Anyone used the advertised House Builders?

[ganstey]

I eventually decided to use NKD House in Nong Kai.

Can't say too much at the moment because unfortunately I have made the 2nd stage payment.

But anyone thinking of using NKD would be advised to contact me before they commit to anything!

Happy songkran

Hi Gary

I have some land close to Tha Bo, have put down the red dirt and will build next year. Any news you have on NKD would be interesting, will be in Tha Bo early May if I can buy you a coffee/beer and listen to any wise words.

Thanks
Geoff

[ukmasterzzzz]

The only good thing I can say about my house is it did not seem to go over budget to much but every thing else was hard work. And I used small building companies
The thing I found with them all. No one seamed to want to be there at the hand over. So I went through four companies to build my house Even then I had to get Windsor. From udon fit the roof edging as I could not even get anyone to fit the Fatch a car that Windsor sold So good luck to all of you

[JohnG]

Just joined the forum and I am hoping to build a house in Loei, so some of the posts here are particularly useful as I have already had a bad experience with one construction company based in Loei and I am hoping to avoid another!

I have contacted NYJ House and Nuja Land and House, both of whom are "keen" to build the house. My preference at the moment is for Nuja Land and House (Khun Anucha) but obviously I want to learn everything and anything I can first.

I have posted on another forum about this, but no-one there seems to have any experience with any Udon/Loei/Khon Kaen builders, so I am hoping I can get more from some here (Dingo and garym1959 in particular). I tried sending a PM, but it looks as if I have to make some other posts first (??), so maybe they can reply here or someone can tell me what I need to do to be able to send PMs.

Many thanks, JohnG

[747man]

DON'T Use Nong-Khai Housebuilder, He can only build ONE Style of house, & It looks like an Airport Traffic Control Tower from Yesteryear.....He's An English Guy named Alec.....Stay Clear you have been WARNED !!!!

[JohnG]

Thanks, 747 - I like being warned!

[rct]

747man with your name I would have thought you'd prefer an abode that looks like an air traffic control tower.

This company has a slick website, owned by an Alec, is this who you refer to:
http://www.nkdhouse.com/blog

[747man]

747man with your name I would have thought you'd prefer an abode that looks like an air traffic control tower.( Errrrrrr !! No Thanks !!!!! )

This company has a slick website, owned by an Alec, is this who you refer to:
http://www.nkdhouse.com/blog

Yes thats The Pr*ck who built a 2 Floor Horror literally 2 Metres behind my Single Story Bungalow Complete with a 2 Metre high WALL ( But that's another story ) ,about 4 Years Ago,Therefore blocking out my Light & Any Breeze that we used to have in the hot season.... Now,It's Cracks are already Showing on the outer walls,It's been EMPTY From day 1 apart from 1 renter for approx 6 Months,So shows how popular the build was,I Believe one of the banks now own the property & was told that it was on the market for 3.4 Million Baht but NOBODY Showed ANY Interest in the place...

[747man]

Thanks, 747 - I like being warned!

Only too happy to help,JohnG......

[JohnG]

I notice that Nong Khai Housebuilder, Nong Khai Design and NKD House are all one and the same. My only personal experience of them is that their stated "company fee" for supervising a house build is 25% on top of the overall project cost (materials, labour and costs), which I suppose is at least honest of them to tell me although it seems a pretty excessive standard charge for essentially only being a middleman and not on-site full time.

To be fair, they do get a lengthy and very good review for building a large "Thai style" house in another Forum.

[747man]

I notice that Nong Khai Housebuilder, Nong Khai Design and NKD House are all one and the same. My only personal experience of them is that their stated "company fee" for supervising a house build is 25% on top of the overall project cost (materials, labour and costs), which I suppose is at least honest of them to tell me although it seems a pretty excessive standard charge for essentially only being a middleman and not on-site full time.

To be fair, they do get a lengthy and very good review for building a large "Thai style" house in another Forum.

You'll Be Lucky to see This guy on site Alec once a week, He Just leaves the build to his Thai Skivvies.....YOU Have been WARNED !!

And Yes,One Company 3 Different Names......Wonder Why

[JohnG]

That's exactly the situation I had with the construction company I had from Loei, so I think its normal - sub contract the work to a local crew and then go once a week, if you're lucky, to check what's being done.

In the case of the local sub contractors I had they were all appalling (three different groups in 6 months!) and the problem was that the more I checked (I was on site every day) the less supervising the construction company did, as I was doing their job for them. It was Catch22 - check all the time and get the disasters corrected before they get hidden, or leave it to the company to check and know that the disasters are being hidden!

