Well done John, now you can appreciate the size of the floor space and the next phase of internal house fit out.

Take a breath, reasses, review and plan what steps you will take next. All coming together well.

Wednesday 17 Oct A strange sight in our neck of the woods. Progress on the 2BR walls. Framing the stairwell for the rear deck.
Thursday 18 Oct Poured the concrete for the open storage area under the rear deck - ordered 3.5 cu m, which meant the guys had to mix one tub by hand to make up the shortfall.

Friday 19 Oct A pleasant surprise. The neighbours have hacked down the jungle next to our house so that it is now visible as you approach. Fixing the first ceiling battens. These will support the insulation as well as the plasterboard ceiling. The temporary timber supports for the rear deck. Carrying the pan puean to place them on the rear deck. The delivery truck with the crane couldn't put these in place as we still had to pour the slab under the deck - and we couldn't pour the slab on ground first as both the pan puean truck and the 12+ tonne loaded concrete truck would have destroyed the slab. Carrying these planks was back-breaking work in the blazing western afternoon sun. After an hour I relented, and found them inside jobs; we would return to the pan puean in the cool of the morning in the shade.

Saturday 20 Oct Pan puean in place on the rear deck, and getting ready to weld the reo in situ and place the luk bun supports. Chris the leccie spent the weekend with us and ran a lot of lighting cable, as well as cutting in some boxes for power outlets. We now have live power from two outlets in the house proper, and won't have to use long extensions from the garage/workshop any more. After a rat chewed the insulation off the cord of my circular saw one night, I made the decision that all cable would be run inside conduit. Installing the 3" glass wool insulation. Bought enough for about a third of the house initially - reckon the insulation bill will be around 30-33k.

Sun/Mon/Tue 21-23 Oct.
I calculated that we would need 3.75 cu m for the rear deck. As the batch plant only deals with orders in multiples of 0.5 cu m, I ordered 4 cu m and boxed up an area of pathway to take the extra. Ordered it for 10 am Sunday; finally arrived at 11.30, which meant the guys had a late lunch. Got the pour done, but before it was dry enough to trowel (steel floats, not tiled), the heavens opened up. It rained for three hours all up, and 1 1/2 hours of that was the heaviest rain I have ever seen - and I have been thru a few cyclones back in Oz. We put up some black plastic over the pathway and two guys struggled through the trowelling. The wind blew rain onto the back deck resulting in dimpling, but after it stopped and dried a little, the guys did a great job with the steel floats - really pleased with the result. This picture I took on Monday after I had wet the concrete to slow the curing process, and fortunately we had some cool weather as well. If you click on the picture you should see a depressed drain that runs the length of the deck, just in front of the posts. My Thai workforce dropped back from five to three, as two guys moved on to other jobs. Monday and Tuesday were taken up with some steel work, block laying (2nd bedroom walls now finished) and some plumbing. Finally got around to putting a downpipe on the garage guttering.
I am writing this in BKK Tuesday evening, back for work tomorrow, but I am coming back to Udon again for more building this weekend.

Things have been a bit slow lately; I only get back every second weekend now, and my workers have mostly moved on to more regular jobs. Nevertheless, we have laid a lot of blocks and the walls are jumping up quickly. Have done a bit more plumbing, including fixing a previous error by replacing a 90 degree vertical junction in the sewer line with this 45 degree one. And just had to show you this - he doesn't waste a thing - this is incredible. When the disk on the cutoff saw got too low to cut the steel, what did he do? Recycling at its best!

Plumbing looks better , but that recycled cutting disc is just dangerous .
You want to stop him using that A S A P , if it shatters which it can quit easily do it will at least take an eye out .
You know as well as me Thais dont do safety . Buy him new ones , seriously .

coming along well John..Nice to be sitting on that deck and looking out over the rice fields..

'Plumbing looks better , but that recycled cutting disc is just dangerous .
You want to stop him using that A S A P , if it shatters which it can quit easily do it will at least take an eye out .
You know as well as me Thais dont do safety . Buy him new ones , seriously .'

Yes, I did as soon as I saw it. And I am onto them about wearing glasses/goggles when grinding/buffing metal. But I think the ingenuity here deserves some recognition.

And hi Maaaka, yes I am going to enjoy that in about twelve months time.

And hi Maaaka, yes I am going to enjoy that in about twelve months time.

You mean: "in about twelve months."

What else could months be, but time? distance? temperature? weight?

It reminds me of the laborious daft Brit phrase, "Sixty years of age." WTF else could years be, you logorrhoean toads? Seriously, you Brits test the limits of my medication.

Giggle wrote: ↑

November 26, 2018, 10:26 pm

And hi Maaaka, yes I am going to enjoy that in about twelve months time.

You mean: "in about twelve months."

What else could months be, but time? distance? temperature? weight?

It reminds me of the laborious daft Brit phrase, "Sixty years of age." WTF else could years be, you logorrhoean toads? Seriously, you Brits test the limits of my medication.

The irony of you whinging about others saying more than they need to..

Giggle wrote: ↑

November 26, 2018, 10:26 pm

And hi Maaaka, yes I am going to enjoy that in about twelve months time.

You mean: "in about twelve months."

What else could months be, but time? distance? temperature? weight?

It reminds me of the laborious daft Brit phrase, "Sixty years of age." WTF else could years be, you logorrhoean toads? Seriously, you Brits test the limits of my medication.

We speak English, you know from England, if you don't like it split your language call it American and you can bastardise it as much as you like. But until you do don't complain about the English language the English use.

If complaining about language it behoves you to at least try to use correct spelling for your supposed insults. What is a "logorrhoean toad" and why is it an insult?

