Do It Yourself

[Mr Red]

I live in Florida in the US and we are just completing a kitchen remodeling project. Due to the high price of labor here, a number of tasks we took on as do-it-yourself (DIY) projects. During this whole process, I spent quite a bit of time wishing I was in LOS with the cheap labor to perform these tasks.

During this remodel, I removed all of the old cabinets and re-hung them in the garage; removed old wallpaper (do they use that in Thailand?), prepared the walls and repainted; relocated some electrical; took up old ceramic tile and linoleum and some minor plumbing work. The cost of hiring someone to do these tasks is so high that it became attractive to do it myself. I let the pros do the new work, so the new kitchen really looks great, but the cost is very high. Just for comparison, the new kitchen price has exceeded (by a fair amount) $25,000 (1M Baht) even with our labors.

I know in Thailand that the labor cost would be much, much smaller for comparable tasks, and I would not even consider enduring the labor we put into this kitchen. I assume this is a safe assumption for the rest of you with homes in LOS -- does anyone approach the level of DIY we do here?

[Dragonman]

I live in Florida in the US and we are just completing a kitchen remodeling project. Due to the high price of labor here, a number of tasks we took on as do-it-yourself (DIY) projects. During this whole process, I spent quite a bit of time wishing I was in LOS with the cheap labor to perform these tasks.

During this remodel, I removed all of the old cabinets and re-hung them in the garage; removed old wallpaper (do they use that in Thailand?), prepared the walls and repainted; relocated some electrical; took up old ceramic tile and linoleum and some minor plumbing work. The cost of hiring someone to do these tasks is so high that it became attractive to do it myself. I let the pros do the new work, so the new kitchen really looks great, but the cost is very high. Just for comparison, the new kitchen price has exceeded (by a fair amount) $25,000 (1M Baht) even with our labors.

I know in Thailand that the labor cost would be much, much smaller for comparable tasks, and I would not even consider enduring the labor we put into this kitchen. I assume this is a safe assumption for the rest of you with homes in LOS -- does anyone approach the level of DIY we do here?

I try not to do anything. My 5 metres x 5 metres kitchen extension cost the equivalent of $3,800 and included all building costs, fitted units, electrical, plumbing, tiles, painting, etc.

[lingling]

I know in Thailand that the labor cost would be much, much smaller for comparable tasks, and I would not even consider enduring the labor we put into this kitchen. I assume this is a safe assumption for the rest of you with homes in LOS -- does anyone approach the level of DIY we do here?

Absolutely. Sure, it is cheap to hire the local "professionals", but the result is "cheap" too. At a minimum, you need to be present 100% of the time and monitor/instruct them.

We bought new wallpapers (installation included). The wallpaper guy said he had been doing wallpapers for 25 years. When I got home after his first day, he had to tear them all down again - he had done no spackling so it looked like crap. He didn't even know what spackling was or how to do it, so I ran down to the local paint shop and bought a bucket and two spades and taught him how to do spackling. He thought it was fantastic.

Next, we installed new laminate floors. The company offered 6 months warranty on the work, so when they cracked up after three months we called them and asked them to honor the warranty. No way, Jose. Now, 2 years later there are cracks everywhere because they didn't do a proper foundation under (just slapped them on top of plastic foam sheets on top of the old floor).

Right now we are building a vacation house out on the countryside. We got some experienced concrete workers. Even though they had many years experience, they could not understand why the rebar had to be distanced from the surfaces below, on the sides etc. After instructing them they followed the instructions but this very basic knowledge was just not there. (In fact, we couldn't even find the standard plastic distances for rebar on the market here... ...had to make our own from PVC pipes...

And if you look at any of the large building projects in progress in BKK you can see examples of things that they would have to take down and redo. The worst one I have seen going on right now is the large condominium at the corner of Sukhumvit Road and soi 42 (next to the Ekamai bus terminal). Chunks of rebar clumped together (no space between them), on one floor they forgot to do the beams so they made the floor first and then the beams under it (and had to chop away concrete from the pillars in order to do so).

Anyway, cheap labor -> cheap results. (Btw, you can get the same kind of incompetent cheap labor in florida - there are tons of mexican and cuban workers who don't have a clue what they are doing. Saw lots of bad construction in south florida last time I was there).

[BKK90210]

Bad jobs, bad contractors, no show, took off with your dosh, over promised.....

I agree....it can happen anywhere...US or Thailand.

The key here you just have to be smarter than them, especially when it comes to your hard earned $$$