Self surveying new build Pruksa house

[jji23]

Hello everyone,

My wife is currently in the process of buying a new build detached house in a Pruksa Village in Rangsit, Pathumthani. We are a young couple I'm 27 and she's 28, we have a 2 year old son. We have paid a reservation fee but we haven't signed the contract yet, we have two good loan offers and we've been asked to sign the contract with Pruksa this weekend.

I would very much appreciate your advice on the things to look out for before signing. I have never surveyed a house and don't really know what to look out for, especially in Thailand. From internet research so far I know that I should;

• check all taps and sinks for water quality/pressure (they give us a free tank and hitachi pump)
• check the lights

Apart from that I'm not sure what else I should be looking for. I've heard about things like subsidence, wall/concrete quality and whilst we were in the sales office a woman was asking (in thai) about she heard that Pruksa houses sink over time, perhaps alluding to low quality.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

P.S Is this anything to be alarmed about? (see pic)

[bankruatsteve]

You should check the utility rates. IE: will you be paying directly to the PEA and local water supplier or will you be paying whatever the "Village" decides to charge you? Make sure you know about any other charges you will be locked into (maintenance, security, garbage pickup, etc.).

Otherwise, check general construction quality. If you find cover-ups, walls out of line, poor workmanship, the like, more serious issues will likely arise in time. Is the electric protected with RCBO/RCD, outlets in places you will need them, sufficient lighting, switches in logical locations?

What happens to waste water? Septic or cesspit? How is the roof insulated?

[jji23]

You should check the utility rates. IE: will you be paying directly to the PEA and local water supplier or will you be paying whatever the "Village" decides to charge you? Make sure you know about any other charges you will be locked into (maintenance, security, garbage pickup, etc.).

Otherwise, check general construction quality. If you find cover-ups, walls out of line, poor workmanship, the like, more serious issues will likely arise in time. Is the electric protected with RCBO/RCD, outlets in places you will need them, sufficient lighting, switches in logical locations?

What happens to waste water? Septic or cesspit? How is the roof insulated?

Thank you for your very informative advice.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[casualbiker]

On most Pruksa estates they don't let the ground settle for a year or two. So you may find in the future your garden is lower than the house. Inspect the houses that they are still building. See if they are filling the land and building straight on it. Also most Pruksa are prefabricated concrete so difficult to add on to (even things like aircon.unless the installer has diamond core drills)

Also try and find the estate on Prakard.com (I think that's the spelling) people sometimes take pictures of the build and list problems.

Sent from my XT1032 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Edited March 18, 2014 by casualbiker

[eyecatcher]

I will come back to this topic with what you need to look for but first the picture.

Alarm bells are ringing with me.

Not sure how old the property is but the deep cracking in the ground tells me they filled the land with clay.....cheap fill.....buy the worst material for building on.

Clay shrinks a lot in hot weather and swells in wet weather.

For a building a ground floor concrete slab will hump and heave in the wet season and likely crack the floor. In severe cases I have seen the roof on a building break its back.

When its dry it shrinks and foundations can settle yet again.leading to general cracking in walls.

you will not get anything to grow in this area, grass, trees....weeds love it as shown.

I just hope the weed growing isn't japanese knotweed otherwise wall away from that place.

Will come back to you with some pointers what I used to look at....then again I was a building surveyor for a long time.