Great video Kenny I built in Philippines using local builders out in the provence. I was on the job every day supervising with my wife. Overall I am very pleased with the outcome a few little things still need correcting. Took 6 months to build. Just a small 3 bed, 1 bath bungalow. I drew up the footings and pillar plan. Gave it to my site foreman and he said great plan if you live in a country without cyclones. He made the footings deeper, more steel and connected all the footings together. Footings are 36inch deep with huge base. Because of the rain we get o bought hillside block. We are very content😊😊
How true! Having gone through a build, and having spoken to several people building here, that would be my #1 advice for anyone thinking about building here, "Be onsite every day of the build."
@@ParadiseNThailand Oh yeah Ann my wife was constantly there as they kept doing things wrong or their way, and in the end still stuffed up some small things, but overall being on their backed helped us generally get what we wanted. But never leave them to their own devices.
@@thetravellingsocialworker Yes, no matter what you do, there will always be a few issues. Fortunately, my builder worked with us on every issue that came up.
@@ParadiseNThailand Our one was from the Hill Tribes in Chiang Mai so sometimes there was language misunderstandings between my Thai wife and her as dialect slightly different as my wife is from Isan.
Discovered Alan's website a couple years back. Lot's of information there. Interesting take on the types of roofs. I always wondered why the steep slopes on roofs. Always related steep slopes for snow. Didn't think about the driving rains. Makes sense now. I guess if going with a slight pitch one could go with metal roofing with full length sheets. Just take in consideration the prevailing winds for the overlap. I saw a solar guy's TH-cam where he recommended a 18 degree south facing slope for solar. Always great information and insight from your videos. And a shoutout to Craig as well for the ideas I get from his videos.
Hello. Hope all is well. We just installed a transformer for our house as we had too little pressure in the first phase. I thought it would cost around 240,000 baht, ended up around 400,000 baht. The electricity authority (PEA) took about 110,000 baht, the transformer guy took around 200,000 baht and then we had to run new cable into the house which cost 900 baht per meter plus labor so it was another 80,000 baht. Suspect that the guy you visited might also end up there somewhere. Best regards Mathias
Hi Mathias Thanks for your input. I will share actual costs for the power supply once we have the PEA final quote. Cost for the above and underground cabling from the pole transformer to the house including posts and excavation are thankfully well short of your costs on a metre rate. Will keep my fingers and everything else crossed. Regards Peter
@@PeterMcLeod-j9u Hi Peter. Forgot to say that we have set up 100 kwa so if you set up 50 kwa the price will be a little lower. The problem that we had was that if we did it through PEA, they own all the equipment. We then chose to hire a private company to set it up on our land, got different quotes and we chose one who said he knew the manager of PEA (Mistake) His quote only included 40,000 baht for PEA but it ended up being 110,000 baht for the ones that include a 40,000 baht insurance which I don't really understand. The person we hired hadn't offered the price to bring the electricity into our house and that's why we had to bring in our electrician who then came with 80,000 baht, 65,000 baht material and 15,000 baht labor cost, a bit expensive but he is really good and stands up so I said we pay it so we continue to have a good relationship. We got a quote from a German that shows a bit of what we would pay through him, over 500,000 baht. I'll send these via email to Kenny so you can see what our prices were. This is certainly in Chiang Mai but the material costs shouldn't be a huge difference. Hope you can get away with a lower price than this. Best regards Mathias Grahn
@@mathiasgrahn4440 Thanks Mathias. We have received the quote from PEA. Up a bit from their previous Guesstimate, but not too bad. Baht 250,000 including Insurance and annual inspection/maintenance. Ours is based on 30 kVA. We have taken care separately of the internal poles, underground and cabling. We expect this to be another B60 - 80k, utilising our own Sparky. Regards Peter
A huge Shoutout to Alan, Kuhn Surin and the Team. The progress, quality and diligence to detail over the last 3 weeks has been nothing short of remarkable. We came very close to shutting the whole project down and regrouping over the next 6 months. Not too many builders want to take on someone else’s work, particularly one requiring so much initial de-build. Alan certainly saved our bacon and we are very grateful.
@@PeterMcLeod-j9u I’m glad it’s getting sorted out for you Peter. Hopefully his time next year the bad parts of the build will have become a faded memory. Kudos to Alan the Builder and the peeps who’ve helped you out.
Great video you guys…The transparent content to let other builders know what issues they can run into especially if you cannot be present every minute. Good to meet Pete and Alan…😊 555….Moby Dick….goes around humping air ..!!! 555
Moby’s testosterone overload problem will be sorted out in 3 months time with a touch of surgical intervention (snip, snip). He was supposed to be a “100%” Labrador pup. B 4000 with no papers of course. He looks like his mother had a hell of a fright from a greyhound.
