Chaiyaphum - Modern Building Supplies

[mrbojangles]

Does anyone know of any modern style stores for Tiles, Kitchens etc in the Chaiyaphum area? Something along the lines of Global House, Home Pro, Home Works, Boonthavorn etc.

I've managed to search for GH but the nearest one is in Kon Kaen which is about an hour and half away. Bit too far for a quick trip. Upto now, for the building materials we've used local suppliers but for the finishing touches, i.e. floor and wall tiles, kitchen cabinets, I haven't seen anywhere that has a good range of choices.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Gonsalviz]

I can't really help you on a store near Chaiyapum but there is a Thai building supply store north of KK that in my opinion beats GH and HP.

[pgs]

Mr Bo, haven't seen you here for a while...

I recall seeing a few small stores near the bus terminal & there was some new shops going in/opening on the road out to Ban Lat Yai

Had my first stop at a Homepro last visit - but like a Bunnings+Hardly Normal on steroids. Great place (near Korat somewhere)

Staff were quite helpful, so many offering to get me a trolley so I wouldn't have to carry things & couldn't fathom my not wanting one.

Until one questioned it. He even understood the answer

If we can't carry it, she can't buy it...

:-)

[mrbojangles]

I can't really help you on a store near Chaiyapum but there is a Thai building supply store north of KK that in my opinion beats GH and HP.

Do you know the name of the place Gonsalviz?

I bought a load of stuff from Pattaya last month and drove it up to Chaiyaphum. There are some really good choices available. But for floor tiles, due to the volume and weight I want them delivered and close by, in case I need to get some extra.

[mrbojangles]

Mr Bo, haven't seen you here for a while...

I recall seeing a few small stores near the bus terminal & there was some new shops going in/opening on the road out to Ban Lat Yai

Had my first stop at a Homepro last visit - but like a Bunnings+Hardly Normal on steroids. Great place (near Korat somewhere)

Staff were quite helpful, so many offering to get me a trolley so I wouldn't have to carry things & couldn't fathom my not wanting one.

Until one questioned it. He even understood the answer

If we can't carry it, she can't buy it...

:-)

How you doing pgs?

I'll ask the wifes brothers to have a look near the bus station.

Also, Korat isn't that far, so that's a good option. They'd probably deliver from there too.

[pgs]

Mr Bo, as far as TW is concerned, any excuse to go to HomePro is a good one....

[mrbojangles]

Mr Bo, as far as TW is concerned, any excuse to go to HomePro is a good one....

Yep. Same here. In fact, my Mrs likes to go anywhere that has a cash register.

[mrbojangles]

On another note and not worth starting a new thread.

I'm currently building a house in the boonies (thread here) http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/494413-bojangles-budget-bungalow-in-the-boonies/ and I'm almost at the point of having to sort the water supply and pipes etc.

I'm looking at a combination of harnessing rain water and using the village water supply. I'm by no means a Plumber so I'm a bit stuck for ideas but what I want to do is link all of the big water holders together using piping etc and also link in the vilaage water supply. I'm trying to think about it whilst in Saudi and it's driving me batty. Can someone post some piccies of how you did your water storage and pipe work etc. Any additional advise would also be greatly received.

[pgs]

I'm no plumber either, but have had the pleasure of living with tank water for some time.

some options I considered for TH, was:

1) run a pipe from the bottom of 1 tank to the top of the next (seated slightly lower) tank. as each fills, the overflow goes to the next.

2) run the pipe from about 6" to 12" from the top of one into the top of the next.

In either case, use something to filter the draining end of each pipe. As the first tank will cop the rubbish off the roof, it will be OK for the garden.

There will probably be someone in TV with more experience that can give better ideas / guidance.

Good luck with it.

[mrbojangles]

Thanks pgs. Do you know how brittle the concrete jars/tanks are for drilling holes in?

[siamdivers]

I have done this on my house, but it may not fit your budget. What I did was build a 15,000 liter underground tank, it cost about 100,000 THB, but this was a few years ago. I did all the pricing on the plastic tanks and at that time, they were more than this if I wanted 15k liter, which I did as I have no government water and I can't dig a well on my property as we hit granite at 14m. We tried. I can dig a well using those diamond bits, but no promises there would be enough and it costs over 200,000 baht here to do that. Anyway, what I did has worked fine for me for ten years in my house. I would do the same again.

