3STTW

So I guess I'm not the only one!

Identifying the culprit(s) isn't so easy as we live in a suburban area, the fires burn after sunset so "following the smoke" isn't practical. On the other hand, there are some new shop-lots nearby with some workers housing behind, so there's a high probability it's coming from there.

Contacting the Tambon seems the best idea, I'm all for supplying a bin but that would require somebody to take responsibility for putting it out on collection day - and I know what Thais when it comes to responsibilities. Also, word will spread that farangs are supplying bins for free and so on...

18 minutes ago, Chelseafan said:

Sadly, this applies to a lot of countries, including the UK/EU

True, and it arose because of the way the EU recovered VAT from couriers, effectively taxing transactions outside their domain.  And many other countries said "Ooh, what a great idea!".

The other arbitrary factor is that you get to pay tax and handling charges not just on the value of the goods but the on cost of shipping as well.

You can actually end up paying twice the value of the goods if they are weighty and expensive to ship. This is a <deleted> outrage and should be outlawed under some kind of UN Charter.

Almost every evening we are overwhelmed by the stench of burning plastic. I just had my gutters cleaned and the bucket of rubbish was mostly half-incinerated food wrappers and bin bag material. We also have the cinders and other cr@p all over the yard.

I get that times are tight and people may be having trouble paying their utility bills but this has got to a point where it's a major PITA. Trouble is, it's really difficult to identify who is responsible and how we can get it stopped.

Any ideas?

A reasonable tiler will charge 200 - 250/m2 for installation only, so it sounds like your mate got ripped off . Just remember to buy the tiles and grout yourself.

Thanks for the tips. I'm still weighing up the cost benefit but this helps a lot.

Say I have 3kW of solar panels feeding a hybrid inverter and a battery stack which charges when there's excess power from the solar, if my overall consumption exceeds the output of the panels, and the inverter switches to town power (PEA or whatever), do the batteries charge from the solar or from the town power?

I've looked at various datasheets for inverters and I can't find a definitive answer.

There are a lot of small-town people who haven't been out much who share a similar attitude. It's not exactly racist - more ignorance than anything sinister.

There are a lot of people of that age who find modern attitudes towards race (and sexuality) extremely confusing, and are often bewildered why people are so <deleted> sensitive these days. Many of them don't realize that their light-hearted banter can be construed as racist behavior.

It's probably important to remember that there's a huge difference between a flag waving Alt-right Nazi and an old town-mouse with an anachronistic outlook.

Firstly, I wouldn't import anything here unless my visa situation was sorted out for the long term. If there's one thing we all know, there are absolutely no guarantees for getting a visa and it would be wise to get that part of the equation is sorted out first.

Probably the best advice I can give is to use a reputable international mover who will prepare all the relevant documentation, including a formal packing list and goods valuation declaration. The best ones will liaise with a local agent to do a 'pre-clearance' so that your kit sails through customs once it arrives. 

Other folks have already discussed, how you ship it here is key; if you can disassemble the booth and bury it among your other personal effects and refer to it as a 'cupboard', that would probably work.

Otherwise, sell it and build yourself a new one when you get here. You can get all the materials you need including acoustic foam, neoprene sheet, door seals and Class A or B rubberwood sheet would be ideal for this application because it's so dense. If you had to buy all the tools, materials and fittings, I reckon $500 would cover it. Labor depends on whether you DIY or use a local carpenter.

58 minutes ago, The Hammer2021 said:

Cold Guinness is a very new idea

No it isn't. Guinness Cold was on sale in the UK 15 years ago or more. The pump was the same design but with a blue stripe around it.

3 minutes ago, Jumbo1968 said:

I remember Watneys Red Barrel and the to adverts, it was like Worthington E, horrible, I think both were more a southern drink ?

Watneys started it and you can follow the genealogy of <deleted> beer throughout history. "Harp stays sh!t to the bottom of the glass" and then we had Skol, Fosters, Castlemain XXXX, etc. No wonder CAMRA took off in those years.

God save us from Australian beer, at least they didn't give us their rotting VB - the worst beer in the world. I do like James Bogue Premium but that's Tasmanian so it doesn't count.

4 minutes ago, hotandsticky said:

Snob!   ????

 

 

Sitting where exactly ?

Having a bit of a class crusade today?

Can't beat a good beer anywhere as long as it's in good company.

6 minutes ago, moogradod said:

Maybe I am misinformed, but the decent way to drink a Guiness is warm to my knowledge. Not that I would ever drink that.

In the UK you can get Guinness or Guinness Cold so it doesn't matter really. In TH, they need to chill it to keep the gas (and hence the pour) under control otherwise you end up with a Guinness fire extinguisher.

Slightly off-topic but I've heard a few times that Thai car insurance is invalid unless you have a Thai DL. Is this true, given that the insurance companies don't require evidence of one?

I mean, there are thousands of tourists renting cars with get-out-of-jail-free insurance on non-Thai licences. Is that different if you actually live here?

The box that they added was probably an LED driver circuit. So let's have a nerd moment; an LED driver provides two functions:

1. Incandescent light bulbs are constant voltage devices, i.e. if you put ten of them in series in a 12v circuit, you would need to apply ten times the current to get each one to emit the same brightness as a single bulb in the circuit. The opposite is true of LED's; if the forward current of a single LED is 1 Amp, even if you put 10 in the circuit the current needs to be maintained at 1 Amp, however you need to increase the voltage in order to get them all to switch on. So LED's won't work well with a fixed 12v system and this is why they need a constant current driver.

2. If you keep LED's switched on all the time, they don't last long because they aren't very good at dissipating heat. The best way to increase their life is to have them switched off half the time, if you switch them on-off 20 times/second this is what happens in practice. The LED driver takes care of this, it also explains why when you shoot a video of cars at night their lights appear to be flashing - this is the stroboscopic interference between the LED drivers' switching frequency and the camera shutter speed.

6 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Think I would be kicking myself for not looking into it prior to purchase.

Seems you purchased on a whim.

Of course I didn't purchase on a whim. That's my point.

I have a ten year TE visa and now view it as a colossal waste of money. You don't get a ten year visa at all; you get a one year visa which you have to renew annually at your own cost. This is not made apparent to you and, as many people on this forum have discovered, you can end up with a massive overstay fine and exclusion from the Kingdom if you miss it.

None of the services they provide are free - you literally have to pay for almost everything they do for you. You still have to do 90-day reporting, TE will do it for you - but for a fee. And don't get me started on passport renewal; my wife had to renew hers last year and our costs, including TE's charges, were well over Bht 8000.00.

When I got my visa, none of the above was made apparent and, as far as I can tell, there is still no fixed tariff of service charges. Even worse, their telephone support is (and I need to be careful here) 'sub-optimal'. Granted, their staff have bee WFH for a long time, but still.

As far as I'm concerned, the only 'privilege' I will get is fast track at immigration; i.e. the choice between waiting for an hour at immigration or waiting an our at the baggage claim.

Retrospectively, I would have gone for retirement visa. I'm still kicking myself.

I have a TE visa and my advice would be to take a very close look at the small print. All the services they provide are at an additional cost, depending on the visa type and service you require.

If you believe that the visa offers you some kind of tax break, go back and read the conditions carefully. And then take a look at what you can and cannot do in terms of work/business under Thailand's general visa regulations. The TE visa does not exempt you from any of those conditions.

All that glitters isn't gold.

You could just drop in to Home Pro and get a box of these for B990.00.