Post
by JohnG » May 15, 2017, 3:18 pm
This has got to be the weirdest thread recommending a builder since I recommended one (who I am still extremely happy with and would recommend without reservation) and had to stop posting any details as I felt some of the posts asking for information were asking for just a bit too much information.
A few points, which I think are "relevant".
Most Thai 'construction companies', as previously pointed out, don't employ all their own staff full time or have all their own equipment - even many of the bigger ones. They employ work teams they know as required to do everything from piling, foundations, beams, walls, ceilings, roofs, plumbing, electrics, etc, usually give them a company T-shirt to wear to make them look the part, and the supervisors from good ones are on site at all critical times to supervise the work while the bad ones aren't. In the case of my builder (from Udon) that meant his personally being on site every working day for the first two months and for weeks at a time for the rest of the build and his very clearly knowing exactly what he was doing and being in complete control of the build , while my previous builder (from Loei) who I wouldn't employ to dig a ditch just visited occasionally, just as two or three other posters have described / experienced from similar "middlemen".
If a builder hadn't bothered to be there to see the work at least started, as JR reported, then that alone, in my view, would put them firmly in the "bad builder / strictly a middleman" category. In this case A Con's "team" didn't turn up for JR and ajarnudon "did have to fire one crew that he had working on site" - neither should have ever happened and there's no excuse for either. If the owner has to fire the construction team himself, not the construction company (A Con), that can only mean the company's not doing its job properly and supervising the work. That's two out of three that have had work done by A Con where the company / middleman's failed to do the most basic part of what he's paid for.
Throw into the mix a farang who who thinks he has a right to "come along with Kang and assess the situation" uninvited and to discuss other farang customer's business and building arrangements with A Con "because "Kang's English isn't so great and my missus will help interpret what's going on" who has no professional building training, qualification or experience, and I wouldn't want Kang / Geng / Vince / A Con within a country mile of any construction project I had. That may be unfair on Vince, and even more unfair on Kang / Geng, but based on what he and others have posted here I think that's the inevitable conclusion most reading this have to come to by now. Having had a look at the photos of the work done by the team at ajarnudon's, supposedly under Kang / Geng's supervision, however, I think it's probably more than fair.