The water tank is underground so we don't have to look at it. I park on it now, but if I did it again, I would dig it deeper so that I could put grass over it. It has a steel hatch on it, but I have never had to clean it. I put some household chlorine in there once in while if it hasn't rained in a while, but that's it. Algae doesn't grow as it is not exposed to light.

My pump is a heavy duty one with a pressure tank. I like high water pressure, so I am getting 3.8 bar out of it which is really nice. I tried those basic all in one household pumps but I couldn't get enough pressure out of them. We have an out-take on the tank which pumps water into the house of course, and that takes from a vertical pipe with the intake close to the bottom of tank with an automatic cut-off switch so if the water is too low, the pump wont run and burn itself out.

We capture rain water from the gutter system on the roof. To help the dried leaves problem, we have installed a three way pipe with a bronze cover (you see them at the hardware stores) in the vertical 4" pipes that come down from the gutters. I have put a drain cover in the bottom section of the 3-way insert which catches most of the dry leaves, and I just clean that out with my hand or a hose every so often. The water from the tank is fine. We do not drink it of course, we buy drinking water in 20 liter jugs. The trick is to keep the dry leaves out so they don't rot, so I like what PGS said about. However, as I said, I didn't want to look at the tanks and at that time, those plastic tanks were hugely expensive here. They have come down some now.

When it rains for two hours, my tank fills completely. When it doesn't rain much (Jan to March here in Phuket) we buy a water truck (8,000 liters for 400 THB, it's probably cheaper where you are, but it's still cheap). This year I have bought three trucks so far and now that the rainy season is almost here, I probably wont buy any more until next January. It depends on the year. It's still a cheap system and I feel good about collecting rain water. If I don't want to keep my grass green, I could probably avoid ever buying water.

My neighbor does the same thing, works fine. He has a pool, though, so he buys water more often, lots of evaporation in the pool of course. Another neighbor of mine build a cistern system of 120,000 liters under his house. That's a bit much me thinks.

Regarding those big concrete tanks, they are not very common here in Phuket, but you see them in Phang Nga a lot. I thought about using those, but I didn't want to look at the tanks so decided to go underground. I was actually going to make a small bathtub or Jacuzzi out of one by cutting the top off, but the guy I talked with who sold the tanks said that that wasn't possible because they use steel in them. I don't know if that is true or not.

I have been told countless times that drilling into these pots will not work, they will just crack and are, as you suggested, too brittle. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to try a drilling a hole at the top to see what happens. From what I understand, they are not very expensive up where you are. I think the government gives them away sometimes, so you may want to ask your local OrBorTor or whatever you have there.

I hope this helps, PM me if you want more info.

John

[mrbojangles]

John,

Many thanks for a most excellent, succint post.

I've not bought anything for holding and storing the water as yet, so every option is open to me. I too don't want to look at the jars all the time (even though this is only going to be used on holidays) but we have plenty of land, so I was thinking of hiding them a bit and maybe even housing them. I do like the sound of the underground tank though and will look further into that.

Again. many thanks.

[mrbojangles]

Good news for those in the Chaiyaphum area. Got an e-mail from Global House last week and they are opening a new Global House in Chaiyaphum expected at the end of june.

[pgs]

Thanks pgs. Do you know how brittle the concrete jars/tanks are for drilling holes in?

Happily, I've not yet had that pleasure....

If you're buying new ones, they can be ordered with holes. Not sure of the village name, but it is near Korat - all size pots & pottery can be made to order.

[tingtong]

Good news for those in the Chaiyaphum area. Got an e-mail from Global House last week and they are opening a new Global House in Chaiyaphum expected at the end of june.

thought they open already.

seems like every village in my area got a poster advertising it....only that KK Global is still like 15km nearer to us, however the province is Chaiyaphum we are in, thus the "heavy"advertising, i think.

[mrbojangles]

Good news for those in the Chaiyaphum area. Got an e-mail from Global House last week and they are opening a new Global House in Chaiyaphum expected at the end of june.

thought they open already.

seems like every village in my area got a poster advertising it....only that KK Global is still like 15km nearer to us, however the province is Chaiyaphum we are in, thus the "heavy"advertising, i think.

The e-mail from them said end of june and on the web site there still isn't a phone number. But it's Thailand so anything could happen.