your worst Thai builder story?

[jacky54]

well a neighbor just paid all 500k up front for work on a completed house, roofing and tiling and the guy never came back. This was a Thai, I thought they were a bit more savy than that. Have builders in now who will not take the last payment until the job is done, which looks like it might be a long time. Almost finished yesterday just a couple of more days to go putting in a shera wood roof and painting. Woke up today to the sound of sledge hammers knocking down a wall, rendered and tiled that they built over a week ago- builder finally decided he's not happy with it, never mind about what we think or the mess and extra expense. Why they can't use a spirit level properly I don't know, they just seem to use them for anything other than getting things straight.

Things I learned form them - I never knew you could use chicken wire for re bar in concrete, that a iron post out of true an inch does not matter cos the building is out as well and that out tree can't be cut down as it has a spirit in it and somebody got sick when they cut a branch off.

Edited February 13, 2015 by jacky54

[daveAustin]

Builder brought his rifle around to shoot birds on the job from the balcony they were building. Never again!

[technologybytes]

Honestly, would anyone be so utterly stupid to pay 500k in advance ??

Anyone that stupid may as well lose all his money right now.. because for sure he's going to lose it all soon.

NEVER put a builder in a position where he is better off to not come back !

Edited February 13, 2015 by technologybytes

[KittenKong]

Never pay anything in advance in Thailand. Not to anyone.

[NickJ]

One born every 1/1000th of a second.

[oneday]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about. If we get our house in 3 weeks then it will be just almost 4 months from start to finish.

[FT10toLOS]

Would it be possible to supply a contact for your builder One Day? I'm currently making preparations to start our house in Surin.

[ToddinChonburi]

Oneday you could share with us your builders name.

[claynlr]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about. If we get our house in 3 weeks then it will be just almost 4 months from start to finish.

IMG-20150205-WA0014.jpg

O.D.- Your house turned out beautiful. The roof looks just like it was pictured back in the beginning! I know you are proud and "oneday" has finally arrived!

[seadog57]

on recommendation from the Family we had a guy put in wooden windows (thai style house in village) this guy made Leggo look good what a utter Arse, had to redo 26 windows but then again my fault as listened to the wife. some people we have hired are great some utter dross, but then again same as the uk you get good builders and cowboy outfits. lesson well sunk in

[UKJASE]

we just built a house, and have a few stories. the funniest i think was the cock up with the kitchen....

we bought a nice 100k kitchen from Boonthavorn, and the builders installed it for us. As it was near completion, the guys were fitting the trim around the top of all the units. This came as one long piece, and needed to be cut and mitred together around the corners. I thought this may leave a visible join, so i bought some near matching paint to touch up the cracks on the trim, plus a tiny artists brush

i left the paint and brush with the builders and went away. Upon return a few hours later, one of the the builders was stood up on the counter, with a huge brush in his hand, painting the entire set of doors!! Remember this is a finshed kitchen already, and certainly did not require painting!

Luckily most of it could be wiped off with thinner. Glad we caught him in time! He later had a big fight with the contractor, and was sacked, but i dont think it was related to the kitchen. he wasnt a bad lad really, just he was burmese and my thai is no good, so communication was tricky sometimes

[jacky54]

We just bought a few units from Boontathorn, I thought they were very expensive for what they are. When the new kitchen is done the mrs will still be cooking on a camping stove, seems odd to me but she never uses the 'proper' gas cooker in the existing kitchen. Builder tells us to get same electrical wire for lights and mains, I could have sworn this is not correct but 'him know what him do'!

[Thomas Hannah]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about. If we get our house in 3 weeks then it will be just almost 4 months from start to finish.

IMG-20150205-WA0014.jpg

You did not say ,How much it has cost.And the we.meaning you and your wife or girlfreind.Who owns the land ?,and who owns the house.? If you do not have the legal side done.were you own the house,and you lease the land from from the owner for ex ammount.Then the land owner owns it all. Not you.Does not matter that you have paid for it.

