Posts Tagged ‘Living Room’

Domestic Electrical House Wiring Safety In Thailand- And Why I’m Backing Off Kanyah

Is This Not The Most Ugly Electrical Wiring You Have Ever Seen?

(Although the electrical wires and conduit are visible here, I’m not suggesting that this domestic electrical wiring installation is unsafe.)

The Most Ugly Electrical Wiring You Have Seen?

Actually, it’s not, you can see worse-looking electrical wiring in just about any street in Bangkok or other big city in Thailand – just hanging from the electrical posts in the street. Here’s an example:-

Photo Terrible Ugly Birds Nest Thailand Street City Wiring

Above, photo of a ‘bird’s nest’ of electrical wiring in a city in Thailand.

But that’s not in my house. This is!

Why Are They Making The Electrical Wiring So Ugly Like This?

Above, I sent this marked-up photo of the ugly domestic electrical wiring the Thai electricians are installing in our retirement house to Kanyah and asked her all the questions you can see on the picture.

Note that the red arrow on the comment “There should not be any wires on the concrete” is actually pointing to the yellow electrical conduit, not to electrical wires.

Let me be clear about one thing here. This is the second floor. Those concrete beams you can see are at ‘ceiling level’ except that our house has no ceiling.

No, in our retirement house now under construction in Pakchong (Pak Chong), Thailand, the ceiling is at roof level. (Except for bedrooms and bathrooms)

How The House Is Intended to Look

This is how the ‘ceiling’ is supposed to look in  the living room:-

Bamboo Matt on Walls & Underside of Roof

Notice, in the picture above, that there is no ceiling and no visible electrical wires or conduit. This is how our retirement house is intended to look.

The above photo shows high level lights and ceiling fans needing wiring (which would be hidden behind the bamboo panels) but in our house there are no ceiling fans or lights, all the lights are on the wall. (Uplighters)

So there is absolutely no need for any cables or wires to be above the level of those concrete beams!

The Answer That Came Back From Kanyah Made Me Boil With Rage And Bad Temper. (Sorry!)

Instead of answering my questions (why were the wires there, why wasn’t the concrete beam rendered) she came back with non-answers that completely missed the point. I thought I was dealing with artisans and they turn out to be slippery eels befit of Thai politicians.

But before I get into that, here is the opening gambit from Kanyah:-

“Don’t ask me to send you any more pictures. Wait until it’s finished then I will send them.

If I send them before it’s finished you will just complain and make trouble.

Thinks: ‘The idea is that if I see the pictures early before it’s finished I can catch any problems and get them sorted out before it’s too late’

“If you want to check it (the house build) you come out here and do it!”

Replied: “Sorry, I have to stay here to make the money I keep sending you”

Now on to the ‘answers’ she gave me to my questions:-

“They are laughing at you” she said…

Thinks: ‘She’s doing it again – believing the builders and taking their side’. I thought all that had finished when she sacked the previous builder.

“They have been doing this for 40 years“

Thinks: ‘With that much practice and still getting it wrong there’s no hope for them’…

‘So how come the electricians are only 20 years old?’

‘Have you seen my CV? I have been doing it correctly all round the world for 35 years’

‘Yeah! They’ve had plenty of practice learning how to make that bird’s nest wiring like in the photo above’

“They say that this is a three wire system with an earth wire and that it is a very safe system. You don’t have to worry about electrical safety”

Thinks: ‘I’m not talking about electrical safety. I’m talking about how it looks. None of these conduits and wires should be visible in the finished house.

Anyway, it was me who specified a three wire system (i.e. plus earth wire) for electrical safety and it was my Architect’s Electrical Engineers who designed the system (electrically) not you installers.’

And “Don’t worry”

Thinks: ‘Don’t worry? That’s my money you’re spending. That’s my dream house you’re spoiling.’

On The Phone Listening To Kanyah As I Grew Ever More Angry I Just Decided To Keep Quiet And Back Off (Maybe)

Why would I do this? Choking on my words I said “O.K. you just do it your way”

The fact is that Kanyah is getting ever more stressed out with this retirement house build project. It’s all too much for her as I described in an earlier post discussing the type of construction contract we should have – all-in or labor only.

Look…

This Should Be Just About The Happiest Time In Her Life

All her life with me (we have been married nearly 30 years) she has dreamed of having her own house in Thailand. And now it’s coming true right before her eyes.

She should be very, very happy. And I’m sure she is – but it’s coming at a price…

Stress.

As the days go by and the pressure mounts on Kanyah – making decisions, buying materials, managing the builder, the stress has been building up day be day.

