gejohesch

1 month later, after a lot of work, I think I have finished tiling up the main part of the area I was talking about (I still have to do the "kitchen" part behind the 1/2 way wall which has those white tiles). I post 2 jpegs for an overview and for the detail. It's shining nice because I just rinsed the tiles 😉. Granted, it's not a pro work, but for an amateur, I think it's pretty acceptable! Still have to do a few cosmetics, repaint the bottom of the walls and columns.... It's a lot of work, for sure. At the same time, I have the satisfaction to have acquired new skills and I feel proud about it. Sure, next time I will do better!

Not so much!

What was rather stupid in the first place, to me at least, was to opt for submarines. The Gulf of Thailand is ca. 60m deep in average, and never above 85m. If I remember right (it's not my field), a submarine has to be sthg like a minimum of 20 m below sealevel not to be detected too easily, and has to clear the seabottom by a minimum of 20m for safety reasons. Which leaves on average a 20m depth range to operate. That does not sound a lot to me! Then of course, the Andaman Sea is much, much deeper. But what would be the purpose of a thai submarine? To face off India, the obvious big player in the region? No chance to compete whatsoever! So, thai submarines sounded to me like toys for the guys on top, and a complete waste of money.

I would add to the qualifications required that a teacher must also have an "acceptable" accent. As a non native english speaker (proficient with 4 other european languages), I find that certain native speakers have accents which are rather painful to hear. I know this is a delicate and obviously subjective matter, but it also has to be said.

"Thais' reading skills" - yeah, that's also sthg to talk about. I read somewhere that Thailand is one of the countries where people read the most. That's total BS to me. Have you ever seen a bookshelf in any house in Isan??? Not a single person in my wife's family has ever had a single book (maybe with the exception of 1 or 2 booklets about religion, religion and religion) .... I guess that's not only Isan....

I guess several persons, native speakers of (say) language A, will have issues with the way native speakers of language B speak that particular language B. Personally, not being a native english speaker, well educated in how my native language works (grammatically etc), I find 2 mannerisms with English speakers that irritate me. Here are these 2 "mannerisms": 1 - What I call the double "that". I read lots of writings by British people like this: "I think that, because of blablabla, that we should do etc etc". That repeat of the conjunction "that" does not sound correct to me at all, but several British told me "it's correct". 2 - So many transcripts in the media of discussions between supposedly very well educated persons, eg on TV, are complete gibberish. Maybe that's more the case in the US (I read lots of US material)? Maybe that's because no efforts are spent in those transcriptions that are rather meant for short term use?

I tend to agree. As a EU citizen, I was clearly told (I asked!) by my home country tax authorities and they said loud and clear "if you travel around and are not taxable anywhere, then by default you will become taxable here". How much taxable depends of course on the particular country's rules.

Too americanised to my liking. Not much proper and interesting culture compared to Thailand. Food is a lot better in Thailand too. Not talking about the females' side here.

Does one have to become a priest to become resident in the Vatican?

Coming back to your comments. First, I attach a jpeg showing the prices quoted by PEA for installations ranging from 3 to 5 KW (1P or 3P - Standard or Premium). As a bonus, the jpeg includes the 10 Kw 3P option ????. The quotes are ranges, depending on the particular equipment one would select for an installation. The PEA website peasolar.pea.co.th offers indeed a variety of brands etc. To the right, it says how many square metres about the installation would be. For 5 Kw : ca. 30 metres; for 10 Kw : ca. 60 square metres. We ourselves have an ideally positioned roof of a bit over 30 sq. m available - facing the south and with no obstruction. So, obviously we would be limited to the 5 Kw option, which is actually the maximum we would be considering. Also to the right, in the orange box, an indication of a typical range of equipment that would be powered by the solar panels. I guess that is purely indicative. I'm a bit puzzled by 5 Kw driving 2 AC's of 12,000 BTU. That's not a lot of AC running at a given time, I think. However, that does not worry me too much, if we run a lot of equipment (during day time) and need to import from the grid (and pay an average of ca. 4 THB/unit for it), so be it! .... I will have to do some detail calculations at some stage to see how economical a 5 Kw installation would be for us. Note that we are absent for 3-6 months each year (traveling abroad), so any electricity produced by our solar panels would be bought back by PEA (at 2.2 THB/unit) - that would help the economics, I guess. Finally, about the overall costs, we seem to concur that the PEA quotes tend to be OTT a bit. Going to another provider for the installation leads to 2 questions: - which one? Would anyone have recommendations around Khon Kaen? - would a solar installation done by others than PEA still allow for the excess electricity generated to be bought back by PEA?

