Land Fill And Perimeter Wall Advise, North Of Buriram

[carll]

Hi folks

The wife has nagged me for 4 years now to buy a peice of land near her parents. Although im not against the idea, the thought of buying land and even worse building a house in thailand ( holiday home for the momement) sends shivers down me?? Anyway, got the nod on a 4 rai rice field, next to the highway, electric, water, drainage, chanote, and in a good residential area, im now starting to shiver. Next stage is to land fill and build a very long perimeter wall around the land. we live in the uk, and the wifes parents are not technical enough to know if a contractor has laid correct foundations for a wall etc, plus its too stressful for them??, so im a little stuck??

comments, advise, contractor recommendations, anything from you to continue my quiet life, so help me pleeeeeeeeese????

[Morden]

The most important thing is don't do it, don't even suggest to a builder that you might hire him, until you are there. You should agree the spec. and the price, including materials if possible, when you can see the reds of his eyes. Then watch what he does and buy him and his guys a beer at the end of the day if you are happy with the way it's going.

[Gary A]

I had a two meter high block wall built around my wife's property. In all about 240 meters of wall. Since the land was also filled in it was necessary to dig through the fill into the original ground level. The footers and pillars ended up more than a meter deep. Four pieces of 7.5 mm dia. re-rod in each pillar. The pillars and footers are strung together with 20 cm wide stringers dug down to sit on the top of the footers. They are about 30 cm thick. Again there are four pieces of 7.5 mm re-rod in each stringer.

The most important part was to NOT allow the builders to buy or furnish the material. There would have been kick backs and the builders would have skimped on the cement and the re-rod. My Thai wife bought every bag of cement and every meter of re-rod as well as the sand and stone. As far as the builders every village normally has a crew. They price the wall per meter so there will be very few surprises. They build a lot of perimeter fences so they will know what it takes. You do have to make sure they go at least to the original ground level for the footers. It's not uncommon for them to want to dig less. The wall is almost two years old now and the only crack I have seen so far is near where they removed a fairly large tree.

At that time the labor was 230 baht per meter of wall. They want another 100 baht per meter for stucco. We did not stucco all of it, only the portion directly in front of the house along the road.

Edited April 8, 2006 by Gary A

[JimmyGreaves]

Hi Gary

I know it was 2 years ago but can you give me an idea of the total cost or total cost per metre?

You say a 2 metre wall + 1 metre dig below the fill + the fill depth making it?

Got the same job to do with about a metre and a half of fill to take into account but only need to do 18 meters as this is the back of the land and need to do some sort of a dam to hold the fill + wall.

Cheers

[Gary A]

The footers are four meters apart and a little over a meter deep. The concrete was poured to within 30 Cm of fill ground level. The 20 wide and 30 cm deep foundation for the blocks stopped at the fill ground level so the wall itself is two meters above ground level. The fill was pretty well compacted but if I had to do it again I would probably go to about 40 cm below the fill ground level with the stringers. At the front of the property we also needed a dam. Those stringers are wider at 30 cm with 6 re-rod rather than 4. We laid double block, put re-rod between the blocks and filled the void between with concrete. There are PVC pipes through the wall at ground level to allow water to drain towards the road. The double block are two strings high. No cracks so far. Your wall is basically setting on the footers and the stringers because the fill won't support much, maybe nothing.

I forgot what the whole thing cost because we bought material as needed and it took a couple of months to finish. I asked my wife and she said the entire cost was 130,000 baht or about 540 baht per meter. That was when cement was less than 100 baht per bag. Steel re-rod went way higher after we finished but I think it has come back down at least some.

Hi Gary

I know it was 2 years ago but can you give me an idea of the total cost or total cost per metre?

You say a 2 metre wall + 1 metre dig below the fill + the fill depth making it?

Got the same job to do with about a metre and a half of fill to take into account but only need to do 18 meters as this is the back of the land and need to do some sort of a dam to hold the fill + wall.

Cheers

[carll]

hihiy

[carll]

thaks for the info guys, to further the post i thought id produce a template specification for perimeter walling. please, please, add your ideas and comments to this in order that we can produce a full spec so all farangs can use it in the future. lets make the spec concrete?? ( so to speak)

agreement

1. name of landowner, contractor, date, usual start off precedure??.

2. the landowner shall purchase and provide on site all grade A materials.

3. the contractor shall provide:

a skilled labour for the foundations, pillars, building work, and rendering.

b unskilled labour for excavation, and general labour duties.

c all machines and tools to carry out work.

foundations

1. the foundation hole shall be excatvated to a depth of 40cms and a width of 20cms, from the ground level and not land fill level.

2. the foundation concrete shall be filled and level to ground level, along with pillars at same time, ( see pillar section )

3. the foundation surface will be smooth in which to start the process of wall building

pillars.

4. a pvc pipe shall be placed on top of the foundation and set within the first course of walling to provide water drainage from the land. these pipes shall be set at every 2 metre interval and shall be the length of the course of wall.

1. each pillar shall consist of 4 x 7.5 diameter re rods with contrete square surround. Each pillar being 230cms tall by 6 inches in diameter, and 4 metres apart.

2. each pillar shall be set 20cms into the foundation, with 200cm at wall height, and a further 10cms above wall height. ( this is so it visually breaks up the look of the wall).

walling

1. the wall shall be a single skin wall constructed of ----- blocks, it shall be 200cms in height from the top of the foundation. it shall be skillfully erected, cemented and aligned to a satisfactory building technique.

stucco

all areas of the wall and pillars will be stucco to a depth of 10mm from the foundation to and including the top of the wall. corners and edges should be 90 and finshed to a sharp edged finish.

painting

all stucco wall areas to have two coats of paint

finance

the landowner and contractor shall agree a price for the following

a. price in baht per square metre with pillars

b. price in baht per square metre without pillars

this section i dont know, im not sure how u do it in thailand, i mean, all the, if its unsatisfactory work, or payments etc. any way just for starters, please add you bit??????

[Gary A]

Actually the pillars are 16 cm square. I forgot to tell you that there is also a cap on top of the wall. It is 16 cm wide and 12 cm thick. It has two 7.5 mm pieces of re-rod in it.

Yesterday I walked around the entire wall and found about 6 cracks. All the cracks are on the part that has been filled in. There is not a single crack where the wall was built on the original level.

[JimmyGreaves]

Does the laying of the foundation need to incorporate driving piles into the ground with one of those large looking machines?

If not I see alot of sites around here using them. Are they neccessary?

Cheers

[Boon Mee]

Go here for some excellent advice on constructing a perimeter wall.

[JimmyGreaves]

Go here for some excellent advice on constructing a perimeter wall.

Cheers Boon, Excellent site and information.

Only problem I may have with the way this is constructed is I have got to hold back 1.25 Meters of Soil on one side that has been built up. So a type of dam might be needed. I'll give that a good read however and the rest of that site. Cheers again!

[astral]

When we had a retaining wall built, the builder first constructed the main pillars, which were

buttressed with a triangular support on the inner (filled) side. You can see it partly in this shot of the fill going in.

Each pillar had a slot down each side and the main retaining sections were concrete slabs

just dropped into place. This gives strength, whilst allowing small gaps for drainage.

I have not seen any sign of movement in the 7 years that it has been in place.

On the top is a normal breeze block wall for privacy.

Edited April 15, 2006 by astral