I’m told by people who should know that Thai men don’t like taking orders from Thai women. But that’s what Kanyah s doing daily.

She has never built a house before – who has – and it’s not at all easy.

Remember that since she sent her newphew, Jalan, back to his home in Kamphaengphet (Kamphaeng Phet) for being ineffective as an inspector she has been on her own, with no family or supporting person near her.

So I have decided to back off and let Kanyah get the house finished in her own way.

As a wise young man and a good friend of mine, Steve W who is building his house up at Si Khiu Korat said “It’s not worth losing your wife over a house, you can deal with all the re-does when you go out there”.

Well, Steve, thanks for the advice. There is no chance of losing Kanyah over this house build, but I am worried about her mental health. She doesn’t do stress at the best of times and I just want this whole retirment house build project over with so that she can relax:-

Project Manager Supervising Thai Retirement House Construction

Above, a photo taken when we had the other builder. She wishes she could relax like this now…

O.K. On With The Other Photographs From This Stage Of Our Retirement House Build Project In Pakchong (Pak Chong), Thailand

Now look at the photo below. See that electrical box, and the red and black short wires coming out of it? Those red and black wires are going to some king of electrical outlet. Like a socket outlet, a light or fan.

But as I said, there is nothing electrical at that level.

By the way, why three wires? And what do the colors mean?

I have to admit I’m not sure about that. The colours look like two black and one red. I would have expected: Live – black, Neutral – grey and Earth (also called Ground) – green (or yellow and green striped).

But it seems that Thailand does not have and does not follow any standard electrical wiring color system. I’ll just be wary of making any changes to the domestic electrical wiring installation in our retirement house for the reason of electrical safety.

How I Could Have Caught The Wiring Issue Early

The photos here bring me to another point that I have explained before.

If I had the photos from the building site in Thailand early enough I would be able to spot the problems – things going wrong – and let Kanyah know in time for them to be corrected before things had gone on too long for there to be an effective correction. In Other Words:-

“A Stitch In Time Saves Nine” – Not On Our House Build Project In Thailand

Kanyah Deliberately Delays Sending Me Photographs

But, no. Kanyah deliberately delays sending me photographs because when I spot something wrong and tell her about it it becomes a problem for her. She waits until it’s too late for anything to be done about it. I’m sure – and I’ll prove this in the next post – that she makes changes to the design as set out by our Thai Architect drawings and specification, doesn’t tell me about it and doesn’t send me the photos until it’s a ‘fait accompli’.

I’m also sure that some of these changes are initiated by the builder to make his life easier and to make himself more profit.

There Are No Electrical Outlets Here So Why Are They Wiring It?

Above, the caption says it all.

How Electrical Wiring Should Be Concealed In Our Thai Retirement House

The photo above shows the conduit for the wiring passing within the wooden frame for the dividing wall between living and bed rooms. Perhaps you can see that they have drilled neat holes in the wooden frame to carry the conduit? A very neat installation. When the electrical work is finished the wooden frame will be covered with bamboo mat and the electrical wiring will be hidden. Perfect.

Let me make a clarification. I’m loosely referring to ‘wiring’ when I actually mean electrical wiring and conduit. ‘Conduit’ to the layman is the tube (or pipes) put in to contain the real wires. In these photos the yellow ‘wires’ you can see are actually plastic conduit. The real electrical wires will be inside this conduit system.

Many (especially low cost) Thai houses do not have the electrical wiring in conduit. Often is is run on the surface of the walls and is visible. That is ugly and why I insisted on conduit to hide the wires. But the conduit itself is supposed to be hidden, not exposed to view!

A Quick Word About Electrical  Safety Relating To Domestic Electrical Wiring Installations In Thailand

Also, as I mentioned before I had specified a three wire system for the sake of electrical safety. Thailand is now moving over to the three wire system – years ago it was all two wire and there were no three wire  receptacle (socket outlets) or plugs available. A three wire electrical wiring system has a live and neutral wire carrying the electrical current and the third wire is an earth (often called ground) wire. by the way, this is not supposed to be a lesson in safety in domestical electrical wiring installations in Thailand. If you are interested in the subject I suggest this web page: http://www.thailandguru.com/electricity-220volts-thailand.html

In the photo above and below you can see the conduit is withing the width of the dividing wall. When the bamboo mat is placed on the wall framethe conduit (and wires) will be hidden from view. Exactly as it should be and as it is specified on the construction drawings.

How To Conceal Electrical Wires And Conduit With Walls

The photo below is in the bathroom and bedroom areas. here there will be a flat false ceiling jut below the concrete beams so that these conduits will be hidden from view.

