 New Construction Ms. Dozer is currently building some smaller entry level houses not far from Tesco South in South Pattaya. What they are not: poorly constructed boxy looking dwellings with every single material in the house guaranteed to be the cheapest possible. The concept started out as, gee, after all, a lot of effort goes into building a house anyway (even an entry level one), what if the building budget was actually upped a bit to a higher standard. Even though you can get a luxury expensive pre-built house that has been corner cut to the point of no return, the odds are in your favor that the 11m baht house has a higher standard than the 2m baht house.
Compare it to a pizza. What is a pizza anyway? Just some bread and toppings which must be correctly prepared by a skilled technician. Let's say the talent is there to correctly prepare the crust, but the cook decides to save a bit on the cost of flour -- eliminating some of it from the dough. Of course the pizza will suffer, and unnecessarily so since the savings to the cook is 'just a little bit'. Most of the lower price house (just as it turns out) will have serious problems throughout, much like the pizza with insufficient flour. It is actually kind of a gross way to do business. That is why we decided to upgrade the building model.
As far as the Ms. Dozer method, first off the design is very detailed, including full electric and plumbing schematics. The design is fed into a third party rendering engine to produce life like images, so that the aesthetics of various design choices can be evaluated before the house is built. The rendered images are life like enough (unlike some other 3D software CAD images) that you can kind of a try it before you buy it. See what I'm talking about here: Example Render Set.
First the basic materials we use are either the aerated lightweight blocks (QCON or superblock), or the large oversize cinder blocks (the ones which are 14 or 20 centimeters across, not the ones you commonly see around all the time).
On to the build. The foundation concrete pours are not hand mixed, but CPAC ready mix cement is used. This type of pour will used (over the slightly cheaper hand mix) because it adds consistency and strength. The 280 KSC (kilograms per square centimeter) strength concrete is used and pours are certified (see a sample certification). The rebar requirements for the particular build at tested in a structural engineering program and a high safety factor is applied (slight overkill). There is a damp course installed to keep any moisture from rising up into the foundation elements. See some sample foundation pics and more foundation pics.
|
continued........
For the plumbing, only the thickest grade PVC is used. The Chang brand tube plumbing glue is used (as opposed to the glue which comes in the round cans - it is incredibly how many costly problems develop in plumbing due to bad glue joints). There is a grease trap to prevent the pipes from becoming clogged and septic system from becoming backed up. In the current project every plot has its own artesian deep water well.
For electric, the system is properly grounded and three wires are used throughout. No joints are taped, but the wirenut connectors are used. The conduit (you would be surprised at how many projects don't even use conduit) is actually affixed to the electric boxes, switch boxes and receptacle boxes. Any wire run underground is one contiguous piece from start to finish. All receptacles are grounded.
The roof uses an 'M' shape truss system, which is a cleaner design than the typical roof support (which utilizes intermediate columns throughout the build as supports). The sheet rock is cleanly affixed directly to the bottom of the truss system. The truss system, like the foundation rebar, is tested in a structural engineering program for load factor with a high safety factor applied. some roof shots
This list could go on and on, the general concept is that materials are methods are applied which are 'best' for the particular situation, not necessarily 'cheapest'. Take the kitchen sink as an example. There are all kinds of prices which can be paid for a stainless steel sink, starting at about 2,000 baht, which is .015 mm thickness. However, for just 3,000 baht a sink of .025 mm thickness can be procured. It seems that things tend to get produced and sold in mass quantities here of a quality which 'is barely acceptable'. Just by upping the budget a bit, the quality increases immeasurably. The 3, 000 baht sink is practically indestructible, the 2,000 baht sink will be dinged and dented within short order.
The current new construction projects illustrated some of these points. Sure, you might want to contact Ms. Dozer about a possible build or, at the very least have a visit to the new construction photo journal.
|
