Many things 'finished' and fixed

We are happy to share, although very high temperatures again, we managed to 'finish' and fix many things the last couple of weeks. 

First of all the outside tiling, this afternoon 4,30 PM (Thai time) is 'finished'. All together a bit more than 130 m2. Finished between ' ' because we are still in the process of joint filling now. We have to do that in the evening to give the joints time to harden instead of joint filling drying out by the heat of the sun. 

The first short and soft rains appeared but the walls already now are 'waterproof'. 

The second thing that is 'finished' is the wooden ceiling of the yoga/meditation Sala on the first floor. We made it from pinewood with a special coating/protection. A lot of work. Some finishing touch still have to be brought in. 

Also the Philips floodlights are installed now with a so called 'hotel-switch'. Meaning, you can switch on and off the floodlights upstairs as well as downstairs. 

Natural ventilation (Venturi vents) is in between the rooftiles and the wooden planks.

All electricity is installed and/or prepared. The rotating Hatari ceiling fan has to be installed but we will do that later not to offer this fan as a place to create bird nests. 

During our ceiling installation a couple of pigeons every night again used the openings between the roof tiles and wood as a place to sleep. Two times we had to take a beginning of a nest, and even two just laid eggs out. Happy they found another place nearby now. 

The last (sliding) door at the back side of the house is installed and finished by the  village company. A good job they delivered. The same extra thick quality aluminum and also thick black glass. It took two weeks after order because this material is not regular in stock and had to be ordered at 'Metal Thai' in Bangkok. 

We used the time between order and installation to finish the concrete space and floor tiles for the sliding door and the entrance of the scrawl space under the house. 

The company installed also some rain leakage protection above the top-hung windows. 

We created two basis for the outdoor air-conditioning units to be installed in May. 

A ten cm thick reinforced concrete plate in a 20 cm high curb. Both places are not connected with the outside walls but 'floating'. We put a one cm. thick polystyrene layer covered with grey silicone in between. 

Although the outdoor air conditioning units are fixed to the floor on thick rubbers, I just wanted to be sure we did do all to reduce any noise and vibration of the running aircons inside. Reason why we did not connect the bases to the wall.

Maintenance:

At a night, beginning of March, the main pressure pump of our project water system stopped working. I discovered at 3 AM after visiting the toilet. 

Because of 'cooler' temperatures I decided to try to fix the problem in the night. It took over two hours to dismantle a part of the pump and the pressure switch. Chalk, again, caused the problem. After deep cleaning the problem is solved again (for a couple of months). 

The siphon of the outside temporary 'kitchen' behind the TED's started leaking. Also the grease trap needed deep cleaning and a new inner basket. Happy I ordered in advance. 

I had to renew the siphon and connection to the grease trap, clean the trap and renew the basket. Everything fixed again. 

One of the three air conditioning units we already have (into the TED's) started to make a strange noise and a smell of burning. 

I cleaned the outdoor unit and also the inside unit. The outdoor unit fan was a bit out of balance because some kind of fly build a mud nest on one of the wings of the ventilation blades. The inside unit was filled with over twenty small eggs of Gecko's. They laid the eggs on the electricity wire connection and we think that caused the smell. 

We also checked and cleaned the other two air-condition units.

Everything fixed and working again. 

Our Air quality station, connected on the World Wide Web (Aqicn dot org), suddenly  stopped transmitting information. After checking it worked out, don't ask me how, a Gecko put some eggs in the monitor unit. One of the eggs was broken and many ants entered the station to 'clean' up and also caused trouble in the electric system of the unit. I cleaned it and took the station for a short while off-line. Happy it's working again. 

Last but not least, we fixed the wall of the toilet of the TED's again. Happy we could find nearly the same tiles (Marbella brand) at Global House in Surin. We also changed the tap. This time in a, for us, good quality of Hafele. Not again this frustration as I talked about in the Blog before.  

We just got a phone call our Samsung Windfree aircondition units arrived in Surin. We already asked them to install this May after we managed to isolate and install the ceilings inside.

Log story short, all this activities kept us from the street ;). 

We think it's time for a short break. 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Frustrating maintenance and buying

We are in our construction process now for just over five years. Very normal, especially in the climate we are in, by the way already 39 degrees C / 102 F. 

Although it's a normal part of the process, most of the time maintenance comes unexpected and so is disturbing in relation to the things we planned to do at a certain day. 

On the other hand it's also nice to fix things again by ourselves. 

The water we use from our well contains some chalk. Although we have several filters and clean them on a regular base still the pressure switches in the pumps stop functioning. A matter of demounting a part of the pump and clean the switch on the inside. Last Thursday we discovered no water running and, in the middle of the night because of better temperatures (27 degrees C) I could do the job in two hours. 

Ants, many different species, are back. They come in armies. So we need to be very careful with everything (actually that's all food here) that contains sugar. But some very small ones attack electric outlets and switches as well as circuit boards. Circuit boards we cannot repair ourselves and it cost time and is expensive to get repaired or renewed. 

