Archive for the ‘Thailand Weather’ Category

Here’s The Story Why Work On Building Our House In Pakchong Stopped – Twice!

Construction Of Our Retirement House In Pakchong Restarts – In Fits And Starts

In the previous post but one “Roof Tiles On – But Problems Are Arising“ I mentioned the fact that work had stopped on the construction of our retirement house in Pakchong (Pak Chong) and I’m pleased to be able to report that work has now commenced again – kind of…

Big Problems Building Our Retirement House in Pakchong (Pak Chong)

I reported in a previous post Roof Tiles On – But Problems Are Arising how all construction work ceased on our retirement house build project in Pakchong (Pak Chong) as the builder and all the labor disappeared from site on 30th March, 2011.

In that post I mentioned that a couple of issued had arisen on site and that I would explain them to you and why the builder had left the site as soon as I had got to the bottom of it, so here goes…

Big Roof – Big Roof Problem

This issue came up when I looked more carefully at the photos received from Kanyah on the Steel Roof Rafters Installed Post.

This is the photo that made me think something was amiss:-

House Frame Roof Side View 1

Above, the photo that made me worry and gave me a couple of sleepless nights. Can you spot what is wrong?

Hint, look at the roof rafters and the ridge girder compared to the roof concrete ring-beam.

Next look at this 3D rendering of our house produced by our Thai architect at concept stage:-

Thai Architects 3 D Rendering of the Roof Gable Concept at Stage

Above, now you can see what appears to be missing from the steel rafter progress photo above. In the above concept drawing it’s clear that the roof extends beyond the house. It overhangs (called a ‘cantilever’ in building terms) the house. The steel rafter progress photo above does not show the ridge girder and the rafters for the roof overhang.

This omission I marked on the next photo, below.

Steel Roof Rafters Showing Missing Rafters

I sent that marked-up photo to the builder and to Kanyah to find out what was going on and why the builder was (apparently) not following the Thai Architects roof plans.

The answer came back “don’t worry, the roof is not finished yet”.

Big Roof  - Big Roof Problem Gets Bigger…

Then I realised something else that really had me worried.

Those concrete beams at roof level should not be there! I was looking again at the photo above “Thai Architects 3 D Rendering of the Roof Gable Concept at Stage” and I couldn’t see any concrete extending (cantilevering) from the end of the house. This is clear in the next marked-up rendering produced by our Thai Architect at concept stage:-

Thai Architects 3 D Rendering of the Roof Gable March 2011 - Annotated

The photo below (not our house) shows a properly cantilevered roof. No ugly cantilevered concrete beams.

Cantilevered Roof - How It Should Look

Next I looked at the cross sectional drawing produced by our Thai Architect as part of the construction drawings. No cantilevered roof beams were shown:-

Architects Section Drawing At Roof Level

Above, see that red box? I marked that and it is what the builder has constructed, but it is not shown on the Thai Architects original construction drawing as you can see.

I pondered what to no next. I wanted a cantilevered roof, but not cantilevered concrete roof beams which I thought would be unsightly.

Perhaps the concrete cantilevered beams could be cut off using diamond cutting technology?

I need to know if those ‘concrete ears’ have any structural purpose.

If not I was suggesting that they be cut off. This should be easy using some kind of diamond cutting:-

http://www.diamonddriller.co.uk/services/sawing.htm

http://www.cuttingtechnologies.com/services_wire_sawing.html

So I started sending emails to Kanyah, our builder and to the original Thai Architect, with pictures like the ones above and these:-

Concrete Roof Beams to Cut

Detail Cut Concrete Ears

Above, I was planning to cut off these cantilevered roof beams (or ‘ears’ as i had started to call them) using a diamond saw. Pretty drastic surgery!

As you can imagine, by this time I was pretty anxious because I had two big problems with the roof and was getting little information from Thailand.

Then our Thai Architect started to reply to my cries for help. Firstly he pointed out that my marked up drawing, above “Architects Section Drawing At Roof Level” being a section through the building would not have shown the ‘ears’. Also, he pointed out that the ‘ears’ were shown on the structural plans as you can see in the picture below.

Structural Drawing At Roof Level - Annotated 2

He also explained that the rendered drawing he had produced at concept stage (see “Thai Architects 3 D Rendering of the Roof Gable March 2011 – Annotated” above) was just that – a concept rendered drawing – and that the roof beams were added in the detail design phase and therefore did not show in the rendered drawing.

Knowing that I was concerned about the visual appearance of the cantilevered beams (the ‘ears’) he produced and emailed to me an updated version of the rendered drawing including the beams. As you can see in the picture below, the cantilevered beams are inconspicuous and not ugly.