Moby's testosterone overload will be sorted out in 3 months time with some minor surgical intervention (snip, snip). We bought him via Facebook as a "100% Labrador" pup. No papers, but only B 4000????? He looks like his mother had a hell of a fright from a Greyhound. Long snout and long legs.
Alan the builder, heard the name several times on Facebook construction groups in Thailand. Odds are you are in good hands now. All the comments on Facebook were positive.
G'day Peter, nice sized house. Hope it all comes together for you now that Alan is on the job. An English speaking builder would make life so much easier. These issues are the reason i didn't start my build until i retired and could be onsite everyday. Although the builder we've selected gives me the confidence that he will do a great job (else Alan may have another customer 😂). All the best Paul (we just need to find Mary😅)
Thanks Paul Good luck with your build. Our previous “builder” was English speaking. The contract and all communications from me during the partial build were conducted in English. It may have been just as useful if conducted in Zamboangan as there was very little interest shown other than it being used as an interest free loan. Alan and his team are demonstrating the professionalism I was originally expecting and paid for. Regards Peter
Hi Kenny Shame Peter had bother with his first builder , I must say we are on site every day checking and our contractor Nim come around on regular visit to , like you Kenny if you didn't like what was being done say something ,luckily my wife is a bit westernised not shy in saying for me if we not happy. We also told Nim that we are going home March if not finished build stops, he said he will be finished . Looks like Peter go the right builder now and soon be finished cheers Gary and Mon 50/50
Hi Gary and Mon. During the course of our build, right up to the very end, we made it very clear that we weren't impressed at all with the way our "builder' were conducting themselves, the poor quality of the work, pitiful progress and serious defects that were being ignored. We made additional trips to Thailand to sort these out. Met with continued failed commitments. My decision to retire early and come here for an extended period to manage the project ourselves, proved to be the right move. Otherwise we'd being continuing with the same garbage. Managing to get Alan and his team onboard has saved the project, our dream and our sanity. Good luck with your project. Regards Peter and Aew
and all of these complaints and other matters are all recorded (facebook messenger transcripts and email), and proving to be very useful. My wife has lived in Australia for 23 years (we've been married for 30) and is far from backward in coming forward when Thai to Thai "input" was required. Often requiring some level of restraint.
I would certainly think he will be done by March. You have to be closing in on roof steel by now. Will see in this week's video. And yes, Alan seems on track.
@@ParadiseNThailand Since your visit Kenny, about a week ago, all tiling is completed to the main internal areas, except the bathrooms. All 3 verandas are roof sheeted and ceiling works have commenced to finish these areas off. Decorative fascia works have picked up again. Kitchen counters and cupboard door installation is progressing. Our backyard is resembling a small village with additional labour for specialist trades. I'm struggling to keep up with it all now, which is polar opposite to the previous experience.
You have a point there, Radley. I know Brian from staying in the Chiang Rai area. I met him at Gordon Tickles' place. He's one great guy. The best builder in Thailand. I would get in touch with him and tell him Llew sent you.
@ I hope they don’t in the west we dot and dab plasterboard to the interior walls and skim we plaster to get a better finish I’ve never seen it done in Asia
I built a house in Lampang lived on the property in mums house didn't make much difference to getting things done my way Would I do it again No...they couldn't even waterproof the bathroom put it in the too hard basket.there answer was to have step down bathroom floor
Seems there is a generic means of most aspects of building here. But most crews have their own way of doing every step. Makes for very inconsistent results and difficultly identifying problems. I am not as versed in the construction here, as I am in the US. I just try to apply what I know along with common sense and go with it. I think most of the work here is done with no knowledge other than what was handed down, rather than seeking out the most proper and affective methods. Just keep doing what the guy that started the company 2, or 20, years ago showed them how to do. IMHO
Great video Kenny
I built in Philippines using local builders out in the provence. I was on the job every day supervising with my wife. Overall I am very pleased with the outcome a few little things still need correcting. Took 6 months to build. Just a small 3 bed, 1 bath bungalow. I drew up the footings and pillar plan. Gave it to my site foreman and he said great plan if you live in a country without cyclones. He made the footings deeper, more steel and connected all the footings together. Footings are 36inch deep with huge base.
Because of the rain we get o bought hillside block. We are very content😊😊
We don't need to worry much about the typhoons. We will get residual some wind and rain, but far from the coast. Thanks for watching.
Having built in Chiang Mai we realized you have got to be constantly being on site to keep them on track. Thanks for the video very interesting
How true!
Having gone through a build, and having spoken to several people building here, that would be my #1 advice for anyone thinking about building here, "Be onsite every day of the build."
