Do it properly once, or do it the Thai way.

[theoldgit]

Disgusting remark removed.

[williet98248]

Several years ago I decided to do as much as I can myself as it appeared that most, not all, Thais are incapable of doing quality work. Years ago when I was living in a hotel I watched five Thais painting a ceiling over a finished stone floor. Two sitting and supervising, one holding the ladder, one holding the paint can and one doing the brushing. When I commented on no drop cloth they just smiled and said , "Mai pen rai". When I moved out months later the drips were still there. When my sink drain clogged my landlady hired a 'plumber' who agreed the drain wasn't working, knocked a hole in the kitchen wall and routed a new drain pipe to the drain in the fish pond. I went to the hardware store, bought a drain snake for 250 baht, snaked the drain and reconnected the pipes, no problem. Etc, etc. I could fill a book full of stories of shoddy work. Luckily I am good with tools and over the years I have accumulated a decent wood and mechanical shop and do most jobs myself including the cars and motorcycles. But as for bamboo in the garden...why not? Stainless steel for garden trellises seems a bit of overkill. My girl is always changing the landscaping around anyway. When she wants to do something I just say, "Yes, darling" and go back to my own project. For the record I eventually found an excellent mechanic who charges me a lot but fixes my VW first time, the Kawasaki dealership does an excellent job on my old Boss and The Honda dealership repairs my old Honda very well and professionally.

[Mr Somtam]

Several years ago I decided to do as much as I can myself as it appeared that most, not all, Thais are incapable of doing quality work. Years ago when I was living in a hotel I watched five Thais painting a ceiling over a finished stone floor. Two sitting and supervising, one holding the ladder, one holding the paint can and one doing the brushing. When I commented on no drop cloth they just smiled and said , "Mai pen rai". When I moved out months later the drips were still there. When my sink drain clogged my landlady hired a 'plumber' who agreed the drain wasn't working, knocked a hole in the kitchen wall and routed a new drain pipe to the drain in the fish pond. I went to the hardware store, bought a drain snake for 250 baht, snaked the drain and reconnected the pipes, no problem. Etc, etc. I could fill a book full of stories of shoddy work. Luckily I am good with tools and over the years I have accumulated a decent wood and mechanical shop and do most jobs myself including the cars and motorcycles. But as for bamboo in the garden...why not? Stainless steel for garden trellises seems a bit of overkill. My girl is always changing the landscaping around anyway. When she wants to do something I just say, "Yes, darling" and go back to my own project. For the record I eventually found an excellent mechanic who charges me a lot but fixes my VW first time, the Kawasaki dealership does an excellent job on my old Boss and The Honda dealership repairs my old Honda very well and professionally.

There are Thais who do a quality job. My brother in law is one of them. But he always has to work on his own because working with other guys drives him crazy as they don't have any idea what they are doing and manage to mess up everything he so carefully planned and prepared! And they don't learn from their faults, they will make the same mess over and over. We are builing a house with him as the "supervisor" and some locals and family mixing concrete and that sort of stuff. When he tells us someone is not doing their job right it's "thank you very much - here is your pay for today - goodbye". There are some good workers but you can't expect them to be master builders with only basic education of course.

[williet98248]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

And before we get too carried away. This isn't intended to become a Thai tradesmen bashing thread. More a DIY bashing thread.

YOU MUST BE JOKING ...

Thai Visa is the home and master of bashing everything Thai ... culture, work habits, character, etc ... it's the perfect storm of Europeans bashing everything that doesn't fit into their neat little home-grown version of perfection.

... I used to read the Phuket Gazette letters to the editor and laugh at how ridiculous the comments could get ... until I found this place and realized how endemic it is.

The truth is that many Thai people are excellent tradesmen, but they're busy working for real companies, not coming over to fix your silly little problems at your ridiculous excuse for a proper wage!

I'm not likely to post here again, as I'm embarrassed at how racist and ridiculous people here sound.

Yes you are right on here. I generally defend Thais and Thai culture as just being different from westerners and western culture and 'get over it!'. But my own response to this topic relates my personal experience with shoddy workmanship here in Thailand. Fact, not racist. Even factory trained official car mechanics have shown total incompetence. When I find a person or company that does good work I treasure them like family heirlooms and tell anyone who wants to know about them. But, yah, a lot of knee jerk, ethnocentric, racist and denigrating comments on these forums. For shame.