Thai Architects 3 D Rendering of the Roof Gable March 2011

O.K. I surrendered on that one. Then I had an email from Kanyah showing that the ‘missing’ rafters and ridge beam had been installed. (You have probably seen these pictures but if not, just wait until you see the “How To Tile A Roof In Thailand” Post.)

Now I don’t know why the rafters weren’t all delivered and lifted into place at the same time. I assume a crane was used to lift the rafters and by lifting the ‘missing’ rafters on a second visit would have incurred additional hire costs for the crane.

Also I don’t know how they managed to extend the ridge beam where it wasn’t long enough at each end. I hope they didn’t (but suspect they did) simply weld an extension beam to the existing ridge beam. you can bet I’m going to take a good look at that when I go out to Thailand next week!

So it seemed that this problem was solved…

… and that

… Then came along “Little Roof Big Problem”

Little Roof – Another Big Problem

It took some investigation work by our Thai Architect in Bangkok to get to the bottom of what all this was about.

Although Kanyah had told me there was a problem with the small roof (the balcony roof) she didn’t tell me what he problem was. Perhaps with her not being a technical person she didn’t know. She also told me that the builder had ‘fixed’ it but again she didn’t tell me how. And I received no emails or communication from the builder.

I did have a guess at what the problem might be and a little later I received an email from our Architect who had been talking by phone to the builder and to Jalan, Kanyah’s nephew who was supervising the build for us. The email confirmed my suspicion as to what was wrong…

Don’t Allow Shallow-Sloping Roofs In Thailand!

The Problem Started With My Choice Of Thai House Design Concept Plans

If you go right back to the beginning of the design process for our retirement house in Thailand all as recorded on this website you will know that it all started with Thai house plans for a small traditional Thai house downloaded for free from the Thai government website.

This is described on the Free Thai House Plans page where you can see pictures and drawings of the concept house that we started with and also get all the links to the websites where you can download free Thai house plans. Here is a sample from one of the drawings that formed the inspiration for our house:-

Inspiration for Our House - Roof Slopes

Above, this is where started our house design. A traditional Thai house plan downloaded from the Thai government website.

You can see that I have added the roof slopes, 45 deg for the main roof and 10 deg for the balcony roof.

The final construction drawings for our house, as drawn by our Thai Architect were 35 deg for the main roof and 10 deg for the balcony roof.

It seems that our builder, when he got to the point of laying the roof tiles, realized that the angle of slope of the balcony was too shallow, particularly as there was no gutter between the main roof and the balcony roof. All the water from the main roof would cascade onto the balcony roof. The deep depth of water on the balcony roof would force water between the tiles and the roof would leak.

This is roughly how our Thai Architect explained it after talking to our builder:-

• The “Inspiration for Our House – Roof Slopes” drawing with the 10 deg balcony roof slope would have been OK because the specification for the roof material was for concrete sheets which can have a large over-lap and therefore safe for deep water.
• I changed the roof type from concrete sheets to concrete tiles which are much smaller and have much less overlap.
• Concrete tile roofs typically need a minimum slope of 20 deg. (I would have said 35 deg minimum, but lets go with 20 deg for now)
• Our Thai Architect added a roof gutter to collect the water from the main roof and preventing it from cascading onto the balcony roof.
• I told out builder not to provide that gutter to save money. (I have since asked the builder to provide the gutter)
• According to our Thai Architect, our builder has taken two mitigation measures (but nobody told me):-
  • The 10 deg slope was increased to 12 – 15 deg.
  • The lap of the tiles was increased.
• Our Thai Architect has proposed various other solutions to prevent the balcony roof from leaking.

My decision is (apart from adding back the main-roof gutter) to leave everything as it is for now and see what happens during a heavy rainfall. If some additional measure is required then deal with it at that time.

Accusations And Bad Feelings?

These problems have led to accusations and bad feelings all round but the basic problem has been lack of clear communication:-

• The builder blames the design by the Architect
• The Thai Architect blames the builder for:-
  • blindly crashing on with the build without producing shop drawings
  • not raising issues with the Architect and discussing them before continuing
• At first I blamed the builder for not building to the Architect’s drawings (I later apologized for that when I realized he had followed the drawings)
• I blamed everybody on site, that means the builder and Kanyah for not informing me about issues
• I blamed the builder for making changes to the Architect’s design without authority
• I blamed Kanyah and Jalan for not checking properly
• I blamed myself for a load of things:-
  • Not picking up on the shallow angle balcony roof issue at concept stage. (I knew the issues relating to shallow roofs and potential for leakage. I am a building design professional  and have been in meetings with Architects in the U.K. where the roof slope has been a matter of discussion and deliberation for hours. Check me out on the Alan’s Construction Industry Bio page.)
  • Not checking the original Architects Structural drawings well enough to make sure I understood the roof beam design.
  • Jumping to conclusions about the provision of the ‘ears’ based on an early concept stage Architects rendering drawings instead of checking the structural drawings more carefully.

