A good forum for anyone building a house in Thailand.

 

http://www.coolthaihouse.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

 

Plenty of experienced people here to set you right.

5 minutes ago, grollies said:

A 40 tonne excavator has a pad contact pressure of around 7 psi, same as a small whacker plate. Take your pick.

Agreed the diffrence is excavators pass over on tracks exerting pressure to soil and compacts to a certain depth. Where as a whaker plate vibrates and exerts pressure to compact the vibration however reaches a lot deeper into the subsoil giving a better compaction.

12 minutes ago, grollies said:

A 40 tonne excavator has a pad contact pressure of around 7 psi, same as a small whacker plate. Take your pick.

 

A wacker plate is good for shifting the ground fill when tip as well.  

3 hours ago, Deepinthailand said:

Agreed the diffrence is excavators pass over on tracks exerting pressure to soil and compacts to a certain depth. Where as a whaker plate vibrates and exerts pressure to compact the vibration however reaches a lot deeper into the subsoil giving a better compaction.

That doesn't agree with the theory. The plates vibrate in order to be able to compact down to the same depth and exert the same compaction as a 'dozer, they are much lighter.

Things are different in Thailand and furthermore, Buriram has a range of materials available for fill. We are built on clay (you can roll it down to 3mm diameter in your hands- that counts as clay) as are most (all) of the houses in this village and in the area. I don't recall having seen settlement causing problems. Traditionally the clay would be left for a year to get wet, get washed down compact and dry into a solid block of brick-like clay. Nowadays, the stuff gets levelled off with a tractor, which pretty much compacts it thoroughly (this is why a lot of building is done just after the rice harvest when some money is available and the material is still damp). A few months later building starts. No whacker plates needed or necessary. I doubt that any 'whacking' would be at all possible during the rainy season, it is too sticky, and believe me I have experience. You would have to scatter a lot of sand to enable the machines to move forward (instead of down) at all. A good concrete base built on this homogeneous material may settle a little but not by much. Stuff I built four years ago hasn't moved yet.

There are other materials, the red stuff with shale isn't available around here but is also a good filler.

I have never seen gravel fill, although I don't doubt that some larger buildings do get treated to this.

I consider soil with organic content (black) to be less stable than clay for filling, and it should be more expensive.

In Farangland the solution would be to sink piles down through the clay, which even the most superficial observer will have noticed, gets done quite a lot here also.

22 minutes ago, cooked said:

That doesn't agree with the theory. The plates vibrate in order to be able to compact down to the same depth and exert the same compaction as a 'dozer, they are much lighter.

Things are different in Thailand and furthermore, Buriram has a range of materials available for fill. We are built on clay (you can roll it down to 3mm diameter in your hands- that counts as clay) as are most (all) of the houses in this village and in the area. I don't recall having seen settlement causing problems. Traditionally the clay would be left for a year to get wet, get washed down compact and dry into a solid block of brick-like clay. Nowadays, the stuff gets levelled off with a tractor, which pretty much compacts it thoroughly (this is why a lot of building is done just after the rice harvest when some money is available and the material is still damp). A few months later building starts. No whacker plates needed or necessary. I doubt that any 'whacking' would be at all possible during the rainy season, it is too sticky, and believe me I have experience. You would have to scatter a lot of sand to enable the machines to move forward (instead of down) at all. A good concrete base built on this homogeneous material may settle a little but not by much. Stuff I built four years ago hasn't moved yet.

There are other materials, the red stuff with shale isn't available around here but is also a good filler.

I have never seen gravel fill, although I don't doubt that some larger buildings do get treated to this.

I consider soil with organic content (black) to be less stable than clay for filling, and it should be more expensive.

In Farangland the solution would be to sink piles down through the clay, which even the most superficial observer will have noticed, gets done quite a lot here also.

I will stick with my tried and trusted method. It works very well for us so see no reason to change. Never had a problem with the 0lates sinking but as I described done in two stages. Plus getting an dozer around our village is like  finding rocking horse poo. Where as hiring plates is easy.

43 minutes ago, cooked said:

That doesn't agree with the theory. The plates vibrate in order to be able to compact down to the same depth and exert the same compaction as a 'dozer, they are much lighter.

Things are different in Thailand and furthermore, Buriram has a range of materials available for fill. We are built on clay (you can roll it down to 3mm diameter in your hands- that counts as clay) as are most (all) of the houses in this village and in the area. I don't recall having seen settlement causing problems. Traditionally the clay would be left for a year to get wet, get washed down compact and dry into a solid block of brick-like clay. Nowadays, the stuff gets levelled off with a tractor, which pretty much compacts it thoroughly (this is why a lot of building is done just after the rice harvest when some money is available and the material is still damp). A few months later building starts. No whacker plates needed or necessary. I doubt that any 'whacking' would be at all possible during the rainy season, it is too sticky, and believe me I have experience. You would have to scatter a lot of sand to enable the machines to move forward (instead of down) at all. A good concrete base built on this homogeneous material may settle a little but not by much. Stuff I built four years ago hasn't moved yet.

There are other materials, the red stuff with shale isn't available around here but is also a good filler.

I have never seen gravel fill, although I don't doubt that some larger buildings do get treated to this.

I consider soil with organic content (black) to be less stable than clay for filling, and it should be more expensive.

In Farangland the solution would be to sink piles down through the clay, which even the most superficial observer will have noticed, gets done quite a lot here also.

Red stuff with shale - do you mean laterite? Used it a few years back on the road in, good stuff. My wife used her pond spoil to landraise 10 years ago, hasn't heaved or settled yet.

 

Dug through some of it early last year for the pool, it was like rock.

4 hours ago, Deepinthailand said:

Agreed the diffrence is excavators pass over on tracks exerting pressure to soil and compacts to a certain depth. Where as a whaker plate vibrates and exerts pressure to compact the vibration however reaches a lot deeper into the subsoil giving a better compaction.

True but if your spreading one truck at a time then your laying down only a couple of inches deep in one go. Tracking over with the excavator should do it.

 

I used a whacker for the pool base which was hardcore. Done in 150 layers to a depth of 450.

1 hour ago, Deepinthailand said:

I will stick with my tried and trusted method. It works very well for us so see no reason to change. Never had a problem with the 0lates sinking but as I described done in two stages. Plus getting an dozer around our village is like  finding rocking horse poo. Where as hiring plates is easy.

Then we aren't talking about the same thing. You cannot vibrate wet clay with plates, they just get stuck there. Even heavy soil isn't compactable when it's wet.

57 minutes ago, grollies said:

True but if your spreading one truck at a time then your laying down only a couple of inches deep in one go. Tracking over with the excavator should do it.

 

I used a whacker for the pool base which was hardcore. Done in 150 layers to a depth of 450.

Not one truck at a time I said in post half of fill first

5 minutes ago, cooked said:

Then we aren't talking about the same thing. You cannot vibrate wet clay with plates, they just get stuck there. Even heavy soil isn't compactable when it's wet.

Pretty obvious statement if you don't mind me saying I never said I did it whilst raining I said rainy season lots of dry days and weeks.

1 minute ago, Deepinthailand said:

Not one truck at a time I said in post half of fill first

Ah, ok, gotcha.