bbradsby

OP quote: "I'm thinking on the basis that hot air rises, it is probably best to keep the small window open at all times to help expel hot air. But given this is Thailand, where humidity is an issue, is opening the vent being counterproductive from an aircon usage perspective. Or, will there be enough outward circulation through that vent to let the hot air out, but no humidity in?"

The aircon will be working harder if you keep the vent open, as hotter outside air will be pulled in through the door & window gaps to replace the air that leaves through the vent. My recommended low-tech strategy for thermal comfort in concrete buildings (which I assume yours is) in hot, humid Aw Climate zones is to keep the house closed up tight as long as the outside air temperature is higher than that inside; weatherstrip all openings; keep the sun's radiation from heating up the concrete masses via shading and/or radiant-reflective paint; keep all glass shaded or apply spectrally-selective film; ventilate the attic well; and insulate the top floor ceiling assembly to 150-200mm thickness. Then increase air movement in occupied spaces and/or dehumidify the air (aircon set on 'dry') to your personal comfort zone.

CIRCUMSTANCE

1) the co-owners pass an unanimous resolution to dissolve the private, commonly-owned housing

2) when the private, commonly-owned housing is completely damaged and the co-owners pass the resolution not to reconstruct the building;

3) the building in the entirety is appropriated by law on immo­vable property appropriation

ACTION with 1 and 2 With votes obtained then the JPM proceeds to dissolve the J . P.

Action with 3 The government revokes the J .P status

and then :-

The co –owners appoint an auditor to sell the land. The auditor sells the asset. Nett monies are divided up proportional to original condo sizes.

...or... nett liabilities for demolition & disposal costs distributed to the individual condo owners. depends on scale of the project, but it could get ugly.

What makes me think about these crazy things is looking year after year at the remaining skeletons of structures still discracing the Bangkok skyline from the 1997/8 Somtam meltdown. The rebar is rusting from acid rain getting inside the porous concrete, and at some point these'll become unstable. At three stories, no biggie. At twenty stories, it becomes a public safety hazard that the current owners are obviously not interested in covering the costs of abatement.

Only public action will solve these, with liens to back-charge the owners for expenses and taking the property if they can't/won't pay the cost. The reality is, however, that the owner is an LLP or LLC for that property only, so their only asset is the property & building. So no moneys will ever flow from them to cover the costs of cleaning up their mess. It'll be a public expense.

For condo owners of a failed structure, my guess is they'll not be so well insulated from financial liabilities since they're not LLCs, etc. All of their assets would be open to taking. Any legal eagles want to take a crack at this one?

The Condo Association/Juristic Person owns the land, as its part of the common area shared by all condo owners, along with in-building public areas such as corridors, lobbies, parking structure, etc. YOu, as a part of the Juristic Person, own a portion of the land, so no external "seller" exists.

My concern with the older condos here is that the life cycle is coming up on some of these, and if declared unsafe and a risk to neighboring properties, the owners could be forced to pay the cost of safe demolition & disposal of their building. That obviously would not be fun.

with the typical filed sites for homes here, the building pad is not actually compacted in an engineering sense of the word, i.e., to 95% and can be tested as such. So with each rain, the pad compacts a little more. this is the problem with partial impervious cover and partial non-impervious cover on a building pad - it will result in differential settlement of the pad, and anything constructed on it.

If your foundation extends to undisturbed soil/strata (below the pad by definition), then your house should be fine as long as that strata is solid enough for your foundation loads. As for sitework paving & structures, maybe not so much. I suppose we've all seen garages become inaccessible to cars, front steps becoming comical, due to pad settlement by a meter or so over ten years.

By water management, I mean making sure that water is not directed toward the edge of building and its foundation. there should be a noticeable slope away from the building perimeter, and ideally, gutters & downspouts/rainwater leaders that capture roof water and carry it well away.