So you can imagine that tempers were getting frayed, and that’s probably a contributing factor to Kanyah not phoning me and sending me photographs for a couple of weeks.

At this stage the Architect visited site.

The Next Day The Builder And The Construction Workers Were Nowhere To Be Seen

The next day the builder and the construction workers were nowhere to be seen and he didn’t answer his phone for days.

I was worried that he had been upset by all the criticism that may have been flying round and decide to call it quits. But what came next?

Sweltering Summer Turns To Freezing Winter As Freak Weather Storms Create Turmoil In Thailand

Blasts of icy wind from China wreck havoc on Thailand plunging what a few days ago was a blistering hot summer  into a winter monsoon season overnight!

The temperature plummeted faster than a bungee jumper on his downward fall and vast areas of souther Thailand were suddenly flooded meters deep.

Koh Samui Thailand Floods 1

More on Thailand’s  freak weather, earthquakes, over a million people to be stranded, floods, freezing temperatures and unseasonal tropical downpours.

The Reason For The Builder Leaving Site (For The First Time ) And All Constuction Stopping

At last we get to it. it wasn’t the roof problems that caused our Thai builder and all his labor to stop the building work on our retirement home in Pakchong (Pak Chong). it was the bad weather!

Quite simply, the freak weather reached as far as Pakchong (Pak Chong) and the torrential downpour for three days meant that no construction work could continue.

Thailand Freak Unseasonal Weather News Items From ThaiVisa.com

18 March 20111 – 3 April 2011

Freak Weather In Thailand Turns Summer Into Winter For Over A Week

These news items are taken from the thaivisa.com website and describe the drastic and unprecedented change in weather in Thailand.

I live in the U.K. (AKA Great Britain or England) and these weather changes affected me directly. Here’s why…

Construction Of My Retirement House in Pakchong (Pak Chong to some) Abruptly Came To A Halt

Although now (early April) is the summer in Thailand this changed in weather brought vast downpours of rain to Pak Chong and the builder and labor decided it was too wet to do any useful work on the house.

That’s pretty simple, but what also happened was that the builder wasn’t answering his phone when my wife (Kanyah) who is watching over the house build in Pakchong tried to contact him to find out he wasn’t on site.

This went on for three days and having read in the press about builders in Thailand just leaving a construction project half way through and knot knowing why the builder wasn’t on site I was really worried.

When it turned out that it was a simple case of “rain stopping play” and the builder and labor returned to site just as soon as the rain stopped I was mightily relieved!

Anyway on to the weather reports…

Posted 2011-03-17

Colder Weather In Thailand Is Caused By Global Warming

Weather Department on Thursday said that the global warming is the major cause of dropping of temperature in Thailand.

Department’s Deputy Director General Somchai Baimuang said that the cold weather is likely to continue until tomorrow.

Temperature on Thursday has dropped across the country, with that in Bangkok dropped to 19 Celcius and that in northern province of Loei went down to 6.12 Celcius.

Sharp Drop In Temperatures Felt In Thailand As Mercury Plummets Nationwide

The sharp drop in temperatures over the past few days makes it seem as if winter has returned to Thailand.

The mercury plummeted to between 16 and 18 degrees Celsius in Bangkok and its neighbouring provinces, while the temperature on Doi Inthanon, the country’s highest peak, plunged to just 3.4 degrees yesterday.

Meteorological Department acting chief Somchai Baimuang said yesterday that the drop in temperatures had stemmed from an intensely high-pressure ridge, which was now hovering over Thailand.

“Never before in my working life have the temperatures dropped as much as 10 degrees in a single day. Never before have I experienced a winter in the summer,” he said.

Earthquake In Burma/Thailand Strong earthquake felt as far south as Bangkok.

RT @REUTERSFLASH: Magnitude 6.9 earthquake hits Thailand, 69 miles north of Chiang Rai – USGS

RT @REUTERSFLASH: Two large quakes, one at 7 magnitude, strike in northeast Myanmar, near Thai and Laotian border – USGS

More than 50 dead in quake: Myanmar official

YANGON, March 25, 2011 (AFP) – At least 50 people were killed after a strong earthquake struck Myanmar near its border with Thailand, a Myanmar official said Friday.

Tremors were felt as far away as Bangkok, almost 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the epicentre, Hanoi and parts of China during the earthquake on Thursday, which the US Geological Survey (USGS) measured at magnitude 6.8.

Disaster Zones Imposed In South Of Thailand After Flooding

Southern Thailand is suffering from downpour-triggered floods, with all 16 of Nakhon Si Thammarat’s districts, eight of Phattalung’s districts, and three of Chumphon’s districts declared disaster zones yesterday.

In response, the government will open a flood situation follow-through centre at Government House this morning.