But still, this is part of living here.

The frustrating part of maintenance is that Thai people got in their genes always to go for the cheapest (shit) quality. 

As many of you know we designed the interior of an old shipping container and used it for about one and a half year as our bedroom and bathroom at our construction site. Now we use it as our TED's. Talk, Eat and Drink place/private bar. 

A specialized company build it for us. But... the Thai way, with cheap shit quality materials we recognize over and over again.

Last week we discovered the main water pressure pump switched on many times. Sign somewhere there must be a small leakage. But Everything seemed to be OK and nothing leaking. 

Yesterday Phatsamon discovered it was the tap to clean your feet at the bathroom of the TED's. Not the fitting but the body of the tap. When I wanted to check, water switched off, the whole tap broke (se picture). It was not possible to take the base out of the fitting. So, the only option left was to cut the wall to repair the leakage and change to a, so far temporarily, tap. 

It worked out the tiles were only glued with some silicone as was the waterpipe. It took me more than two hours to do the work and now I have to try to find the tiles somewhere again and to fix. Also I have to buy a new, good quality, tap. 

So, not only frustrating but also as the Dutch say: "Buying cheap will work out to be expesive". In reality it all is much more expensive and less comfortable. 

This brings me to the 'frustration' of buying and ordering materials at the hard ware stores. 

Loads of staff, lazy, hanging on their mobile phones in rows, most not having any knowledge. If you ask for something many times they tell you the easy sentence: "My mi" (we don't have). Walking a bit further you find what you were looking for. So just laziness.

For the house we needed to order two air conditioners. There are loads of air conditioners to find around here. Hard to make a choice. 

We wanted a so called Air-Free inverter airconditioner of Samsung and I checked already everything and found many reviews on Youtube of expats living here. 

When you go to a shop (all full of different brands of Airconditioners) a staffmember comes to you to tell you you made the wrong choice and immediately shows you another brand. Because they don't have it anymore, it's not working well, it's hard to clean, you only can get it with AI now, etc.. Not true because we already have one of this airco's in one of our guest pyramids working great and I know how easy it is to clean. 

Basic thing about this is staff members get different percentages of commission if they sell a certain product brand. Not my thing.

And what about an air conditioner with Artificial Intelligence? I, personally, do not need and want an app on my mobile phone to switch on or off our airco's. 

"If you do not want it, it's not necessary to use it" was the answer of a staff member. You only have to pay around 250 Euro per machine more and again parts that need expensive maintenance if they break down (or are swallowed by an army of ants).

So, finally, third attempt of shop, we found at HomePro the ones we wanted and they ordered them to be installed coming May.  

This blog, a bit to write my frustration away ;). All part of the process. 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Going on during already very high temperatures.

It took a short while to write this blog. Many things are not finished yet but we thought it's good to give an update about things going on at our construction site. 

First of all I could update my visa again for another year. That will be year number 13 in row I live here in Thailand. 

The last couple of weeks temperatures are rising quickly. A bit too quickly to be honest. Yesterday afternoon I had to stop working because I felt I was close to a heat stroke. 36 degrees C during the afternoon is 'normal' again. The next two months temperatures will only rise till far above 40 degrees C. So time to finish activities on the outside of the house before temperatures are too extreme to work and before the rainy season starts. 

Although it will not be ready we intent to start to use the house half of July this year. 

End of the year we hope to install the outside stairs and sun shields. Maybe earlier but we will see. 

At the moment we work on the inside and outside together. Where possible Phatsamon inside and for me, so far, only if I want to have some change of activities. Then I help a bit with painting or work on electricity.

I am still going on with outside tiling. Placed more Dura-one flashing tape under the lowest tiles against water absorbing. Tiling only is possible in the late afternoon now so the glue has time to dry in the night. We use the old bamboo mats to protect the next day against direct sunlight. 

Also joint filling, after all the tiles are in, needs to be done in the late afternoon and evening because the high temperature. 

So, Phatsamon is doing the preparation work of painting, the finishing touch we do later. We installed the Stiebel Eltron hot-water boiler. We bought already the base boards to install, and some wood. Be surprised. 

As many people know, wood is my favorite construction material but it's hard to use it with the amount of termites in our area. But inside (and or not connected with soil), we think and hope, it will not give a problem. So the time for wood is there. 

We are installing the ceiling of the meditation/yoga sala. Instead of the bamboo mats we ordered and could not use because of bamboo worms, we use special treated pine wood with an anti UV coating. 

The shirts you see hanging under the ceiling we use as scarecrow against interested birds who, during our activities, want to build a nest. 

Next week we hope the back sliding door will arrive. I have to do some concrete work for that. We also need to pour concrete for two outdoor air-conditioning units and for the generator and rain water storage tank. 

Indoor and outdoor ventilation units with mosquito screens as well as the stainless steel outdoor ventilation unit for the kitchen hood are in place already. 

A Hoopoe bird is using the shade of the sala roof to rest a bit. Dog Taffy is watching one of two paragliders interested in our work. 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com