20m2 extension . 1 bedroom with ensuite bathroom built for 60k 3 weeks

[livil]

hi again

just a follow up to my former post http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/555722-our-320000-baht-house-done/ in which we built our small house ( 75m2 ? ) for 320k . have a look to give you an idea of the build

as per the former post decision was taken to add an extension to the house as we now got 2 kids and needed an extra bedroom.... ( more than the swimming pool i am longing for )

once again on a budget 60k instead of the 50k i originally budgeted as it seems the more we get in the build the more the standard we want are higher . so pvc / alu windows instead of wood . more expensive tiles and so on ..

we just went there for a month in december and honestly didnot expect it to be done that quickly ,all in all it took them about 20 days of solid work , all that is left to be done is the external paint and for me to fit some units in the bathroom and find some sliding doors for the floor to ceiling wardrobe / storage unit .

total cost for builders was 28k ( 2 builders / 1 helper ) local village builders whoom did most of the work for us before so they are used to my crasy ideas such as hiding the electric cables in the walls , cleaning the window frames straight after the set them in concrete and so on ...

we gave them the build to do in 3 parts :

first phase: ground work , concrete slabs and pillars , aluminium roof and plaster board ceiling . 10k

second phase : wall built and rendered , doors and windows in place , 16k

third : tiling and grouting 3k

electricity and painting for me to do .

reason is that i do not want to leave the build unsupervised otherwise they will do as they always do instead of following the plans i had , just wasnot sure 1 month would be enough for them to do it all as it was rice harvest season so they might have had to attend their fields or build some rice shed a the same time , wife thought it was a good idea so they would get an incentive to get t done quickly and turn up for work everyday ( well most , "foreman" had a 3 days binge drinking session which ended up when we convinced the 2 other guys to work without him . he turned up for work the next day as if nothing happend as he understood that he was losing money , hehe....

so in the end the y manged to pull it of in one month , i might have gotten a better quote if i did ask for all in 1 go but i am pretty sure they wouldnot have finished in time .

materials between 30 and 35k ( paint ,tiles, light fittings ) included.

below a picture of the back of the existing house where the extension went ,

kitchen window had to go , a door built on the ride side of it , mains cables moved to the left where the bathroom glass blocks are , outside socket moved as well , ground cable hiden into the brick work . worked on the way to either use or hide all the existing plumbing .

shame on me i ll have to admit i used the cable going to the halogen spot as my main source of power for the extension . ( 4 sockets / 3 ceiling light / 3.5k water heater ouch ... got lazy . i just run and extra cable from the fuse boxe to be used with the air con ....

started of by digging 4 holes filled with a concrete pad with 4 length ( for each post )set into it and getting the rebar " beams " ready to be filled with concrete .

builder said that 2 posts would be enough as the length between the existing posts of the hose and the new one would be 5 meters which would be fine , decided to add an extra couple just to make sure .

rebar beam filled with concrete , wooden coffer made with whatever was lying around , my garden tree to a beating obviously ;-)

concrete columns are slide onto the rebar and filled with concrete . funnily enough i noticed that this time around the large part of the concrete pillar seat at the bottom this time , they set them the other way around in the house . i pointed it to the builder whom dismissed it with the usual mai pen rai and a big smile . fine by me ...

sticks , ropes and cut up tyre inner tubes did a good job at holding everything into place while the concrete was setting .... i hope ...

details of the pipe work i did for the bathroom . had to take into consideration the existing pipe work at the back of the house and the position of the septic "tank" ( concrete rings ) when designing the floor plan to make sure all piping will be fairly easy to do ( didnot want to have to smash that exisnting bit of concrete slab at the back of the house to run some pipe ) and that all pipe will be out of sight !! the builders had somewhat an idea that it would be fine to have pvc pipe running on the floor of our new bedroom ;-) most of the pipes are now either in the concrete slab or behind some tiles which will indeed prove to be a real pain if any leaked appears. finger crossed , stick of incense and little amulet will do the trick i am sure ;-)

concrete slab poured in ,metal roof structure welded into place , they added some lateral piece of iron to it give more support to the plaster board ceiling so it wont bulge . thanks guys . this wasn't expected .

