thaisail

21 hours ago, sammieuk1 said:

Not here but in Turkey most houses have a large solar panel and 200 litre tank on the roof from memory it's a simple setup without pumps gravity fed with a ballcock in the tank I remember it also had a blow off valve when the tank reached boiling and often went off in summer something you wish to consider in your system as it's even hotter here also in the tank was an immersion element for winter use though temps never get low enough for that here good luck ????  

My original design was similar to what you describe in Turkey. My plan was to install the solar heater with the 150 liter tank on the roof above the bathroom. I would have filled the solar heater with a modern version of a ball cock from the cold water pressurized well pump. But the same small tank with the ball cock would also supply cold water by gravity to mixing valve at the shower. This way the hot water head pressure would be identical to the cold water pressure making it very easy to mix the hot and cold water to create an steady comfortable water temperature.  However, my building contractor informed me that there was too much weight in the solar heater system and the roof he built would not support the weight of the solar heater when full of water. So. I decided to go with plan B and mount the water heater about 2 meters above the ground and use two identical automatic pressure pumps that kick in at 1. 3 bar and dropout at 2 bar. I am hoping that the two pumps will not fight each other and create an alternating hot and cold water shower. Everything will depend on how quick acting the thermostatic mixing valve will function. I hope it will regulate the  hot water water at a stable temperature, otherwise it is back to the drawing board! As for the steam situation, I am still working on a design that will put shade on the water heater before the water in the tank starts to boil. 

7 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

The solar unit, if it is well made with good QC, is designed for countries with generally lower temperatures than usual in the majority of Thailand, it’s likely to function well enough.

So your biggest problems will be getting your water too hot, so as long as you have engineered your system to allow for that and can flow sufficient water through to avoid boiling the water and so getting a pressure explosion as the water to steam  expansion ratio is 1,700 X so unless your expansion strategy can cope with that you have to be certain you are  never ever going to boil the water.

The tank is vented so there is no risk of steam pressure building up. There are some of these units installed in Phuket and in the late afternoon steam can be seen coming from the vents. The big issue for me is the 1" PP-R pipe that supplies that hot water around 10 meters from the heater to the pressure pump. This pipe is rated for maximum 95 degrees C. I hope the pipe manufacturer has built in a factor of safety but it will be better to find a safety system that will release a spring loaded cover in the event of too high temperature to block the sun from reaching the tubes. The pump is rated for maximum 90 degrees but I feel confident that the water will cool in the underground pipe enough to protect the pump. I am still working on the design for the spring loaded safety cover so if there are any other steam engineers out their with ideas, I am ready to listen!

I am planning to put a solar water heater behind my house in a sunny area about two meters above the ground and away from any shade from the roof of the house. The model I am looking at has a 150 liter tank and has 15 glass vacuum thermo-syphon tubes. The system is all stainless steel and is non pressurized, has a non electric automatic filling valve that keeps the tank full without overflowing the tank. The system comes with a 15 year guarantee. I haven't bought it yet but I would really like to know how many others there are out there in Thailand that are interested in this option for heating water. Anyone with experience good or bad, I would love to hear your comments. This heater comes with an option to add an electric heating resistance with a built in thermostat which can be used on cloudy or rainy days. I think is it only 1500 watt but it only has to heat a 150 liter tank. This unit is built in China and I am not to sure about the quality. My biggest concern is having a hail storm break the glass tubes or cold water entering the system when it is empty and in bright sunlight which could break the glass with thermal shock. The high cost of this type of heater is mainly tied up in the vacuum tubes that are using the vacuum to create a perfect insulator around the heating pipes surrounded by the glass tube. This way the insulated tank plus the insulated by vacuum glass tubes will keep the water hot on a very cold night.

