3STTW

The information regarding the CAAT's policy on drones has been available on their website for some years and it's fairly explicit. You should also remember that you need a radio operators license as detailed on the CAAT site.

The application process was dreadful back in 2017 and one of my drones took 6 months until they admitted they had no record of the application. However, I understand that the process takes about 2-3 weeks at present. Nonetheless, you need to be in Thailand and have a permanent address here (not least for the insurance). You also need to have purchased the drone in Thailand, there are two reasons for this; primarily to ensure you have paid the appropriate import duty/VAT on the device and secondly that it complies with the Thai radio spectrum limitations.

Insurance is a complete ripoff because, if you comply with the flight regulations, your chances of incurring Bht1M damage to anything are right next to zero. I understand that premiums have settled down now that the tourist industry is dead but remember this: a drone policy will cost you c.Bht2500.00 per drone, but if you speak to the right people you can get a public liability policy for about the same - or less - which will cover you for flying drones in general (not just one).

Going back to the CAAT regulations, if you fly a drone in or around Bangkok, there is a very high percentage that you will get caught (or snitched)  - similarly with airports, palaces and other sensitive areas. However, I have seen the locals flying them around tourist spots ad lib with no regard to the proximity regulations detailed on the CAAT site. In many cases tourist hotels are using visitors' drone footage for their own websites.

To my mind the CAAT regs are justified. The insurance/duty/VAT b***ocks is yet another scam to fleece tourists, nomads and professional media types. Provided you have the insurance, many of the proximity limitations are pointless.

Singapore is the way to go, I had one in HKG a while back and the fees are horrendous. 
 

Singapore has a minimum deposit regulation of SGD200k as was stated earlier but this can be in any form - cash, gold, bonds, funds or any other investment instruments. Also the customer service is A++, one SMS and I can get my account manager to call back immediately.

.

Another upside is you get full access to all major investment markets outside the EU - including the US. 
 

As you are in Thailand, there are really two alternatives; HSBC or Citibank but I would forget the former on ethical grounds. I can send you relevant contact details if you wish.

If the 200k is a bit too much for a cheap Charlie, you can always buy or establish a Singapore company and nominate yourself as a director, this will then allow  you access to standard retail banking in the State. Last time I looked, this process cost <SGD4000. You will need a local co-director but these can be provided by the broker. You also get eligibility for PR status and this can be very handy under certain circumstances.

There are annual costs involved - mainly to comply with corporate performance regulations but the benefits, not to mention the possibilities, are well with it.

On 12/31/2020 at 5:59 PM, jimrod said:

I don't want to start another thread. I'm looking for a basic place to get wood in Pattaya. Any ideas?

I'm looking for the same. There's a place on Theprasit Rd on the left as you're heading towards the beach, it looks like a bog-standard hardware shop until you look into the back where they have a pretty substantial warehouse full of MDF, plywood, melamine boards.

However, if like me, you're looking for actual wood you might want to try a place up Sukhumvit at Bang Lamung just past Toyota GND Chon Buri Head Office (heading north), there's this place...

I noticed it when I was driving to Laem Chabang a few weeks ago. I took a ride up there last Thursday but it was shut (not sure if it was due to Covid or NY) but this is high on my list.

Stanley, Bosch, Makita and DeWalt. I've been getting mine from Thaidee Homemart on Lazada, who have been super reliable and way cheaper than Homepro and Thai Watsadu.

Wot no Dave Gilmour? How about Eric Johnson and the jack of all trades, Guthrie Govan (check out Erotic Cakes).

Good to see Mason Williams in the mix, the guitar part for the original Classical Gas earned me a fail on my Grade 6 because it’s so dull without the haut production. Mason makes amends and kills it!

Petrucci though? Urgh, along with Bonamassa they’ve learned to paint by numbers and they’re so good at it, it’s like listening to something you’ve heard a million times before.

13 hours ago, Crossy said:

Task A is going to be to decide exactly what you want to achieve and are you going to go DIY or employ a contractor.

 

A simple entry level grid-tie DIY of 4 panels on home-built stands and a 1200W grid-tie inverter will give you 4-5 kWh per day and can be simply plugged in to a regular outlet and start offsetting your bills for 10-12k Baht.