[Anthony5]

I also have a few stories, but I suggest everyone gets a BIG bag of popcorn and a LARGE coke, and inform me when they are ready and have a few hours free time to listen to some of my stories.

[williet98248]

My land lady decided to replace the drywall ceiling in my apartment. The ceiling was 4 meters by 10 meters. I had a construction company in the US. I told her fine as long as they covered all the furniture and stereo equipment before starting. Yes, sure. On the day I reminded her to cover everything. Yes, OK. I left and returned a few hours later. Nothing covered , dust over everything. Made them stop and covered everything myself. I watched for a while and went to the landlady to tell her that they had no idea what they were doing. She pooh poohed me and told them to continue. When they were finished I told her that the entire ceiling would fall down in six months max. Six months later I moved out to a smaller house next door. Three days later a huge crash from my former home. The entire ceiling came down on the bed I used to sleep in.

In the same apartment I had the sink drain get clogged up. I asked the landlady to get someone in to unclog the drain. She and the plumber looked at the drain, agreed that it was clogged and proceeded to knock a hole in the wall under the sink and re route the drain into the fish pond drain. Duh? Two days later i went to a hardware store, bought a drain snake for 250 baht, routed out the drain and reconnected the sink. Worked fine.

[jacky54]

Lets try and keep who owns what again out of it, personally I could not give a toss that everything is in the mrs name, if people are that bothered they should stay single or buy a tiny condo.

[jacky54]

. When they were finished I told her that the entire ceiling would fall down in six months max. Six months later I moved out to a smaller house next door. Three days later a huge crash from my former home. The entire ceiling came down on the bed I used to sleep in.

Similar thing happened to the SIL new crappy built house in a Surin village. 300 sq meters one story, big ceiling. It rained, half of it fell in from the weight of water and soaking the board. Builder would not do anything and claimed a cat must have got into the roof space and done it!

[hdkane]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about. If we get our house in 3 weeks then it will be just almost 4 months from start to finish.

IMG-20150205-WA0014.jpg

Where are you located? I need a contractor in Chon Buri...thank you

[MAZ3]

I was told that a builder saved the owner some by not glueing the blue water pipes(lazy bastard),but he was proud of saving a few Baht(including inside the walls. I wasn't sure if this could be true. But on retelling this story to an American friend,he went red. Same thing had happened to his place,he had to knock down the wall and rebuild. Crazy

[jacky54]

Ha ha we have that one, pipe in bathroom set in concrete leaking somewhere as wetting the ceiling downstairs. They have done everything from painting the wall outside twice with some sort of water resistant stuff to drilling up a part of the bathroom floor also twice and just replacing the down pipe, very short. The only solution is to dig the lot up and re do, maybe they will get around to it sometime this decade, two years so far of buggering about.

[aboctok]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about. If we get our house in 3 weeks then it will be just almost 4 months from start to finish.

IMG-20150205-WA0014.jpg

You did not say ,How much it has cost.And the we.meaning you and your wife or girlfreind.Who owns the land ?,and who owns the house.? If you do not have the legal side done.were you own the house,and you lease the land from from the owner for ex ammount.Then the land owner owns it all. Not you.Does not matter that you have paid for it.

But it does matter to people who are not in personal situations of great vulnerability. Not everyone is facing great risk; some are quite solid. Perhaps not very many, but some. Why would those people care about name-related legalities, when they don't need to?

[Sviss Geez]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about. If we get our house in 3 weeks then it will be just almost 4 months from start to finish.

IMG-20150205-WA0014.jpg

You did not say ,How much it has cost.And the we.meaning you and your wife or girlfreind.Who owns the land ?,and who owns the house.? If you do not have the legal side done.were you own the house,and you lease the land from from the owner for ex ammount.Then the land owner owns it all. Not you.Does not matter that you have paid for it.

Oneday, you're so lucky a legal expert came along to give you some advice you didn't ask for. What a bloody clown.

