A main house of over 80.000 kg construction weight

As we mentioned before (16 August 2022) we did not yet get permission from the Or Bor Tor (local government in charge of constructions, roads and building) to start building our designed main house in November this year. 

Main reason, as they say, is Thai law (Building act) at some points is different than the Dutch/European and the way we want to build is just not the Thai way. So easy for us to say it's also not well known to the officials working here. 

In Thailand mostly the way of building houses is to build on piles with columns and beams. In between they fill up with half stone masonry and plasterwork. Concrete floors are poured on soil. 

We want to build without columns, with a 70 cm width strip foundation, with concrete hollow core-slabs prestressed floor panels on strong 20 cm thick blocks (so we want to create a crawl space under the floors to ever be able to fix pipes and also to protect mold in the walls), and with load-bearing walls. Maybe we are the first ones in Surin but not the first ones in Thailand. 

We had several contacts with the Q-Con blocks firm who produces the special strong blocks for load-bearing walls. They told us there are several projects in the country, nearly all designed by farang (people from europe) who made and make the structures the way we designed. 

So on behalf and on request of the Or Bor Tor we made weight and strength calculations (all together 8 pages) both in English and Thai. Today we finished that job.

We were also asked to copy and translate my Dutch degree of being a constructional engineer/architect. We also finished that. 

So this week we will go to the print shop to print and sign the new paper work and give the request for building a second try. 

Although this was all extra work again for us it was nice to get an insight in the weight of the new to build house (basic weight over 80.000 kg and calculation weight of nearly 110.000 kg) and also to be able to show the construction in weight and strength at least is 15 times 'oversized'. 

Indeed, that's a lot and overdone but it's the way we want to build it. 

At Wednesday morning, August 24, we need to pick up the extension of our second building permission (for the two pyramid guest houses). Just to have a legal document for finishing this project within two more months. 

The same day we will go for a second attempt to get permission to start to build our main house in November this year. Fingers crossed. 

Frans Captijn

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com