 

Where are you going to put your panels? Ours are conveniently on the car-port (deliberately designed and positioned for the purpose) so they're easy to get at, the inverter lives just under the car port roof (we have no batteries as yet, but there's space for them in the same area).

 

If you can get on the PEA FIT you won't need batteries unless you want a hybrid system which can provide emergency power when the mains is off. Last time I looked there was only one hybrid inverter on the PEA approvals list, but at least there was one.

 

16kWh of batteries is going to be about 350Ah @ 48V of LiFePO4 (double that for lead-acid), probably about 3 grand US just for the batteries ????   I agree I wouldn't want that much energy stored in the house! 

 

The best deals for batteries are on AliBaba or AliExpress although there are an increasing number on Lazada (check out the other solar threads for links).

My initial objective was to produce at least twice as much power as I use during the day and use the feed in tariff to offset what I use at night. As things stand, this would probably reduce my bill by about 70% at best.

I have 72 sq.m of flat roof over my garage and probably the same again on a SW facing house extension, so no shortage of space. 
 

I’m not overly inclined to get into all the PEA nonsense of registering and committing to long-term contracts, I’ve had enough pain from them over the last few years and I’m not going to sign up for more. Therefore, I’m going to go with the reverse meter plan from the outset - with a commitment to add batteries as soon as possible.

I will be doing some modifications to the house and I’ve updated the plans to include a battery room (1.2 x 2.4m) which will be adjacent to the storage room where the existing DB is. I can put all the other ancillary electronics in there too.

Regarding the installation, I’ll get an installer to put the panels up and I’ll do the electrics myself.

Thanks Crossy, I’ll make some more enquiries on that front.

Another factor which I forgot to mention earlier is that all my power cabling is all underground. That is, from the meter box outside, under the front garden, to the DB under the stairs. This probably means that the inverter will need to be under the stairs and, if I decide to go with the battery solution, so will the battery stack.

I don’t fancy having 16kWh of energy squirrelled away under there with no ventilation!

I was considering some remodelling at the front of the house so this may be an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, albeit with less storage space than I wanted.

Finally, any recommendations for battery suppliers in LoS? I’m inclined to go for the separate batteries rather then the combo units with the inverter.

Superb advice and information guys, thank you.

It was my understanding that the installer is supposed to fit a PEA approved inverter and do all the paperwork malarkey - but I may be wrong. I wouldn’t attempt the ‘legal’ method unless this was done on my behalf. All the same, the 2 Baht feed-in rate is much better than I’d expected.

My current monthly bill is about THB6.5k and the lion’s share of that is the pool (1.5kW x 8hrs) and the AC units. So a daily average of about 56kWh.
 

Going down the battery route, if I change the timing of the pool pump to daylight only, my nighttime consumption would be 1 AC, fridges plus some lights and TV in the evening. Even then, that’s going to need a pretty hefty clutch of batteries and the costs start to escalate dramatically.

Nevertheless, I’m not giving up just yet!

I've come into a few bucks and I'm thinking about a 5kW on-grid system system, I'm not directly interested in the ROI, I just want to kill off the monthly PEA bill and maybe earn some extra cash to put towards other bills.

Anybody know how much the PEA will pay per unit when you are generating from an on-grid solar system? I've been looking at some highly optimistic quotes from various solar installers regarding the return-on-investment (ROI) period. Some are suggesting that you can recoup all your costs in 4 years which would suggest that the PEA have pretty incredible feed-in rates!

I had a go and raked about 5sqm with pretty good results. It rips up the fungus and the sickly grass (like hay) and leaves the healthy green shoots behind. I haven’t watered it for a week so the fungus is dry and crispy which makes the job that much easier.

I also noticed that where the worst patches are the topsoil has all but washed away so I’ll rake in some potting mixture tomorrow.

The couch grass is pretty good at re-covering bare patches. Hopefully the potting compound and some worm castings will help it along.

Interesting, I agree that it’s not ‘eating’ the grass but it is covering the soil and preventing any new growth.

I don’t fertilise at the moment but this sounds like the best solution - along with breaking up the fungus with a rake.

