Crossy

Let him have his way if he wants poly, keeps him happy and hurts nobody. I would however insist on half-cut (no, not 5 pints of Stella) panels, they are slightly more efficient and rather more reliable than regular panels.

Sparks is less than correct, poly is less efficient at converting solar to electricity, but who cares when the input energy is free? Poly have been around a long time, durability is a given. That said I don't see mono as being any less durable. If you like the cool, black look of mono ...

With no space restrictions I'd go poly and have more of them.

I'm afraid that genie is well and truly out of the bottle and into the bong!

By accident or design??

Whilst planning your house ensure that your car-port is oriented north-south with the roof sloping towards the south. You need somewhere for those solar panels

Our south-west corner (spare bedroom) gets the most solar radiation. Lots of trees in the way now after Madam went on a planting spree. Our bedroom on the north-east corner is pleasantly cool by the time we retire for the night. The coolest room in the house is our en-suite bathroom on the north-west corner, it gets pretty well no direct sunlight at all.

Ditto, I was right on the end of the "force right-handedness" era in the UK, luckily grammar school was more, er, progressive.

Our outside floodlights have a 150W solar panel feeding a 20A PWM charge controller and about 30Ah of 12V LiFePO4 batteries (batteries are made up of a motley selection of 32650 cells acquired over the years). I noted from day 1 that the charge current wasn't quite what I expected, but it was filling the batteries so I put it down to the el-cheapo PWM charge controller. Fast forward a few months and I see the lights are not making it through the night and the batteries are nowhere near full at the end of even a nice sunny day. Changed the charge controller - no difference. Tracing the wiring back to the panel revealed:- Evidently warmth had been generated over a period, that wire was hanging on by a couple of strands. The screw terminal was decidedly not tight! Since the plastic cover was melted and brittle a new one was fabricated, that's just a regular plastic electrical box that was in-stock, not even new. It looked a bit manky so I sprayed it with black acrylic. Connections were tidied up and proper crimps used on the cables. Under test before I install it back onto the patio roof. So, it wouldn't hurt to verify your panel connections are good before hauling them up onto the roof.

Employ a local! If you really have to do it yourself pull the live at the meter output (turn off all loads first).

The cheapest RO I've found is from Close (never heard of the brand) and it includes UV for around 3,500 Baht. https://globalhouse.co.th/product/detail/2011172029956 Not sure if I would buy down at that price point but it takes standard cartridges.

We have a mid-price Mazuma (a known brand), 3 stages (particulate, carbon, resin) + RO + finishing carbon (no UV). I think the latest version is about 8k Baht. Never replaced the RO membrane, been going 10 years. A full set of genuine Mazuma filters (not including the RO membrane) is about 1,500 Baht, off brand ones can be much cheaper. I change the filters when Madam says the water tastes "bad" (I can't tell any difference), I just replace the carbon and particulate, our water isn't "hard" so I don't bother with the resin unless it's on offer with the others. In reality the filters get swapped out once a year or so. We have a whole-house crunchy-bits filter which catches the big particles before the water enters our storage tank, I change that when the tank becomes slow to fill, it's usually the colour of very stewed tea by then.

The RO membranes do have a long life, it's the particulate / carbon / resin combined filter that needs regular replacement, and of course you can't just replace one element if, say, the particulate filter gets clogged. It's all in a nice compact box if that's what you like, but it doesn't seem to do anything that a 4000 Baht Mazuma or whatever does.

The AUT3234 is not RO. The AUT2015 is RO, not sure from the data if it has a built in tank or what. The AUT7000 is RO, it has a built in 8L tank with UV. I would look very carefully at the cost of the replacement filters, they are non-standard so you are at the mercy of Philips to keep making and supplying them.

New tube, new ballast, new starter and it won't ignite = low supply voltage (actually measure it at the fitting, you can't guess here) or a wiring issue.

Low supply voltage? Do try an electronic ballast, they are dead cheap and extend the life of your tubes too ????

What size (Watts) inverter, are you looking for grid-tie, off-grid or hybrid? 250W panels are pretty small these days, you get better value with the larger panels. Prices are a bit high at present, covid etc etc, a Sunergy 410W mono is 5,190 retail at Global House. Lazada suppliers are cheaper but often are nil-stock. https://globalhouse.co.th/product/detail/2012110639336

When you say "flash, flash, flash" what do you actually mean? Did you check that the switch isn't in the neutral?? Have you verified that your supply voltage isn't low? Did you try an electronic ballast, that should actually save even more $$$ and mitigate a low supply voltage. The rest of the universe is switching to LED lighting, which uses even less energy than fluorescent ????

Maybe??? ⚡⚡⚡

Ah! We weren't directly involved with the UPS and DG itself, we were providing the load (the OCC kit). This was a new install, the genset hadn't been run since it was installed maybe 18 months earlier and nobody had bothered either running the beast or turning on the battery maintainer unit (I'm assuming the designer included the maintainer as he knew exactly how often the DG would be test run). As is often the case everyone assumed someone else was doing it "not my job"! It wasn't in Thailand, but it was in another member of ASEAN.

Some years ago we were doing a "final test" on a much larger UPS system than the OP is considering (it ran an OCC - Operations Control Centre). For the test the UPS was supposed to run for two hours and then fire up a diesel genset (normally the DG would start within 2 minutes) but this was a UPS run-time test. Two hours on load came, and went, finally after just over 3 hours the "low battery" indicator came on and the start signal went to the diesel, followed by "arugh, arugh, arugh" from the genset. Flat battery! Panic then ensued to get the main supply back on before the UPS did actually run out of battery. All was well and someone turned on the DG's battery maintainer!

At 5.30 AM on a Saturday it's tea for me, although I do suspect some members would still be in the pub if it was open ????

I understand that the blue, brown, green/yellow colours are "the new normal" for Thailand, but, TiT ...

I'll fetch my coat now ..... Running very fast indeed!!!!!! The actual ""na, na na, na ..." bit is right at the end. Or the really real one!