Image of water heater from Google:   https://images.app.goo.gl/UR7XJAhTzTPqDgzJ7

My plan is to pump the water from the solar heater with a dedicated pressure pump rated at 90 degrees C. Another identical pump will draw water from the 1000 liter cold water storage tank and the water under pump pressure will mix with a thermostatic mixing valve to reduce the temperature from hopefully 85 degrees to 50 degrees C. I have already bought the pumps, thermostat and the fittings so I am pretty committed to the solar idea. I have used PP-R piping for the whole hot water piping system. I am using a special grade of 1" PP-R pipe rated at maximum 95 degrees going through it from the solar heater to the pump inlet. Then on the discharge side galvanized steel to the mixing valve. After the mixing valve the pipe reduces to 3/4" rated at 60 degrees C. and feeds the kitchen, the two showers, the bathtub and under the concrete driveway to the small bungalow by the pond for a hot shower there. I am hoping to get the water in the tank up to about 85 degrees by the end of the afternoon and my guess is that I will be able to add another 100 liters of cold water through the mixing valve to get the temperature down to 50 degrees.  This should give me enough hot water to fill the bath tub on a sunny day. The main reason I went with solar is because I have only a 15 (45) amp single phase meter and I have 3 x 12,000 btu double inverter aircons in the house, 1x 10,000 btu standard aircon in the garage and a 9000 btu double inverter aircon in the bungalow. There is a 3 Kw submersible deep well pump and the two 750 watt water pumps as shown in the photo. I think there is not enough reserve amps to power a 10 Kw water heater as required in the Chiang Khan winters. I have a 3.5 Kw single use water heater in one shower now and can get only a trickle of hot water out of it now that the well water is getting cold and it is only the first day of December! So solar water heater it is out of necessity! Please comment good or bad, I will listen and heed the good advice given. 

I have been doing a marriage visa and work permit together for 3 years in Phuket. For 12 years before that, I was doing a marriage visa outside of Thailand and getting multi-entry but had to leave Thailand every 90 days. But the last 3 years, I had a work permit and my boss had his lawyer/accountant take care of all the paperwork. Now I have retired and built a house in Chiang Khan and I will have to do my first marriage visa on my own and I know that the paperwork that my boss's lawyer did was a stack about 3" think! I had writers cramp from signing about 500 signatures while he flipped through the pages. I think one of the documents included every page of my passport. 

So if there is anyone out there that has a list of the required documents, please can you post a copy. I plan to have 400,000 baht wired from my US bank account and put it in my Kasekorn savings account more than 2 months before my due date which is March 5. I know about the letter from the bank and updating the bank savings book on the day of the immigration visit. In the past, I had to supply photos of us standing in front of our rental house in Phuket showing the house number and another set of photos in the living room with all the family sitting on the sofa. At the time there was a TM30 and id card of the land lord which I hear is no longer in use? Or is this only for Phuket? I think a copy of the house book (tambien baan). My wife is now the landlord!

Does anyone know of any special request for documents for Chiang Khan immigration?

I have been warned about a case of another American who had done all the banking and other documents and every thing was perfect and somehow he was denied the visa and never really found out why. He now has to report every two weeks for a temporary extension. I was told by a witness that he should have stayed quiet during the interview and I was advised to speak as little as possible. My Thai wife is from this area and she has the chanote for the rice farm in her name. Our 13 year old daughter is attending the CK government school in the English section. I just want to be prepared as much as possible well in advance. 

Do I need a new marriage certificate from the Ampur where we were married? I think we got one of those documents in Phuket at one of the government offices. 

When is the best day to schedule the I/O visit? About one week before the visa expires? 

I have been asked by a Thai friend if I would be interested to volunteer teaching some courses after school on how to build robots as a way to give the kids something interesting to do after school. But after reading some of the posts, I fear that by volunteering, I may have problems for working without a work permit! If anyone is 100% sure about this, please let me know. 

We own a small rice farm with 4 rai being cultivated. I also worry about being seen loading rice bags in my pick up. Any advice or warnings about what I can do and what I can't do, without a work permit, would be great to know. 

