tjo o tjim

Wife and I are coming back for the first time since the Pandemic next week. We had 6 weeks to work with, but we cut it back to 4 to avoid the immigration hassles. I can do enough work remotely that taking a longer "soft" vacation is easy enough. As for the 90 day visa exemption... it's fine as long as it doesn't become as difficult as it can be in Europe to spend 91 days in six months.

Wife and I are finally able to come back for a month soon. Generally what is open meets our needs and it is nice that things are not crazy crowded. Anything better than 34B/USD makes it reasonably affordable at a time where all prices have gone nuts. While Thailand could do a better job of making it accessible, this is really just how the change happens. It's a process...

@Crossy while I get the irony of the Texas situation, not sure why you think this is a bad sign. For most people, EV charging is easy to shift in time, especially for a single day. What is missing is better ways of doing it-- being able to control the charging rate via an API so you maximize self-consumption of PV, or optimize for grid issues like this. But, even the manual approach is a great reminder that we can work together when we control large home loads for the common benefit.

I imagine the problem is a lot like trying to use roman numerals for everything; there are no default software libraries for treating them as numbers so you have to go through them (more) manually. If this is the case, the proper course of action is to build a library/api to address it.

Tesla's new factory in Texas is 4 stories, roughly 1 million m2, and can build over 500,000 cars per year in its first phase. They build battery cells on the uppermost floor, drop them down for the battery modules, drop them down another floor to integrate the seats onto the module, and drop them down another floor to integrate them into the car chassis. While I am no automobile manufaturing expert, one that I follow is extremely impressed with the design, logistics, and efficiency of the arrangement.

You still have a neutral on battery until you open your RCBO; the inverter should bridge the house neutral to the critical load neutral. @Crossy is there any way to deal with this other than to tie the inverter in ahead of the RCBO? Add a grounding transformer?

The cost per-se isn't necessarily the issue, it is the predictability. If you have a US$2k visa application process vs a US$4k process, the latter is going to be used less and therefore less predictable. As for the last part... having a 10-year visa gives you some flexibility in how you invest and live in a place. Say you want to have your own condo for those 2 months a year, and let family use it other times. You gain the clarity with the longer term visa. Pre-COVID I knew a guy that had owned a condo here for ~15 years. He travelled extensively for his work, and used Thailand as an inexpensive base. He just did tourist visas, but ultimately decided to dump the condo because there was so little value in having a place that you did not have a guarantee that you would actually be able to visit. This type of person is a great draw for Thailand, and there are a number of people in Hong Kong that would get one in a heartbeat, not to mention countless numbers of others that would find similar value.

All comes down to perspective. 20 years ago the "long term visa" was hand the passport to Mr. J with 1,000B so it can go on a vacation to Malaysia. The systems they have are at least a little bit more flexible than the old days, and a whole lot more legal and encourages people to be in the system rather than hidden.

Has anybody had issues with geckos or insects getting into their solar equipment and causing problems? Any recommended solutions?

They already thought of that. Thailand wants the German engine manufacturer to put the sub engine on the F35.

I might say it a little differently-- it is more efficient because you are taking less water out of the air with the fan on high. With an inverter unit there are other options as well, like reducing the refrigerant pressure delta.

Not really. You have an impact on temperature gradient between the coil and air impacting rate of heat transfer, but for the compressor that is a non-issue. The main factor is the load on the air conditioner. Here are two meter readings from an air conditioner-- first one is more heavily loaded than the second. This is an inverter unit; the second one will look more like what you have as it is at the minimum inverter setting.

Haven't they already counted all the ballots?

Dehumidification mode also usually slows down the fan on the indoor unit so the air has more contact time with the coil. Some units do actually vary the coil temperature depending on space temperature and/or the delta between set point and space; dehumidification mode puts it in the lowest coil temperature.

I really have trouble keeping up with the "sodium" batteries. These are apparently closer to Aquion's "saltwater" battery rather than the sodium-nickel telecom battery or the high temperature sodium sulphur grid storage batteries.

Most people here are missing the impact of inflation. At 3% inflation, 3MM Baht is only ~5,000B/month in present day purchasing power over 30 years.

The inflation is the only thing that will bring them close to the 2019 numbers... quiet!!

One thing you need to establish for yourself is the cost of downtime or level of acceptable downtime. You likely want to size the system to accommodate 95-99% of your annual consumption days-- you will have days and weeks that being off-grid is not going to be cost effective with batteries and solar alone. A backup generator is the easiest approach, along with some provisions for load shedding.

The hinges and proper alignment are critical. Cheap hinges will cause pain for the life of the gate.

Might be cheaper in the end to put in an off-grid solar setup, and expand it when the house is finished.

FWIW, the meter will only see the kWh in aggregate, so exporting on two phases and importing on one might not spin the meter backwards.

The only way you can do it, even if you hire a designer, is to live in the space yourself (in your brain, 3D model, or whatever) to develop an understanding of what exactly you want. In a small space, planning out storage is essential. In a larger space, flow might be more important than storage. Some things end up being purely functional for how you live. These are generally established by developing a “Program” for the place. How many bedrooms? What size beds? How many people at the dining table? How many in the living room? Do you want a big shower or a little one? Is storage or counter space more important in the kitchen? Do you cook big meals or just heat stuff up in the microwave? You need to write up every thing you can think of, and as you find out about other things it becomes important to add that to your Program. The other approach, which doesn’t really work, is to hire someone to design and build the place and hope for the best. The more information you give them the better chance you have of success though, so you are back at the Program. This is a random link to a programming guideline; maybe it will help.

The key is *reinforced* concrete buildings. Corrosion of reinforcement leads to spalling or delamination of the concrete. Spalling repair is expensive; you need to remove and replace the corroding steel and then replace the concrete. The other variable is quality of building foundations; Bangkok might actually be better than Miami, but there is a lot of ground subsistence that poses a risk. Time will tell…

Talking to one person in the industry a few years back it came down to financing. They might only need 10% of what it would cost in (say) the US to start production, but the failure rate is high, and the marketing costs are still going to be on-par with the US. In the end, the movie only ends up being ~20% cheaper risk-adjusted. Add to that the star appeal driving movies and you end up with a tough sell.

I expect Thailand will become less desirable for a retiree paradise; the country has been actively trying to destroy that for years. Regular tourists will come back in time, especially where they can find value. I think the challenge for Thailand will really be that they will slowly get fewer repeat tourists, and the average duration of stay is likely to drop. If you are spending US$1,000/day and up, there are simply better places to go that most of Thailand if you will be spending more than a few days here. If you are spending under US$100/day, Thailand might become more of a place you spend a few days rather than a base to travel around SE Asia.