Today the work starts. Getting up early, starting early means being able to stop early. Lung addie has a schedule and wants to finish the work in two days. This should certainly be possible without setbacks, because an installation in a Thai house cannot be compared to that in a house in our home country.
My assigned helper, ie the one who will actually do the work, is Tutuu. The son of a sister of my Mae Baan. A 30 year old man who does just about anything and everything, casual jobs where you can earn a penny, anything, as long as he can provide for his living and he succeeds because he regularly has odd jobs to do.
A short demonstration of how to work with a bell drill, how to use an angle grinder is enough for him to understand. I am amazed at the way he handles it because he had never held an angle grinder nor a decent drill in his hands. That will be fine with him. Cutting out the slots turns out to be no problem at all for him. It's as if he's spent his whole life doing nothing but grinding and cutting trenches. I've been lucky enough to have such a "helper". Lung addie just has to indicate: from here to there, one or two tubes wide, for the rest it's watching from a distance, outside the dust clouds… after all, I'm not allowed to work…. It all runs smoothly, here with a corrugated iron roof of course.
When the wiring has to be inserted into the flexible tubes, there is a small problem. Lung addie has no tension spring and there is no pull wire in the flexible tubes. Lung addie did not find tubes with thread in them here. So it is a bit of a hassle, especially when it comes to longer lengths of pipe. This cannot be done by one person. However, this problem is soon solved because suddenly there are four helpers. Two sisters from the Mae Baan, a daughter of theirs, and a sister-in-law, all family and no problem lending a hand at all. Usually their daily activity consists of picking vegetables and herbs in the area, which often grow here in the wide nature, and then selling them in the neighborhood or on the market. That goes smoothly as there are enough buyers. Many people are currently working in the rice fields and therefore do not have time to pick what they need for dinner themselves, so buy it and very easily if it is also offered at home on site.
They would get those unruly wires into those pipes. It is shaken with the flexible that it is a pleasure to see. Great hilarity when Lung addie plays the song: “shake it baby, shake”… The fun can't stop, shake, push and, to be honest, I would have already cut the tubes halfway and then put them together with a muff, no, they keep shaking and pushing until the wires emerge at the other end and then the fun can't end.
At 15.00 my “helper” and his assistants have finished the work planned for this first working day. 11 double built-in boxes, 80m tube and a 300m wire have been processed into 6 light points and 16 sockets. The pipe to the future outdoor kitchen is also provided. Their surprise is great that there had to be three wires in each tube. In their opinion, two threads are enough… why the third? Pure waste? … That must be a reserve? The surprise is even greater when I wanted six wires in a tube for the last piece, which will later lead to the outdoor kitchen. Fortunately this was only a very short piece, otherwise they will never get it in a flexible of 18mm. I provided, in the absence of a larger wire section, double wiring to be able to take it together later. In a kitchen there is still a greater power consumption and I want it all to be sufficiently strong, even though I will probably never use it myself.
After providing the “aid team” with a good evening meal, khaaw, muu, khai and pak (rice, pork, chicken and vegetables), the day is over…..
Tomorrow the second and last working day: bricking in the built-in boxes and bricking up the pipe slots. There is also “streams and rivers”, more specifically water pipes and drains, on the program. If it goes as smoothly as today, we will finish early because I also have an evening BBQ for the whole team, because tomorrow is Saturday.
"The surprise is even greater when I wanted six wires in a tube for the last piece, which will later lead to the outdoor kitchen." Yes lol…. I had too. In the end I had them draw 3 thicker wires in that pipe and put a new fuse box in the kitchen from where I could continue. They had never seen and done either. It's funny, but they learn quickly.
that is the ultimate goal. Going to a secondary fuse box with that larger section and redistributing there. It is then mandatory to install a second main switch in the main fuse box.
Will there be another cavity?
Dear Hans G,
what kind of question is this, appropriate for this story? Will there be another cavity? This is a Thai house and not a Farang house. You can easily build a house with cavity walls and super insulation that can withstand temperatures of -25°C and you will experience for yourself what it will ultimately bring you at daily temperatures above 25C. How many Thai houses have you seen with a cavity wall? And tell me what they are for? I think you have very little experience and knowledge with the Thai way of building and the sensible or nonsensical, the affordable ... of methods used in the Netherlands / Belgium.
You can also place a cavity and insulation against the heat, so I will build there, then you save on air conditioning costs.
Extra walls and cavity and then preferably some also want a 3x thicker blocks of stone. Nice and warm. Just feel the walls, it doesn't even have to be when the sun rises, then you know that solid materials retain heat and release it to the environment. So it is better to make thinner walls than the house adapts faster to the ambient temperature and can be cooled faster with air, ventilation or air conditioning.
what Ger writes is in line with reality. Thick walls, once they are warm, and no matter how you twist it, they will get warm, try to cool them down. That heat and cold insulation would be the same may be a nice thought, but they are not the same. If you insulate well, this immediately means that you have to keep everything, doors and windows tight, otherwise there is no point in insulating. So extensive ventilation is no longer an option and that is a MUST here in Thailand, due to its very high humidity, and not just an hour. If you don't do this, you will end up with all kinds of fungi and an unhealthy house where the water will wash off the walls. Seen enough examples of Farangs who would teach the Thais. I know several whose "model home" was already for sale after a few months because of ….. (the tiles fell off the walls due to moisture)
It is useful to have good roof insulation, preferably insulation just above the ceiling and not immediately below the roof itself. Most of the heat comes from the roof, where the sun has free play all day long.
The reason they don't do it: no money for…. forget that. There are plenty of Thai people with a lot of money who can easily afford thick walls, cavities and insulation and still don't do it… why do you think? Why don't they do it in hotels, etc.?
But go ahead, afterwards we won't hear anything about it because nobody comes to tell about their own blunders here afterwards.
Heat insulation works both ways. Just because I don't see it in Thailand (not even double glazing), doesn't mean it won't work. Keeping heat in or keeping the heat out both work.
piece of kite string and a vacuum cleaner and you suck the kite wire through the PVC tube very easily !!!!
just tie it together and voila!! happened
Thanks for the good advice, but don't forget that this is happening in Isaan. In a small village where people do not yet have a vacuum cleaner and kite wire. Here, in those small villages, you go back in time and you have to fight with the weapons you have. Here people still plan and help each other with very modest means: with both hands. People here just don't have all those modern means, here they still sweep the floor with a kind of broom and not a vacuum cleaner.
It was just a question.
There's a lot of frustration and know-it-all in your answer, Lung addie.
I have not commented on construction.
Nor was I talking about blunders.
I do have construction experience.
That's why I was wondering what you thought about that.
Insulation works, ventilation is also important, as is no sun on the windows.
These are different things.
I prefer to wait for other people's experiences.