I live in a rural part of Thailand and there are no language schools nearby. I can't really afford private lessons to learn Thai but with all the online courses that my daughter was doing with the lock down, I saw the potential for starting up a decent size class for us English speaking people to learn Thai language in an online course. If one exists on line in Thailand already for groups of more than 5 students, please direct me to the right website or school in Thailand where I can enroll on line. If there is no such on line course offered for a class of 5-10 students, perhaps this is a good place to see who else is interested in this concept and I will contact the possible teachers who are qualified to teach Thai in an on line format. 

I do not have the budget to pay for individual lessons and I always seem to learn better in a class room structure with fixed hours. So if there are other like minded people out there, please contact me. If there are any qualified Thai language teachers out there who are willing to teach a group of about 5-10 students on line and know how to manage the "Zoom" technology, please contact me and I will provide a list of potential students who are thinking about learning Thai on line. 

Which type of bank account can be used for the purpose of immigration to prove minimum 400,000 baht balance 2 months before and 3 months after the date for the annual visa renewal? If locked away at Kasikorn, I am being offered 0.45% interest for a 6 month locked deposit. Is there any other bank offing more in Thailand and will the immigration accept that type of bank account?

Also, which Thai bank has proven to be giving the lowest service charge and exchange rate commission for a wire transfer from the United States? I have Bangkok Bank, Siam Commercial and Kasikorn Bank accounts. Do immigration have a preference for any of these three banks?

3 months after the annual date for the marriage extension, can I remove some of the 400,000 as long as I put the balance back to 400K  two months before the annual visa renewal? 

I don't know if this post should be posted in banking or immigration since it concerns both topics.

1 hour ago, swm59nj said:

Just an update. I heard from the owner who is western. So no communication problem. He said the water rolling onto the floor is normal. And I should just wipe the area along the wall with a rag. That is all well and good. Except that the area where the bottles are fills with water while the shower is on. Then all this water rolls down to the floor towards the rear of the tub as the shower is on. And its a lot of water. Not just a small amount to wipe with a rag.

I will look into both the shower curtain suggestion and the glass shower screen. I think the screen would solve the issue better. But Im thinking its going to be costly to purchase and have it installed.

Owner also suggested maybe I can take baths instead of showers. 

Sorry for the venting. But Im very annoyed of the owners response. From my previous experience renting in Bangkok. It gives me the impression a lot of the owners have an attitude you pay the rent. But if there are any issues, too bad. 

           

My contractor did exactly the same as your condo builder. But I caught him in the act and made him raise the level of the tiles so that the water would drain back into the tub. But I put my shower at the base of the tub so that will never be an issue for me. I made sure that the slope of the floor went toward the floor drain so there would be no standing water after use. There is also a PVC floor drain that prevents odors from coming back up the drain. I think this solution will be the cheaper option but someone needs to be their to watch and supervise this kind of job. Thais are not that familiar with installing bath tubes because very few Thai people have them in their homes.

Would anyone like to recommend a bank in Thailand that I can use to deposit 400,000 Thai Baht for 6 months locked deposit for the purpose of renewing my marriage visa? Which bank would offer the best interest rate under these circumstances?

1 hour ago, Damrongsak said:

I had a solar water heater in Loei 40 years back.  Plastic wash tub covered by an old bus window.  On a good day, I could get the water to maybe 20-25 C by late afternoon.  Loei gets rather nippy in the cold season, eh?

I am an hour north of Loei in Chiang Khan and we have even more nippyness up here! The Solar water heater uses a stainless insulated tank on top and glass vacuum tubes that circulate the cold water down at an incline and then through convection the water gets heated by the sun on the way back to the tank. Because the hot water is surrounded by a vacuum, there is virtually zero heat transfer during the night so theoretically you should get hot water in the morning! On a bright sunny day, you will see steam coming out of the vent and the challenge is how to deliver the hot water where needed without damaging the piping. I am using PPR piping that is rated for maximum 95° C to feed a pump that will mix the water using a thermostat reducing the output temperature to 50° C so that I can distribute the water all around the house using a PP-R pipe rated at maximum 60° C. I figure that if I get 150 liters of 90° water at the end of the day, it might take another 100 liters of cold water to cool it down to 50° giving me 250 liters of hot water because I went all out and installed a bath tub for the ladies! 

