Building a House in Việt Nam — Part 8
Seriously??? This Is the best you can do?
This Substack is about life in Việt Nam from the viewpoint of a 10-year expat who spent his first 60 years in a low-context culture.
It’s been quite a while since the most recent of this series, so this eighth and penultimate installment in the series about my experiences building a bespoke house in Đà Lạt (Dalat), which sits at about 1500m (~4900ft) altitude in the Central Highlands is a bit overdue.
Previous posts include:
There is also a post in which I talk about how the bottom of an elevator shaft can act as a short-term sink or reservoir.
Ten months passed from clearing the site of the 100m2 black mold-infested tear down house of my in-laws to completion of the 400m2 bespoke dream house for us and them.
Every chance we could, we hired friends or family to do the work, even when — especially in the case of the general contractor — they were NOT the best person for the job.
Along the way, there were plenty of opportunities for the contractors to either misunderstand the drawings and/or my instructions or simply decide to ignore them and make it what they thought it should be. Or they just forgot that for the PITA Westerner, “good enough” was NOT good enough.
These are two hot water pipes next to two cold water pipes as they come out of the garage wall. Yes, I wanted hot water in the garage, apparently unheard of in my adopted country. Once the “conversation” in which they tried to convince me it was a waste of (my) money, they put it in. As I write this, I think that what, until now, I’d thought was their “good enough” was actually their “fuck you” in physical form.
I decided to, as I’ve taught H from day 1, pick my battle and it wasn’t this one.
Or as a friend asks their kids occasionally, “Is this the hill you want to die on?”
A battle that I chose to fight was for the ground floor ceilings. The drawings for the living room/dining room showed two distinct areas, separated by a pair of columns, one on each side wall. The columns are the small black rectangles within the red box added here for clarity.
There was even a drawing showing two distinctly separate ceiling treatments.
But when the ceiling guys (friends of the wife) saw the big expansive room, they apparently said screw the drawings.
They were amazed when I showed them the drawings, even though they had a set that, I’m guessing, they never bothered to consult.
Yes, I insisted they take it down and start over the right way per the drawings.
There were some good first attempts
One crew that did a great job without prodding installed the garage roof. They clambered around without apparent fear of falling three meters (10 ft) into the mess below.
Windows were a challenge
It’s very important that nothing from your property infringes on the air over your neighbor’s property. Since ours is a row house that is literally built touching the neighbor’s row house, that meant that the side windows had to open inward or slide side-to-side, not open outward. The “relative” whom my FIL wanted to do our windows did not offer inward-opening windows, so in his attempt to get me to agree to sliders, he told me that no one in Dalat — later expanded to no one in all of Việt Nam — offered outward-opening windows.
What’s that line about being born at night, but not last night?
Because of the 50-70cm wide opening in the floor along that side of the house that allows daylight to penetrate all the way down to the ground floor where the only opening is the front door.
Leaning over this opening to clean the outside of sliders would be a pretty big fall hazard, so we had to have windows that open inward.
I said I would pay for the cost of his company designing inward-opening windows which he could then offer to others and he said no. That’s when I found out that the “relative” was a friend who was simply trying to book a sale so he could get a finder’s fee; he didn’t even work for the company.
The next place I tried said,
Of course we can build outward-opening windows! Everyone can.
He got the work.
But…
His windows, once installed, leaked. A lot, as detailed in Part 7.
What were they thinking?
One of the non-standard features I requested was exhaust fans in all five bathrooms. Two of them are fully enclosed; three have windows.
As the house was nearing completion, I asked the GC about the fans. He said they were all installed as requested. I asked that he show me the fan in my bathroom, ‘cause I couldn’t find it.
Oh, I forgot that one.
Great.
Since move-in was only a couple weeks away, it took many hours to cut a hole in the exterior wall and run the wiring to the existing bathroom light switch through existing conduit already sealed within the sealed and painted brick walls and ceiling. Had they installed it during construction, it would’ve taken 10-20 minutes.
Then I checked the fans in H’s bathroom and the first floor bathroom. Yes, they were installed and turned on with the light switch.
BUT…
I thought I should check above the drop ceiling, because I didn’t remember duct work venting to the outside. I was right. The humid air would be pulled into the space above the ceiling where the moisture would condense and collect, allowing black mold to get a foothold.
As you can guess, I was NOT happy and insisted they enclose the system.
This was probably the final straw for both the GC and the plumber/electrical guy, who was our favorite sub-contractor because he (usually) did great work.
Too difficult
None of the subs used on the house will work with us again because, as my wife says,
They say we are too difficult
because we insist that things are done correctly.
I paid every bill without question and even paid for “extra” work that shouldn’t have been extra, like the bathroom exhaust fans connecting to the outside. I also paid extra if changes were needed, like moving outlets that could be better positioned. I even tipped every sub once they finished their body of work.