[AYJAYDEE]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

And before we get too carried away. This isn't intended to become a Thai tradesmen bashing thread. More a DIY bashing thread.

YOU MUST BE JOKING ...

Thai Visa is the home and master of bashing everything Thai ... culture, work habits, character, etc ... it's the perfect storm of Europeans bashing everything that doesn't fit into their neat little home-grown version of perfection.

... I used to read the Phuket Gazette letters to the editor and laugh at how ridiculous the comments could get ... until I found this place and realized how endemic it is.

The truth is that many Thai people are excellent tradesmen, but they're busy working for real companies, not coming over to fix your silly little problems at your ridiculous excuse for a proper wage!

I'm not likely to post here again, as I'm embarrassed at how racist and ridiculous people here sound.

Yes you are right on here. I generally defend Thais and Thai culture as just being different from westerners and western culture and 'get over it!'. But my own response to this topic relates my personal experience with shoddy workmanship here in Thailand. Fact, not racist. Even factory trained official car mechanics have shown total incompetence. When I find a person or company that does good work I treasure them like family heirlooms and tell anyone who wants to know about them. But, yah, a lot of knee jerk, ethnocentric, racist and denigrating comments on these forums. For shame.

make that SOME factory trained mechanics and i'll believe you

[namdocmai]

A (thai-chinese) friend of us has a nice house in Chinatown. One day it needed a new roof so they hired a company to build it. When finished the roof was leaking at many spots, the constructioncompany adviced them to put buckets under that. No word about fixing it or whatever.

Also her new washingmachine gave electric shocks when touched. She didn't dare to come close to it anymore. Constructionguy told her to not use it when she had wet hands. That was the problem.

The construction company's deliver this bad service because they can, they always get away with it, there's nothing you can do about it. In Thai culture it is not done to comment or correct eachother, they can't stand any comments so they will never learn from eachother.

In Europe all skin-colors or races are treated the same way, if something is not done properly then sure comments and complaints will follow.

In the malls they sell the big new tv's right? I've seen exactly the same tv's for sale (in the Mall) 1 is made in Thailand and the other one is made in Japan and costs 10-20k baht more. Now why would they be selling tv's made in Japan while they are also produced in Thailand?

Why do the Thai rent farang for big jobs like building a bridge over the Chaopraya or the new BTS skytrain?

Edited November 4, 2014 by namdocmai

[kannot]

Let me know how long it takes you to build your 3 bed bamboo house every 5 years...........if your lucky.

Let me know when you are in your 70,s trying to build it too.

In the meantime Ill sit snug in my "built once" concrete house.

Let me know if your bamboo house burns down?

What you gonna use for a roof, I think David's Mother in law has some rather attractive roofing available ( if you collect late at night)

Look out for 3 little pigs and a dirty great wolf

Yes we also have the concrete house with tile roof, aircon, hot water, sat tv....

My original post was about garden edging etc

Yes \I did read it but i would use concrete pre cast columns with steel roof But place the coconut leaves on top to give it that tropical look, also tie rope around the columns. The basic structure is sound but rope and roof leaves would need changing every few years.

[Soutpeel]

Why do the Thai rent farang for big jobs like building a bridge over the Chaopraya or the new BTS skytrain?

Do they ?, I will concede they may retain a specialist "farang company" to do the EPC, but thats because its a specialist engineering construction

and if the contract is awarded to a particular company they are responsible, and can put who ever they want on it (typically) and there are usually local content provisions in the contract as well.

The reason "Thai rent farang" on these sorts of jobs as there are no local companies with the specialist knowlege and these contracts will go out on bid to a small number of companies who pre-qualify due to their track records and technical expertise in that disipline

Your remark is incredibly navie, as it shows you dont really have a grasp of how EPC actual works, certainly on infra-structure projects...

[AYJAYDEE]

Why do the Thai rent farang for big jobs like building a bridge over the Chaopraya or the new BTS skytrain?

Do they ?, I will concede they may retain a specialist "farang company" to do the EPC, but thats because its a specialist engineering construction

and if the contract is awarded to a particular company they are responsible, and can put who ever they want on it (typically) and there are usually local content provisions in the contract as well.

