nigelforbes

You've been here long enough to understand how the banks work. If you can't get the right answer from one branch, go to another one, that must be the one of the most common statements made on this forum. The bank needs a letter of residency from the OP so he needs to go to Immigration. If Immigration wont give him one, he needs to tell his visa facilitator to sort it out.

@Salernowhy is that funny?

No, it's an Immi. thing. Who do you think has instructed the banks to check the validity of visa's of all their foreign customers, every time they transact on their account at a branch, it certainly wasn't the banks idea and AMLO doesn't care about visa validity. And who do you think has instructed the banks to require specific documents from foreign customers, that wasn't the banks idea either!

Different issue, that's an Immi. thing, I dunno why, up to them.

You have no sense of humour.

It isn't really. This is part of the new money laundering laws, neither banks nor AMLO want tourists or casual visitors wandering in and opening bank accounts and using the fraudulently. Banks want to see that customers have a long stay visa and a place to live, that is not unreasonable. If you don't have those things use your bank in your home country, simple.

Offensive, what the writer understands about Thailand is zip. The piece should be pulled, taken down.

Not really, inversion layers are mostly common to Chiang Mai province, I can't speak to other countries. And of course, this is not to say that elsewhere in SEA that pollution is very bad right now, we know that it is from the NASA Fire Maps FIRMS. But the existence of one, doesn't preclude the other.

You have no sense of humor and clearly do not understand the intellect nor circumstances of the poster, who is one of the forums longest serving members and is returning to the UK for cancer treatment. Mouth, foot, big time!

GiiGaff SIM's are free, they will even send you one here to Thailand in advance of any travel. They are also very cost effective and there is no contract.

With a comment like that, you don't even know what an inversion layer is, let alone how one works! An inversion layer is when a body of cold dense air prevents warmer air near to the ground from rising. That has the effect of trapping all pollution in a small space, pollution that would otherwise normally disperse over a much larger area become concentrated and the polluting effect is magnified. Certain areas of the world are known to experience inversion layers repeatedly but only when climatic conditions are right, Chiang Mai is one of those well known locations. Those climatic conditions include bodies of cold air, typically from the North, into areas that are mountainous. Some tell tale signs of inversion layers are smoke plumes that rise and then travel horizontally, and, polluted air at low levels with blue sky above.

The pollution levels are very similar, all over the province, plus, the air is static. The wind current maps show there are no prevailing winds to influence air flow. Both those things strongly suggest the problem is the inversion layer, not a lack of control. https://www.windy.com/?18.139,100.596,8

I doubt as though your home country has crystal pure air. at least here air purifiers and common place and inexpensive: "Air pollution is the United Kingdom’s biggest environmental health threat, with outdoor pollutants estimated to contribute towards 40,000 excess premature deaths per year, costing the UK economy upwards of £20 billion (US $25 billion) annually". https://www.iqair.com/us/uk

I don't know what enforcement there is in other parts of the country but here in the North where we are, we are very strictly forbidden to burn garden waste etc from mid. February onwards, to do so risks a very real risk of a visit from the Tessaban and a fine.

Was Jim Jones Hmong!

You apparently had a sense of humor lapse and the went off on a complete tangent in your explanation, a double well done.

Oh dear, I do know how you appear to enjoy roaming these threads, looking to correct posters explanations of minor points in your officious ex-moderator style, but I wonder if you understand they appreciate it, far less than you think! You want me to say that radiant barrier reflects heat back to whence it cometh. I don't know if a radiant barrier does reflect some part of the spectrum and if I did it wouldn't be worth mentioning because it doesn't add anything to a layman's description of the things we were discussing, in non-scientific terms. I realize it offends you when posters are not always 100% technically correct in these things but you'll just have to accept this is what they do sometimes and life's like that, sometimes. The real benefit of the radiant barrier is that it interrupts the flow of heat from a stored heat source such as a blazing hot concrete roof tile. Since the radiant barrier is so thin it is not capable of storing heat and instead, having interrupted its flow, merely releases into the air. If the radiant barrier wasn't' there, that flow of heat would continue until it hit a surface that was capable of storing the heat and the process of store and radiate would be repeated. I appreciate this is a stretch in scientific terms to say it converts radiated heat to converted heat but that is essentially what it does. And I do understand that scientists and physics teachers all over the world, along with a solitary you, would all stand up in protest if anyone tried to say such a thing, but we've already established we're not those things, we're just normal people explaining to each other, how stuff works.

It's a temperature inversion, not a weather inversion, hot and cold are inverted or reversed and the upper band of cold air is far more dense than normal. Your point about they burn all year is well taken although the burning is much heavier and more widespread at this time of the year, as the NASA firemaps confirm.

No, there's nothing false about what I wrote although if I was physics teacher or similar I probably would have written it differently. But the idea was to convey a process, from one lay man to another and that I believe was successful, unless of course you happen to be mr pedantic. "The thin metal film is a radiant barrier, designed to stop heat from the tiles radiating onto the attic floor". That's true and correct. "In essence, (not in precision) that barrier converts radiated heat to convected heat, or hot air, which also must be dealt with by venting". Does it convert? For the purpose of this explanation it does but the next time I come across a physics teacher I'll be certain to use different words. Goodbye.

The master plan, in order to cater to the increased numbers, is to move all Thai people to Laos and leave just a skeleton population to collect the money take care of the tourists. Nobody's quite decided where the Laos people will go but it's not looking good for them. Somebody suggested Wales but I understand the sheep may object.

Yes I have, my apologies.....don't think it wasn't fun anyway!

In your first post, you wrote: "no insulation on the ceilings nor under the roof tiles". The discussion thereafter has been about the benefits of PU foam versus ventilation, along with radiant barriers. You now say that you have an insulated metal roof which is cool to the touch after many hours. It doesn't sound like you really need anything, if you do, I'm confused what it might be.

"spray on foam or radiant barrier and radiant barrier wins every time". As in, effectiveness at reduced the radiated heat source. And since it also appears to already be there, cost also. The PU foam and the radiant barrier (thin steel sheet) serve a very similar purpose, both eliminate radiated heat. BUT all insulation, be it PU foam or any other kind, can be defeated and bypassed/penetrated by heat, if the heat is strong enough and enough time is allowed....this is basic physics. I suggest you put your hand on the underside of roof tiles that have been sprayed with PU foam, at about 4pm and tell me if it is not very very hot. I agree, radiant barriers do absolutely nothing for convected heat. But when you talk about the metal lining being applied to the underside of the insulation, do you have concrete or metal roof? I have assumed you have concrete tiles.

Last point from me then I have to go: Thai roofs are all steel and concrete, the steel runs down to the posts which contain steel rebar. Heat is conducted through the steel, into the posts and the walls, PU foam will not help prevent that. To stop that problem you would need a thermal break between the steel in the roof and the rest of the house. If you can create an air flow of cool air being drawn in at a low level and hot air being vented at a higher level, that helps cool not only the roof tiles but also the steel. Somebody, years ago described it to me as a sail of cool air and I thought he was mad. Actually what I have now in my attic is the bottom one foot of air is cool, and the hot air is just like a moving sail.

A basic law of physics that many forget is that heat only rises if there is cooler air to replace it, underneath. If you cut a hole in your roof and there's no cool air inlet below, the hot air wont rise and wont vent. That's why having the corner eaves vents are not effective because they allow cool air to sit under the hot air in the roof void but the hot air has nowhere to go. Sounds to me like you have small gable vents, why not make them bigger and do as I did?