Electrical Wiring Above The Ceiling For The Bedroom And Bathroom

Above, this is OK because there will be a flat ceiling in the bathroom and bedrooms to hide the conduit and electrical wiring.

Next Post: Another Major Change From the Drawings And Specification Made On Site Without Asking Me Sends My Blood Pressure Into Orbit!

They’re at it again – changing things without asking me. And here they have ignored a major feature of the house that was intended to give it the ambiance and character that you can see in the “How The House Is Intended to Look” photo above. This is serious stuff going wrong – again. And Kanyah and the builder are in cahoots together over it.

Perhaps I’m going to abandon my softly-softly policy when dealing with Kanyah in future. Let’s see in the next post…

The Wooden Walls Of Our Retirement House Styled After A Traditional Wooden Thai Style House Are Nearly Complete

Here are the latest photos showing the current status of the house we are building in Pakchong (Pak Chong), Thailand, for us to retire to.

We went through a very bad experience with our original Thai builder, and Kanyah eventually terminated his contract, but all the signs are that this new Thai builder is doing a terrific job for us and the house build project is now progressing very quickly indeed. The new Thai builder is delivering the high quality of building that we want.

Here are the latest progress photos from the construction site at Pakchong (Pak Chong).

View Of The House From The Road Side

Above you can see that the wooden walls on this side of the house are complete. Also the rendering is nearly complete. At last I can get an image of what the finished retirement  house will look like.

Below is a close-up of one of the bays of the house looking from the same side.

Close Up View Of The House From The Road Side

Above, the wood wall complete for one of the bedrooms.  The wooden area is the wall to a double bedroom, the cement rendered bay to the right is the external wall to the twin bathrooms. (Actually one bathroom with bath for Kanyah and the other is a shower room for me.)

Next, is a view of the house from the front, or balcony side.

Front View Wood Walls Not Finished(Alan's comments)

Above there is not much progress with the wood walls, just the Living Room in the left hand bay is half finished.

Next a view of one of the end walls.

Blue House Side View Wood Walls Unfinished(Alan's comments)

Above is a photo taken of the end wall from the blue house neighbour’s side.

Quick Redesign Of The Stairs And Hope I’m Not Too Late

Now, changing the subject, from wooden walls to steel stairs, below is a photo of the steel for the stairs receiving a coat of paint.

Steel for the Stairs Being Painted

Quick Redesign Of The Stairs And Hope I’m Not Too Late

The above photo of the steel for the stairs jolted me into action.

Why? Because I didn’t like the design provided by our Architect and I had already agreed an alternative deign with the previous builder and made a sketch which is on the That Architect’s house plans drawings.

But I’m not sure how much Kanyah has told the new builder about the alternative design and what he is planning to build. So I need to knock out a drawing pronto and get it to the new builder before he starts cutting that steel!

I am suspecting that he is planning for the alternative design for two reasons.

First when I explaind this to Kanyah by phone today, she said that the new Thai builder always looked at the drawings with the changes we agreed with the previous builder.

Secondly, in the photo above I can see some steel angle iron. that kind of angle iron was not in the original Architect’s design but is in the alternative design.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have spent the last day making the new stair design drawings in AutoCAD and have just emailed then to Kanyah.

Let’s look at the two designs and why I wanted to change the stair design.

Why I Changed The Design Of The Stairs For Our Retirement House in Thailand

First look at the computer-generated 3 D image of our house below. (This is a 3D computer generated image created by our Thai Architect in Bangkok)

Retirement House Thai Architect's Design Rendering End View

Above, notice the stairs at the left hand side of the picture? What is important (to me) is that there is a gap between the stair treads – you can see right through them.

In case you can’t make out what I am referring to here is an annotated version of the same picture:-

Retirement House Thai Architect's Design Rendering End View Showing Ope Stair Treads

Above, the Thai architect’s 3D rendering of the house shows open style stairs. This is in contrast with his construction drawings – an extract of which is seen below.

Stair Detail From Thai Architect's House Plans Showing Closed Risers

Above, it’s probably not immediately obvious (and I must admit I didn’t realise this until well after I had signed the construction contract with the first builder) but this stair detail has closed risers.

In other words you can’t see through the steps. The stairs will look just like any normal stair that you see in a building, even in your own house.

But I wanted steps – with open treads that you can see through – not stairs.

The stairs, I thought would look much to heavy and out of place in our retirement house which is supposed to appear rustic and mimic the treadittional Thai house which would have open steps not closed stairs.

