Slowly more retirering after fourteen years

It's been a while to do an update about how we are doing at our place.  

The beginning of the rainy season just started. The every year returning flying thousands of termites show it. And, now, I am writing this blog because... it's raining. 

Temperatures technically dropped. On the other hand humidity is very high now, so it still feels very hot and as soon as we start working we start sweating even more. 

My, European, body tells me I have to slow down and finally I start to obey to that call/request. Let's face it, although still feeling very young, I am getting older.

The last months I only worked a bit in the morning and a bit in the afternoon. Taking more time to do and organize some other things as well, have some fun (and karaoke) with friends, organized a family party, and appreciating my nap with our four 'girls' in the airconditioned room on a daily base. 

All together around three hours a day I am doing construction work. And still, looking back to this 'slowly more retiring', we booked enough results. Again, we are not in a rush. It's ready when it's ready but it will never be ready at all because every time we get some new thoughts to create. 

So, great, it keeps the body and mind without any stress happy and healthy. 

Today I am fourteen years in Thailand. After all an early great opportunity. A good decision, great new experiences and 180 degrees change of lifestyle. Worked instead as Director of a safety-region in The Netherlands, as a teacher and coach at a wellness resort in Chiang Mai. Succeeded many courses in life- & talent coaching, meditation, yoga and tantra. And last but not least, already for six years now creating great new sustainable things at the place were we, my Thai wife and me with our animals at the countryside live*. (*: see note at the end of this blog)

Nobody can take these happy and healthy years, still in good condition, from me/us anymore. And indeed, many people still think you have to work 'till the end' to get the best/highest pension. But, my experience now, that's not true.

Now I think, in the circumstances I was in at the end of my career, maybe I would not even have made it till 'the end'. And if, what would be my physical and mental health to start to live a life in Thailand this way? 

So, no full work pension and no full Dutch government pension because I left The Netherlands many years before my so called retirement age. So what? 

It brought me wonderful years and a great place to live that we build together by our own hands. Not much savings, we live and enjoy NOW, and no debts at all. 

This morning I said again that I am very thankful I got all these years this way already. 

So, what did we achieve the last period?

# Replaced the roof of the control-room (Electricity and pumphouse)

# finished the bamboo ceiling of our veranda

# received trucks of sand and installed the pavement and front stairs around the house

Incl. a rainwatergutter to protect
the catroom and cage (to build)
 from draining

# Finally after weeks got the Q-Con building blogs for the cat house delivered 

# Enjoyed, the animals, friends around us, and after work... a beer with ice

Our ricefield starts to grow after the first rain

A couple of Kingfishers taking care of their
nest inside the walkway of our ricefield

Visit with Phatsamon a karaoke bar
in Prasat with friends

70th birthday celebration
of our friend Arnold in Buriram

Note*: Interested to get an impression so far about the place we live? A German contact nearby, by coincidence visited us with his wife and dog and made a YouTube video of his visit to us. If you want to see only the part about how we are living here just start at the time 6.20.

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

We have to slow down. Too unhealthy to go on at the moment.

Still no wake-up call? 

In Chaing Mai people cannot breath anymore because of really tremendous air pollution. Again "number one" (?) ranking the list of most polluted cities in the world. The Thai Newyear celebration "Songkran", April 13 till 15 on its way. 

In Surin, record high temperatures. A Thai Ministry warned half of April the heat index could hit 60 degrees C (140 F).

So, not healthy to work outside as well. We have to slow down. Very early in the morning and late afternoon there is one till one and a half hour left to do something. 

Politicians keep on talking and talking about the change of the climate. All kind of regulations appear. People and companies have to pay for their pollution contribution but this change is unstoppable and nature is too sick to recover. This is irreversible.

In the mean time the world is because of wars and disasters everywhere (for nothing) on fire. All totally out of control. 

Priority now is to get shadow to work and prepare our structures against severe "summer storms" that will arrive soon and at least in a couple of weeks created by this extreme high temperatures.

So, organizing steel to weld and ordering and installing the Bluescope metal sheeting for the carport/cathouse and wind protection ceiling of the veranda of the house. 

We have negative experiences with the metal sheeting materials from CLC in Surin and BK. After four years we face lots of rust and holes already and now start to replace the roof of the controlroom because of leakage. Also the sunprotection roof of the TED's needs to be replaced. It's terrible to see. 

We got the replacement roof material for the controlroom delivered already. It's waiting to be installed. This time it's the special zincaluminum material with a 2.5 cm isolation to keep the waterstorage in the controlroom a bit more 'cool'. 

We switched to the company Bluescope (15 km away from us in Prasat). Bluescope offers a high-quality zincaluminium coated metal sheeting with 25 years guarantee. It's a heavy and more thick material as well and is used on many types of houses, sheds and company halls. 

Sadly we are facing delivery problems of the Q-CON wall blocks for the cathouse part because of Mr. Bigmouth Donald creating disturbances. We are also waiting for the manager of HomeMart to come to help us to solve the floor problems of the place we are building at the moment. 

Although still a lot to do, the first thing now is to keep calm and slow down. No other option. Not worth a heat-stroke. 

 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Progress for the next steps to make. Floor carport/cat-house shit because of delivery problems.

After over six years and with already 8 trucks of concrete delivered, we thought we had some experience. So, as never before we made perfect preparations and arrangements. But shit sometimes happens... More about this later. 