[KittenKong]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about.

That's possible. It's also possible that you just haven't yet realised what is going on behind your back.

The only thing that I can say is that in Thailand it is sometimes very hard to differentiate between crass incompetence and out and out dishonesty,

Good luck to you, either way.

[jacko45k]

Honestly, would anyone be so utterly stupid to pay 500k in advance ??

Anyone that stupid may as well lose all his money right now.. because for sure he's going to lose it all soon.

NEVER put a builder in a position where he is better off to not come back !

So you a re recommending zero deposits?

No advance payments to buy materials?

[aussiandrew]

Good tales to hear, thanks guys. We have built and renovated in both Petchabun and Chonburi with different builders and pleasantly surprised with stand of workmanship.The key is have contract and make installment payments.

[ExPratt]

I did the right thing for my blood pressure and had nothing to do with my house being built . The missus got it done while I was working in China. I banned certain colours from being used , Purple , Orange ,Lime Green , powder blue and she did a really good job , nice 3 bedroom affair, neutral colours ect. When I came back to Thailand on leave and the house was still being built so we stayed in Bangkok and I didnt see the house until it was finished., Part of my job is checking construction quality , so I didn't want to come home on holiday and have an aneurysm checking their working practices.

I did want wooden floors but I got a call from the missus saying the "Engineer" said we could get electric shocks through a wooden floor ? after what seemed like a 4 hour discussion on an International phone call to my wife , I still had no idea what the :Engineer" was talking about. Anyway we have a Tiled floor now

Edited February 14, 2015 by ExPratt

[USNret]

The we.meaning you and your wife or girlfreind.Who owns the land ?,and who owns the house.? If you do not have the legal side done.were you own the house,and you lease the land from from the owner for ex ammount.Then the land owner owns it all. Not you.Does not matter that you have paid for it.

wow, talk about completely missing the point of the thread. This discussion is nothing about ownership, only quality of workmanship.

[oneday]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about. If we get our house in 3 weeks then it will be just almost 4 months from start to finish.

IMG-20150205-WA0014.jpg

You did not say ,How much it has cost.And the we.meaning you and your wife or girlfreind.Who owns the land ?,and who owns the house.? If you do not have the legal side done.were you own the house,and you lease the land from from the owner for ex ammount.Then the land owner owns it all. Not you.Does not matter that you have paid for it.

You guys are so funny. Your're right...I didn't say anything else other than what I did say. That is not the intent of this thread.

...and just so you know. I do know what I'm doing having lived here for almost 6 years and hearing every single story. The rest of my story is nobody else's business, unless I were asked politely in a PM.

[technologybytes]

Honestly, would anyone be so utterly stupid to pay 500k in advance ??

Anyone that stupid may as well lose all his money right now.. because for sure he's going to lose it all soon.

NEVER put a builder in a position where he is better off to not come back !

So you a re recommending zero deposits?

No advance payments to buy materials?

I have had lots of building jobs done over the years, from small jobs up to complete house renovations.

I have only once had a builder who worked the whole job with no deposit, so it's hard to find that. However I usually make stage payments when certain stages are completed.

What's important is that you never pay so much that it's beneficial for the builder to not come back. Make sure that a decent amount is not paid until the job is totally complete.

[oneday]

Sorry, cannot contribute to this thread. We are about 3-4 weeks away from our house being finished and our builder is the best I have every heard of or read about. I have read a lot of stories in CoolThaiHouse (a website devoted to falang building in Thailand). Our builder not only knows how to build a good house he is extremely organized and spot on with his scheduling and the people he hires are as good as I've ever read about.

That's possible. It's also possible that you just haven't yet realised what is going on behind your back.

The only thing that I can say is that in Thailand it is sometimes very hard to differentiate between crass incompetence and out and out dishonesty,

Good luck to you, either way.

That would be implying I know nothing about good construction or bad construction and you would be quite wrong. You have no idea what my level of expertise.