Phattalung yesterday declared its Muang, Kuan Khanoon, Kongra, Srinakarin, Pa Payom, Khao Chai Son, Sri Banphot and Bang Kaew districts as disaster zones. The situation was particularly severe in Muang and Kuan Khanon, where a total of some 8,000 households and 45,000 rai of farmland were under deep floodwater. Chumphon’s Mungam Lang Suab and Sawi districts were also declared disaster zones.

Meanwhile, the Meteorological Department’s southern region office continued to warn people on the southeastern coast. especially those in Phattalung, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani and Chumphon, of heavy downpours until tomorrow as well as possible flash floods and landslides. Small fishing boats were also urged to remain on shore due to strong winds and 2-3 meter-high waves during this period.

In related news, 150 homes of 1,200 people in 10 tambons of Trang’s Muang, Na Yong, Huai Yod and Wang Wiset districts were flooded yesterday, while many areas of Surat Thani were flooded, especially the low-laying Kanchanadit district. The district is now under 50cm-deep water and at-risk residents have been evacuated.

The continuous rainfall prompted Ranong to have its seacoast residents to move their belongings to higher grounds for fear of flooding condition from rising tides. They also watched out for landslides.

Flood Situation Gets Worse In Thailand’s Mid-South THOUSANDS STRANDED ON KOH SAMUI

Bad weather closes Nakhon Si Thammarat, Samui airports; deaths rise to 9

Flooding in the South has stalled services at Nakhon Si Thammarat and Samui airports.

Thousands of passengers were stranded on Koh Samui in Surat Thani province yesterday, while Nakhon Si Thammarat Airport has been closed since Sunday.

Tourists on the island of Samui had completely lost access to the mainland as of press time because ferry services were also suspended.

As the severe flooding raged on in the South, the death toll rose to nine.

Flood waters are now wreaking havoc in the provinces of Chumphon, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, Trang, Krabi and Phatthalung.

More Cold Weather In Thailand Expected

The mercury in many parts of the country will plunge by three to five degrees Celsius for a few days due to a low-pressure ridge, the Meteorological Department said yesterday.

Greater Bangkok could shiver in 19-degree weather while even the South might see temperatures drop as low as 22 degrees.

A northern weather bureau said the hot season would return early next month, at about 39-40 degrees.

“It will be scorching then just like any other summer.”

April 17 is expected to be the hottest day of the year, as the sun will be directly overhead.

1 Million People Stranded As Floods Rage Through Thai South Nightmare islands

1 million stranded as floods rage through South; 9 killed, with Nakhon Si Thammarat hit the hardest; Heavy rain likely to continue for next few days

Nearly a million residents living in flood-hit areas in the South have been left stranded with no access to land and air transport, even as the number of deaths increased to nine, with the grim prospect of heavy rains pounding many of the areas for the next few days.

A storm yesterday aggravated difficulties for the hardest-hit province of Nakhon Si Thammarat, damaging 250 homes in coastal areas and the Talum Phuk peninsula. The raging winds felled a number of power poles, causing blackouts in many areas.

The latest official update on the disaster yesterday reported seven deaths, with 979,665 people living in 310,406 affected households. The flood areas cover 63 districts in seven southern provinces.

At Least 4 Dead, 100 Missing In Krabi Mudslide Thai floods kill 15 dead, thousands stranded

KRABI, March 30 — At least four people were killed and more than 100 are missing in a mudslide at Krabi’s Khao Phanom district, while rescue workers have halted their operations fearing further slides.

Flood Crisis In Thai South Still Bad

The flood crisis in Surat Thani remained critical late last night amid surging rivers and high levels of water.

Helicopters were used to airlift about 1,000 stranded villagers in Nakhon Si Thammarat to safety for a second day running.
Flood-related fatalities increased to 45, with latest five coming on top of 40 in an official update yesterday. Some 21 occurred in hardest-hit Nakhon Si Thammarat, according to provincial clerk Decha Kangsanant.

Last Week’s Freezing Temperatures A ‘Freak Event’

The sudden plunge in temperatures last week could be a rare climatic phenomenon, according to a Thai expert.

Assistant Professor Prateung Jintasakul of Rajabhat Nakorn Ratchasima University said the mercury plunged unusually sharply in the Northeast to 15-16 degrees Celsius from March 28 to 31, even though it is summer.

The academic said the same thing occurred during the Ice Age 10,000 years ago when pandas fled extreme cold in China to northeastern Thailand.

In 1982, fossils of pandas were found in the northeast province of Chaiyaphum by a French anthropologist. The fossils could be dated back to the Ice Age.

“So far, it’s not yet conclusive but it certainly is highly unusual. What happened during March 28-31 could also be attributed to alteration of the Earth’s axis or magnetic field etc.”