After that last diversion, To get back on track the build is coming along nicely, though probably the sugar cane and rice harvests are going to slow things down

John are you blockfilling the full wall length or only at strategic points for structural reasons. Corners, columns and door lintels?

When i owned my concrete agitator truck in Cairns North Queensland did a lot of block fill as most houses were block.
Our block fill was called Piss and Pebbles, wet enough to be poured or pumped in and fill all required cavities.
7mm blue metal aggregate is enough and 20mpa, but some may put in some 10mm blue metal stone.
Keep up the good work.
Good to see you will be in the house in about 12 months time or there about's.
There's no real accuracy when living under Thai Time. All you will know with complete accuracy is it will take some time.

Hi Barney. The walls up to the 80cm mark (4 courses) are 140 cm blocks. These were all backfilled with concrete and reinforced vertically witth 12 mm bar every third cavity. The webbing was cut out of the tops of the blocks in the 4th course, and horizontal 12 mm bar welded to the vertical bars. Above this height, block width reduced to 9 cm concrete and 7.5 cm AAC. These walls are only reinforced, as you suggest, at the strategic points. The vertical bars are tied into the posts every 80 cm. At lintel height and again in the top course, we will cut the webbing out of the tops of the concrete blocks. On the ground we will put 5 cm of concrete in the bottom of the blocks. The next day these blocks are laid, 12 mm bar laid in the top and the blocks filled with concrete. This effectively gives us two ring beams.

ajarnudon wrote: ↑

November 27, 2018, 6:19 pm

Hi Barney. The walls up to the 80cm mark (4 courses) are 140 cm blocks. These were all backfilled with concrete and reinforced vertically witth 12 mm bar every third cavity. The webbing was cut out of the tops of the blocks in the 4th course, and horizontal 12 mm bar welded to the vertical bars. Above this height, block width reduced to 9 cm concrete and 7.5 cm AAC. These walls are only reinforced, as you suggest, at the strategic points. The vertical bars are tied into the posts every 80 cm. At lintel height and again in the top course, we will cut the webbing out of the tops of the concrete blocks. On the ground we will put 5 cm of concrete in the bottom of the blocks. The next day these blocks are laid, 12 mm bar laid in the top and the blocks filled with concrete. This effectively gives us two ring beams.

Perfect.

Giggles 26 Nov. 'You mean: "in about twelve months." What else could months be, but time? distance? temperature? weight? It reminds me of the laborious daft Brit phrase, "Sixty years of age." WTF else could years be, you logorrhoean toads? Seriously, you Brits test the limits of my medication.'

As the owner of this blog , I will take some ownership and control, the last word on this topic. Firstly, who are you calling a Brit? Are all of the world's 1 bn English speakers who live outside the US, Canada and the Philippines Brits? I, for one, am not. But I'm not a Brit basher either - others can make up their mind about this member after reviewing some posts. But it's not just reserved for the Brits. Have a look here:
search.php?author_id=47995&sr=posts
A small selection:
26 Nov. 'Probably some drug dealing, slap-headed oik Britons.'
26 Nov. 'The Brits secretly long for a strong, courageous leader like Teddy Roosevelt, or any number of US presidents. Instead they get dishwater, milquetoast blowhards like Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron. What a smarmy, do-nothing line-up that is.'
25 Nov. 'You're ignorant, dun. ...The levels of stupidity on this forum are startling.'
25 Nov. 'Your logic has more holes in it than a hunk of Swiss cheese.'
23 Nov. 'The ugly Briton(s) at it again.'
23 Nov. 'Tesco Lotus really is a heaving pile of sewage peddling diseased offal and promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.'

And this is only a sample from the last couple of days. It seems that the poster is a 'sniper' - one who doesn't initiate discussions, but continuously seeks to belittle others.
Both STWW and myself are long-term professional TESOL teachers. Personally, I instruct my students in the differences between British and US English so that they will have some knowledge of both. I even give them some examples of rhyming slang - dog and bone = phone. Even to the extent of some southern US grammar - 'Are you done doing that now?' However, don't we all use (and like to use) IDIOMS that we grew up with? I for one do, and I bet a search through Giggles' posts would find plenty.
Neither Merriam-Webster (US) nor Oxford (UK) dictionaries have an entry for 'logorrhoean'. The different US and UK spelling versions both use the 'ic' suffix, as in 'logorrhoeic' - neither use the 'an' suffix. One of the subjects I teach is English for Communication. If someone is really trying to comminicate (as distinct from point-scoring) they would use language readily understood by the target audience. Surely either 'verbose' or 'loquacious' would have been better choices (for an audience of non-psychologists). Let's put this language discussion behind us forever now.
Just one final point - I know that STWW is a moderator on this platform. I would like to point out the legal ramifications of Udonmap publishing things like the OP's Tesco Lotus rant of 23 November. And for that matter, there may be any number of Brits who might want to take a class action against the site publisher for hosting some of 'Giggles' posts. I would be hugely surprised if 'Giggles' still has membership next week. However, with this type of framework (shared by most others), there is nothing to stop a barred member from rejoinng with a new set of credentials - including rejoining from a different IP address.
This is a great site - let's make it hard for riffraff to take over.

ajarnudon wrote: ↑

November 27, 2018, 6:19 pm

Hi Barney. The walls up to the 80cm mark (4 courses) are 140 cm blocks.

Sorry, block width 14 cm - getting my cms and mms mixed up

Ajarn, there isn't a like button on this site but I must say well done on putting the troll known as giggles well and truly in his place. His life in Udon mustn't be all he hoped for when he spends so much time craving attention so embarrassingly on here.