The OP is asking for Solar systems, not battery back-up systems. One of my clients had to spend a few hundred thou to run electricity to his property. So at some point in the calculus, solar begins to make economic sense between distance to Grid, PV system cost and break-even point in years.

the OP did not rule out listening to alternatives. he also did not mention any reasons, e.g. spending a few hundred thousand to get a grid connection.

ya sure, ubetcha... but the subject of the thread is pretty clear. FWIW, I'd recommend a different thread on UPS/battery back-up/Inverter set-ups, so people who are actually seeking that setup can find it easier.

The OP is asking for Solar systems, not battery back-up systems. One of my clients had to spend a few hundred thou to run electricity to his property. So at some point in the calculus, solar begins to make economic sense between distance to Grid, PV system cost and break-even point in years.

Have you considered PVC cabinets? IMHO, it will give more sleek, modern look of your kitchen and will go well with your granite countertops. Plus, they are more resistant to humidity and fire. Also, it might be a good idea running them all the way up to the ceiling - they won't collect dust on the top

The cabinets on your picture look like they were borrowed from my grandma's kitchen

Your Grandma has a nice Kitchen obviously No worries each to their own

Not considered PVC Cabinets although now you mention them I may just have a look

Funny u should say that... I offered to do a nice kitchen for Khun Yai, but wifey said she'd not even use it if I built it, so dont waste the money. I thought this was heartless, but sure enough, when Yai visited us in the States, she ignored the nice counters and prepped her great cooking ... cross-legged on the floor!

That taught me a lesson about design-as-fashiou versus design-for function. Standing and prepping food is hard on your legs, so the Yais have the better solution, and the farangs are mostly caught up in fashion.... let's see, should we go with black glass or stainless for the fridge front, honey?

Google for air con sizing calculators, but do NOT just buy what yr installer/seller recommends. It WILL be too large for your space, will cost more up front as well as to operate since largest current draw is upon startup of the compressor and oversize units "short cycle" on and off continuously. This also burns out a/c units more quickly.

As in all things, caveat emptor and googlis urfriendis.

Your term "decent' is too vague for a rational answer. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with a chopping block is decent for Khun Yais, whereas 110% stainless steel is decent for a professional chef.

Somewhere in the middle are the rest of us... the real question is: what is your budget? Ikea's range of cabinetry, hoods & hobs/cooktops is wide enough for most laypersons to find something they can afford and consider decent.

Grass crete is available even in upcountry village builders supply shops.

I'm a proponent, but one concern of non-impervious (also called "pervious', but that sounds a little bit, well, just Wrong somehow...) cover on compacted fill homesites - typical in LoS - is that water percolating down will tend to further compact only that area, causing differential settlement of the sitework and/or building foundations & footings. Not a good thing!

I would recommend total water management within two meters, minimum, of the face of buildings.

You need to add a button in the poll choices for "Khun Yai running from urn to urn with flexible hose connected to roof gutter outlet."

First, look at yr purchase contract - even in LoS the major developers have to remedy faults, typically anything within one year of property hand-over.

Second, go talk to the developer's onsite manager for the project; being highly present and vocal in Thai on a busy day at the sales office is really effective in getting management's attention. The onsite mgr doesnt want it to go above his head to the executive level office, else he loses face... that's his weak spot! you have to vaguely threaten him with, in a nice Thai way, if he doesnt rectify the situation quickly, it'll all blow up in his face from you, his boss and prospective buyers raising eyebrows.

Go get 'em.

...He usually only builds 1 to 3 homes at a time but is competent enough to handle a 75 to 100 unit project. Because of his reputation he can get as many experienced workers as necessary for any size project. ...

Sounds like a great custom home builder, and all-round nice guy, but a small builder scaling up to build a hundred units in a short timeframe would be a typical recipe for disaster that I would warn my clients of.

These are two different business models, with one run like a paternal family structure - typical of small home builders everywhere - while the other is a multi-department, multi-level, with highly specialized staff in a more military type of operation in its level of regimentation. It's dern impossible for the small builder to pivot, rescale via massive hiring spree, and fundamentally re-organize into the necessary multi-tier management structure for a big project, to say nothing of cash-flow & logistics, in one project's timeframe - I'd red flag it.

If the offending party, meaning one who is acting against the Condo Act and/or the Property's by-laws, is merely ignored in the meetings' proceedings and written minutes, surely he will evaporate as a threat to the Association. Just proceed as if s/he's not even in the room and call police if s/he breaches the peace.

Terrazzo is a [traditionally] cementitious matrix of pigmented or white cement with aggregate stones, glass marbles, shells, etc., specially selected for their visual effect. It's all mixed together and applied over a seriously rigid substrate - else it cracks to pieces - with metal divider strips to define patterns. Nowadays, polymers can be mixed in for crack resistance and minimizing system thickness. These are nasty chemicals, the opposite of 'green,' not that that word means anything anymore.

Terrazzo is not for the faint of heart, as it's design is usually so visually striking that it often looks 'dated' or 'over the top' within a few years of installation, and patterns can hinder furniture layout flexibility in residential settings.

It's expensive, fussy, bloody messy work, and requires great expertise to get a good installation: dead flat & polished to the hilt. so, unless you've seen a number of actual installations by your proposed crew, don't even attempt it. It looks like hammered dog poop when botched.

I recommend against it for residential applications.

Thanks bbradsby I just thought this was a little easier for HM to relate to a pictures of what terrazzo was:

floor.png

OOOooo AAaahhh, very alluring stuff to be sure. Note that those installations are commercial, retail, hotels... clients with big budgets and lawyer-written, nuclear clause-ridden subcontracts. Now the TV DIY-ers will, like sailors to sirens, be drawn in to its beauty. I foresee a raft of TV terrazzo horrorshow threads

Just left there and i guess the falang owner is out and bkk ducati has taken over. They also said a move to sukhamvit is in the works ...

damn... Tony's a great guy, who worked well beyond the call of duty for me once. Hoping he fares well in all this.

Terrazzo is a [traditionally] cementitious matrix of pigmented or white cement with aggregate stones, glass marbles, shells, etc., specially selected for their visual effect. It's all mixed together and applied over a seriously rigid substrate - else it cracks to pieces - with metal divider strips to define patterns. Nowadays, polymers can be mixed in for crack resistance and minimizing system thickness. These are nasty chemicals, the opposite of 'green,' not that that word means anything anymore.

Terrazzo is not for the faint of heart, as it's design is usually so visually striking that it often looks 'dated' or 'over the top' within a few years of installation, and patterns can hinder furniture layout flexibility in residential settings.

It's expensive, fussy, bloody messy work, and requires great expertise to get a good installation: dead flat & polished to the hilt. so, unless you've seen a number of actual installations by your proposed crew, don't even attempt it. It looks like hammered dog poop when botched.

I recommend against it for residential applications.

... the mob handed raid a few weeks back, BiB suggested it was Kawasaki Pattaya who funded the raid as they were pissed they were losing sales to them.

'...mob handed raid...' ...losing sales to 'them'

Could you please explain yr post in English - you've got my curiosity up, but this makes no sense even in auto-language detection mode on Google Translate

Thailand is quoted as one country being considered... nice lil teaser there. Heres the Reuters story:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/10/motorcycling-ezpeleta-idUKL3N0DR39J20130510?feedType=RSS&feedName=motorSportsNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FUKMotorSportsNews+%28News+%2F+UK+%2F+Motor+Sports+News%29

<br>

<br>

My money is on Shanghai and then India - how can they ignore the rising Giants?

Can Malaysia stay on the schedule? The stands seem pretty empty in the vids I see, and the place is a pit, lets face it...

Thailand has no race-ready circuit, but for some remote location under construction far from fans with money and THE ONE international airport teams would use... hmmm, unless they upgrade Kao Yai... yea that's the ticket!

USA will lose the Indianapolis event; no surprise there, as that's Harley Country with maybe three curves in the region.

Spain will lose at least one of their four events.

Very good point about the fashion statement. A few of the Thai sales guys where I work (you know the type with cool glasses, big haircuts and incredibly tight fitting striped shirts) found out that I'm into bikes and have started asking me questions like whether BMW is better than Ducati. These guys have never ridden and are considering buying Ducati's as a first bike. Why? Because it's the new fashion for trendy 'hiso' guys to have a big bike. A few afternoons sweating their ass off in their Ducati leather jackets on the way to Starbucks and they'll be back in the air conditioned car and the bike will be for sale

they want these bikes for their own reasons, entirely up to them - it's all good my riding friends! Monsters are fun bikes with a lot of character, a more adult design than lots of the Japanese machinery that, lets face it, have been designed by industrial designers that grew up with Transformers and too much sugar in their breakfast... and/or the wife owns the huevos in the family and the dude want em back and a plastic scooter just doesnt do that for him. whatever... these guys, the non-riders who buy new imported bikes, are OUR best friends in LoS. They pay full retail, all taxes, add expensive bits, ride em once, park em, change their underwear, then sell em! All we have to do is wash off the seat.

We had the same thing in San Francisco with the DotCom yuppies in late '90s - early '00s: i was not alone in snagging a basically new Ducati for a song from one of these dweebs. Bike had 1600 miles on it!

...

Also as I said most of these folks don't buy cash they all buy financed so it is

costing them even more than the high prices we see.

You know I just found this site & look at the tons of used yet still new 795's & other Duc's

for sale.

Yet they are all like ok I put all this sh!t on it so I want that money back + this I paid & here

is what you have left to pay the finance company....Like 44 months at xxxx baht !!!

I keep laughing & my wife is asking what am I looking at.

I am just floored so many buy on time....do a bunch of pricey mods, Termigoni exhaust, carbon this & that, Rizoma, etc.

Then within 3 months have to sell???? What the heck?

Was the bike disappointing or is the payments just more than they can handle? yet they bought & saw the terms & then

even modded the bikes?

Yeah TIT but I am curious & wondering/laughing as I read.

Do they really expect to get all their money back?

Here is the site...they also have a non Duc section of sales too

But check out the ocean of new/used 795's

http://www.monsterclub-thai.com/board/index.php?board=12.0

That monstersTH website pricing follows all specific marque/model fanboy website classifieds - they have their own mutual admiration society going on, so the pricing is disconnected from the real market.

Thaiwifey sez most Thais that buy big dollar cars & imported bikes do it on finance terms, and many are just emotional buys that get them in over their head. Same as in the West. A few months into the payments, the reality sinks in and the bike goes on the block.

Another TV Thread hijacked far off-topic... WHERE IS THE MODERATOR IN THIS THREAD?

To the OP, check bahtsold site. I think u need to find Thai-to-Thai website for the truly affordable condos. At yr price-point, I think its safe to assume the locations of these condos will require multi-modal transportation to commute to-from the BTS/MRT... motorcycle-taxi, bus, etc. So if this is not an issue, there are lots of properties available.

Also, at the bottom end, I believe the market correction upcoming will not affect values too much, if you must buy before the fall. But I'm no estate guru, fushizzle - there are a number of real estate 'experts' on this thread already who can advise u...

Once you've had Duc, you never go back

They inspire passion because they are designed, engineered and built with true passion, not committees. But the Superbikes, at least, are very uncompromising to the point of being fitness machines. If yr not in shape when u start riding one, it'll whip u into shape. Its one of the reasons i love em.

And that rigor in riding position, the firmness of suspension/chassis/brakes/engine... all in perfect balance... can save yr bacon at-speed! on lesser bikes, a quick, evasive swerve-brake maneuver can be difficult at best. And sometimes, only serious power will teach locals their Toyota is a complete turd (is that TRD stands for?) next to yr bike. With the stupidity that comes at you at every turn in LoS, it's worth thinking about.

I dont know about inspiring passion. I will tell you that if you dont have passion one would be much happier with a jap bike. Although the italians have style thats where it ends imho.

opinions are like &lt;deleted&gt;, everybody's entitled to one