I'll come back to all these comments, takes me a bit of time to get my thoughts together! ????

Indeed, I forgot to say, that includes a contract (for 10 years if I remember right) to buy back excess electricity at 2.2 THB / Kwh. I guess that's what is meant by "grid feed" contract. Whenever we need extra power (when solar generated not sufficient), we would buy at the standard rate. I checked, the average we paid over the last 17 months was around 4 THB/Kwh, but that would possibly increase a bit depending on how much we have to "import" (re. PEA price scale). The packages I mentioned do not include batteries. We are not big users at night. I cannot remember the length of the guarantee , I'm not sure that was for that long as 10 years. Reason I'm a bit vague is that I considered that visit to the PEA office as a "first contact". We are not going to decide for any installation until some time next year. We plan to get a few extra AC's installed first and then watch for what our consumption becomes, then review the calculations.

Coming back to this. No one replied to your question yet (last line).... ???? Meanwhile, I went with my wife to the local PEA office and discussed the solar options with an advisor. As it turns out, there are indeed a number of options: a) 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 KW; b) 1P or 3P 51 or 3 phase): 3KW is only a 1P option. I'm pretty certain what we have is a 1P (1 phase) installation at home as we are (so far) small domestic users. 10, 15 and 20 KW are only 3P - these probably target large scale users (industrial, shops). c) Standard or Premium: Standard comes with a String Inverter whereas Premium also has a "Optimiser" and a Micro-Inverter. Now, it's clear that we would either go for 1 or 3 KW, and 1P (still need to plan for additional AC's etc). I'm not clear however about the prices quoted by PEA. OK, they include an entire package (installation, maintenance) but they vary between 131,000 and 269,000 THB (3KW Standard to 5KW Premium). This raises 2 questions: - is the additional 20,000 to 40,000 THB to go from Standard to Premium worth it? I'm asking because I have no idea what benefits we would get with Premium (not an expert!). - are the PEA package prices, as mentioned, not a bit over the top ? Without going to boring details here, it seems that the panels on sale in HomePro or Global House plus the inverter would roughly sum up to less than 100,000 THB for a 5 KW installation. OK, there would be extras to pay for wiring etc + installation.... I will eventually get deeper into the matter, but I wonder if anyone on this forum has relevant experience and comments.....

Thanks, good idea (reading the meter at different times etc)! Now, that statement about the "sweet spot" being 4-5k thb per month and a 6 kw installation" : I wonder. I cannot see ourselves going over 2-2.5 k thb/month (we don't use AC the whole day through). I would imagine an installation of 3kw would then be economical just as well - meaning 6 or 7 panels.

Yes, absolutely right, and thanks for bringing this up. I was already thinking a bit about it..... So, our daytime consumption has indeed to be less than the 12.3 units quoted earlier, and I would have to revise the estimated number of panels down. But how really are we going to know what we consume during daytime???

Very interesting, thanks! Need to think a bit on that one, but a priori, knowing that we have long absence periods (traveling abroad sometimes for 2-3 months), it sounds like we would better go "official".

