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Steel Mesh Fence Construction, Topsoil and Progress On The Second Floor

Pictures taken in Pakchong, Thailand first week of February, 2011 

Progress On Building Our Retirement House At Pakchong (Pak Chong) In Thailand

Progress On The Retirement House Build Now Up To The Second Floor

Pretty obviously, the first picture shows the progress on building the house. Not a great deal to say really except that progress is good. They are preparing to cast the concrete ring beam at second floor level. If you look closely you can see the steel rebar for the columns up to roof level. 

The pile of small stones you can see in the foreground will be used to form the access road – see below. 

I have updated the Construction Schedule and Timeline and you can see those on the “Retiring In Thailand Timeline” page. I’m planning to visit Pakchong again for 11 days at Easter time – I already have my air ticket. At that stage according to the Construction Schedule the concrete columns up the roof level and the roof itself should be finished and the second floor walls be in progress. 

Steel Mesh And Plants Fence-Hedge Construction

The next few pictures show the concept for the perimeter fence of our plot of land. the idea is to construct a steel-mesh fence and then to grow plants over the mesh to hide it from view. The result will look like a hedge but unlike hedges, there will be no chance for there to be holes through which our ducks and chickens can escape, or wild animals to enter. Additionally, the hedge will form a visual barrier both ways so that we can’t see our neighbours’ houses and the neighbours can’t see into our land. The benefits of the fence-hedge concept over for example wooden fence or brick wall:- 

• Low cost (cost information given below)
• Fast to construct
• Long lasting
• Low maintenenace (when the right plants are selected
• Impervious to small animals
• Can’t see through

We will have to be careful in the choice of plants to grow on the fence. We don’t want the type of plants you can see in the photos of “The Mansion” hedge-fence – that needs too much hard work trimming it. Instead, Kanyah will put down some plants that climb the metal mesh but not grow bushy. She did tell me the name of the plants – it is a plant that has leaves that you can eat, like a vegetable. I’ll get the name from her, and put some pictures of it up here. 

Fence Construction at The Mansion, Pakchong 1

The image above shows the cheap lattice fence-hedge construction and concept. This is actually a fence-hedge picture taken at The Mansion in Pakchong where kanyah is staying while our house is being built. 

Fence Construction at The Mansion, Pakchong 2

Hedge Growing Over The Fence at The Mansion, Pakchong

In this photo (above) you can see how the hedge grows and hides the lattice metal fence. 

Images Of The Latticework Fence Material For Our Retirement Home in Pakchong

The Materials For Our Fence At Pakchong 1

As you can see in the image above, the fence materials comprise galvanised steel chain-link fencing in rolls, and galvanised steel tubes to comprise the support frame. 

The Support Tube Materials For Our Fence At Pakchong

Above, the galvanised steel tubes that will form the frame for the fence panels. 

One Panel Of The Steel Mesh Fencing Erected

The picture above shows one panel of the steel mesh fencing erected. It’s not clear how the panels will be supported. I suppose they will put some pots in the ground at the end of each panel. Have to wait for some more photos to see that. 

The Katin Plant That Kanyah Will Grown On The Fence

Katin Plant

Above you can see a picture of the Katin Plant that Kanyah will plant all along the security fence that she is having erected all along the perimeter of the land where we are building our retirement house. 

The Katin Plant in the photo is small, it’s barely more than a seedling, but these plants grow quite tall, like trees. The advantages of using the Katin Plant to cover the lattice metal fence are:- 

• The Katin plant does not grow “bushy” so it will not need a lot of trimming to keep it neat as, for example the hedge-fence at The Mansion (see above) does.
• The fruit of the Katin plant are actually edible vegetables. Katin is eaten raw with Nam Prik and has a taste similar to Cha-oom. The vegetable hangs in bunches of strings about 100 to 150 mm long. The fruit is shown in the photo below.

The Edible Fruit Of The Katin Plant

Tastes a bit ‘strange’ to the Western pallette! 

The Price Of Fencing In Thailand

The cost of the materails to build the perimeter fence around our land in Pakchong was 115,900 Baht ( £2,318 at 50 Baht/£). The perimeter of your land is 180 meters not including the front line adjoining the main road where we will be putting a wall and gates. This is for a one Rai plot of building land. (One Rai = 1,600 square meters. More about Thai land measurement units) 

So, 115,900 / 180 = 644 Baht/m (Or 13 £/m) which is very cheap. 

Of course there is the labor cost for putting up the fence. This is 320 Baht per man-day. 

Kanyah did give a price for the labor of 64,800 Baht. (Don’t know where she got that from, though) 

If that does turn out to be the true labor cost, the total will be 115,900 + 64,800 =  180,700 Baht (£3,614) or 1,003 Baht/m (£20/m) 

Adding Top Soil Including Cost Details

The level of the main access road to our land is about half a meter (500 mm) higher than the ground level at the point where our house is built. Kanyah wanted to have what will become the front garden flat so she had 10 truck loads of top soil laid on the land in front to the house. 

Note that the house foundations were already in place before this soil was added – the house is not founded on the back-filled soil! 

The soil cost 1,400 Baht (£28) per truck. Total for ten trucks = 14,000 Baht (£280). 

Add to that the cost of the tractor to level the soil out. Plus she wants two more truck loads. I will have to get the volume (or weight) of the soil from Kanyah. 

The Additional Top Soil To Make The Land Level

In the picture above you can see that on the left hand side there appears to be a ‘track’ running down between the blue house neighbours land and our house. This is 3.5 m wide and will form the main access road not only to our house but also to the land at the rear on which we have an option to purchase. 

The Additional Top Soil To Make The Land Level 2

The Additional Top Soil To Make The Land Level 3

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