The reason "Thai rent farang" on these sorts of jobs as there are no local companies with the specialist knowlege and these contracts will go out on bid to a small number of companies who pre-qualify due to their track records and technical expertise in that disipline

Your remark is incredibly navie, as it shows you dont really have a grasp of how EPC actual works, certainly on infra-structure projects...

we had a cable stayed bridge built near vancouver a few years ago and the contractor brought in a good number of thai tradesmen to work on it at canadian wages simply because hre wanted their experience gained from building that last one across the chao praya!

[o2eZy]

yep had a house built in Pakkred...had to get lots of things redone ...no such thing as building codes

the construction was great because everything concrete was over done (place will go through a cyclone and have no problem)

the thing is that they do not finish off in a trades like job...painted the walls and the paint peeled off cause no undercoat

plumbing ....just about all leaked cause PVC was not prepared properly before glueing...no ubends for floor drains and no stink pipe fitted to septic so Methane gas rises to upstairs toilets ....driveway was made that high we can't get our can in without it dragging the exhause system

when I was back in australia I purchaser several Ramset fasteners to fit fuse boxes to walls and other items like security doors to walls but naaaa

did not understand new technology...same with the kitchen maker ..would not use the new Ramset fixings cause prefered to use wall plugs and screws....is so backwards

I think there theory is if it works then we ain't using anything else and don't want a change...thank god the wheel was altered from square to round otherwise it would still be the same

[namdocmai]

My Thai friend (high police officer) ordered a construction company to double-size his house. He told them he still wanted to be able to park 2 cars on the driveway.

After a few weeks he found out the cars would never fit on the driveway so they had to break down a piece of the extension. It allready had a thick concrete floor and walls/windows on top of it.

Yes i'm a racist and of course this is not true, he must be a tourist who is angry because a ladyboy ripped him right?. Get real guys, you sound like the Thai themselves who are paranoid of criticism.

[Soutpeel]

My Thai friend (high police officer) ordered a construction company to double-size his house. He told them he still wanted to be able to park 2 cars on the driveway.

After a few weeks he found out the cars would never fit on the driveway so they had to break down a piece of the extension. It allready had a thick concrete floor and walls/windows on top of it.

Yes i'm a racist and of course this is not true, he must be a tourist who is angry because a ladyboy ripped him right?. Get real guys, you sound like the Thai themselves who are paranoid of criticism.

Not at all, all it means is "your friend" had a cowboy of construction company do the job, and one suspects he wanted cheap as well ?

Common everywhere in the world, pay the peanuts, get the monkeys...

[Leung Falang]

They build with "free" stuff, and many have lots of free time, so no big deal. Really. Yes, I am serious, however; I do agree with you that if you have the funds (money) it is better to do it right once,

[tim armstrong]

Smotherb, I detect that you are a person with limited patience. Almost the first lesson about living long term in Thailand is to learn to be patient. It will be to your benefit in so many ways.

[namdocmai]

My Thai friend (high police officer) ordered a construction company to double-size his house. He told them he still wanted to be able to park 2 cars on the driveway.

After a few weeks he found out the cars would never fit on the driveway so they had to break down a piece of the extension. It allready had a thick concrete floor and walls/windows on top of it.

Yes i'm a racist and of course this is not true, he must be a tourist who is angry because a ladyboy ripped him right?. Get real guys, you sound like the Thai themselves who are paranoid of criticism.

Not at all, all it means is "your friend" had a cowboy of construction company do the job, and one suspects he wanted cheap as well ?

Common everywhere in the world, pay the peanuts, get the monkeys...

Right, a poor Thai police-officer. ....he paid 2 million for that.....i 'm getting tired of your nonsense mate. I guess you have no idea what life in the better parts of BKK is about.

[ATF]

My Thai friend (high police officer) ordered a construction company to double-size his house. He told them he still wanted to be able to park 2 cars on the driveway.

After a few weeks he found out the cars would never fit on the driveway so they had to break down a piece of the extension. It allready had a thick concrete floor and walls/windows on top of it.

Yes i'm a racist and of course this is not true, he must be a tourist who is angry because a ladyboy ripped him right?. Get real guys, you sound like the Thai themselves who are paranoid of criticism.

Not at all, all it means is "your friend" had a cowboy of construction company do the job, and one suspects he wanted cheap as well ?

Common everywhere in the world, pay the peanuts, get the monkeys...

Right, a poor Thai police-officer. ....he paid 2 million for that.....i 'm getting tired of your nonsense mate. I guess you have no idea what life in the better parts of BKK is about.

Construction and engineering involves exact specifications. He should have measured his cars first, bet he had a couple of full size Benz's.