Thanks a lot! "A 9 panel system and 5kw inverter could suffice. My system can produce double your consumption and our best solar day in this past month was 41.2kwh." I understand that your system is the "9 panel system", right? "The big name stores are very poor at selling anything but the ticketed items staff have been trained to promote so I would not go to them for advice." That's what I think of them too! Btw, I have that general feeling in Thailand, whether it's asking about cosmetic surgery, insurance policy, electric pump or whatever, I have the odd feeling that "they nearly always try to push sthg to you". Also, I worked a few years in a large Thai company (as an expat advisor) and I often thought that supposed-to-be experts in this country rather often talk big and quickly about maters they have only a basic knowledge of. You get it, my trust level in Thailand is very low.... ???? "BM/Mod, Crossy, is the best person to advise further. " Any more advice where to go shopping for the solar panels would be most welcome. I hope I'm not abusing, I'm very thankful for the good comments so far! ????

Thanks, that's very clear .... and somewhat of a relief (I will not need to go for a full-blown installation then). I will definitely not go DIY for this, I have strictly no know-how in the matter, and I certainly would not trust "local" workers. So "official" I guess, via a well-established supplier in the ampheu or in Khon Kaen.

I can now come back to this discussion, having checked our consumption over the last 6 months (on last PEA bill). We reached a maximum of 370 units (Kwh?) from end march to end April, which corresponds to the hottest month we had this year, my wife and myself being in our house in Isan. That's 12.3 units per day. Someone said above "1x 450w panel generates 1.3-1.5 units/day", if I take that as 1.4 units /day average, we would need 9 panels of 450 Kwh to cover that consumption. The reason I'm coming back is that I now wonder how much more our total consumption would be if another couple had stayed that whole period in our second house, using AC's etc. It’s easy to just double up, i.e. to table on 25 units a day (2*12.3). And then to count up to 18 panels of 450 Kwh. The problem is: 1) the costs : all in all with the wiring and connections etc reaching the 100,000 bahts about. 2) where to install 18 panels. I would need sthg like a 50 sq m surface available somewhere. The best surface we have would be one of the roofs at about 30 sq m. That would only accommodate 30/50 * 18 = 11 panels… let’s say 12 at best which would be 2/3 what I reckoned above to cover peak consumption with full occupation of our 2 houses. So, my question is, what if we install just those 12 panels? At times our consumption would exceed what those 12 panels could deliver, could we get a boost from the PEA public supply to make up for the excess consumption? I know, I will be told to go and ask in HomePro, Global House etc. However, I have very rarely (if at all) met a vendor with a good command of English around where we are. My Thai is OK for day to day usage, but not for a sustained technical discussion ….. and I like to understand what the vendor is telling us (my wife is not technically minded at all). That’s why I’m asking again on the Aseannow site. Thanks for your patience!

Coming back to your comment. As I said earlier, I had the ground leveled up by a local worker, to smooth out all the irregularities ..... But, the result was not perfect, maybe only "95%" perfect ????and I could see it here and there rising a bit, and a few "gentle" hollows left. All that I thought was just a matter of a few mm and I could make up for it when putting the tiles up. .... Except that it did not work that simply! I realised quickly that a difference of a few mm (say in excess of 2-3 mm) would cause problems just about everywhere. Possibly a professional tiler would have the skills and experience to cope with it but I'm a beginner and frankly, I regret a bit having started the job myself. I have done a few sq metres already but with spending a lot of time scraping out at places to get the tiles in reasonable line-up. And it's not perfect. I realise that as soon as there is a misalignment of say more than 1-2 mm, anyone can see it! That being said, it's not bad for an amateur, I think, and I'm not going to call on a pro to finish the job up. So, I see myself at work for a couple of weeks ahead. ????The silver lining is that I will then have a lot more skills and experience .... to use somewhere else! Also, the area I'm tiling is rather back of the houses (we have 2 next to each other), so a 95% job will still be good enough. ????