I have a friend here in CK who wants to pass his water through a clear 1/2 " hose back and forth across his roof just to pre heat the water going to his electric shower. Not a bad idea as this will lower his electrical load required so that he can use a 3.5 Kw water heater during the cold winter days. But I love your idea of the plastic wash tub with the old bus window! I'll bet it worked real good around Songkran!

2 hours ago, Crossy said:

Are you looking at just adding the shower or doing something more electrically?

 

She is almost certainly on a 5/15 meter which would limit you to about 3.5kW (there's a reason so many 3.5kW showers are available).

How's the water pressure? You may need to factor a pump into the equation too.

 

Costs?

Some examples:-

3.5kw shower heater (not multipoint) - 2,100 Baht https://www.homepro.co.th/p/1133289

Stand alone RCBO - 500 Baht https://www.homepro.co.th/p/1079609

Box for the RCBO - 50 Baht

Ground rod - 100 Baht https://www.homepro.co.th/p/16377

Pipe, cable etc. etc. say another 1,000 Baht.

 

Competent sparks to install it - Priceless!

 

Let's have some photos of what she has now and we can give some pointers as what's really needed.

I am importing all stainless steel solar water heaters which require no electricity. The cost will be around 15,000 baht but then there is no need for any electric bills. Please PM me if you are interested. I will be placing my order for 2 units with 150 liter tanks in the next 2 weeks. One will be fitted on my house in Chiang Khan. The other will be for sale. All you need is sun! There is a place on the tank to fit an imersion heater resistance of about 1500 watts for rainy days or when using more than 150 liters of water after dark. This is an option found locally on Lazada. But there is plenty of sunshine in Thailand so I will not order the imersion heater unless I find the need.

2 minutes ago, thepdru said:

Thank you, but for everybody it will be before the Thai new year in April ? I am still confused about why it's different for different cars ?!

 

The tax is due about one year after you buy the car and get the permanent license tag. So if you buy your car in June, you will get your permanent license tag around September. So every year in September, you will be due to renew your registration. 

2 minutes ago, sezze said:

A normal water heater cannot be used as a multipoint 1 , as far as i know .

Multipoint water heaters use a flow detector to put the power on/off . A standard water heater got a pressure switch instead .

I got a gas water heater multipoint , , but it works the same ( only uses no electric but gas ) , there has been a topic of it before .

So if the safety switch operates on pressure and not flow, my idea will not work. Too bad!

I spent all of my money building this house and now I am short of funds needed to buy the solar water heater. I did however complete the entire network of green PP-R piping to the new bathtub and the shower in the house. We installed the 3.5 Kw on demand electric water heater in the garage bathroom where we lived during the house construction so we can still take hot showers but we have to go to the garage which is a minor inconvenience. But I just got a brilliant idea. Why can't I Tee into the hot water outlet from the electric water heater and use a hose to connect it to the hot water piping network which runs around the house to the kitchen sink and then around the corner to the house to the bathroom using the PP-R pipe that feeds the bathtub and the hot water pipe to the shower? All I would have to do is make sure that the cold water inlet valve to the hot water heater in the garage was open and then close off the water to the to the shower head in the garage. As soon as the hot water piping system would be pressurized with hot water, there would be hot water on demand to the entire house! 

