Building Works

[Sarge]

Hi everyone,

I wonder if any of you guys is knowledgeable on the going rates for building works; I'm planning to have a farang toilet fitted in my fiancée's house in Maha Sarakham. She has been quoted anything from 12,000 to 18,000 just for labour, materials and toilet seat is extra.

I know is a long and tedious job, removing the Thai squat type toilet, install the farang toilet seat and all the plumbing involved. Do the above figures sound reasonable or are they too expensive (considering that this is Isaan and not BKK)?

Any advice is appreciated

Sarge

[chownah]

I live in the north and of course costs do vary region from region so I'll analyze your labor cost of 12,000 baht (let's be optimistic!) as if it was being done in my village.

I pay 170 baht for most carpentry, concrete, electrical, plumbing, labor, etc. type work.....but.....putting in a farang toilet takes special skills so let's double the pay to 340 baht per day.....this should be more than enough to hire someone with some experience.

So....12,000 baht for labor paid at 340 baht per day means you could hire someone for 35 days working to install the toilet. Seems like alot but let's look at what all they must do.

Assuming that there is already a squat toilet in the room and that it is on the first floor so there is dirt under the floor then they have to break up enough of the floor and dig out enough dirt so they can add drain pipe from whereever the squat toilet is to the location for the new toilet.....this could be fairly easy or it could be alot of work depending on what is between them..like a bathtub or shower. Then they have to glue in the new pipes (one drain pipe and maybe a water supply pipe)which shouldn't take long and then they have to put some dirt back and then poor new concrete for the floor. Then they have to put in new tiling...maybe the entire floor if you want all the tile to match and if they do the entire floor then they need to remove all of the old tile. Once the new floor is tiled then you install the toilet and connect the water.

So, the expensive scenerio is that the squat and the new toilets are at opposite ends of the bathroom and you want to replace all the tile. Two people 3 days to break up the floor for the pipes and to remove all the tiles and the dirt. One person one day to put some dirt back and poor concrete do rebuild the floor. One person one day to retile the floor. One person one day to install the toilet. This meant it should take 9 worker days to do the job....but to be prudent let's double everything so then it would take 18 worker days.....still seems like the price is a bit high.

Let's take a minimalist look on costs. Let's say that you are going to get rid of the squat toilet and replace it with the farang toilet and you have some extra matching tiles or you don't care if there are a few tiles around the toilet base that don't match. One person two days to remove the squat and break out the floor and dig out the dirt. One person one day to modify the drain pipe for the farang toilet and replace the dirt and poor a new little section of floor. One person one day to lay about six tiles and install the toilet. So this takes 4 worker days and let's double this to 8 worker days.....This makes it seem like the labor cost of 12,000 baht is too high.

The variable which I have not covered very well is the water supply for the new toilet. If you have to break open a wall in a shower or behind a sink and then break open some more floor etc. then you could be adding four or five worker days to the job...or even more depending on just exactly what must be done......or on the other hand you might just run the pipe on the exterior surface of the wall and you might be able to get the supply pipe installed with one person in half a day.

Lot's of variables here and I hope I have given you some ideas about how to evaluate whether the labor price is appropriate.

Chownah

[Sarge]

I live in the north and of course costs do vary region from region so I'll analyze your labor cost of 12,000 baht (let's be optimistic!) as if it was being done in my village.

I pay 170 baht for most carpentry, concrete, electrical, plumbing, labor, etc. type work.....but.....putting in a farang toilet takes special skills so let's double the pay to 340 baht per day.....this should be more than enough to hire someone with some experience.

So....12,000 baht for labor paid at 340 baht per day means you could hire someone for 35 days working to install the toilet. Seems like alot but let's look at what all they must do.

Assuming that there is already a squat toilet in the room and that it is on the first floor so there is dirt under the floor then they have to break up enough of the floor and dig out enough dirt so they can add drain pipe from whereever the squat toilet is to the location for the new toilet.....this could be fairly easy or it could be alot of work depending on what is between them..like a bathtub or shower. Then they have to glue in the new pipes (one drain pipe and maybe a water supply pipe)which shouldn't take long and then they have to put some dirt back and then poor new concrete for the floor. Then they have to put in new tiling...maybe the entire floor if you want all the tile to match and if they do the entire floor then they need to remove all of the old tile. Once the new floor is tiled then you install the toilet and connect the water.

So, the expensive scenerio is that the squat and the new toilets are at opposite ends of the bathroom and you want to replace all the tile. Two people 3 days to break up the floor for the pipes and to remove all the tiles and the dirt. One person one day to put some dirt back and poor concrete do rebuild the floor. One person one day to retile the floor. One person one day to install the toilet. This meant it should take 9 worker days to do the job....but to be prudent let's double everything so then it would take 18 worker days.....still seems like the price is a bit high.

