Woof999

That's some strong sh$t you're drinking.

You seem to have cause and effect reversed chronologically.

My understanding is that sodium based batteries can never have the same energy/density ratio as lithium. ie for anything transport related, lithium will likely be better. For home solar, where size / weight of storage is less of a factor, sodium might be a compelling choice.

Are you suggesting that Brexit has been in any way positive for the UK?

Your boarding pass typically also has your baggage tag attached to it. You go through immigration before you get to collect your bags. Not having that boarding pass with attached baggage tag will make it far more inconvenient should your baggage be lost / delayed. I've also seen baggage tags asked for when leaving the baggage reclaim area, either by customs or by security. It's a quick way of ensuring people aren't stealing. Admittedly I've not seen that in Thailand. TLDR; Bin your boarding pass only after you've passed through customs with all of your belongings.

If the non-customer was a gentleman, he wouldn't pay a deposit and then expect it back again when unilaterally breaking an agreement. There is a reason why a deposit is required and it includes cases like this. Depending on the timescale between deposit paid and agreement cancelled (if we're talking more than a few weeks then the deposit is definitely gone) and there is something to back up the customer's claim of refused visa, I might return at least part of the deposit.

Interesting. Where do the "I think I'm younger than you", "I'm sure I'm better than you", "my idea of class trumps yours", stereotyping, critical, full head of hair bigots live? Perhaps a photocopy of your TM.30 would suffice? ;)

I'm not an expert by any stretch, but galvanised steel is there for rust protection primarily, not for strength. Personally I'd be going with concrete column to closer match the architecture of the house, depending on what that is.

Drove up to Nakhon Phanom on Friday. Left at 2am and the traffic was already heavy. Very heavy around Korat as usual and didn't abate until well after Khon Kaen. Took 11 hours total. 3 or so hours longer than a normal trip, but not the longest ever. Flew back late yesterday. Going in the opposite direction to most people, so flight was cheap. One thing that did occur to me was that I didn't see a single accident on the 11 hour drive. On previous drives I'm seen several each time.

Bought some for the wife before we had a gardener. No idea how she is still alive. She cut the wire clean in half twice, and the picked up the (still live) end to show me what she'd done. I must admit that, at the angles you'll be swinging the thing, its is VERY easy to cut the wire. Think ours is / was Black & Decker. Not expensive. Goes rusty quickly but still seems to work (after repairing the cable, twice). No longer used and gardener is cheap, more convenient and safer.

Visited Plot B (and Plot A for that matter) on Friday / Saturday and unfortunately it's a no-go. I knew the land was sitting below the level of the concrete road, but I wasn't expecting it to be almost 2 metres lower. I took a laser level and (what I thought was) a long piece of pipe so that I can measure exactly how much fill might be needed. The pipe wasn't long enough. Stood on the ground, my eyes were still not level with the road and I'm neither a smurf nor a dwarf. The good news is that we were also taken to Plot C, which was unknown to us beforehand. Plot C is a little more expensive (about the same as Plot A), closer to civilisation but still very quiet, does have 3 phase power (so the cost of solar could be delayed), better soil (currently growing a mix of potato and rubber tree - don't know why they didn't go for real trees ;) ) and actually sits above the (wider) concrete road that borders it. Shape of land is also better. Approximately 85 metres wide at the front, widening to 105 metres at the rear, with sides of approximately 240 metres. Just over 14 rai in total.

Thanks for the replies. I live on the darkside and was very much awake at the time. I have a direct line of sight to where the fireworks were and just thought that ~1:15am on the morning of December 31st was the strangest time to have a big display.

Maybe he grew up? Apologies. I nearly wrote the most ridiculous answer there.

A large number of fireworks have just gone off at the seafront in Pattaya, all within a couple of minutes. Is this a practise (strange timing), or did someone get the date wrong?

anchovy....

Not sure I understand?