In this company's case my first suspicions that things were not quite going to go according to plan were when I noticed that the sub-contractors were making up the formwork for the bottom beam of my perimeter retaining wall without the 1.5 metre foundations underneath, which were clearly contracted! When I asked the "foreman" why there were no foundations he said that that was what he had been told to build. The company, needless to say, said that he had misunderstood but I couldn't be bothered to force the point and make one or the other admit they were cheating - the longer the build went on, the clearer it became that both were as bad as each other, with the company happy to accept bad work made with cheap materials they supplied and the sub-contractors even happier with appalling workmanship and, if they could, using the cheap material on their own projects.

I don't want to name the company, as we parted somewhat acrimoniously and they have a reputation for taking their customers to court, but if anyone is considering building a house in Loei PM me about who NOT to build your house - hopefully with some more information from others here about companies in Udon I will be able to give some information on who can build a decent house, in a year or so's time.

[AJ Nong Khai]

Hello. I'm Alec. I am the owner of NKD, one of the companies mentioned in this thread. I want to clarify one point regarding our 'multiple names'. Our company was formed in 2009 as Nong Khai Design Co., Ltd. Our website address was www.nongkhaidesign.com. We had this as our main website for several years. Our work was predominantly in Nong Khai Province. We had always abbreviated our company name to NKD, and as our company grew to take on projects further afield in other provinces, it made sense to drop the "Nong Khai" from our web address. Hence our new website is www.nkdhouse.com. This change of web address is clearly explained on our old www.nongkhaidesign.com home page and blog, directing people to our new site. It is only our web address that has changed, though - our company is still operating as Nong Khai Design Co., Ltd. which again is clearly stated on our home page. We are do not promote ourself under the name "Nong Khai Housebuilder" except it is sometimes used in tags on our blog posts to help people find a house builder in Nong Khai, in much the same way that projects we do in Khon Kaen may be tagged with Khon Kaen house builder.

I just wanted to clear that up, as 747 seemed to imply that there was something more to be read into our 'multiple names'. Just to be clear, again, our company has always been the same. We just rebranded our website and changed domain name to appeal to a wider geographic audience (i.e. lose the Nong Khai focus). Nothing is hidden here. Our old site links to our new site and our new site clearly states our name as Nong Khai Design Co., Ltd. at the bottom of every page and also on our contact page address.

As for 747's comment that 'we can only build one style of home'. This can easily be addressed by directing you to a selection of our previous projects where I think you will see quite a rage of styles: http://www.nkdhouse.com/what-weve-done/

I will not be drawn into any further debate with 747, as that has already been done... in fact the only other time I have posted on this forum in was about 4 years ago to defend myself against other false statements by him. Needless to say there is more to the story.

747 has no experience of the internal workings of our company or the way it is run. He has no first hand experience of a company/client relationship with us.

While I am posting, I can also just confirm that our fee for managing a build is indeed 25%, which is stated on this page of our website: http://www.nkdhouse.com/construction-process-flow/ This page also gives detail of exactly what this fee covers.

I know that some will think that our fee is too high and others will think that it is a fair. We have an increasing number of clients year on year, so obviously there are some that recognise the value of our service to them. Others would prefer to use another company or self manage the build themselves. Value is a matter of each individual's personal opinion so our service will not be for everyone. I understand this, and promoted the benefits of self managed builds on our own website as you can see in this blog post: http://www.nkdhouse.com/blog/2014/10/29 ... cess-story

We try to be as transparent as possible in our business in terms of our fees and costings for projects with everything itemised and clearly stated. We never claim that all of our builds run perfectly smoothly - It is the nature of construction that issues can sometimes arise. However we always have the responsibility to correct those issues and produce a home that our clients will be happy to live in for years to come. We are always willing to take new clients or interested parties to see ongoing and completed builds and are more than happy to introduce them to clients who we have built for or are building homes for currently. We have nothing to hide in that respect. I can not speak on behalf of our clients, but I can say that when we have taken potential new clients to see homes that we have made and meet with our current clients, that they have then gone on to using our construction services themselves.

I do not intend to get drawn into any conversations on this thread, as I feel it is more for people giving first hand experience of construction companies rather than for the companies themselves, however I did feel that I needed to defend our company once again against 747's false statements and insinuations.

If you are interested in the services our company has to offer we have a PDF available on our website downloads page here: http://www.nkdhouse.com/downloads/

I am of course always happy to arrange a consultation to discuss any projects further without obligation.