your worst Thai builder story?

[Gonsalviz]

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Side of our house looks like that after water seepage from the rain. They came round gouged out the hairline cracks that a good paint would have sealed and filled it but did not level out so it's a mess. Ours is two years old also, not falang built though

My point is that no house is farang built. You only pay a farang contractor more to have Thais build the same thing a Thai contractor would build. Ok, I did say the structure is good but how long are you planning to live? I see some pretty old Thai built houses.

[gk10002000]

Has anybody had any issues with doing the work by themselves? I recall an article a few months ago where they gave a foreigner a lot of grief because he built and sold a small boat, kind of his hobby, but technically he made money on it. He of course didn't have a work permit. The Thais claimed he was building and selling for a profit, potential or real. So if you do a lot of work on your house, let's say you are retired, is that still completely OK? Construction laws? Local police shakedown issues because you are taking work away from Thais? that sort of thing.

Thanks,

GK

[oneday]

Anyone used 'Alan the builder'? probably not allowed to post the website but it has a lot of houses on it he built mostly in Issan, look pretty good too. I expect cost a bit more than Somchai the bodger but probably worth it.

He is way over-priced IMO, but if I had the money to toss away I would probably use him. He gave me a ball-parked figure on my home at 3.5M with no kitchen. I go my complete, beautiful, high-end home from a great Thai builder for 2M.

The one thing you get from a falang builder that is sometimes incredibly difficult to get from a Thai is falang building techniques and standards, such as roofs that allow hot air to escape at the highest part of the roof. This is something Thais just don't seem to understand at all.

[oneday]

A comment on Thai builders having the right tools. In preliminary talks with our builder I asked my wife to ask the builder if he had this or had that and his reply was "he had all the tools" and damned if he didn't. He had the vibrator for concrete work, plumb bobs, gravity levels, straight levels, a tile cutter and he even had a soil compactor which I've come to believe is hard to find in Thailand. All the digging of the footers and septic system holes was done by manual labor, but looked like it had been done with a precision cut machine.

My wife mentioned to me one time that the tile man was complaining the tile work was slow because the tiles we had bought were so hard. I told her that would be no problem if they had a "wet saw". My wife happened to mention it to our builder and damned if he didn't go right out and buy one which shocked the hell out of me and he didn't go cheap. She said it cost 50,000 baht. The sad part is after using it on the first day and taking it home and then bringing it back the next day in the bed of a truck over our very rough dirt road the wet saw got bounced out of the truck and damaged. Later I found out it was still usable, but it was definitely no longer in new condition. I felt very sorry for the builder. It was either his son or son-in-law driving the truck. Even my wife suggested it should have been removed from the stand it was on and placed on the bed of the truck or the workers in the back should have seen what was happening and held on to the legs, but TIT.

Edited February 18, 2015 by oneday

[Gonsalviz]

Anyone used 'Alan the builder'? probably not allowed to post the website but it has a lot of houses on it he built mostly in Issan, look pretty good too. I expect cost a bit more than Somchai the bodger but probably worth it.

He is way over-priced IMO, but if I had the money to toss away I would probably use him. He gave me a ball-parked figure on my home at 3.5M with no kitchen. I go my complete, beautiful, high-end home from a great Thai builder for 2M.

The one thing you get from a falang builder that is sometimes incredibly difficult to get from a Thai is falang building techniques and standards, such as roofs that allow hot air to escape at the highest part of the roof. This is something Thais just don't seem to understand at all.

Alan gave me a price of 3 million with no kitchen. I got it done by another farang for half a million less but still ended up with plenty problems. The house looked fine until the paint started falling off and all the other things that you don't know about until you start living there.

My vented roof was designed by the architect. The Thai will build whatever is on paper. It sure made a big difference. It gets ventilation from the 3 sides with prevailing winds plus the vented eaves all around. They even made a vaulted ceiling after the fact.

[Rdrokit]

Had Thais build my house but I bought most of the materials and was out everyday about noon to check up on them and bring them some food and drink (non alcoholic) which I think helped as they called me Jai Dee and really put out some quality work.....BUT one afternoon I stopped by to see how they were doing with installing the tile floors. I walked in they had laid the upstairs tile downstairs and visa versa upstairs. I told the foreman the mistake and they corrected it. Seems the tile company had made the mistake and labeled the invoice incorrect.(The tile company paid for replacement tiles that were damaged pulling them up. Wasn't many as the cement had not dried fully) The thing that really got me was that the sq. footage is more upstairs than downstairs so there is more upstairs tiles. The foreman told me that he could not understand why there wasn't enough downstairs tiles and too many upstairs tiles. Amazing Thailand.