[Grindting]

I can go on like this but i won't....you have to accept that this is a 3rd world country and they have never learned to do things properly.

Ah yes the white mans burden, bloody natives cant do anything properly...

Everything the man said in his post is 100% correct. I was wondering how long it would be though before a deluded apologist who managed to lift his head from out of the clouds would comment on it

I think if you had taken the time to read any of my other posts, think you will find I am far from being an apologist, and in fact on occassion even mock the apologists

The fact is if you read some of these posts they reek of an old colonial mentality, hence the reason for the post...

Now run along dear boy, get back to your digtial pikery...

I don't think so. It sounded like a rant from a man who has had it up to his eye balls with bad experiences. There was no colonial insults or slurs or hate in his post at all, he starts out positive every time and tries to make the best of the situation, but no matter what they seem to mess it up, due to their slothernly aproach to work. And when he's not satisfied with the work and rightly so, the bastards take revenge and don't fix the worktop down. That's not just a thai thing, that is a very South East Asian thing. The chinese or the Japanese don't behave that way, but the thais and indonesians etc certainly do. It's not being racist, it's just reality. I work in the construction industry with some of the BEST these places have to offer and it not unique to his situation, it is simply their mindset, and they do this to each other not just to westerners who are dissatisfied. The only people they would not do that to are people in power who could see them beaten up. Getting fired means nothing to them, they'll get work elsewhere the following day. Someone in authority who can get away with sending the heavies onto them will get the best results, as these tradesmen will try their upmost to not fukc up a job of a senior police officer, mafioso or politician or big business owner. THey will be on the best behavior, but when it comes even to the biggest contractors using the highest paid trade contractors, this type of childish Behavour is prevelant when they have to correct defects and are not happy about it

[Soutpeel]

My Thai friend (high police officer) ordered a construction company to double-size his house. He told them he still wanted to be able to park 2 cars on the driveway.

After a few weeks he found out the cars would never fit on the driveway so they had to break down a piece of the extension. It allready had a thick concrete floor and walls/windows on top of it.

Yes i'm a racist and of course this is not true, he must be a tourist who is angry because a ladyboy ripped him right?. Get real guys, you sound like the Thai themselves who are paranoid of criticism.

Not at all, all it means is "your friend" had a cowboy of construction company do the job, and one suspects he wanted cheap as well ?

Common everywhere in the world, pay the peanuts, get the monkeys...

Right, a poor Thai police-officer. ....he paid 2 million for that.....i 'm getting tired of your nonsense mate. I guess you have no idea what life in the better parts of BKK is about.

oh dear, if your getting fed up, by all means report my posts if they are objectionable... no where in my post did I suggest a poor Thai police man, but at the same time THB 2.0 million to double the size of house aint a lot of money either, consindering modification of an existing structure to add new is typically more expensive than building from scratch as there are demolition/clean up costs to consider

as to the other part of your post maybe you presume too much dear boy..

[bob009]

Had the house refurbished 5 years ago. Kitchen and Bathroom. Extended the Kitchen to 75 sm. with all hand built units. They made a great job of it all no complaints. Changed the layout of the bathroom to give us more space.All was fine until a few years later then we started getting a foul smell in the bathroom the mornings. On investigation I discovered that they had piped the waste water from the sink shower and the kitchen into a soak away at the back of the kitchen. No real problem as its only waste water. What the builder had failed to do was install a trap on the pipe from the shower so we started getting the smell from the soak away coming back into the house.I had to install one at the end of the pipe inside the soak away to cure the problem. Now if I have any builders working around the house I have told my wife to warn them not to cut corners as I will be checking the work on a regular basis. I was in the UK working when we had the house refurbished. Now retired so no work is done unless I am around..Don't know about anybody else but the whole Thai thing about electric sockets baffles me. Instead of having loads of them dotted around its don't need attitude use an extension lead.I have had to rewire the house as I got fed up of tripping over extension leads. Better to have to many than not enough is what I keep telling my wife.

[willyumiii]

My wife explained it perfectly. Nothing lasts forever.

I agree with your wife.

In this hot, wet, humid climate everything does either rust or rot.

I have been told more than once that Thais believe that everything is in some stage of decomposition.

In this climate, it is!

[laislica]

Bamboo is very easy to work with. And every year you can change the layout

+1

My wife wanted a small terrace in the garden.