i put all the electric wires in places in grey pvc tubing to avoid any cabled being chewed up by potential rats climbing into the roof . all light switch and sockets in place so the builders understood where everything will go and where they will have to set everything in the walls .

very surprised but one of them even got an aluminium ladder !! which was great for me to use for the wiring work instead of 50 gallons drums !!

i think they got a bit lazy as the didnot cut the overhanging bit of the roof structure . metals beams comes in 6 meters length , inside build is about 5 meters long so i got slightly under 1 meter ( accounting for the slope ) of extra roof over the small garden bit . a bit long for my taste but i will build a couple of benches under it . sorted

aluminium roof screwed into the roof structure , plaster board ceiling as well , plastered and painted .

at this point looks like a car port to me !! remember i read a few topics asking for prices of car port . at this point the build cost us 10k in labour + about 15k in material . so here you go 25k for a 20m2 car port with lighting and running water to wash the Dmax !!

some part of the brick work in place already. aluminium windows set in , boy i am glad to windows comes with protective film ... made it easier to remove all the concrete they happily splattered them with . got those from global . 1.8 meter at 4300 baht . 1.2 meter at 3500 baht . we used those as i want to put an air con unit in this room as the ceiling is fairly low ( 2 meters at the lowest point ) and wooden windows always seems to have gaps and wholes when put in place .

Edited December 30, 2013 by livil

[livil]

obviously pillar in the middle will be hidden away in the wall for the bathroom . pillar at the back will prove to the a pain as i planned to put the ac unit right where it is , you can see the electirc cable for it sticking out of the wall . tomorrow is another day , i ll improvise in due time

kitchen window is removed , briked over and tiled , new king kitchen unit in place .

bedroom door in place , funny , 2 meter tall frame came with a 1.8 meter door . i was obviously away and the guys set it in place anyway .

now got a 20cm gap at the bottom , great for the AC i guess , i ll have to take it down and fit a piece of wood at the bottom with some little brushe thingy and rubber joints in the frame , cant get everything perfect , can you ?

now got 2 doors next to each other which does look a bit odd indeed. the door on the left leads outside and i originaly wanted it where the bedroom door is which would have made things so easier ...

superstition got in the way , having a door in straight line with the stairs going to the inside bedroom would have created an highway for ghost apparently . ;-)

forgot !! the cable you see going through my wall and behind the kitchen unit is .... well ... the main source of power going to my brother in law house whom hasnot got a tambien ban so cannot get his own meter at the moment . a bit of an argument when the bill comes up but he understood after i cut him of for a few days that if he is not happy he can buy some candles . same crap happend with his sister where he was plugged in before . i inherited the problem .

i originally was plugged into one of my outside socket but as he now hasgot a fridge , satellite tv , washing machine and 3.5k waterheater plugged into it he burned some of the wires away , tripped my fuses a few time so i plugged him in direct to my breaker box...

well it says so on the box " comes with extended family "

a few days without pictures being taken and we are now all done !!

space on the left will be used for a floor to ceiling wardrobe with top and bottom shelves , just need to find some sliding doors or build a block base and some tall plastic doors , it will hide away the piping at the back , leave the room uncluttered and create a corridor to the bedroom . size of the wardrobe is around 60cm deep / 2 meters long

fairly apparent gap at the bottom of the door !!

tiling was set the usual way for my guys which is with concrete instead of tile glue . usually works fine and i had nothing bad to say about it . but this time : the back side of those grey tiles is very fine and hasnot got a lot of depth in the design ... concrete doesnot stick to it properly and some of the tiles are loose already , a bit pissed of . builder is obviously blaming the tiles and not his method . they run out of grey grout and started to use white grout to finish the job . stopped it in time but didnot want to do the 12km run to the hardware store , just told him to mix the grout with concrete to get the grey colour , worked fine !

bathroom door !! another cockup !!

dont get me wrong i am just pointing in a sarcastic way what could have been done better , not complaining at all and i am very happy with the end result !