Those steps had to go so I came up with my own design for the stairs. Note that I kept the basic design by the original Thai architect, all I did was to change from closed treads to open treads.

Packchong House New Stair Design

Click on the image to see a larger version (Opens in new window)

I started with the original design for the stairs by our Thai Architect from Bangkok as shown on the construction drawings he produced for us. Then, using the AutoCAD program I changed the steel steps so that there would be gaps between the treads that you can see through.

I didn’t fundamentally change the steel part of the stairs (apart from the steps) and made no changes to the handrails. It still took me a full day to make the changes, though!

I sent the drawings off to Kanyah last night by email and hopefully they will arrive in time before the builder starts fabrication of the stairs using the previous design.

Packchong House New Stair Design Steel Fabrication Only

Click on the image to see a larger version (Opens in new window)

The picture above shows just the steel part of the new stair design.

Underside Of The Floorboards Look Nice

I don’t normally go round commenting upon how nice the underside of floorboards look, and usually it doesn’t matter. But if you’re on the ground floor in this house then you have no choice but to see the floorboards above since they form the ceiling.

And I plan to spend a lot of time on the ground floor – busying myself away making model steam engines in my workshop.

But let’s start by looking at the underside of the balcony, where you can see the red bricks that have been used to fill in voids above the beams and that will be rendered smooth by cement.

View Of The Underside Of The Balcony Floorboards

Above, the red bricks have to be rendered, like the ones have in the photo below.

There Is No Insulation On The Floors In This House

Look at any of these pictures and the wood plank flooring is all that stands between the living areas, Bedrooms, Dining Area, kitchen and living Room and the outdoor air. There is no thermal insulation whatsoever and this would be unthinkable in A) a house in colder climates like, for example, the U.K. (England, Britain, Great Britain, or whatever you call it) where I live now, and B) a house in Thailand that is to be air conditioned.

Another View Of The Underside Of The Balcony Floorboards

Above the nearest column where the wet cement is has had the red bricks covered by cement render.

In the picture below, which is taken in the workshop, the red bricks await the cement rendering treatment.

View Of The Underside Of The Bedroom Floorboards

The next picture (below) shows the rendered red bricks in the workshop.

Another View Of The Underside Of The Bedroom Floorboards

Look Out For “Counting The Cost Of Building A Retirement House In Thailand” In The Next Post

The previous builder was on a fixed price contract to supply all labor and materials to build the house and we paid him in staged and fixed progress payments. Therefore keeping track of what we were spending on the house was quite simple – just keep a record of the payments made.

Enter The Labor Only Contract – Where We Buy The Materials

After we changed builders and type of contract to labor only, it fell on Kanyah to purchase all the materials. Now, Kanyah is doing a great job in Thailand, it’s her enthusiasm that has kept this project alive, but keeping track of where money is spent was never her strong point.

Spend it (money) she can. Account for it she can’t.

I am very nervous that I keep sending money out to Thailand and I have no idea where it goes. We have a budget for the house build project and we both want the project to be completed within budget, despite the losses we suffered when Kanyah sacked the previous builder.

Fortunately she does seem to get a receipt every time she buys something or pays anyone so I had the idea of getting Kanyah to list all the receipts with the receipt number and dtails annd sending that to me every two weeks.

I could put all this data into a spreadsheet and bingo, I could track the spend.

Check out the next Post to see how I got on…

Building A Retirement House in Thailand

We are more than just planning to build a retirement house in Thailand we are well on with the house plans. You can see some of those on this website at http://retiringinthailand.net/house-build-thailand-2/

Those plans I made myself on AutoCad but did I did start with a basic house design I downloaded from this Thai website:-

http://www.dpt.go.th/download/PW/house_model/framehome.html

The next stage is to obtain budget quotations for my house design before moving to the next stage. I’ll be doing this over the internet and will tell you exactly how when I have been through the process myself.

But before I seek the quotes, there are a few things I need to do to the house drawings to provide more information. (These may well be done when you read this – depends upon what time you came to this post).

Here’s what I’m going to do next to the drawings for of our Thai retirement home:-

• Add to the drawings:-
  • Sink and drain in the Workshop
  • Designate the WC and shower area walls as being made from brick
  • Add a finishes schedule showing what materials and finishes are to be used for walls, floors and ceilings
  • Add the folding windows to the Living room
• Make a cross section though the building
• Add some Thai language notes

So you can see I still have plenty to do before I start to get budget quotations from Thailand for our planned retirement house.

Keep in touch and I’ll update the web page holding the Thai house drawings as soon as I’m ready.