I hope I'm not abusing the patience of the experts on the subject. But having read a number of articles on the subject online, I'm still very confused. The (numerous) ones relating to situations in the USA, for example, I find rather unhelpful, as I guess the average domestic energy consumption in the USA would be rather more than what we (my wife + myself + occasional friends or relatives staying with us) would use. Which brings me to the point : I don't really know how much we are using! I know, I should check our bills but my wife tells me she has not kept a single one! So, I would consider that we are rather average when it comes to electricity consumption. We are usually 2 persons in the house, running the usual combo of lights, fans, pumps (for the water), AC's not that much (about 50 BTU's maximum at a given time) and only during day time (we never sleep with AC's on), TV a little bit, an electric oven occasionally, a washing machine (rather often) - and I think that's about it! If people stay with us, I would say add another 50 BTU of AC's. That's all day time consumption. At night, it would only be 2 or 3 fans, 1 TV and a few lights. Considering all that, I would see the installation of solar panels aimed at covering our daytime needs only, and we would fall back on the public electricity supply (mains) at night time. I'm saying that because as I understand it : 1) solar panels don't generate anything at night; and 2) some people use a more complex solar system setup including expensive batteries to get power during the night. I would possibly consider installing mono-crystalline panels of 450 W, which I think are about 1m x 2.1m, and cost somewhere around 5-6,000 baht a piece. I can build a platform above our garage where I could line up 6 of them (if we need that many!). I will keep chasing my wife to start keeping her bills, but in the meantime, I would imagine that our situation is rather average and that a number of people already have relevant experience with solar panels in Thailand, and could give me a bit of advice. Thanks in advance!

For the ticklers amongst you : the wall on the last pic is not finished. Cosmetic work is still coming!

My intention is not to complain about everything in Thailand. It's a wonderful country in so many respects. But when it comes to getting certain things done, one should know it's not going to be like "back home". It may be useful for some to read about my experiences with building work in Isan. This discussion started about tiling. Just to conclude, I got the ground finished up by a local worker (50 sq m, 1000 baht), after I had levelled it up (it was severely dipping and very irregular to start with). The first pic show what I end up with. I splashed water over it to see how horizontal it really is. Where the water stands shows where it is not (areas outlined in red; see the reflections). Fortunately, it's only a matter of a few mm here and there, and I think I can easily correct for that when laying the tiles in - just use a bit more of tile adhesive where required. Now, I had a lot of work done in my wife's 2 houses and I started realising that I should not leave the workers out of my eyes for a second. First example of what can go wrong: the sliding door to our en-suite bathroom. The pic show that the door itself lines up with the electric box by the side of it (green lines). However, the door frame was not set perfectly vertical : see the red lines. No surprise, the door is not sliding 100% perfect, it has a slight tendency to catch in the groove. Second, a good example of a window not being right. It’s the same story as the sliding door, just a lot worse. One of the sliding panes is vertical (green), the other one is not (red). Third, a pillar built at the entrance of one of the houses is clearly not vertical (I have several such examples). OK, its only function is just to stay there and support whatever is on top – a few degrees of vertical will not jeopardise that function! Finally, I had a wall recently built by the street side. It obviously deviates strongly from certical (red). One can even see a light pole in the street through one of the small openings in the brickwork : it’s vertical (green). NB : all poles installed in the street in Thailand are not necessarily vertical. ???? Maybe my bad luck is that I found my wife’s houses good enough initially and only wanting a bit of renovation? If I counted all the efforts, time and money spent over the years….. ???? Summary : one has to be prepared to either spend a lot of money to get a reputable building team, well supervised, to do the work; or spend a significant amount of time controlling the work as it is being done (and good luck to get the workers understand what you are talking about, even if your Thai is OK); or accept the unavoidable imperfections (maybe consider them as part of the charm of living in this country?).

Thanks, I know that. Just go and explain it to the local guys around here, they cannot even manage a perfectly horizontal surface, and that even after using the water tube, making marks etc!

I have exactly the same problem when I visit my parents. They only have one bathroom and every time I take a shower I have to spend time getting the water to the drain. Annoying indeed.