My concern with this idea is that these on demand water heaters in Thailand are normally not under pressure. So that under normal circumstances, when you finish your shower, you normally turn off the cold water valve that supplies water to the shower and the heater stops on the safety flow switch. I wonder first if operating the system pressurized, would the safety flow switch turn off the power to the heater when the water is no longer flowing? If the safety flow switch operates as it should while the system is pressurized when the hose is connected to the hot water system in the house, theoretically, as soon as the hot water is supplied to the other bathroom, the heater should come on and heat the water and eventually hot water would arrive through the long pipe and no need to go the garage to get a hot shower! I just don't know if these type of heater are built for this kind of abuse. Of course when funds are available, I will fit the solar water heater but at 15,000 baht it may take some time to be able to place the order. I really don't have enough electrical capacity to run another electric electric heater as my meter is a 15 (45) meter and I am already running to much load with the 5 air conditioners to be able to add a second electric water heater in the house bathroom. 

Will this blow up my 3.5 Kw water heater if using it under constant pressure?

15 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

For marriage it is 400k baht in a Thai bank for 2 months or proof of 40k baht income.

I nearly had a heart attack! When I saw that 600k and 60K per month, I thought there was a change in the rules and I started putting 40K in the bank for the last 2 months and my marriage visa is up for renewal in March. I was on a work permit until September 1st. I hope immigration will accept my work income from March to September and then my wire transfers for 40k from September to March!

My Ford dealer is saying that all their vehicles 2017 and newer are designed to burn B10. PTT is saying from 2011. There must be someone at Ford that can clarify this discrepancy. But now the issue is B7 which I can use in my area. I am still waiting for an answer for B7.

I have a 2011 Ford Ranger which has the 2.5 liter common rail engine with turbo. My local Ford dealer where I bought this truck told me not to use biodiesel in any of there truck models older than 2017. But PPT keeps telling me that I can use either B7 or B10. Where can I get the the definative answer from Ford Company because it seems that each Ford dealer has a different opinion. We are now burning B7 because here in Chiang Khan there no longer diesel which is now B10. I don't mind filling with premium once every 3 or 4 tanks but for my trips to Phuket the fuel cost with Premium makes the trip to Phuket about 30% higher cost. Burning B10 would be great if Ford would agree!

On 10/15/2020 at 4:44 PM, thaisail said:

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/toma-japan-750w-ps-180-gold-premium-edition-i292006020-s487010858.html?mp=1

Does anyone know where there is a good reference on the internet about sizing circuit breakers for the pump attached? My electrician is recommending 20 amps. But the calculators on the internet show running amps for two 1 HP 750 Watt, single phase 230 Volt 50 Hz automatic water pressure pump as about 5 amps. There is a thermal protection embedded in the windings of motor. I just want to make sure that I protect the motors on these two pumps. I have in my house a separate Chang safety breaker of 20 amps and I want to have the correct size breaker for each pump. Also wire size recommendation would be appreciated also. Right now we have 2.5 mm line and neutral and 1.5 mm earth cable running to the box that both pumps will draw from. But each pump will have it's own safety breaker.  

9 hours ago, Dickp said:

About 14 years ago when remodeling our house I had a solar water heater installed. Have hot water in all four bath rooms and kitchen sinks and out side washing machine, and out side maids sink. Best thing I have purchase in my 29 + years living Thailand cost was not that much and it's paid for it self many times over. Only replaced one fitting a few years ago. all piping in side the walls no exposé pipes.

I am putting solar water heating on my new house which will be complete in a few more days from now. Please can you send me a private message and let me know the brand and size of your solar heating system? Did you use PPR pipe system?

11 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

And 10 bar seems like a lot of pressure....

 

If it were me I would just use one pump to feed both the cold water and the heater. 

 

 

10 bar at 60° C is the maximum rating of the thin wall green PPR pipe that I bought. I will not put more than 2 bars of pressure on this pipe after the hot water pressure pump. I will set the thermostatic mixing valve to keep the hot water at around 50° C. With 150 liters of water in the insulated solar storage tank the water can reach boiling temperature in the summer and steam can be seen at times coming out the atmospheric vent on the top of the hot water storage tank. 