I made the ground level and started to lay the tiles with a cement base but my wife asked me not to do too good a job

as she would probably want to change things again in the next year or so.

That made perfect sense to me.

[AYJAYDEE]

My wife explained it perfectly. Nothing lasts forever.

I agree with your wife.

In this hot, wet, humid climate everything does either rust or rot.

I have been told more than once that Thais believe that everything is in some stage of decomposition.

In this climate, it is!

in all climates

[namdocmai]

Had the house refurbished 5 years ago. Kitchen and Bathroom. Extended the Kitchen to 75 sm. with all hand built units. They made a great job of it all no complaints. Changed the layout of the bathroom to give us more space.All was fine until a few years later then we started getting a foul smell in the bathroom the mornings. On investigation I discovered that they had piped the waste water from the sink shower and the kitchen into a soak away at the back of the kitchen. No real problem as its only waste water. What the builder had failed to do was install a trap on the pipe from the shower so we started getting the smell from the soak away coming back into the house.I had to install one at the end of the pipe inside the soak away to cure the problem. Now if I have any builders working around the house I have told my wife to warn them not to cut corners as I will be checking the work on a regular basis. I was in the UK working when we had the house refurbished. Now retired so no work is done unless I am around..Don't know about anybody else but the whole Thai thing about electric sockets baffles me. Instead of having loads of them dotted around its don't need attitude use an extension lead.I have had to rewire the house as I got fed up of tripping over extension leads. Better to have to many than not enough is what I keep telling my wife.

What you can do to stop the smell of drains is putting EM (effective Micro-organisms) in the drains. It will change the stinking organisms into other ones who smell a lot better or don't smell at all. It is normally used for plants/soils and my neighbours sprays it around his whole house a few times a year. Works good and is not harmfull for anything.

I also have loads of electric outlets in the new kitchen, only thai-yazaki wires from the right diameter and extra automatic fuses (separate groups) for the heavy powered equipment like electric oven, high power deepfry pan (3000 Watt) and the dishwasher. I did that all myself. The only thing i let the electrician do was connect the new fusebox to the old one and that caught fire one day at the new very thick wire between those fuseboxes.

The reason why i let that Thai contractor do the granite is because those slabs are to heavy/long to handle for 1 person (me), they allready came in the right size, that company only had to round the edges and cut the holes for the sink and gasstove. If i really wanted i could have done it myself (alone) but this company was recommended by the (biggest of bangkok) granite-supplier and before i rented them they brought us to a very expensive villa which they were working on at that moment. Their work looked good so i let them do it for their full price. I even gave them the caulking gun with the glue i wanted them to use under the granite but they didn't use it. I learned my lesson, even for western prices they can't/won't deliver western quality. IF they just had glued the granito onto the teakwood cabinets i sure would have praised them here on the forum. This has nothing to do with racism but just reality.

The house from my friend with the 2 cars that didn't fit his driveway was just a mistake from the Thai contractor. Those cars (yup very big ones) were standing next to the house every night but i guess they just didn't measure them properly. He is still friends with the contractor though, no idea who paid for that mistake.

But we had much construction in our moobaan last years because all houses are/were new and needed extensions/carports/big kitchens. You won't believe how many days i had to listen to big jackhammers for 8 hrs a day because the contractors forgot to make drainpipes or whatever under the new concrete floors. They don't care though, just put some labour with a big jackhammer on the job and pour new concrete. All neighbours had to listen to that noise but hey who cares about them. That's why richer Thai buy a new house and only come to live there some years later when everything is finished.

[ravip]

And before we get too carried away. This isn't intended to become a Thai tradesmen bashing thread. More a DIY bashing thread.

YOU MUST BE JOKING ...

Thai Visa is the home and master of bashing everything Thai ... culture, work habits, character, etc ... it's the perfect storm of Europeans bashing everything that doesn't fit into their neat little home-grown version of perfection.

... I used to read the Phuket Gazette letters to the editor and laugh at how ridiculous the comments could get ... until I found this place and realized how endemic it is.

The truth is that many Thai people are excellent tradesmen, but they're busy working for real companies, not coming over to fix your silly little problems at your ridiculous excuse for a proper wage!

I'm not likely to post here again, as I'm embarrassed at how racist and ridiculous people here sound.

[Yarinda]

Bamboo = Thai way? I don't think so.

China and Japan also use bamboo lots in their architecture. Nice ones.

Anyway, I would say your wife has a style, good choice.