I'm sure I'd go thru several charge cycles with batteries. On the other hand that would have forced me to rest more than I did.

 

Certainly the newer lithium cells, principally lithium iron phosphate LiFePo are so much better that the first battery tools that used nickle metal hydride or heaven forbid, cadmium cells.

 

In general things like Sabre saws, drills, maybe even circular saws for light work are the way to go for battery tools.

 I used to do a lot of ripping on oak with my radial arm saw and so battery tools wouldn't work for that. But they are so convenient to use outside.

I must say however that where your Li cells come from can make a big difference. Cheap cells are not only junk but they are dangerous to use.

 

BTW,are you aware that if you store your tools for a while discharge the Li cells to approximately 30% charge. It will improve battery life. And don't let them freeze; yeah, like that will a problem here!

[OneMoreFarang]

36 minutes ago, RocketDog said:

I'm sure I'd go thru several charge cycles with batteries.

The beauty of those batteries is that you can change them in seconds.

If you really want to you can continuously work and at the same time charge your batteries.

[RocketDog]

8 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

The beauty of those batteries is that you can change them in seconds.

If you really want to you can continuously work and at the same time charge your batteries.

Partly true 1MF.

The tools might but I can't!

😔😒

[Toby1947]

On 1/9/2025 at 7:57 AM, marin said:

Sounds like you definitely made the wrong choice in women.  

No not me never bothered with any of them. Just read and listen to the tales of woe most of these halfwits end up experiencing.