After completing the stairs we started with preparations of the next steps to do. 

We ordered at Do-Home and got delivered the curbs and sidewalk tiles to place around the house. Excellent professional free delivery. 

I decided to buy 46 extra curbs as 'formwork' for the floor/foundation of the carport/cathouse. A little bit more expensive but much nicer for the end results of the floor and easy for the concrete to pour/fill-up. 

At Srishot company we ordered and picked-up ourselves with the Kia truck the wire mesh and rebar. Normally you buy this on roles but this company makes the flat sheets by order only in big amounts. I prefer to work with the flat sheets much more to get better (strength) results. 

Visiting the company they were just welding a huge order of 20 x 20 cm with a thickness of 6 mm. Actually I needed 4 mm but it was easier to ask them to make 5 more sheets (for double netting) for us more. Far to strong but no problem. At the place we will make the walls we put extra 10 mm. double rebar. So, to be sure without any problem the floor also works as a foundation.  

Not possible to drive with the material on the truck on the Highway in The Netherlands but here not really a problem. It brought us some fun. 

We prepared the anchors to connect the steel construction to install. Made the curbs/formwork under a little slope. Had to order some extra sand to level the underfloor so exactly 15 cm thickness of concrete to pour was guaranteed. 

After that we put an electricity and water inlet and a sewage pipe for a small kitchen cabinet in. 

Some old tarpaulins and special plastic on the floor first to block draining concrete water into the soil and weaken the concrete. Put the first layer of wire-mesh in on cement blocks of 2.5 cm to guarantee enough concrete cover on the steel wires. Put the extra rebar as strengthening/foundation for the 10 cm thick Q-Con wall blocks to glue. as last we installed the double layer of wire-mesh on spacers. 

I arranged two skilled villagers (who also did the plastering of the walls of our house) to help us yesterday afternoon. Concrete should be delivered at 2.30 PM. 

So far everything OK. 

We wanted to order the concrete at our regular delivery firm KPS. It worked out they were closed because of a broken machine. Spare parts to repair could take some months we were told. So, we had to find another company not to far away. 

With my knowledge as constructional engineer in Saudi Arabia, especially in this climate, transportation time need to be as short as possible and best with cooled concrete (in Arabia we added ice-cubes and cooled with water on nets the turning mixer but here they don't know that system). Best time is not longer than around 20 till max 30 minutes. 

We found a company and ordered three days in advance 5 m3 high quality concrete with 280 kg/m3 cement. 

A day in advance they called us that the drivers thought he could not deliver because of the tight entrance to our site. Strange because 8 colleagues of him did do. So we called the company and showed pictures of earlier delivery. To be sure they sent the driver to check in the afternoon. 

In the mean time we found another company to be sure. But it worked out it should not give a big problem so we ordered and paid in advance. They should load at 2 PM and deliver at 2.30 PM. 

We really prepared and organized the plot so pouring could be smooth. Water waiting, forks for spreading waiting, leveling materials waiting, vibrator working, etc.. 

Yesterday afternoon, it worked out one of the villagers could not come so we only were with three. Also the driver who visited us did not want to come so the company organized another driver to deliver (but who did not know the way to our site). 

2.30 AM, 3.00 AM, still no concrete. Phatsamon called the company. "We are just loading but are in a que number 5... we will see you soon". After Phatsamon told me I looked strange. Que number 5? I never see any movement at that company but, who knows they had good business. It worked out it was not the case.

Murphy's law:

The (new) driver called Phatsamon because he could not find our address. I went to pick him up where he was driving around somewhere around the temple of the village. At 3.40 AM the truck finally was there. It took nearly 10 minutes to prepare the pouring for the truck. So, already 1 hour and 50 minutes the concrete was in the mixer of the truck.  

The concrete that came out was very thick and hard to pour. The extension gutter nearly broke because of the weight and the gutter turned and dropped. 

I had to pour water (not really a good thing but with the amount of cement not a big problem). I worked out the water tank of the truck was nearly empty because the former driver did not fill up... So I climbed up the truck to fill with our own water supply (picture on top).

For the three of us it was hard working to spread and to compact the 'fresh' concrete. Khun Moe, the village helper, worked his ass of to level the concrete. Phatsamon and I helped to prepare the first steps for him. 

After a a bit more than half an hour we could not go on anymore. The binding of the concrete was already too far away and it was not possible to go on with making a smooth surface. 

What happened?

Phatsamon then heard the story of the driver who could not clean his car because he had no water and did not want to drive back to use our water again. 

This man had to load his truck at his company but after loading 4 m3 also their filling machine broke down. So for the extra cubic meter he had to drive a long way to again another company and had to wait being number 5 in que there. After being on his way to us he could not find our address. 

If I should have know that story before I did not accept the delivery but... the concrete was already in. 

So, the concrete was already far to long waiting for bounding. The amount of 280 kg/m3 cement made this quest even stronger so there was nearly no time left for treating the concrete and creating a smooth surface. 

We used water on top to try but this made the final results even worse. 

We have a very strong floor now but with a lot of afterwork to do. 

Last night I woke up two times to water the concrete and we will go on the next few days with that during daytime. 

We will put the walls in a couple of weeks and after that we think we will put a tile floor on top because this result now is disturbing a lot after all the nice work we did so far. Extra time and extra money because of... delivery.

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com