Crossy

A PC UPS is exactly what you need, with a small pump load even a cheap one should give you several hours of happy air pumping and happy fish

Yeah ^^^, 50-60 cm would meet most regulations globally so would be fine here and would keep it out of the way of normal gardening activities.

You could get away with 30-40cm if under your driveway or path.

Place some lean mix concrete (just sand and cement) on top of the tube before backfilling.

Make sure you use cable rated for damp locations even if you run in conduit, this is the stuff you need http://www.bangkokcable.com/catalog/BCC_CATALOG/NYY2EN.HTML

My question is .....will it do any harm to my cel phone battery to use the 2.1 amp charger for a fast charge??

No problem, the phone has its own charge-control circuit which regulates the power going into the battery. It won't hurt to use the bigger outlet, but it probably won't charge any faster either.

OK some pretty good stuff already, a few pointers.

We have an almost identical pump to water 'er indoors veggie garden from our local khlong.

That is a self-priming pump, it will have a non-return valve in the inlet port but these do rust through and fail. If the valve fails or leaks you'll get occasional short pump runs in the middle of the night. Fix that with a second NR valve in the inlet pipe.

Short cycling is invariably lack of air in the pressure tank. Unscrew the tank from the pump (power and water off), shake out as much water as you can, then pump it up at the local garage via the tyre valve on the end. It should have a charge pressure printed on it, but our local garage air pump gets nowhere near it, I just bang as much in as will go (caution, water will come out of the other end). If air comes out of the water inlet the membrane is busted, new tank needed (cheap).

Be careful if you adjust the pressure switch, there are live parts inside that bite (and water all over from your activities on the pressure tank).

EDIT Important! If you've been doing anything that lets the water out of the pump chamber, fill it up again via the plastic plug on the top before running the pump. If you run it without water in that chamber you'll fry the bearings.

We're nearly 8km from the TOT tower, works better than the ADSL we had in the condo

Not experienced rain fade at any point (yet).

If you go to the amornsolar.com website, you will find a 5KW grid-tie system there (with 5 yr warranty) for 134,000 THB

I don't think it includes wiring or racking, so that would be at least an additional 5THB/watt (done similar to the solar farms with concrete pilars,

H-Beams and aluminum beams) so another 25,000 THB. This is installing by yourself of course. Total 159,000 THB but it has a 5 yr warranty

at someplace you can drive to in an hour to get warranty service. The quality of the panels and inverter might not be too good though.

I am looking at a lot of different options.

Thanks. That's a useful link. Anyone have experience with this company?

Apart from buying a few LED lamps I've had no dealings with AmornSolar.

Amorn themselves specialise in cheap Chinese stuff and end of line items, you tend to get what you pay for but that 5kW system is competitive with the Chinese sellers and no danger of import duties.

They do have a very good electronics repair shop.

A post using all caps has been removed, please don't shout (and it's hard to read).

Yup, another plus from me, always excellent communication.

A couple of marginal posts have been removed.

Please bear in mind the subjects of this thread and the Thai laws relating to them.

I insist that the delivery chaps do NOT assemble furniture, I'll do that. Wifey just tells them I'm a mad farang and gives them a tip anyway.

None of our flat pack has fallen apart, some is now nearly 10 years old

No problem, the old visa will be stamped as 'cancelled without prejudice' or something similar and your new visa issued.

If buying new do have a look at the dealer / manufacturer finance packages.

We got 30% down and 4 years interest free on our Ranger (about 6 years ago mind).

Those 'shelves' do look interesting, I need some workshop shelving for all sorts of fairly heavy stuff, could be a good solution if I can find them locally

You must be back in Thailand before the 9th in order to maintain your current visa status. If you arrive just before that date ensure all the documentation for your next extension is in place as you'll only have until the 9th to lodge that extension.

Arrive after the 9th and everything resets and you'll just get a 30 day visa exemption on arrival.

EDIT Since you seem to be back well after the 9th it may be better to get a new ED visa in Aus if that's possible.

^Yah, and does the sink have regulation? It sounds like you might not have enough flow/pressure thru your hot water unit and the cold water pressure takes over - and that is if your water taps are one unit - if separate this does not make sense. Maybe check flow control into/out your heater.

That's what happened to our heater in the old condo, replacing the tubes and cleaning out the filter gauze made things much better.

Soooo, are the multiple posts by Loong a product of the forum bug or something else

PEA is the Provincial Electricity Authority (I'm assuming that a 'resort' will be outside a metropolitan area where it would be MEA), if the meter is on the pole with the transformer then it's their pole so that's not the problem.

You need to find out exactly what the issue is, that will likely need a visit to the local PEA office and a chat to the chief inspector chap. There is always a solution, take a Thai speaker. Normally once the cables leave the meter it's your problem.

Have you had the installation inspected by PEA? Assuming your property has a blue book and all is in order then they should put you on a regular meter.

Do check the size of the cables (it should be marked on them) although I'm sure you would have been told if that was the issue.

I don't get the creek story, the power poles for our restaurant and other riverside properties are IN the river, the meter reader uses a boat.

Is there an alternative route where the cables don't actually have to cross the creek, perhaps by your access road?

Is the heater or it's inlet/outlet pipe bunged up?

You may not be getting enough flow to keep it going when you mix cold water.

Check the flexible pipes and any inlet filter gauze.

It's one of the dots in the northeastern part of the map, right behind Zeer shopping center, but it's written in Thai so you'll have to click on them all until you find the one that says "MechaShop". Here's their web site: http://www.mechashop.com/store/home/en.html

Good find attrayant

They seem to have a lot of toys on their website, shame there's no prices

I will be checking them out when I get back from India.

Found it on there site...see this webpage...the meter costs Bt990.

Prices don't appear on the English language page

Just to clarify, when you say "tap" your referring to a shower head thats connected to a faucet with a lever (in my case)?

Correct, the open type can have no obstruction between the heater and the head.

Our Redring units came from HomePro (they do 2 sizes), sorry, can't remember the cost

The open outlet type cannot be used if your shower has any form of tap (the shower head is the safety blow off route).

Like for like is safest, multipoint heaters are all of the closed outlet type and not expensive.

We got a couple of 7kW Redring branded units (element made in the UK if that's any recommendation), small and effective.

It's one of the dots in the northeastern part of the map, right behind Zeer shopping center, but it's written in Thai so you'll have to click on them all until you find the one that says "MechaShop". Here's their web site: http://www.mechashop.com/store/home/en.html

Good find attrayant

They seem to have a lot of toys on their website, shame there's no prices

I will be checking them out when I get back from India.

Is the meter installed on a PEA pole?

If not it needs to be moved to the PEA pole at which point they should install a permanent meter.

As H90 suggested, a small (maybe not small) consideration will likely make the issue go away

So, since your water pressure seems pretty poor, do you have any water at all coming out of the taps when electricity is off?

During the day the downstairs taps work and the toilet fills albeit slowly, the tanks don't fill during the day the pressure doesn't get the 2m high needed. Later at night the pressure gets up enough to work the upstairs taps and toilets and the downstairs shower.

Have to crank up the genset to shower (cold) upstairs.

We have a tap directly on the incoming supply that Wifey uses with a short hose to fill a small ong for her chillies etc (big stuff gets the hose with water pumped from the klong). I noticed one day that the level in the ong was going DOWN due to someone pumping from the mains, grrrr.