Let's take a minimalist look on costs. Let's say that you are going to get rid of the squat toilet and replace it with the farang toilet and you have some extra matching tiles or you don't care if there are a few tiles around the toilet base that don't match. One person two days to remove the squat and break out the floor and dig out the dirt. One person one day to modify the drain pipe for the farang toilet and replace the dirt and poor a new little section of floor. One person one day to lay about six tiles and install the toilet. So this takes 4 worker days and let's double this to 8 worker days.....This makes it seem like the labor cost of 12,000 baht is too high.

The variable which I have not covered very well is the water supply for the new toilet. If you have to break open a wall in a shower or behind a sink and then break open some more floor etc. then you could be adding four or five worker days to the job...or even more depending on just exactly what must be done......or on the other hand you might just run the pipe on the exterior surface of the wall and you might be able to get the supply pipe installed with one person in half a day.

Lot's of variables here and I hope I have given you some ideas about how to evaluate whether the labor price is appropriate.

Chownah

chownah,

great post, some of the things you mentioned I even didn't think about it. The bathroom is on the ground floor next to the kitchen (Isaan style) the room comprises a squat toilet, huge water open tank next to it (to scoop out water to flush down body fluids) and a sink). I guess they're going to remove the Thai toilet and replace it with a farang one. After I complained that the initial quotes were too high, we have found a family's friend who'll do it for 8k plus materials. I gave my fiancée 16k for the whole job; labour + materials.

Sarge

[farangnoi]

For 16k I would even do for you, including tilework. 2 maybe 3k is more then enough ( that was what i payed for a 15ft deep well in my backyard, 3 people, 1 day's work)

can't remenber what i payed for my toilet anymore

[olaus]

Last week in Bangkok I paid just under 5000 Baht for work and material.

In Mahasarakham Province it might be a little cheaper. (Work less, material a little more expensive)

[jing jing]

Extremely simple job, I did it in the house I'm currently renting. You don't need any plumbing as they make sit-down toilets that you flush by scooping water in, just like a squatter. Just break the old one out and slap in the new one - they don't use a flange with bolts, just concrete to secure it - good quality (Karat brand) fixtures are available for less than 1000 baht. An honest laborer would be thrilled with 400 baht for the job, as labor rates are about 150 baht for a full day's work and this job shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.

[Sarge]

Thanks guys for your input, much appreciated

Sarge

[Gary A]

This is NOT a good sign. First of all, you go buy the material yourself. You should be paying for only the labor. Considering that I am generous, I allow about three hundred baht for a days labor if the guy is very good. My wife always tells me I overpay but if I am satisfied with the guy's skills I don't mind. I paid about 1,000 baht to replace the squatter with a farang style toilet. That 1,000 baht included breaking up the concrete floor and moving the outlet about eight inches. nearer the wall.

[chownah]

If you pull out a squat toilet and then install a flush toilet right at the same pipe location then the flush toilet will not have its tank next to the wall....it will be maybe a foot away. If you want it installed properly so that the tank is against the wall as per standard installation then you will have to break concrete and realign the waste pipe.

Chownah

Edit: I see that while I was typing this Gary A posted about exactly what I'm talking about....also I see that it took his laborere about 3.5 days to do the easy job which I estimated to take 4 days.....allllllriiiiiight!!!!!Chownah

[Gary A]

This kind of reminds me of a farang who wanted to buy some land near me. The land was priced at 300,000 baht per rai for five rai. Not a bad price but maybe a little high. Negotiations would have been in order. My wife told me the farang bought the five rai for 350,000 per rai. I asked her why the price was even more than the asking price. She told me that the extra fifty thousand baht per rai was for the sister's commission. The sister had NOTHING to do with the transaction other than to get as much as possible out of the farang.

Don't be stupid or spend more than you can comfortably walk away from. Twelve thousand baht for a new shitter is, or should be a very good warning. I really try to hold my tongue, but I really get tired of seeing gullible farangs get taken to the cleaners. Life in the boonies is great IF you have the right woman.

[chownah]

Sarge,

As you can see it seems that you are paying too much...but this need not be a cause for stress and anger....just consider it a learning experience. You might consider monitoring how many days it takes to do the work or having your fiancee do this if its inconvenient for you and then at some time in the near future make a light hearted comment about what the daily wage was for doing the job...and perhaps laugh a bit about how high it was.....just to let them know that you know that you paid too much and that you are not angry about it. This will help you save face after paying too much and also be a warning that you know it was too much and you might not be so generous in the future. In the future a good ploy might be to ask how many days work it will be for x amount of money and try to strike a deal based on so much per day with an expected number of working days to completion...or some variation on this theme.