@@ParadiseNThailand Oh yeah Ann my wife was constantly there as they kept doing things wrong or their way, and in the end still stuffed up some small things, but overall being on their backed helped us generally get what we wanted. But never leave them to their own devices.
@@thetravellingsocialworker Yes, no matter what you do, there will always be a few issues. Fortunately, my builder worked with us on every issue that came up.
@@ParadiseNThailand Our one was from the Hill Tribes in Chiang Mai so sometimes there was language misunderstandings between my Thai wife and her as dialect slightly different as my wife is from Isan.
Thanks for the video Kenny
Thank you for watching
That must be so frustrating to have to endure problems with the builders. Hopefully all will be fine with the new contractor. Thanks for the video.
We will do a follow-up after it is completed. Looking forward to seeing that.
Discovered Alan's website a couple years back. Lot's of information there. Interesting take on the types of roofs. I always wondered why the steep slopes on roofs. Always related steep slopes for snow. Didn't think about the driving rains. Makes sense now. I guess if going with a slight pitch one could go with metal roofing with full length sheets. Just take in consideration the prevailing winds for the overlap. I saw a solar guy's TH-cam where he recommended a 18 degree south facing slope for solar. Always great information and insight from your videos. And a shoutout to Craig as well for the ideas I get from his videos.
Thanks Ralph. I may have seen one of Alan's videos before. Not sure where I had heard his "name" before, so maybe that is it.
Hello.
Hope all is well.
We just installed a transformer for our house as we had too little pressure in the first phase. I thought it would cost around 240,000 baht, ended up around 400,000 baht. The electricity authority (PEA) took about 110,000 baht, the transformer guy took around 200,000 baht and then we had to run new cable into the house which cost 900 baht per meter plus labor so it was another 80,000 baht. Suspect that the guy you visited might also end up there somewhere.
Best regards
Mathias
Hi Mathias
Thanks for your input.
I will share actual costs for the power supply once we have the PEA final quote. Cost for the above and underground cabling from the pole transformer to the house including posts and excavation are thankfully well short of your costs on a metre rate.
Will keep my fingers and everything else crossed.
Regards
Peter
Thanks for giving Peter a heads up. Although he may not like the news, at least he can prepare for it, just in case.
@@PeterMcLeod-j9u Hi Peter.
Forgot to say that we have set up 100 kwa so if you set up 50 kwa the price will be a little lower. The problem that we had was that if we did it through PEA, they own all the equipment. We then chose to hire a private company to set it up on our land, got different quotes and we chose one who said he knew the manager of PEA (Mistake) His quote only included 40,000 baht for PEA but it ended up being 110,000 baht for the ones that include a 40,000 baht insurance which I don't really understand. The person we hired hadn't offered the price to bring the electricity into our house and that's why we had to bring in our electrician who then came with 80,000 baht, 65,000 baht material and 15,000 baht labor cost, a bit expensive but he is really good and stands up so I said we pay it so we continue to have a good relationship. We got a quote from a German that shows a bit of what we would pay through him, over 500,000 baht. I'll send these via email to Kenny so you can see what our prices were. This is certainly in Chiang Mai but the material costs shouldn't be a huge difference.
Hope you can get away with a lower price than this.
Best regards
Mathias Grahn
@@mathiasgrahn4440 Thanks Mathias. We have received the quote from PEA. Up a bit from their previous Guesstimate, but not too bad. Baht 250,000 including Insurance and annual inspection/maintenance. Ours is based on 30 kVA. We have taken care separately of the internal poles, underground and cabling. We expect this to be another B60 - 80k, utilising our own Sparky.
Regards
Peter
Sad to see such a lengthy cluster f*ck of a build. Glad Peter had found someone reputable to sort it out.
Unfortunate deal for Peter. I got lucky on mine.
Big Shoutout to Isaan Lawyers!!!
A huge Shoutout to Alan, Kuhn Surin and the Team.
The progress, quality and diligence to detail over the last 3 weeks has been nothing short of remarkable.
We came very close to shutting the whole project down and regrouping over the next 6 months. Not too many builders want to take on someone else’s work, particularly one requiring so much initial de-build.
Alan certainly saved our bacon and we are very grateful.
@@PeterMcLeod-j9u I’m glad it’s getting sorted out for you Peter. Hopefully his time next year the bad parts of the build will have become a faded memory. Kudos to Alan the Builder and the peeps who’ve helped you out.
@@KRABI_PTgreat comment. Thanks.
Alan has been around for years to my knowledge. He is in good hands now.
I had heard of him before we met, seems to be the right type of builder one would want.
Great video you guys…The transparent content to let other builders know what issues they can run into especially if you cannot be present every minute. Good to meet Pete and Alan…😊
555….Moby Dick….goes around humping air ..!!! 555
If they're going to give you a nickname, that's the one you want!
