Udon Thani Thailand Forum - Udon Thani, Thailand

In the context of topping up soil on a building plot, does anyone know how much soil a typical lorry holds (in cubic metres), and what the current cost per lorry is?

I know how many cubic metres of solid, but want to work out how many truck loads that would involve and the cost.

This link may help:-

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/63 ... rks-isaan/

6 Wheel standard truck carries 6 cube, I recently paid 300bht a load which was sourced locally in Kut Chap

Im out in Ban Dung and we pay 550 for 10 wheel average about 10 to 12 m3

300bt for an old beaten up grey tip truck load

Average around here is currently about 500 Baht (about 14 cubic metres or 16 tonne) - depending on how far they are traveling from the fish pond/pit they are digging. It's locally called 'Hin' (red/brown colored gravel) and the price includes a tractor for leveling.

Thanks all for your input. I've passed it onto the wife.

Would I be right to assume that any new topping up, will likely settle by about 20% over the first year or so, depending on how much it is compacted when originally topped up?

now dont quote me on this, but I read somewhere that if your filling in a rice field with truck loads of dirt you shouldnt build on it for two years, so as it has time to settle..Now to counter that, my builder is dumping 12 truck loads on my place and going to build a workshop /bungalow on top without delay..He said it was ok, because hard ground underneath and we only putting a foot over the top and filling in low spots I cant really see...so there you go..I woukld expect some settling , but as to percentage havent a clue

will settle more than 20% i would go for minimum 30%
this wet season i lost 30% of the 2 rai i topped up 1.2 metres

maaka wrote: ↑

October 2, 2018, 5:30 am

now dont quote me on this, but I read somewhere that if your filling in a rice field with truck loads of dirt you shouldnt build on it for two years, so as it has time to settle..Now to counter that, my builder is dumping 12 truck loads on my place and going to build a workshop /bungalow on top without delay..He said it was ok, because hard ground underneath and we only putting a foot over the top and filling in low spots I cant really see...so there you go..I woukld expect some settling , but as to percentage havent a clue

If there's going to be a problem with the workshop/bungalow will depend on exactly how he builds, there will be around 20% air in the fill so any thing that requires long term support from the fill is likely to fail as the fill compacts, conversely if the fill is just acting as a support for the concrete while it cures and isn't really needed after then there is no problem.

arjay wrote: ↑

October 2, 2018, 1:56 am

Thanks all for your input. I've passed it onto the wife.

Would I be right to assume that any new topping up, will likely settle by about 20% over the first year or so, depending on how much it is compacted when originally topped up?

The compaction that fill usually gets makes little difference unless you are using things like these to compact Mostly a tractor is used and they are designed to not compact the soil.

Some of the settlement will depend on the type of soil that's delivered, when we topped up the land in town we had nice brown soil that settled quite a lot but when we topped up our land in Ban Tad they delivered a red very cloying clay like soil that hardly settled at all. In the first instance we waited a couple of years before we built and the second we waited just a year and the builders moaned like crazy that it was like digging concrete.

Bought 1 Rai of land in middle of 2012, cleared it and then put 500 mm fill (relatively dry red clay fill) over the whole area some 3 months later. Only spread it with a Tractor blade an over the next 20 months, it settled about 120 mm

Middle of 2014, (20 months after placing the fill), I started to build on it. It was hard as a rock, so much so, that when digging the pad footings they would dig the first 300 mm, then fill the hole with water, then dig another 300 mm and so on. It was hard 300 mm into that fill layer.

Underneath the fill was virgin clay (never a rice paddy) so this too was hard to dig into.

