The floors ready? That's what we thought... and the work, with a huge delay, finally has been done anyways.
An amazing job. Making the top (Terrazzo) floors of our main house. Happy we asked our main construction materials shop (Home-Mart, Surin) a skilled firm in doing this job for us.
As already mentioned in our last blog, the owner with two workers started Tuesday January 14. The next day five workers were engaged with the work. Really hard (and heavy) work. Carrying bags of cement of 50 kg., buckets with mortar, bags of gravel, etc.. And nearly all by hand. For me it looked a kind of 'old fashioned' way as I remembered seeing the same activities, being a young boy, getting a new kitchen at our house in Haarlem, The Netherlands.
Although, for instance, we offered free use of our concrete mixer, they refused. Just because they are not used to, and comfortable with it. Indeed they used a couple of times my laser instrument but actually liked their plastic hose filled with water, as spirit level, more. And yes, for culling some high concrete spaces to be able to level the floors, they used a kango hammer. One of the workers bare foot in stead of even on flipflops. No one wearing a mask, eye or ear protection.
For two days they did not work because of the leveling cement needed to dry. Sad it was an understandable surprise but they did not tell it to us. We used that time to go on with preparations of the kitchen and priming the inner walls as far as possible.
Sunday, January 19th, five persons again came to pour the top layer of the floors inside and outside. It took a while to find the right colors we wanted but after a while we decided to give it a 'go'. Mixing by hand in big tubs. I think the workers, afterwards, must have had lots of muscle pain.
Wednesday January 22, again after a period of two days drying of the top layer, the company with four men and four ladies came to grind and polish the floors. In relation to the communication we had before with the constructor we thought that was it.
No way. Stress levels of me (Frans) started to rise.
Before they told us the whole process should take 7 days. So no problem to order to install the kitchen three days later. But it all worked out to be understood wrong by us or the information we got was not accurate.
These 7 days worked out to be only for the gravel to dry and to start the process of grinding and polishing (that took three days).
So only happy, thoughts. Wednesday January 22 turned out totally different then we thought.
Electricity breaks over and over again. We were told our electricity system was not prepared for this heavy grinders and polishers. Even one of the three grinders broke down and the electric engine needed to be renewed.
After the ninth power cut It worked out I found the problem. Nothing wrong with our electricity system.
This process needs lots of water to cool and support the grinding process. The man with the hand grinder, however, did not recognize his machine made the ongoing problems of the ongoing power cuts. Putting the working area over and over again under 220V.
He repaired the cable of his machine after being broken during another job before. Sad but not in the totally right way. Water on the floors went into his repaired 'cable connection' work and caused ongoing short circuits. All our floors are earthed.
All the machines and tools of the workers are not having any earth connection. They don't even have plugs. For them it's just a matter of putting the copper endings of the wires of machines and extension cables into any available outlet.
I arrested all their cables and offered them my own cables. I repaired, in a water proof way, the hand grinder. The owner went to repair and bought a new electric motor. So a lot of delay because all this. But after that no problems any more and better safe working.
We decided to order to make the kitchen floor and part of the living room floor ready first so the process of delivering and installing the kitchen could take place on time as already organized.
All this caused me (Frans) a lot of stress and again I discovered, after my accident and burn out years ago, I am still not ready to 'take it easy' in this ongoing disturbing situations.
During this whole process unfolding for us, we went on with tiling, priming the inside walls as far as possible, finish the preparations for the kitchen to arrive, and checking paint colors for the inside of the house. The kitchen sink, the induction hub and hood are waiting to be installed. Tuesday January 21 we fixed the electricity connections for the entire inside kitchen.
Now, after much more days as thought, we know the steps of the process:
- leveling and preparing slopes needed,
- two days drying,
- Pouring gravel cement in a color(s),
- two days drying,
- Grinding, grinding, grinding and grinding,
- Repairing holes,
- Scrubbing,
- Polishing,
- Scrubbing again and cleaning,
- Drying,
- Waxing.
Much more than seven days as told before but... it's done now.
Thursday afternoon at 3 PM, January 23, the (Kitzcho brand) kitchen furniture was delivered. It arrived a couple of days ago from the factory in Bangkok, already at the shop (Home Pro) in Surin where we ordered. Friday 24th technicians from the factory, dealing with our region, will come to install at our place. We keep you posted.
Just the pictures to give an indication of all the work on flooring that has been done.
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| Leveling started |
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| Cutting away too high concrete with a Kango |
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Watering the concrete floors to be able to level
with a special mortar |
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| Drying (two days) |
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| The workers take lunch together |
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| Gravel and top-floor mortar delivered. |
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| Leveling with slope of the outside entrance floor |
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| The workers flooring, I am tiling |
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| Dog-enter and sun protection for one day/night. |
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The build a kind of water tower to get cooling water
for three grinding machines |
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| One of the, by me, arrested extension cables |
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| Without food, especially Thai people, cannot live ;) |
Frans & Phatsamon
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