@ we always used to say Moby Dick is not a form of vd….555
Moby’s testosterone overload problem will be sorted out in 3 months time with a touch of surgical intervention (snip, snip).
He was supposed to be a “100%” Labrador pup. B 4000 with no papers of course. He looks like his mother had a hell of a fright from a greyhound.
Moby's testosterone overload will be sorted out in 3 months time with some minor surgical intervention (snip, snip).
We bought him via Facebook as a "100% Labrador" pup. No papers, but only B 4000????? He looks like his mother had a hell of a fright from a Greyhound. Long snout and long legs.
Alan the builder, heard the name several times on Facebook construction groups in Thailand. Odds are you are in good hands now. All the comments on Facebook were positive.
I had herd of him, but knew little about him. good to hear positive feedback about him.
G'day Peter, nice sized house. Hope it all comes together for you now that Alan is on the job. An English speaking builder would make life so much easier.
These issues are the reason i didn't start my build until i retired and could be onsite everyday. Although the builder we've selected gives me the confidence that he will do a great job (else Alan may have another customer 😂).
All the best
Paul
(we just need to find Mary😅)
Thanks Paul
Good luck with your build.
Our previous “builder” was English speaking. The contract and all communications from me during the partial build were conducted in English.
It may have been just as useful if conducted in Zamboangan as there was very little interest shown other than it being used as an interest free loan.
Alan and his team are demonstrating the professionalism I was originally expecting and paid for.
Regards
Peter
Hey Paul, Hope all is well.
Hi Kenny
Shame Peter had bother with his first builder , I must say we are on site every day checking and our contractor Nim come around on regular visit to , like you Kenny if you didn't like what was being done say something ,luckily my wife is a bit westernised not shy in saying for me if we not happy. We also told Nim that we are going home March if not finished build stops, he said he will be finished . Looks like Peter go the right builder now and soon be finished
cheers Gary and Mon 50/50
Hi Gary and Mon.
During the course of our build, right up to the very end, we made it very clear that we weren't impressed at all with the way our "builder' were conducting themselves, the poor quality of the work, pitiful progress and serious defects that were being ignored. We made additional trips to Thailand to sort these out. Met with continued failed commitments.
My decision to retire early and come here for an extended period to manage the project ourselves, proved to be the right move. Otherwise we'd being continuing with the same garbage. Managing to get Alan and his team onboard has saved the project, our dream and our sanity.
Good luck with your project.
Regards
Peter and Aew
and all of these complaints and other matters are all recorded (facebook messenger transcripts and email), and proving to be very useful.
My wife has lived in Australia for 23 years (we've been married for 30) and is far from backward in coming forward when Thai to Thai "input" was required. Often requiring some level of restraint.
I would certainly think he will be done by March. You have to be closing in on roof steel by now. Will see in this week's video. And yes, Alan seems on track.
@@ParadiseNThailand Since your visit Kenny, about a week ago, all tiling is completed to the main internal areas, except the bathrooms. All 3 verandas are roof sheeted and ceiling works have commenced to finish these areas off. Decorative fascia works have picked up again. Kitchen counters and cupboard door installation is progressing. Our backyard is resembling a small village with additional labour for specialist trades. I'm struggling to keep up with it all now, which is polar opposite to the previous experience.
@@PeterMcLeod-j9u Good to hear. Alan is the man!
Bryan's Thailand (YT) is the best Falang/Thai team contractor I've watched, never seen a customer issue just pure quality and detail
You have a point there, Radley. I know Brian from staying in the Chiang Rai area. I met him at Gordon Tickles' place. He's one great guy. The best builder in Thailand. I would get in touch with him and tell him Llew sent you.
Watched a couple of his videos in the past, not so much lately.
Sometimes the build is never plain sailing out house 2 years later is full of cracks in the render
Correct, I keep watching mine expecting them to appear any day now. Fingers crossed!
@ I hope they don’t in the west we dot and dab plasterboard to the interior walls and skim we plaster to get a better finish I’ve never seen it done in Asia
I built a house in Lampang lived on the property in mums house didn't make much difference to getting things done my way Would I do it again No...they couldn't even waterproof the bathroom put it in the too hard basket.there answer was to have step down bathroom floor
Seems there is a generic means of most aspects of building here. But most crews have their own way of doing every step. Makes for very inconsistent results and difficultly identifying problems. I am not as versed in the construction here, as I am in the US. I just try to apply what I know along with common sense and go with it. I think most of the work here is done with no knowledge other than what was handed down, rather than seeking out the most proper and affective methods. Just keep doing what the guy that started the company 2, or 20, years ago showed them how to do. IMHO