Bored Piles vs Driven Piles in Thailand: Which Does Your Land Need?

What is the difference between driven piles and bored piles?

A driven pile is a precast concrete pile cast at a factory, brought to site and hammered into the ground with a pile driver until it reaches a soil layer that can carry the load. A bored pile is made the other way round: a hole is drilled first, a steel reinforcement cage is lowered in, and concrete is poured into the hole. In simple terms, one drives a finished product into the ground; the other casts the pile in place.

The difference that affects you most is not strength. Both types carry the load perfectly well when they are designed correctly. The real difference is working space and vibration. A pile driver needs room to set up, room to turn a truck, and room to lay out piles several metres long. In a narrow lane that a truck cannot enter, that option disappears from the start.

Price differs too. Driven piles are cheaper and the work finishes faster in the right conditions. Bored piles cost more because they need a drilling rig, take longer per pile, and produce excavated soil that has to be managed.

Which plots suit driven piles?

An open plot with no houses around it yet, a road that a six-wheel truck can use, and no shared fence with a neighbour is where driven piles work best. Most new housing estates still under construction and most empty rural plots fall into this group.

The soil profile has to cooperate as well. If there is a layer of gravel or hard rock partway down, the pile may refuse to go through or snap on the way. An engineer reads this from the soil investigation report, not by looking at the ground. Most of the sandy loam and laterite soils around Korat (Nakhon Ratchasima) take driven piles well, but some plots hit a laterite layer so dense that the method has to change.

The thing to watch with driving is the neighbours. Vibration travels through the soil much further than people expect. An older house that already has cracks may crack further, and that turns into a long conversation. If there is a building close to the fence next door, photograph its existing condition before work starts, every time.

Which plots need bored piles?

Three conditions usually force the choice of bored piles: a plot too narrow for a pile driver to get in, a plot so close to the neighbouring house that vibration is unacceptable, and a soil profile that piles cannot be driven through. Extensions in town and houses deep inside a soi (side lane) usually end up here.

Another common case is land where the piles have to go deeper than normal. Driven piles have a limited length per section, so a very deep pile has to be spliced, which adds a weak point to the system. Drilling and casting one continuous pile is the route engineers choose in many of these situations.

In areas like Roi Et, where some districts have a high water table, bored piling also needs a method for dealing with water in the hole. It is not simply drill and pour. Contractors who work in that area regularly know what to prepare; those who have never done it tend to underestimate the time.

Can you skip piles altogether? When a spread footing works

Sometimes, yes. A spread footing is a wide foundation pad placed directly on soil that is firm enough. It can be used when the hard layer is shallow and the building is light, for example a single-storey house on land that has never been filled. The condition is a soil investigation report that confirms it, not the fact that the neighbour built that way and nothing seems to have happened.

Freshly filled land is the case that needs the most caution. Fill soil is not yet compacted and will keep settling for many months. Placing a spread footing on it at that stage means placing the house on something that is still moving. The result is uneven settlement followed by cracking walls.

You genuinely can save money if the soil allows it. But choosing a spread footing to cut the budget without a soil report to back it up is borrowing from the future. Repairing a settled house always costs more than the piles you saved on.

What does a soil investigation tell you, and how deep should it go?

A soil investigation report tells you which layers lie under your plot, how thick each one is, how dense it is, and where the groundwater level sits. The engineer uses these numbers to calculate how long the piles must be to reach a layer that will really carry the load.

The depth of the boring depends on the size of the building. An ordinary house needs shallower boreholes than a tall building. The number of boreholes depends on the size of the plot. Even a single plot can have different soil profiles across it, especially land that used to be a pond or a drainage channel.

The soil test is the line item people cut first when they want to trim the budget, even though it is the item that gives meaning to the cost per square metre a contractor quotes you. Without a soil report, the price you are given is a price built on guesswork.

What happens if you choose the wrong foundation?

The first signs are diagonal cracks at the corners of doors and windows, followed by doors that no longer close properly and floor tiles cracking in a line. All of these are signals that the house is settling unevenly, not a paint or plaster problem as many people assume at first.

Repairing a house that has settled because of its foundation is not a matter of plastering over. The foundation has to be underpinned beneath a house that people are living in, which is possible but expensive and slow. The repair bill is usually many times the price difference between the two foundation types that were being weighed up at the start.

So the right route is the original one: let the engineer decide from the soil investigation report before work begins, and have the pile type and length written clearly into the drawings and the BOQ (bill of quantities). Every contractor then quotes on the same thing, and you can compare bids and see who has left what out. This is how the OBILIS engineering team fixes the foundation type at the design stage, from the soil report rather than from a guess.

To get a rough budget before you talk to anyone, try our house price calculator, or contact the OBILIS team to talk through your plot.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are bored piles stronger than driven piles?

No. Both carry the design load when they are sized correctly for the soil. The choice is driven by access, vibration near neighbours and the soil profile, not by strength.

Do I really need a soil investigation for a normal house?

Yes. It is a small cost compared with the foundation and it is the only way to know how long the piles must be, or whether a spread footing is even an option. Without it, every quote you receive is based on assumptions.

Can I build on land that was filled recently?

You can build, but the foundation must be designed for it. Fill soil keeps settling for months, so a spread footing on fresh fill is risky. Piles that reach the firm layer below the fill are the usual answer, and the soil report tells the engineer how deep that is.