always is an explanation to every cockup . this time it is that my guys and other i used in the past work mostly with wooden doors , they set the door frame into the wall without the door which always seem to end up with the door not fitting in the frame , with wood it is fairly easy to fix , cut a bit away or add a small lenght of wood and varnish the whole lot , with plastic it is obviously another story . told them so as i had a problem before in the other bathroom door so this time they put the door in the frame before end and sticked it in place with painter tape . forgot about the hinges !!! . obviously the hinges couldnot be put in place . i had to put them on the outside of the door and frame , screw the hinges in the door with long screws . a bit unsightly but works fine , funny bit is thta i gave them a set of grey hinges and a set of bronze hinges . bronze of course made it s way in the white plastic door . colour blind ?? i am in a a small tlc job next time . no worries

pillar right in the way of where i plan to put the ac unit . a bit of a problem there i guess

was planning to put the bed with the head by the window on the right side . been told nocant do . cause it would be lying down the same way as dead people which is a no go

head will have to go you guessed it ... where the bloody pillar is . hahaha

with the foot of the bed going by the bathroom door , thank god it will fit and leave access to the bathroom !!

builder are now thinking i am a pervert using glass blocks like this !! love it !!

very happy with the tiling in the bathroom , i will just have to find a way to remove this ugly pvc pipe going to the hot water unit , maybe a chrome rod or something .

really like the effect of the glass block there

floor tile used are non slip type , problem is that when dry they do look a bit ugly and grey , perfect when wet , i need to look into glazing them , maybe varnish or something , havnot looked for info yet , any ideas?

cleaned up most of the concrete left by the builders with a metal brush but still a bit to go . as the wife siad if we wanted a neat job we could have gotten professional builders but the cost wouldnot have been the same .

i will build a batroom unit with kings doors , same tiling and a washing bassing and add a bathroom unit in the upper hole

a few outside views , a bit a plastering and the painting to do , we can then get the garden into shape !!

so here it is

20m2 extension

bedroom with ensuite bathroom

3 weeks

60k

let me know what you think

all the best

olivier

Edited December 30, 2013 by livil

[Crossy]

All good stuff

Electricity meters are cheap, get one from HomePro or your local builder's merchant, hook up the brother in law through said meter, no further arguments

[livil]

All good stuff

Electricity meters are cheap, get one from HomePro or your local builder's merchant, hook up the brother in law through said meter, no further arguments

good idea indeed. i will need to upgrade my own meter anyway to cope with the added appliance i guess , guy from the electricity company gave me the choice but said i would be fine with the small meter if i didnot paln to use ac which i didnot at the time . so i will have a spare meter which will make everybody life easier !

i was waiting for a post from you crossy and tought you would have a go at me for the lazy way i wired the extension bedroom !! surprised !! it doesnot seem to bad to you?

[Crossy]

Moi?? Would I do something like that

Unfortunately the PEA meter is their property, so you won't have a 'spare' unless they 'forget' to take it away, worth waiting until the up-grade's done just in case

[livil]

Moi?? Would I do something like that

Unfortunately the PEA meter is their property, so you won't have a 'spare' unless they 'forget' to take it away, worth waiting until the up-grade's done just in case

touche ;-)

thanks for letting me know about the meter , didnot know about that . cheers

[David48]

Mate, great to see you back and posting ...

From my perspective, it's really difficult to read the post because my Browser doesn't resize the photos,

meaning that everything appears super huge across the computer screen, maybe twice normal viewing.

So it have to keep shuffling back and forth across the page to try and view the photos and read the text.

Currently, we are doing a bedroom build at the FarmHouse and the budget is about the same - 60k with me

doing the Electrics, paint and Curtains.

For the money, as with your other excellent topic, you have got value for money, no doubt about that.

Plus your relaxed attitude off ... 'the roof ended up being a metre longer then desired ... no problem' (paraphrased)

I believe goes a long way to reduce tensions with a Thai build.

Great thread ... great job ... well done ...

.

[cdmtdm]

60 k ? u sure ? thats 3000 baht per sqm ..... two of your windows were nearly 10 K ....

[livil]

60 k ? u sure ? thats 3000 baht per sqm ..... two of your windows were nearly 10 K ....

sure

apart from the windows nothing expensive in there .

