Grande Caribbean Resort - A Success Story

[RabbitRun]

Also the reason for the pool being so cold,it would take a lot to warm up due to the size of it

Yes, altogether over 3,600 square meter surface area. A significant portion is shallow wading waters fot children, so would heat pretty quick in those spots. I'm really not too interested in swimming during the cool season (I'm not on holiday, lol), so from another perspective, the pools will stay cooler for a bit longer during the summer months. All a matter of tastes. People seemed to be enjoying the swimming the last couple of visits I made ( no one shivering that I saw).

 

Anyway, as I said, people have the choice of sun or shade, which is not always the case with other developments.

[RabbitRun]

I keep forgetting to post about the Juristic representative who is present in the lobby of Cruz tower. He's either there, or in his office upstairs in the admin offices. There's a well documented procedure for resolving problems. Perhaps other BM's can share whether they have observed this kind of on-site presence and ease of getting things done?

[RabbitRun]

Supergeil, this post is especially for you, as you've brought up the issue of under the floor p-traps a couple of times. I was going thru some construction pics of GCR and came across one of the first sets I took of my condo, at a time when the sales staff took me up to see it in its early stage before ceilings went in. I took the following pic in my unit's bathroom, it shows the floor drain trap for the unit above mine. Clearly, GCR is installing proper traps under the floors. I'm no expert, but it looks like it is large enough to prevent any vapors. What do you think?. Edit: the pic is loading upside down for some reason, but anyway, the view is looking up at the ceiling of my bathroom

[kakebur]

Looks good, but a lot of shadow at the pool?

[supergeil]

Supergeil, this post is especially for you, as you've brought up the issue of under the floor p-traps […] it looks like it is large enough to prevent any vapors. What do you think?

 

It is big, yes

 

But the waste pipe is horizontal? And it goes from a wide pipe to a narrower one?

 

I assume it is horizontal (with a slope?) because they don’t have a vertical pipe near your toilet, pure speculation, but they may have saved on these because they take up space (unlike horizontal pipes which you can hide above the ceiling).

 

But doing horizontal pipes is more prone to issues like blockage because there is little gravity to move solids down the pipe, so a buildup can more easily happen (though for a shower drain, hair should be the only solid entering this system).

 

The other thing is sewage gasses. The horizontal pipes will normally be filled with these, they develop in the septic tank and goes upwards, so normally up through the vertical waste pipe and escape through the rooftop vent. But as your horizontal pipes should have a bit of a slope, the gasses will enter these pipes and displace the normal air.

 

So say your upstairs neighbor flushes his toilet, he will increase the pressure in the main pipe, the rooftop vent is of no use, because the new waste is blocking this. If there are many horizontal pipes in the system, there could be a lot of sewage gasses, and it doesn’t require a lot of pressure to have them escape through a water lock.

 

Insufficient venting may only affect a subset of residents and only at certain times of day (e.g. in the morning and evening, when a lot of people use their bathrooms). I did stay in one Thai condo which definitely had a sewage gas problem twice a day. I moved two floors up, and the problem disappeared.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a plumber and don’t actually have experience in construction, I have just taken a keen interest in the building process, having bought two off-plan condos, both turned out to be an amazing triumph based on your scale, though my own scale would probably use more reserved superlatives to describe the result

[RabbitRun]

Supergeil ,

That pic I posted of the bathroom ceiling only shows the shower drain pipe works. It does not show the toilet drain piping at all. I don't believe there's an issue with a short horizontal section of pipe to pass along shower wastewater .

 

Bottom line, GCR is using p-traps in its plumbing, as they should.

[RabbitRun]

Looks good, but a lot of shadow at the pool?

Once more, there is full sun up until about 1pm. After that, the shadow of the Tower building gradually progresses until about 70% (my guesstimate) of the main pool areas is in shade, about 30% in sunlight throughout the day. Why is it bad that people have the choice of sun or shade? The Non-farang users of the facilities certainly seem to prefer to swim and sit in the shady areas.

[supergeil]

Bottom line, GCR is using p-traps in its plumbing, as they should.

 

This came about after you wrote:

 

I have had the opportunity on several occasions to walk thru my unit and some of the hallways , common areas, etc. I saw how the plumbing and electrical were being installed. I'm neither a plumber nor an electrician, but I saw no signs of anything problematic.

 

To which I replied:

 

A general problem with plumbing in Thailand is sewage smell where there should be none. I have seen 3 reasons for this. One is insufficient venting of the sewage pipes (the gasses coming from sewage will go through water locks), another is puny water locks/traps where the water will evaporate within a day and/or water locks in floor drains that never see any water, and the third is just bad seals when installing toilets, sometimes this comes about because the diameter of standard waste pipes here seems to be smaller than the average imported toilet.

 

Another issue with plumbing is water pressure, often it’s too low (for my taste), and then you have the hot water issue, where the temperature is not stable.

 

There are other potential plumbing problems, but the above are common issues and I don’t think any of what you write is a guarantee that your building is without any of these issues. Not saying that your building will have these issues, just building on my claim that your “success story” is premature.

 

I am not sure when this became whether or not GCR had p-traps, but that was certainly not what I intended with my information.

[supergeil]

I don't believe there's an issue with a short horizontal section of pipe to pass along shower wastewater .

 

It’s not just horizontal, it goes to a narrower pipe with a bend (which is where you could get a buildup of solids). For a family with kids, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of sand and possibly dirt (soil) go down the shower drain.

 

But I am sure for you this will work fine and nothing to worry about, though it would have been reasonable to ask the project manager why they picked this design, because I think it’s hard to argue that it is ideal, and if the design came about on the spot because that was just the simplest way to connect the shower drain to the central waste pipe, then you know how the rest of your plumbing has also been “designed”.

[vermut12]

It’s not just horizontal, it goes to a narrower pipe with a bend (which is where you could get a buildup of solids). For a family with kids, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of sand and possibly dirt (soil) go down the shower drain.

 

But I am sure for you this will work fine and nothing to worry about, though it would have been reasonable to ask the project manager why they picked this design, because I think it’s hard to argue that it is ideal, and if the design came about on the spot because that was just the simplest way to connect the shower drain to the central waste pipe, then you know how the rest of your plumbing has also been “designed”.

 

I had this problem in my old house. The previous owner renovated the bathroom at some point and the new toilet and the bathtub came with sewer pipe outs of the bigger diameter than the sewer pipes diameter in the house. But they installed them anyways. Bigger diameter going into smaller diameter and at an angle. You can guess that the shower drain and the toilet were getting clogged on a regular basis and the bathroom had unpleasant smell. At some point I just replaced all the sewer pipers in the house for a bigger diameter.

 

I am sure 100% your shower drain will get clogged more often than it should. I hope your toilet sewer pipe has no such flaw because toilet is even worse. Shower pipes only receive hair and body/soap grease. And are fairly easy to unclog with chemicals. But people tend throw various stuff into the lavatory: toilet paper, hygienic tampons, cotton pads and so on... The build up of these items can cause some serious clogging.