If this is the case then charge them with manslaughter, or the closest indirect charge related to it.

If I had no dependents then the perfect scenario is net zero, except for owing banks and credit card companies as much as possible. With dependents, aiming to leave nothing would be the most selfish thing I could do. I never had a big leg up in life, but a few thousand here and there does make a difference. On the flip side, I know a handful of 20 or 30 somethings here in Thailand that were born into wealth, never had to work a real day in their life and never had to worry about money for life's real essentials. All but maybe 1 are total spoilt brats with zero clue about the value of money. If my kids ever end up with that attitude to life and money then I've been a total failure.

If you don't have at least an amount of optimist, paired with a good helping of realism then we might as well all give up now. The US "justice" system is all the proof we need that the harshest of penalties do little or nothing to dissuade those that will commit crime, especially in our youth. There has to be a better solution, but I'll leave that up to the real brains while I get hammered on cheap booze.

I still don't understand why some people have a problem with the toppings that others put on their pizza. If anyone here says that no pizza should have pineapple on it, also make sure that you're eating your pizza in a place that has no aircon. Italians traditionally hate aircon too, so make sure your "real" restaurant doesn't use it.

The amount of hot air coming out of the sister-in-law should mean my water heating costs are free. Unfortunately not. Current house has individual 6kW heaters at each hot water point which, of course, is convenient but expensive and neither alternative nor renewable. For me, either in this house or the one I plan to build, the solution has 2 main parts. 1.) House water for showers and sinks. I like the idea of water tanks directly powered by their own solar panels, totally isolated from the main house solar. For backup, if those same tanks can also support an old school UK style immersion heater which IS powered by the main house solar then even better. Wouldn't have to wait more than 20 minutes or so for decent hot water even if solar levels have been low or hot water usage high. 2.) The pool. Gets just a little too cold for 3 months of the year. Partly because of shade from the house, but mostly because of the ambient temps. It also gets too warm in the summer. 10+ hours of sun per day, no shade from the house and almost 10 degrees higher ambient. So heat pump it will be, solar powered of course.

Do it my self. Went through a couple of years of BIG pain understanding all the documents they need, in what order etc. Not even educated Thais that I know could fully comprehend their list of requirements. Nowadays it's relatively painless. 2 weeks away from needing to do it again, hopefully nothing has changed.

The wife plays the good cop too well unfortunately, but we'll try and make it work. The contract is likely to be at least part turnkey, so it's up to the contractor to deliver what they promise, although I'm tempted to hire a project manager of my own. I plan to have a workshop built first, with a small (10x6 metres, so not tine) mezzanine living / office area. That way I'll essentially live on the site full time while the main house is built. What could possibly go wrong! Yep. The house will cost around 7M or so to build as a bare shell, so no way I'll put up with exposed conduit on the walls. In fact I want them to hide additional cables over and above their standard, such as CAT~6, some AV and power cables to a few floor points so that the position of the TV in the master bedroom and living room can be flexible, plus under lighting for pool table and whatever else I come up with. A house? Yes indeed you can. I'm in one now. But they are a bugger to move ;)

Absolutely. Grew up in a house where all the joinery was done by my grandfather. He was a talented carpenter right up to the point that anything had to be straight, level or perpendicular. He put the "custom" into custom furniture. I have an eye for things that aren't straight, some sort of inbuilt spirit level / protractor. I also intend to be onsite every day (first thing to be built is a workshop / office before the main house build). I'm fully expecting many of the workers to hate me, although I'll have made it very clear what is expected in terms of quality (demanded) upfront, so they can hate as much as they like.

I guessed as such. Still not sure I'd be happy knowing it was the case in something I intend to stay in for many years though. At least it's not just this builder cutting corners that others don't. Not quite so worried about internal walls. I'll likely spec either 10cm or 15cm for them to add a little extra internal space and will absolutely expect to have to use cable finders etc on any drilling. Cheers for the feedback.