28k for the builders leaves 32k for materials

as far as i remember this is what it cost .

7.8 k windows

150 bhat per m2 tiles ( 30m2) 4.5k

1.5k paint

2k doors ( 4k )

around 25 bags of concrete at 120 baht ( 3k)

500 breeze block 2.5k

54m3 sand ( 1.2k )

2 m3 stones ( 1k)

rebar and steel frame ( 4.3k) couple of beam left from previous build ,

roof aluminium ( 4.5k)

20 glass block at 50 baht each 1k

pvc pipes ( left over from previous build , otherwise very small cost )

electric cable , sockets , switches , ( 1k max )

bit over at slightly under 34k in material

not far of the mark .

water heater / toilet not included (add 5k)

edit . forgot about the plaster board for the ceiling . 25m2 at ??? do not remember the cost per board nor the amount , probably cheaper than a few beers in nana

Edited January 5, 2014 by livil

[livil]

Mate, great to see you back and posting ...

From my perspective, it's really difficult to read the post because my Browser doesn't resize the photos,

meaning that everything appears super huge across the computer screen, maybe twice normal viewing.

So it have to keep shuffling back and forth across the page to try and view the photos and read the text.

Currently, we are doing a bedroom build at the FarmHouse and the budget is about the same - 60k with me

doing the Electrics, paint and Curtains.

For the money, as with your other excellent topic, you have got value for money, no doubt about that.

Plus your relaxed attitude off ... 'the roof ended up being a metre longer then desired ... no problem' (paraphrased)

I believe goes a long way to reduce tensions with a Thai build.

Great thread ... great job ... well done ...

.

Thanks David48 .

no idea why you got a problem with the pic , i resized at 800/600 on imageshak

still can build on the cheap something descent over here despite the increased prices in materials . just need to have some people you can trust for the purchase side of things ( eg shop not doing farang mark up / builder placing an order not taking comission .....)

well , if you are being to anal about it , firstly you geta cardiac arrest every other day , secondly the cheap village buildewrs dont want to work on your build as you are a pain in the .. )

good luck for your build , please start a topic or post over here ,

cheers

oli

[David48]

Found it ... it's the very first photo.

Every other photo fits perfectly ...

[lanng khao]

obviously pillar in the middle will be hidden away in the wall for the bathroom . pillar at the back will prove to the a pain as i planned to put the ac unit right where it is , you can see the electirc cable for it sticking out of the wall . tomorrow is another day , i ll improvise in due time

kitchen window is removed , briked over and tiled , new king kitchen unit in place .

bedroom door in place , funny , 2 meter tall frame came with a 1.8 meter door . i was obviously away and the guys set it in place anyway .

now got a 20cm gap at the bottom , great for the AC i guess , i ll have to take it down and fit a piece of wood at the bottom with some little brushe thingy and rubber joints in the frame , cant get everything perfect , can you ?

now got 2 doors next to each other which does look a bit odd indeed. the door on the left leads outside and i originaly wanted it where the bedroom door is which would have made things so easier ...

superstition got in the way , having a door in straight line with the stairs going to the inside bedroom would have created an highway for ghost apparently . ;-)

forgot !! the cable you see going through my wall and behind the kitchen unit is .... well ... the main source of power going to my brother in law house whom hasnot got a tambien ban so cannot get his own meter at the moment . a bit of an argument when the bill comes up but he understood after i cut him of for a few days that if he is not happy he can buy some candles . same crap happend with his sister where he was plugged in before . i inherited the problem .

i originally was plugged into one of my outside socket but as he now hasgot a fridge , satellite tv , washing machine and 3.5k waterheater plugged into it he burned some of the wires away , tripped my fuses a few time so i plugged him in direct to my breaker box...

well it says so on the box " comes with extended family "

a few days without pictures being taken and we are now all done !!

space on the left will be used for a floor to ceiling wardrobe with top and bottom shelves , just need to find some sliding doors or build a block base and some tall plastic doors , it will hide away the piping at the back , leave the room uncluttered and create a corridor to the bedroom . size of the wardrobe is around 60cm deep / 2 meters long

fairly apparent gap at the bottom of the door !!