When we first started, the wife told me I was being too difficult. I explained to her that I’d warned everyone up-front that I had high standards that I would hold them to AND I would pay extra for better work. They’d all agreed.
Once she saw the high quality and how much better it was than the standard “good enough”, she also became “difficult”. Each time someone complained to her that I was asking too much, she asked if I was paying extra for what I wanted. When they said yes, she said,
If you don’t want to do the quality work he’s paying for, we’ll thank you for what you’ve done so far and find someone else who does want to build quality.
This house needs to last 100 years so my daughter’s grandchildren can raise their kids here and I was NOT going to cut corners. Even when something was done poorly and re-done poorly and re-re-done poorly, I never raised my voice. I always showed respect to everyone who worked on the house.
Except the guy we caught peeing in the corner of what was to be my daughter’s closet.
Wait, there’s MORE!
There were a number of other issues, many related to water leaks. I covered a few of them in Part 7. There were many more.
Cracked faux marble kitchen counter top (contractor didn’t tell us the white marble wasn’t really marble. They replaced it with black marble.
Scuffed and streaked door frames and jams. Never fixed ‘cause FIL refused to let his friend who installed them be embarrassed.
Crappy welds on the entry gate that had to be re-done and re-painted.
Water leaks from under the living room floor that I warned about before they poured the slab.
Water leaks through the walls that I’d paid to have covered outside and inside with the best sealer, the best primer, and two coats of the best paint available.
Repair of various neighbors’ fencing, replacement of front steps tile, and repair and repainting of concrete walls damaged by various trucks while going to/from the job site.
Replacement of neighbor’s corrugated roofing after one of the workers dropped something and “dented” it — like anyone could ever tell ‘cause it was a POS roof before.
There was also a wonderfully talented installer of bamboo flooring who should really be called a floor artist.
Ya gotta love how the painters leave the paint rollers and brushes overnight that they’ll use again tomorrow.
And how they install the kitchen cabinets
A few months after we moved in, quite a few of the side walls developed cracks. We called the GC and asked him to fix them. Formerly laser-straight walls suddenly looked like sand dunes.
After a few attempts to smooth the walls back to their original state, the GC gave up and told us to use the money we still owed him to hire someone else to fix them.
Yet he still calls every year at Tết asking us to pay the balance. Our answer to him is always the same:
The check’s in the mail.
Have I ever mentioned that personal checks are not a thing in Việt Nam?
Glad to see you able to put your very rough months into the context of folks on an even rougher path. And really glad to see that you seem to be getting decent medical treatment for your most recent mishap, to the point that you're thinking clearly enough to write.
Because I've been through three knee surgeries myself, I still want to hear all the gory details. But I'm glad you're seeing your plight in context.
I am the son and grandson of immigrants. My mother was born in Jamaica, to a Spanish Jew / African and Arab mixed father and a British subject Mother. My father was born in New York to parents who immigrated from Romania. I am about 50% eastern european, 6% African (Nigeria / Benin / Togo), 4% Arab, and most of the rest is Spanish and English. I'm really not very far ahead of a lot of folks being pinched by ICE in "being an American." They may come for me next. I look white, which may help. Or not. I have a good immigration lawyer for a next-door neighbor, and she's aware that I have a recent immigrant genesis. I was born in Urbana, Illinois. And like John, had a home, an income, an opportunity for education, finished college with no student debt, and even got a gift of the down payment for my first house. Or, put another way, I was born on first base, advanced to second on a long fly ball to left, stole third, and made it across the plate on a wild pitch. It's still a point.
As Niemoeller said it well:
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
—Martin Niemöller
I'll note that four of the current US President's five children were born by non-Citizen immigrant mothers, and are dependent on Birthright Citizenship. Ivana, the mother of Don Jr (1977)., Eric (1984), and Ivanka (1981) was naturalized in 1988, so all of these are birthright citizens (because they were born here) but their mother was not a citizen at the time. Marla, mother of Tiffany (1992), is a native-born American, but Marla was not married to Trump at the time -- they married a few months later. Melania, Trumps current wife, was a citizen of Slovenia at the time Baron was born. He was born in March, 2006, and Melania was naturalized in June, 2006. So, four out of five kids are citizens by route of "birthright" not some other metric of eligibility.
You might want to look at some of the pre-marital courtship fotos of Melania. https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/donald-trump-melania-trump-knauss-first-lady-erections
Seems a little odd for the orange blob to get going after birthright citizenship.
Good article John. I totally agree with all your sentiments. In Australia where I come from we are distrustful of the Current US president . And indeed all things from America. I also have had experience with helping poor Vietnamese people pay for what to them is extremely expensive health care and surgeries. Only the super rich can afford this as there is virtually no health care system for the poor except a tiny insurance scheme that doesn't work. A bit like America I guess anyway John best of luck with your recovery