Living in Thailand and constructing your home - P

Hi everybody,

Foreword

This Blog will not only tell you how to construct your home in Thailand, but also make sure it will be your own.

Thailand has very strange immigration laws, prescribing annual new visas even for retirement visas, and not enough of that retired foreigners have to report their residential address every 90 days to the immigration bureau. Failing that will be fined with Baht 2,000 (US$67).

Failing to renew a visa in time will be fined with Baht500, (US$17) per day of overstay to a maximum of Baht25,000 including an entry in the passport about the amount of fine with the possibility to be banned from Thailand in case of another overstay.

Further, "farangs" (Non-Asians) have absolutely no rights in Thailand, except for dumping their money there.

I have made acquaintances of Americans, Englishmen, Australians, Germans and Frenchmen who built an (expensive) house, purchased a car and when everything was finished, were chased off their property by the force of policemen, if necessary, leaving him in the streets having to search for accomodation.

How that? Being "farang" you don't have the right to purchase or posses a square inch of Thailand's territory. If you construct a home on your fiance's ground she'll automatically be owner of the house. Purchasing a car and having it registered on the fiance's name you're again not the legal owner.

Many people got stranded that way in Thailand, which is said to be the "land of smiles". Don't get mislead by a Thai smile!

Street robbery and burglary are still very common in Thailand.

Driving on a motorbyce at night you might fall victim to a nylon cord across the road chopping off your head right away when hitting it or being attacked from the rear by another motorbyce with the rear seater stemming his foot into your motorbyce by surprise.

The "foot-trick" is well known to me and I used my method of defence with full success twice. I always carry a bamboo stick with me and stick it into the spokes of the front wheel of the attacker.

Moviemakers would be proud of those stunts!

You might sometimes wonder about mains failure on the country side in Thailand. It's not a real biggy. The thieves climb the concrete masts and cut the cable between two of them, burn off the plastic insulation and sell the copper/aluminum to get their hands on "Si-Sib", a terrible brew of rice "Schnaps" :)

My wife's former husband managed to drink himself to death within two years drinking "Si-Sib".
Remark: "Si-Sib" means "40" and that's the price (Baht) for one bottle of the brew.

Chapter 1:

After being married legally (marriage must be legalized by Thai as well as your own authorities) to a Thai woman I have the same rights as every Thai husband has, meaning one can't kick the other out of the common house if he just feels that way.

If it comes to divorce properties will be shared an orderly way with the help of justice with nobody having more priviledges than the other.

So I decided to build my dream house having lived in rental homes and houses for more than 50 years.

The Thai soil consists of 100% clay in most areas (except for mountains) and gets as tough as concrete during the dry (hot) season, which Thailand has three of: the hot season, the very hot season and the f....g hot season.

The very hot season is also called "rainy season" in Thailand, when the South-West-Monsune blows clouds across the country containing lots of water.

When clouds ascend over land they cool down and as a result Thailand experiences heavy rainfalls, with the impression, somebody pours water off a bucket.

Within shortest time the clay is soaked with water and changes its consistency from "concrete" to "pudding".

The "pudding" depth depends on the amount of water hitting the ground. It can reach dephts of about 2m.

Constructing a house on a muddy ground like that it will sooner or later "tilt" towards the heaviest point.

Special care has to be taken of the foundation. Normally 10 to 15 m concrete poles are rammed into the ground forming the solid base of a foundation.

My house is going to be erected on virgin ground well above the maximum flood line with 3.5m of extra soil topped over having rested and naturally been compressed over two years.

The foundation therefor is 1.35X0.60cm for the carrying walls with rich iron armament (almost nuke proof)

I decided to use double outside walls with vertical air flow between layers to keep the hot air out of the house.

The house will get a flat roof with a shallow slope with grass growing on top, being watered automatically if sensors "tell" to do so.

Here are some pictures of the growing house.

P.S. The bride on the motorbyce is still to have. :)

P.P.S. Forget about the bride. She has found her "farang" last week.

Photo description (from left to right and top to bottom):

partial view of the raw building
double wall detailed
another partial view
new delivery - must be unloaded manually since the company doesn't possess enough pallettes to unload using the crane.
me - sceptically looking what will happen next
Tuk-Tuk, a universal truck mainly used by farmers, fitted with a one-cylinder-self-igniter diesel engine (front view to follow)
orchid with gras hopper
Phantom-pilot

June 14th, 2010

Nothing much happened till now, except for the "Chang" having had a wall erected instead of leaving an opening for a porch door. (He probably has to learn what a sliding door looks like in a construction plan. :) )

(I hate clapping doors in the wind! :mad:)

Nothing worth shooting photos today. Guess I'll have to show up at the construction site more regularly being weakened by bronchial asthma. (Hope to overcome this problem shortly.)

Regards to everybody interested.

Boncuk