tiling was set the usual way for my guys which is with concrete instead of tile glue . usually works fine and i had nothing bad to say about it . but this time : the back side of those grey tiles is very fine and hasnot got a lot of depth in the design ... concrete doesnot stick to it properly and some of the tiles are loose already , a bit pissed of . builder is obviously blaming the tiles and not his method . they run out of grey grout and started to use white grout to finish the job . stopped it in time but didnot want to do the 12km run to the hardware store , just told him to mix the grout with concrete to get the grey colour , worked fine !

bathroom door !! another cockup !!

dont get me wrong i am just pointing in a sarcastic way what could have been done better , not complaining at all and i am very happy with the end result !

always is an explanation to every cockup . this time it is that my guys and other i used in the past work mostly with wooden doors , they set the door frame into the wall without the door which always seem to end up with the door not fitting in the frame , with wood it is fairly easy to fix , cut a bit away or add a small lenght of wood and varnish the whole lot , with plastic it is obviously another story . told them so as i had a problem before in the other bathroom door so this time they put the door in the frame before end and sticked it in place with painter tape . forgot about the hinges !!! . obviously the hinges couldnot be put in place . i had to put them on the outside of the door and frame , screw the hinges in the door with long screws . a bit unsightly but works fine , funny bit is thta i gave them a set of grey hinges and a set of bronze hinges . bronze of course made it s way in the white plastic door . colour blind ?? i am in a a small tlc job next time . no worries

pillar right in the way of where i plan to put the ac unit . a bit of a problem there i guess

was planning to put the bed with the head by the window on the right side . been told nocant do . cause it would be lying down the same way as dead people which is a no go

head will have to go you guessed it ... where the bloody pillar is . hahaha

with the foot of the bed going by the bathroom door , thank god it will fit and leave access to the bathroom !!

builder are now thinking i am a pervert using glass blocks like this !! love it !!

very happy with the tiling in the bathroom , i will just have to find a way to remove this ugly pvc pipe going to the hot water unit , maybe a chrome rod or something .

really like the effect of the glass block there

floor tile used are non slip type , problem is that when dry they do look a bit ugly and grey , perfect when wet , i need to look into glazing them , maybe varnish or something , havnot looked for info yet , any ideas?

cleaned up most of the concrete left by the builders with a metal brush but still a bit to go . as the wife siad if we wanted a neat job we could have gotten professional builders but the cost wouldnot have been the same .

i will build a batroom unit with kings doors , same tiling and a washing bassing and add a bathroom unit in the upper hole

a few outside views , a bit a plastering and the painting to do , we can then get the garden into shape !!

so here it is

20m2 extension

bedroom with ensuite bathroom

3 weeks

60k

let me know what you think

all the best

olivier

did the use any lintels over the windows or just build on top of them?

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[Crossy]

Looks like a good result for the money

PLEASE either use the Thaivisa file upload (it creates thumbnails on the page) or resize your images to, say 1024x768, so we can actually see them properly in all browsers.

[livil]

did the use any lintels over the windows or just build on top of them?

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

very good question indeed , never crossed my mind ,

the guys are used to build on wooden windows which i guess are narrower and probably more solid than the pvc ones . just got a bit of a fright and had to look at them again .

no lintel was built , block straight on top of the e window frames . oops

but i am not to worried about it as on the largest window there is only a small gap before the roof metal frame , i remember they used small red bricks sideways to fill the gap , so no major weight on the window frame ,

the smaller window has got a couple of rows of block on top of it so i will monitor the situation closely to see if it bends , the rendering is not cracked so it seems to be alright .

a lintel was built on top of the ( now gone ) kitchen window as the height of the wall at the highest point is over 4meters so there was some concern from the builder regarding the load on top of the wooden window,

[livil]

Looks like a good result for the money

PLEASE either use the Thaivisa file upload (it creates thumbnails on the page) or resize your images to, say 1024x768, so we can actually see them properly in all browsers.

will do Crossy

i used the imageshack uploader which is so convenient , unfortunately some of the pics didnot go throught the size reset setting i choose on the uploader ( 800*600) a couple of pics are far large . sorry for that

i will post more on this topic as we will be in thailand for a month in april and i need to finish the room . was planning to get a system of sliding doors tracks and suspension thingy while back in uk but oh boy those are expensive !! i ll have a look in thailand but will count myself really lucky if i found something cheaper .

cheers

oli

[lanng khao]

did the use any lintels over the windows or just build on top of them?

