Building in Thailand 2022/23

The fact that you have taken the step to invest in this book is going to make a positive contribution to your Thailand home dream, I guarantee. It always amazes me that people will buy a recipe book when they want ideas and help to cook a meal, but then are happy to just take it as it comes when building a house, which like anywhere in the world is probably the biggest investment they will make. You have invested a tiny 700(ish) baht out of a multi-million baht construction budget and get the advantage of over 1,000 pages and 140,000 words of tips, tricks, planning advice and photos that take you day by day through the process of building a house in Thailand.

This 2022/23 edition is the fourth I have published, and each one is an improvement over the last. This edition has had the most additional input and updates from me, and I have reorganised it to make it flow better. I am very confident it is the very best edition I have produced.

The unusual aspect of your purchase is that once you own my book, you can access annual updates without additional cost, for as long as I continue to produce them. You have paid an entry fee to an ongoing package of support, rather than a once-off publication. My main goal is to help others achieve a better outcome, not make money.

The book is arranged in a logical progression, replicating the steps I recommend you take on this important journey.

SECTION ONE – PLANNING

I have devoted a big part of the book to this section. I want to push you to think about what you are trying to accomplish and how you will achieve that BEFORE you even get plans drawn. Even if you are buying a generic Thai plan online, there are still opportunities to edit them before they become a reality to achieve a better outcome.

Thinking about what you want to achieve for your forever dream home seems obvious, but I find many people only select the default button, without much in the way of planning or consideration, and end up with an outcome that they discover is not as they hoped. For many of us, this is intended to be the last home of our lives and our biggest investment, so don’t throw away the opportunity to evaluate what your long-term home will look and feel like, and how it will perform as a comfortable base for your life in Thailand. In this section, I will encourage you to make decisions well before you build, and then put in place the design aspects that will bring that to reality. Far better to sort out your priorities on paper, rather than on the building site or never at all.

SECTION ONE – PART TWO – DESIGNING AND BUILDING A COOL(ER) HOUSE

What I have done is bring together most of my thoughts on creating a cool house in this one section, rather than mix it in with other chapters. In that way, those of you who are happy with living in a hot home, don’t have to keep bumping into the cool house topic when it doesn't form part of your planning.

SECTION TWO – THE BUILD

In this section, you will join Gaun and me literally on a day-by-day account of how the house we built was put together. You will see exactly what we did each time we visited the site, which was a daily routine for five months. You will share the highs and lows, go shopping with us and follow the builders around the site. Included in this section are tips and suggestions, which are new to the original story, as well as updates I have made year by year via each annual update. I cover this in more detail shortly.

SECTION THREE – MOVING IN

This section is a smaller one and covers the house blessing ceremony, the process of us moving in, and I continue to report on the final steps happening to get the house fully functional, things like installing the kitchen both inside and the Thai kitchen outside. Then there are more non-house building projects like the koi fish pond and the front wall, so lots to keep you engaged.

SECTION FOUR – UPDATES

Here you will find more house performance updates for the next two years and a list of the major problems I noted during that period. It is only after you have lived in a new house for a time that you get the inside information as to how well you achieved your original goals, and where you fell short on those, and this is what this section is so good at revealing.

SECTION FIVE – GENERAL INFORMATION

A miscellaneous mix of topics that I have pulled in from various other forums and have relevance to some aspect of construction or sensible living. Topics range from curtains and termites to cornices and air pollution. Nothing major, but all part of the tick or flick list you make to achieve the best outcome. I have also included a brief history of myself in case you were wondering who is this Tony Eastmead and you can find it in Chapter 57.

SECTION SIX – SPECIALIST INFORMATION

A short section with a few administrative topics and more such as Thai land titles, Usufruct and my expense spreadsheets.