Can you recommend a good couch fertiliser available in LoS?

Since the heavy rain in October when our lawn got partially waterlogged, we’ve got this horrible crusty fungus eating the couch grass.

Anyone know what it is and how to get rid of it?

There are two ways to drive LED arrays, the best uses a pulsed signal driver and the second simply chokes the current.

Plan A is good because even though the LED’s are being switched on and off at high(ish) frequency, it’s only the on time that counts against their overall lifetime.

Plan B is bad because the LED is on all the time and it creates a lot of heat dissipation such that the circuit will eventually cook itself to death (planned obsolescence).

Then there’s a part of the circuit that converts 220VAC to the working voltage of the LED array, there are good ways of doing it and cheap ways of doing it.
Here’s a thing, when 90% of LED lamps die it’s almost always the driver circuit at fault while the actual LED’s are fine.

Unfortunately, as a consumer, you can never know the difference and even a branded product may have a very limited lifetime, which is sh!tty value for money and bad news for the planet.

This pic from south Jomtien beach just a couple of days ago, nasty blob of pain!

What you need is a squeaky clean immigration record, if you have any previous overstays you're pretty much excluded. Also a valid visa, but this depends on where you are now...

1. From within TH: any current visa with valid extensions as necessary. Having said that, me and the Mrs just got waived through because our work visas were cancelled during Covid and we couldn't get new ones.

2. From outside TH: once you have been approved for TE and paid your fees, you can get a tourist VOA and TE will get you 'upgraded' with their visa once you're in country.

It's best to pay the fees from a Thai bank account otherwise you may incur delays because the 'money police' need to check the source of the funds.

Our contact at Thailand Elite told me to expect "long delay" due to the 26th Sept amnesty deadline. I have heard there are 200k+ applications in the system at the moment, not sure if that's true but people are experiencing delays beyond the 1-2 month expectation.

Another piece of advice; check your emails carefully (including your spam), TE use some kind of weird email server. We got our approval letters back in July but never knew it - the emails hadn't show up on either of our accounts. It was only when we badgered them that they sent a MIME copy then suddenly all the mails  appeared in our accounts. Weird.

Finally, don't use an agent, go straight through TE at the address shown in the earlier responses.

My wife and I applied back in early July direct with Thailand Elite, we got approved in mid-August but we still haven't got the letter. Incidentally, the website says "YOUR APPLICATION HAS BEEN APPROVED. Thank you for your patience, the approval will be send to you within 3 working days from the approval date."

Needless to say, we spoke to them in August and they said that the letter would be sent that day, it wasn't. We have tried to contact them several times since to no avail and they are not replying to emails.

Back in August I was told that they are struggling with over 200k new applicants - mainly from CN/HKG - I have no evidence of that but it would certainly explain the delays.

The wifey at Thailand Elite told me it was better to have at least 6 pages, the requisite 3 are required for the visa and all the other stamps, TM30 and other miscellaneous garbage they attach to your passport.

Having spare pages will save you a headache later on.

On 7/9/2020 at 8:11 PM, northsouthdevide said:

What is your flat roof made from? 

 When rain falls on a roof, it needs to drain off somewhere. 

Is the roof holding water? 

If so, then applying any kind of sealant would be useless. 

You need to check that any rainfall has an unblocked outlet, and that water isn't sitting up there. 

If it is, then that would more than likely be your problem. 

It's a concrete structure.  Water is pooling on the top side surface so this is bound to be the issue; there's a definite puddle that forms after rainfall and there's accumulated sediment around it.

I've since contacted the builder and they're going to take a look next week.

Thanks everyone.

I've got an extension area comprising a car port, laundry, pool machine room and a small workshop, all encompassed in a structure with a flat roof. And it's leaking, not a lot but there's lighting and electrical outlets so I need to get it fixed.

Can anyone recommend a good roof coating that would be available in TH - or a reliable company that can fix the problem without exorbitant skin tax? (E. Pattaya area).

Thanks ukrules, that was the reassurance I was looking for.  

I've heard that there are a lot of shysters gaming the TH Elite visa program. What is the safe way of applying and paying for the visa?