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

very good question indeed , never crossed my mind ,

the guys are used to build on wooden windows which i guess are narrower and probably more solid than the pvc ones . just got a bit of a fright and had to look at them again .

no lintel was built , block straight on top of the e window frames . oops

but i am not to worried about it as on the largest window there is only a small gap before the roof metal frame , i remember they used small red bricks sideways to fill the gap , so no major weight on the window frame ,

the smaller window has got a couple of rows of block on top of it so i will monitor the situation closely to see if it bends , the rendering is not cracked so it seems to be alright .

a lintel was built on top of the ( now gone ) kitchen window as the height of the wall at the highest point is over 4meters so there was some concern from the builder regarding the load on top of the wooden window,

as you say there's no weight off the roof because the sows are supporting everything, I am having a house built in nong hong this year and am a bricky, but my nerves av gone coz I won't be there so it's things like missing lintels av got me in a slight panic, I want to do all the blockwork but have heard they will have your ham Kai's on a plate if a ferang is caught with a trowel in his hand in Thailand 555 is that true..

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[livil]

I want to do all the blockwork but have heard they will have your ham Kai's on a plate if a ferang is caught with a trowel in his hand in Thailand 555 is that true..

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

always the same problem isn it ?

literally the definition of work in thailand as far as i understand encompass any activity which could be done by a thai national against wages hence the various post referring to not being able to mow your lawn yourself ... i always wonder if i should employ someone to wipe my a**e or hold my p***k when i am of to the loo .

general consensus seems to be that as long as you do menial jobs in your ( or wife ) house everything will be fine , maybe frowned upon .

i personally wired my house did some painting and other things and i was a bit worried working in plain sight , didnot really do it to save money , just because i love it and would either die of boredom or become a drunk if i had nothing to do !!!

i guess it all comes do to :

a/ policemen wants to make some money out of you

b/ jealous neighbor or wife's relative

c/ not so loving wife ( i think she would probably wait till you are painting the house and not doing the brickwork to rat you out )

just get some of the local guys to do the grunt work , be on site and gently shows them the way you want things to be done , get your hands dirty working with them and drink a few beers after work with them and all will go well and you will get things the way you want them ( mostly )

good luck in your build , mine is nearly done and am waiting for immigration to come deport me any days now ;-)

[lanng khao]

I want to do all the blockwork but have heard they will have your ham Kai's on a plate if a ferang is caught with a trowel in his hand in Thailand 555 is that true..

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

always the same problem isn it ?

literally the definition of work in thailand as far as i understand encompass any activity which could be done by a thai national against wages hence the various post referring to not being able to mow your lawn yourself ... i always wonder if i should employ someone to wipe my a**e or hold my p***k when i am of to the loo .

general consensus seems to be that as long as you do menial jobs in your ( or wife ) house everything will be fine , maybe frowned upon .

i personally wired my house did some painting and other things and i was a bit worried working in plain sight , didnot really do it to save money , just because i love it and would either die of boredom or become a drunk if i had nothing to do !!!

i guess it all comes do to :

a/ policemen wants to make some money out of you

b/ jealous neighbor or wife's relative

c/ not so loving wife ( i think she would probably wait till you are painting the house and not doing the brickwork to rat you out )

just get some of the local guys to do the grunt work , be on site and gently shows them the way you want things to be done , get your hands dirty working with them and drink a few beers after work with them and all will go well and you will get things the way you want them ( mostly )

good luck in your build , mine is nearly done and am waiting for immigration to come deport me any days now ;-)

haha, Chang with a channg, good idea, maybe il just dress up like the khao pickers so no one can tell , until I bend down to pick a block up and the crack of dawn pops out, thanks for your insight into gettin my trowel dirty. Cheers.

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