Just some thoughts.

Chownah

[Sarge]

Guys, thanks for your replies; you said what I thought all along.

My fiancée is heavily pregnant (8 months) and as I coming next month for the birth of our baby daughter we thought that I could stay at her family's house rather than staying in at nearby hotel, as I normally do. To make my stay more bearable we decided to have a farang toilet fitted (also to her benefit as squatting when you are 8 months preggy ain’t the easiest tasks), the idea is to, over a period of time (months, years and step by step), upgrade the house to a farang style, so we can enjoy living there in future.

Middle next year she will come and live with me in farang-land and we'll return to Thailand twice a year for holiday; during which time we would visit her family and stay there a week or so at times (we'll also travel to other parts of Thailand).

I'm sending her monthly allowance to live on until such time (7 months from now) she has the permanent visa sorted out to allow her to live with me abroad, and the baby old enough to travel. I told her that the 16 grand are all inclusive (allowance + toilet job), so effectively the building work cost me in the region you guys have said it would cost. I'm quite blunt with her about these things (she's naive girl but this being Isaan she gets pressurised by her family, friends etc.) and she knows what I think. Obviously being abroad makes harder for me to control things but as you said this is a learning experience. I’ve demanded to have 2nd and 3rd quote for the job and I'm determined to drive the cost down to a more realistic market price.

Cheers

Sarge

[kalasin]

My wife paid 1.500 for pro-labor to change toilet.

The toilet was approximatly 2 days work including some flag work. concrete work with the outlet and plumbing.

He also took care of driving us to the shops to by materials, but she paid theme seperatly.

[john b good]

Another option is that you get a toilet bowl (wot you sit on) with a "P" trap. (rather than a "S" trap which goes down into the floor) This just goes out the back through a hole made in the wall (providing it's an external wall)

This way you just remove the squat, fill in the hole with concrete or plaster, fit the bowl to the floor.

Bring the bowl forward enough to allow the toilet cistern to be fixed to the wall behind the bowl.

There has got to be water available if they fill this tank thing so just run a plastic pipe to the cistern.

Then it's just a matter of exposing the sewer pipe on the outside and connecting the pipe from the toilet.

Shouldn't take more than a day max. Cost should be no more that 500 baht

[typhoon]

Last week in Bangkok I paid just under 5000 Baht for work and material.

In Mahasarakham Province it might be a little cheaper. (Work less, material a little more expensive)

Sounds about right, i paid 4000k up here in Sakhon all inclusive

[Boo]

In KK we had the kitchen, lounge & toilet tiled, a non flushing farang toilet installed & a kitchen sink unit built outside from concrete & tiles alld one by 3 workman plus their boss for 6 days & they were paid 9k baht. Hubby went & bought the toilet & tiles & the MIL negotiated the price. Which is probably why it was so cheap So from that experience, 18k does seem quite high

[Sarge]

Thanks folks for all your helpful replies. I've stopped the job for now, I will find a builder/plumber when I'm Maha Sarakham in mid January. I'm budgeting 400 baht per worker, per day just for labour, materials and plumbing supplies are extra; I want the job done in 4 or 5 day max.

Does anyone here live in Maha Sarakham or nearby villages who knows a reliable builder/plumber or shops in the city that sell bathroom supplies and accessories? They are always a good source for finding builders/plumbers in the area. You can pm me if you so prefer.

Thanks again

Sarge

[kalasin]

Here are some pics of the work!

My parents from Denmark came to visit a few days later. My mother had had nightmares about the toilet, but when she saw the new one, she immediately ran to it.

[khunandy]

This kind of reminds me of a farang who wanted to buy some land near me. The land was priced at 300,000 baht per rai for five rai. Not a bad price but maybe a little high. Negotiations would have been in order. My wife told me the farang bought the five rai for 350,000 per rai. I asked her why the price was even more than the asking price. She told me that the extra fifty thousand baht per rai was for the sister's commission. The sister had NOTHING to do with the transaction other than to get as much as possible out of the farang.

Don't be stupid or spend more than you can comfortably walk away from. Twelve thousand baht for a new shitter is, or should be a very good warning. I really try to hold my tongue, but I really get tired of seeing gullible farangs get taken to the cleaners. Life in the boonies is great IF you have the right woman.

I currently have a house under construction and the builder was telling my wife that two different parties have approached him so far claiming commission rights for the house.

We were not refered to the builder by any of the people who are after a commission, one of the "claimees" has been bad mouthing the builder now when he rejected her 200,000 baht demand.

This women ownes a successful business in town and was in line to supply quite an amount of steel...not any more.

Regarding the toilet business, we paid 400 baht for a western toilet (no cistern) and 250 baht for the loacal handyman to fit it.