Footings And Load Bearing Walls.

Now in the UK bricks are baked, so then they are extremely strong and can hold up a lot of weight, here unfortuneately those little red things that Thais call bricks are sun baked and these cannot withstand a lot of weight, so generally everything is supported by concrete beams and posts and the bricks are just used for infill, ie making the walls and that sort of thing.Anyway here is a nice picture of beam work.


Now generally for the footings these will be hand dug out, ie a dozen Thais with shovels, yes it does take longer than using a digger but it saves at least 500baht, so for that day you have lost the contractor has made an extra 500baht, a wheeled digger costs 2,500baht per day, and the big beasty track macro 7,500baht per day, hey now dont start complaining as that 500baht could usefully be used down soi yodsak, yes even us builders have needs.

Ahhh, I nearly forgot to mention an important aspect about making walls, in good old blighty we would render and then plaster the walls, it gives a lovely smooth finish, but alas here, the walls are only rendered off, yep it just dont look as good.
although in Sri Lanka they use white cement to plaster the walls and that seems to work fine and gives a nice finish.

Well I have been looking for a nice picture of a hole to post so you can get the feel of what a hole for the footings should look like, well I shall try to explain it, for a two storey house reckon on a one meter deep hole about 1 meter wide, anyway here is a nice picture of a hole that we put marble in and made into a swimming pool.




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