Building a House Vietnam Part 2

Construction started yesterday on our 98m2 house in Cu Chi province, an auspicious date provided by the monks in District 7. Chi is managing the entire process and fairly nervous about getting the whole thing right. Here in Vietnam you only pay the builder for construction per m2, absolutely no materials are included in his costs right down to the bricks and cement. Luckily out in Cu Chi, with many of the 12 aunts/uncles still around, Chi has plenty of contacts including a materials supplier who will do everything apart from roof tiles for us. This guys has his own factory which manufactures outside tiles (you know those terracotta ones ubiquitous in this country). After the deal, we get a stone table and chairs (you also know the type) for the garden.

The construction crew are tied to a contract which denotes when payments are made and dependent on certain stages of the house being finished. One of Chi's Uncles will be observing the crew (2 main builders and 4 labourers) everyday, filling out an observation form on their progress. It's due to be finished by Christmas. Let's see about that.

Building a House in Viet Nam : 2

From this to this, 20 trucks and a roller later.

Building a house Viet Nam: Part 1

Around four years ago Chi and I sold her mother's small house in Binh Thanh and used the money to buy two plots of land, one in Cu Chi and one in Binh Chanh. Four years later, we've decided its time to start building a house for mum to live in before she turns our hair gray. And potentially a nice weekend retreat for us too.

I plan to chronicle the process here.

The land was purchased at 600,000 per  sqm, 1000 sqm. So a total value of 600 million VND at time of purchase, around $29,000, in 2009.

Since then, all we have done is erect a huge fence and set of gates around the land (cost: $1000). The land is totally overgrown with tall grass, trees and bushes. Recently we had someone survey the land for clearance, and he discovered a whacking great bomb crater in the middle of it. That's gonna take a little extra earth to fill in. This same man is quoting us 1 million VND ($50) per truck of earth, and estimates that it will take 30 trucks to fill in our crater and raise the level of the whole plot above the road. Once he's done this, the earth needs to be left at least 4 months to compact naturally before any construction can take place.

During this time, Chi and I will be looking at the house and garden design. Here's what we are working with:

The area for allowed housing is 120m2. We have a friend working on some 2D designs in various shapes.

Once we have leveled the land and the rainy season arrives we'll buy some young trees of varying kinds to plant.

I will be mostly living this project vicariously through my wife and various other family members who live in Cu Chi. The only pictures I have right now are these, and it won't look like this for much longer: