Bandersnatch

Try Pong Thai Village หมู่บ้านพงษ์ไทย Salak Dai, Mueang Surin - always have places to rent 3 bed 2 bath pool and a gym about 4k / month

https://goo.gl/maps/vn7aLUhV74peEzDF6

31 minutes ago, pineapple01 said:

It was usefull in power cuts. Thats about all.

Having solar also protects you from rising Electric bills. 
 

On 5/19/2020 at 5:47 PM, moe666 said:

It always boils down to how long is the pay  out. 10 years, 20 years 25years will you still be alive. Same for elect cars. Solar homes also a waste, to hot in the summer too cold in the winter, just too hot in thailand.

If you are short of money and need a very quick payback. I would suggest aiming to cover 60% of your electric bill with solar and not installing batteries. This is the low hanging fruit and would have produced a payback of about 5 years in my case. I chose to go off-grid with PEA as a backup, which meant I needed batteries and an excess of solar to cover cloudy days. My over-the-top system has a payback of 10 years. I am not sure where you got 25 years from. Is that based on an install in Thailand or New Mexico? 

"Solar homes also a waste, to hot in the summer too cold in the winter, just too hot in thailand."

I have no problem running aircon on my solar system system. But if money is tight I would suggest spending the money on insulation first and solar later if you can afford it.

My solar house is lovely and cool, but I did insulate.

Being reliant on income from abroad is a risk with currency movements.  My approach has been to reduce my future costs as far as possible. 1st put 800k/400k away and don't touch it. That way your visa is safe.

I don't pay rent; condo fees; water or waste water bills; rubbish collection bills; electric bills. I don't have any debts. I don't have any expensive addictions. I am growing some of my food. So if push comes to shove, I could survive on very little. My spreadsheet shows my income sources linked to the current exchange rate. I should be ok if the pound goes down to less than 10 Baht. 
 

It is also good to have some income in Thai Baht and an emergency fund if possible.

19 minutes ago, Crossy said:

I did think Fort Knox, is the basement full of bullion? Interesting concept, it doesn't float my boat but we all have different tastes.

 

Our home is discussed at length in another thread, but here's a taster, solar is on the car-port right of frame.

Hi Crossy, I know your build. It is without a doubt a very beautiful house. 

I set out in my design criteria that I wanted to build an off grid house - designed with solar in mind and super insulated. Compromises have to be made and for me that was the aesthetics. 

Being a bit of a prepper, I can confirm that Gold has done well recently.

On 5/13/2020 at 11:17 PM, eisfeld said:

I disagree with the placement of his panels, I think he could get more out of them by not putting any on the north facing side but the rest was very impressive.

I explained in detail in my blog why I chose to put solar on all 4 sides of my house. See https://ecohousethailand.com/design-criteria/

Dual Axis Tracker systems can increase production by 40%, but such systems are complex and expensive and with falling solar panel prices it is cheaper to just get more panels.

Basically I don't need more power, but I need to extend the hours when the solar is producing and so reducing the hours that the house is running off batteries.  Living close to the equator as we do, North facing panels produce power for much of the day, but more crucially, they are producing at the beginning and end of the day. I am getting power at 6am. 

Unfortunately I do not have stats to share currently as there is a problem with the external data module that came with the inverter.

On 5/13/2020 at 7:12 PM, Arjen said:

Do you use a centrifigul blower for that?, they give a very high air output, against reasonable electricity costs. But in my experience they heat the output air easy to 80-90 degrees. We used them to dry metal sheets after processing. First we thought about the need of installing heaters. But heaters where not needed. The output air is close enough to the temp from boiling water. Together with the enormous airflow, everything is dried. 

I have not dissembled the Energy Recovery Ventilator, so cannot comment on it's fan. We did test the ERV before piping it is and it did not heat the air. To be honest we do not use it very often. It part of the future proofing of the house. The door to the third floor acts like a chimney drawing hot air up and out of the house. The wind on the third floor always blows due to the venturi effect helping with the efficiency of the chimney.

13 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

Do you guys refrigerate the batteries?

I designed my house from the ground up to be Off-Grid. I have a dedicated mechanical room which is insulated and well ventilated. I installed a large DC motor ceiling fan. The purpose built battery rack allows lots of air flow. I have not seen any drop in battery performance over the last 12 month. 

1 minute ago, Arjen said:

I hope that your batteries last ten years. I also had deep Cycle Gel batteries. 20 pieces 100Ah The last around 5 years. I have ordered now LiFePo4 bateries. 16 pieces 3.6V280Ah. According the specs they should give at at least 5.000 cycles.

The depth of discharge has a great deal to do with battery life. My Hybrid Inverter is set to draw from the grid when the batteries reach 50% state of charge. I usually have about 60% when they start charging again at 6am

The big ticket items on my solar system:

Solar panels Monocrystalline 350W X32 = 11.2kW ฿3,500 each = ฿112,000

Deep Cycle Gel Batteries 12V 200AH X 16 = 38.4kWH with cable and rack ฿13,250 each =  ฿212,000

Off Hybrid Grid  Inverter Power: 10,000W = ฿96,000

My electricity bills are zero  - payback is about 10 years (assuming prices don't rise -which they will) or 10% - try getting that these days. I also enjoy having power when the lights go out in the village. 

Video of the panels 

More pictures on my blog ecoHouseThailand.com

19 minutes ago, fvw53 said:

This is not required for Committee members except if they are paid

Committee members generally don't get paid. I don't know any in Pattaya that do. They do however give up a great deal of their time to try and solve the problems of their building. It is without doubt a thankless task  - In 4 year as a committee member I never once was thanked for my work, however I had to regularly suffer the anger of residents who thought we had a magic wand to fix all problems. Fixing a problem like restricting non residents from entering a condo is just such a problem. Don't expect security staff on minimum wage to deal with it. Better to invest in expensive security systems that make it difficult for non residence to wander in without a key car or access any floor in the lift like some hotels do.

I would never be on a committee again having been sued twice in 4 years both completely baseless and thrown out by the court but only after a great deal of stress and unpleasantness.

Suspension of the water from Provincial Waterworks Authority Pattaya / ประกาศแจ้งตารางการจ่ายน้ำประปาจากการประปาส่วนภูมิภาค พัทยา

Dear:  Co-Owners / Residents,

The Building management would like to inform that Provincial Water Authority had announced temporary shortages in water supply all over Pattaya. The Provincial Waterworks Authority, Pattaya branch, has announced the water distribution schedule for April 2020 
 

3 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Back on topic.....what is the likelihood of a full lockdown?

Thanks brewster for bringing this back on topic. Where I am living they are introducing a curfew from 20:00, with checkpoints running during the day as well. It would not take much to extend that.

As the OP stated: He is "concerned, living in Thailand through this period of uncertainty"  It is unfortunately probably too late to prepare for these uncertain times, but maybe when this all blows over people will have a slightly different attitude to being prepared.  

The OP asks "Will there be a rise in crime"?  When money is short, it is inevitable. Too often I have seen comments on this forum like "I have never locked my door in 30 years - never had a problem"

From US Department of Homeland Security - Federal Emergency Management Agency:

https://www.fema.gov/pdf/areyouready/areyouready_full.pdf

This is what the checkpoints look like now - not very intimidating, but that can change.

Hi Crossy,

This is the PU foam I used on my Thai build, which is waterproof and sets hard

Another reason for driving an electric car is the environment and before you all start saying that electric cars are coal powered...

Electricity Generation by Fuel, in Thailand 2018 (Terawatt-hours)
Oil                  0.2   

Natural Gas  116.3  

Coal              35.8

Nuclear           0 

Hydro             7.6 

Renewables    17.8

Total             177.6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Thailand

The capacity of non-hydro renewables may expand to 21% of Thailand’s total power capacity mix by 2028

https://sbr.com.sg/energy-offshore/asia/renewables-eat-21-thailands-energy-mix-2028

An electric car has got to be less polluting that what we see on the roads here in Thailand

3 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/is-ionitys-prodigious-price-increase-designed-to-steer-customers-to-mobility-services/

I think most people who have an EV probably have a home charger and would do most of their charging at home at off peak rates. The MG EV I looked at buying recently here in Thailand came with a free installed home charger. 

If however, you live in Europe, do not have a home charger, and can only use Ionity chargers, then as the article above suggests  you would be better off signing up for a contract and paying €0.33 per kWh instead of €0.79 per kWh. Nobody would do all their charging at €0.79 per kWh.

5 hours ago, VocalNeal said:

EU company just raised their charging fee

IONITY has increased it's price from €8 per session to €0.79 per kWh without a contract or €17.95 per month and €0.33 per kWh with a contract, just as well that there are no IONITY  chargers in Thailand.

Below are some pictures that I took at my local Robinson here in Surin. A 22kw type 2 charger would add approximately 120km of range per hour of charging.

39 minutes ago, billd766 said:

But you solar panels at home did not come for free, you had to buy and install them, plus if you have a battery back up that had to be paid for as well. The batteries and solar cells will need to be replaced periodically. It might be a relatively low cost to run a solar cell system but the start up costs will be fairly high and even more so if you have to but an EV as well.

 

The last time I checked on a solar cell system it came to about 7 years of electricity bills upfront money.

I won't argue with you on this, but everyone's situation is different. For me, I have savings and investments that produce an income that I live off in retirement. With interest rates in the toilet, it makes more sense for me to reduce my future costs, rather than try to increase my income. I would have to invest ฿2million at 2% to cover my current electric bill and as electricity costs rise so would the amount I would have to have invested. 

I have excess solar during the middle of the hours of the day (my batteries are fully charged by 10am), which basically means free fuel for an electric car. So when comparing the cost of an EV or an ICE,  I would have to add the cost of the fuel I would use with the ICE. 

I don't currently own an EV. I nearly bought one when I installed my solar, but decided to wait to see if we get more choice of EVs in Thailand. 

6 hours ago, billd766 said:

The map looks great until you go to the app and look for charging stations outside of the big cities and even along the main highways there isn't so much

Sounds like you do a lot of long distance driving, so probably an EV is not going to be right for you as an only car until you they build more charging stations, which is what this thread is about "charging-stations-to-be-set-up-at-50-70km-intervals".

I on the other hand would be charging at home for free from my solar panels and driving less than 200km round trips.

Once you have rooftop solar, having an EV is the next logical step. I am producing more power than I can use or store and would love to dump it into an EV. Most of my driving is local, so my next car will definitely be an EV. 

Check out the EA Anywhere app for charging stations in Thailand

5 hours ago, vinny41 said:

Number of Telsa Supercharge stations in Thailand zero

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/supercharger?redirect=no

Tesla Supercharger Stations use a proprietary plug that means rival electric car brands can’t use them

Only in the US. In Europe and more importantly for us here in Thailand, Chinese built Teslas, will be able to use the regular charging stations.

https://insideevs.com/news/341885/chinese-tesla-model-3-spotted-with-proper-gb-t-connector/