Not a clue how widespread this is but I know where my Thai Girlfriend lives her house has flooded, and about 500 meters away on higher ground (which apparently was raised for flood safety) a farang's house is about to flood. Can't give total accuracy as I am not there.

I brought up the concept of sandbags with my girlfriend. After explained what they are- her answer is that sounds expensive. They have a concrete house so what I believe they'd need is enough sandbags to build maybe 1 foot walls in doorways. We are talking absolute tops a cost of 5000 baht for permenant flood protection. They just keep the sandbags in the yard and use when needed.

Wait a second- i'm crazy aren't I, suggesting a long term very cheap solution to your house flooding. They prefer to move everything upstairs then clean house after it floods.

It gets better- I asked her why has my friend (farang) not got sand bags ready at his house if they are nearly flooded. She says he doesn't know about sandbags???

I intend to build on area in future as land is cheap (flood plain) but it does not take an engineering genius to effectively protect your house from this stuff.

One of the reasons why they have whats known as Ayutthaya style houses is because of floods.

The living quarters are all upstairs, downstairs is basically for cooking and storage.

Ayutthaya is notorious for flooding, one of the reasons land is so cheap, the mrs was offered land up there for free and turned it down because of flooding.

I advise anyone that now is the perfect time to look at land and houses, that way you see exactly what you get, not just your land, but the adjoining land and approach roads.

Last week in Pattanakarn (BKK) the floods were at least 12-18 inches deep, bet the buyers of those new houses in some of the areas are wishing they had carried out due diligence before buying.

In a pre-existing cement house , it would be advantagious to raise the doors beyond the flood hieght , say two feet , build up the gap with cement coated blocks/bricks , silicone seal around the inside wall to floor joint and applly tar to the first two feet of the exterior wall , put a step inside and outside for easy access . Future homes , of course , you just build on an elevated cement floater base .

Well when I thought about all the measures I can do- in relation to cost it's well worth it for peace of mind. Only thing I don't like is it is hard to get a villa style design whilst flood protecting,

Sand bags are messy and laborious, don't work very well and aren't a permanent solution as they disintegrate over time.

They're used all over Thailand, very common in the rainy season in areas that are prone to flooding.

Sand bags are messy and laborious, don't work very well and aren't a permanent solution as they disintegrate over time.

They're used all over Thailand, very common in the rainy season in areas that are prone to flooding.

All true. They would make a relatively inexpensive solution for someone who was renting though. We live in BKK. About 4 times per year we will get flooding in our moo baan that comes into the ground floor of our townhouse. There aren't any good solutions that aren't expensive and the landlord isn't interested. So we can either move or find a low-cost solution ourselves. Since moving is a major hassle and we are perfectly located here for my work and social life, sand bags come in near the top of the list.