This was only an original 500 mm thick fill layer. It may be a different story if you dump a 1.0 meter thick fill layer.

maaka wrote: ↑

October 2, 2018, 5:30 am

now dont quote me on this, but I read somewhere that if your filling in a rice field with truck loads of dirt you shouldnt build on it for two years, so as it has time to settle..Now to counter that, my builder is dumping 12 truck loads on my place and going to build a workshop /bungalow on top without delay..He said it was ok, because hard ground underneath and we only putting a foot over the top and filling in low spots I cant really see...so there you go..I woukld expect some settling , but as to percentage havent a clue

In Aus going back a while ('86) it used to be that one could not build on filled or reclaimed land for 20 years.
They seem to have relaxed that for domestic.
Commercial still tend to bring in the massive spiked roller vibrator units.
Housing they tend to use cracker dust and I've seen the trend can be a build-up of around 500-600mm above the natural soil and there is no waiting, just run over with the hand machine vibrator units.
Seems to extend maybe 1 metre past the extremities of the slab.
Then again in Aus for domestic they largely use raft slabs.
Soil ( if you can call it that) at my place is the same as in most parts of Thailand, crappy clay and I remember putting 20mm steel deformed reo bars in my raft slab back in "86.
Also remember the builder saying how much clay moves, expands and contracts also between wet and dry. I see it here, especially now in the drought here with large cracks appearing everywhere.
Hard to believe 5 years ago we had flood water up to the bottom of the windows.
Our land in Thailand we put 300 truck loads in 2 years ago, levelled off with the tractor and now has more ups and downs than a theme park ride.

these prices will vary depending area ,where the soil is coming from , how many you need....
cheapest din daeng , the sticky red clay ground they always use to start the fill ,best topped off with 20cm of hin daeng ,which contains more gravel stone making it very compact and non sticky when driven over , mostly they will give prices including clearing with the normal tractor (?) , when u can build on this is depending how much you have filled up and building style , mostly when need to put your footing in the new soil best to wait 1 year ...(footings are mostly 1m deep)
the din/hin daeng compact very quickly after 1 rain season ...
if you live baan noak (inland) it will be a lot cheaper than near a big city (muang)...
only one more advice , do not make it more complicated than it really is , i all ready get some headache of some postings here , and not forget TIT , do not compare with abroad ...good luck to all...

Thanks for the input everyone.

Essentially this land will be topped and levelled out and then left for a year or two before any building will take place.

It is a middle plot of three, on a sloping (to the side) site. The upper/higher left hand plot was topped up by 500mm (before settling) and then built on. So my wife is thinking of topping her middle plot up by a max of 1.5 metres, tapering between 0.5m on the uphill side to a max of 1.5m on the downhill side, and then leave that to settle.

Good luck Arjay, hope you get a good price for each truck, prices quoted on here are close to the mark for different size trucks. If you know where the house will be built just throw some extra on that house plot and the extra weight of the soil will help compact the house plot more quickly instead of waiting a year. Once you decide to build the house that excess soil can be spread around to other areas to fill sections that may have settled.

Just throw a few extra trucks of soil on the land now for spreading in the future. No need to get it absolutely perfect now, give it at least one wet season to compact.

The cost of the soil depends on 2 main things that is how far it has to travel to your land .
Also the seller , some see farang and $$$$ come to mind .
I.E we built a house and right next door they were digging out a lake maybe 300 yards away we got this for 150 B load .
Right now we are prepping to build a house up north Uttaradit the soil we bought came from 5 K away and cost 550 B a load .
Tip when buying soil ask for top soil, if not somtimes you can end up with clay name in Thai (Din Neo)... this stuff is good for nothing.
It will not drain ,can't plant in it and slippy once it rains .
Hope this helps

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Don't forget to count the number of truck loads onto your land by someone you trust

BillaRickaDickay wrote: ↑

November 28, 2018, 1:56 pm

Don't forget to count the number of truck loads onto your land by someone you trust

Easiest way to do that is buy a book of raffle tickets, then give one to each driver.

BillaRickaDickay wrote:Don't forget to count the number of truck loads onto your land by someone you trust

Or let them estimate the amount of trucks needed , set the height and do a fixed price , including levelling of course .
That's the way I like to do buisnes.

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