10 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

Unless I'm missing something, do you not need to push cold water into the heater rather than pulling hot water out? 

Many solar water heaters cannot be pressurized. They rely on a level control valve similar to the valve used to fill a toilet tank. As you drain hot water from the solar tank, usually mounted on the roof, the cold water will refill through the automatic lever control valve. The way this one works, there are many long tubes of glass each within a larger tube of glass. The space between the two glass tubes is in a vacuum kind of like the old incandescent light bulbs. This way the inner glass tube is perfectly insulated from the outer glass tube so that even in extreamly cold climates the water passing through the inner glass tube can be very hot without transferring the heat to the outer tube. This makes this highly efficient type of solar water heater difficult to pressurize.

1 minute ago, Crossy said:

 

A cable 6" too long is 1,000,000 times better than one which is 1" too short ???? 

 

I was taught to leave enough slack to be able to re-wire a connection 3 times.

good point!

9 minutes ago, stouricks said:

Should that not have been determined before purchase?

It was only 175 baht and I figured that someone will tell me if I mess up!

1 minute ago, Crossy said:

No real need to pull the wiring at the meter.

 

With your 63A incomer turned off it looks like you have enough in the tails to "hinge" everything out of the way to remove your over/under and the DIN rail, install a longer rail with better screws and clip it all back together.

I wanted to do it that way but the Thai electrician left that awful looking excess cable loop that makes me cringe to look at it. So I thought I would cut the power from the meter one last time and get that cable cut and straight on top of the 63 amp breaker. Each time I use these Thai electricians, I hate having to do the job over again to make things clean and neat. Guess I have a bit of OCD after all!

26 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

No need to remove the rail as all the units clip on to it, you can, if the pigtails are long enough, just push the current units along the rail.

The screws I used are too long and the 63 amp CB and the voltage and current protector are hitting the screws so I will have to modify the way the did rail is attached. I am the one who built that box but I didn't know about the SPD when I did the job so I didn't pay attention to the screws. I still have a long piece of DIN rail if I need a longer piece to fit in there. 

I plan to fit a 2000 liter tank next to the kitchen that will be filled using float switches that will be connected to the 3" submersible pump from the well that is 40 meters deep. So as the water level goes down in the 2000 liter tank the lower float switch will start the submersible pump and fill the tank until the top float switch will stop the pump. The two new pumps described in the link below will be mounted next to each other at the bass of this 2000 liter tank.

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/toma-japan-750w-ps-180-gold-premium-edition-i292006020-s487010858.html?mp=1

One of the pumps will be connected to draw water from the 2000 liter tank and put cold water pressure to the entire house. The other pump will draw water from the solar water heater mounted about 2 meters higher than the pump suction. There will be thermostatic mixing valve fitted between the two pumps so that the water temperature leaving the mixing valve will not exceed the rating of the PPR pipe which is 10 bar at 60 degree C. My concern is that after a full day in the hot sun during the summer before Songkran, the water temperature in the solar tank can go as high as 95 degrees C or even make steam. I am worried about keep the pressure pump cool enough so that it will not fail. So I look for ideas of how to cool the water coming from the solar tank sufficiently to prevent damage to the pump. One idea is to move the acumulator away from the pump to prevent the rubber diaphragm from being damaged by the heat. I may also have to move the pressure switch to protect it from the heat also. But the thing that concerns me the most is that the motor has thermal protection. I imagine that means that embedded in the windings there is a thermal switch which will open at a specified temperature and stop the pump until the windings cool down. So I am thinking of fitting a fan that that will blow air on the motor and wire the fan into the pressure switch so that when the pump starts so will the fan and of course stop when the pump stops. I also would like to fit a circuit breaker or fuse to protect the pump motor against overload. I guess I have to wait until the pumps are tested and see what the running amps will be. The motor is 750 watts or 1 HP so perhaps someone out there will know the running amps and I can order the right fuses or circuit breakers for the pumps. I throw this plan out there to the community for input.