Paint peeling on outside of house

[Barney]

Well Barney and Uncle Bob Im sure the first person that can make strawberry jam from pig sh-t is going to be a billionaire, over and out.

I'll give you that one.

[deankham]

thanks for all the discussion.
..I scrapped the flaking paint of last week. Am waiting now the rain has gone to see if it gets any worse or if the walls appear to be getting damp again.

I think someone asked if the problem was only on the external walls or also the internal. It is only external.

Although I've got another problem on the inside with some floor tiles starting to make a 'crunching' noise. I'll start a new topic for this in due course!

Cheers

[JohnG]

It's a shame with all the experts, and I say that in a kind and positive manner, that we as a group can't provide Deankham with a solution to his very common problem. I'm sure that others who have the problem would like advice as well and more will check their design if building. I'm now glad I raised my house and did not put it on a slab.
It's obvious his house is already built and did not have the moisture protection built into the foundation. So no need to continue on with how it should have been built. Me being a sometimes small time boss on large projects I do not give much time to engineers or field supervisors who can only tell me what's wrong and not provide a solution to field problems.
I tried to help with a simple method of rectification that I used on a house I built in Vietnam. Sorry Fatbob but it worked. Maybe I was just lucky, but by draining the area as a I explained I removed all the moisture in the soil. Painted the concrete down to the bottom of the beam with at that time a thick bitumous sealant paint, back filled it like I said and never had a problem once I painted again.

Bobs not my uncle either but just an old saying.

I posted the only practical solution in the third post, first page.

I would strongly advise against any bitumen-type sealant for this, even though it's the right solution in other circumstances. All you'd do here is seal in the moisture.

No easy solution to the 'crunchy tiles'. Sounds like they've been badly laid, so any proper solution would mean taking them up and relaying. Hotel / house slippers may help!

[ajarnudon]

This is pretty much the norm for existing block houses in Thailand. In the transition from wooden to block construction, western expertise for damp proof course got lost along the way. As a result, most existing block houses suffer from the same problem - including my long-term rented house in Udon (50 cms is a bit extreme though; my place has the damp/salt ingress up to about 20-25 cms). There is no real solution for a pre-existing structure except tiling; external concrete surrounds usually make any other option out of the question. For Thais who have grown up with this phenomenom, no problem exists. That is just the way block walls are.
Although a lot of posts here don't address the OP's original problem, they are a good reminder to those of us who are now, or will in the future be, building.
A bit like concrete slabs really - in every condo, fuel station and shopping centre car park in the country you will find myriad crazy cracks everywhere. My wife started to pass on advice to me from her friends about how concrete should be mixed, laid etc. I pointed out all of the poor quality work in these places. Is this how you want our place to look? She always thought that this was perfectly normal. Most Thais know jack s**t about concreting. At least she now admits knowing the importance of water retention during the curing process. She'll think I am crazy though when I take a diamond saw to newly laid concrete for control joints.

[deankham]

Just an update. I scrapped all the flakey / peeling paint off about 3 weeks ago. So far it doesn't look like it is getting any worse and does not seem to be damp / wet.

It'll stay like that until the end of the wet season then I'll have it sealed and painted with a good quality exterior paint and see what happens.

My more worrying concern now is the floor tiles that are lifting. Is only a handful but they are making a crunching noise underfoot. Im worried that the concrete slab is somehow crumbling in places. Any advice on what to do next to determine what the problem is and if it is serious enough to start taking tiles up?

The wife just happened to mention that when we had the kitchen installed they had a problem with the water pipe into the kitchen and needed to chip into the wall to fix the pipe. I'm wondering if this could be the root cause and if it is just the residual effect or if it is still leaking! Worth noting that the water pump NEVER runs unless we are using a tap so I'm pretty confident we don't have a water leak coming in...going out however?

Thanks.

[JohnG]

If you don't use a decent sealant as a primer the exact same thing will happen - just maybe slightly later.

If your tiles are lifting, you can easily take one or two up to check the problem. Tap around all the tiles, and if you get a hollow sound they're probably badly laid or your tiler's used the wrong mix.

[deankham]

Thanks John.