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Monthly consumption from October, November, and December averaged about 300 units, so 10kWh per day. That is not using any AC which I expect will rise significantly by the air of this month as temperatures rise. The PEA supply is a single phase 2 wire 30(100)A spinning disc meter supply. The route we have for our cables is across family owned land, and they have given their written permission for us to do it. The written permission was required by the PEA before they agreed to install the meter for us. They knew where we were going to be building our house, but refrained from advising us of any further "constraints" or "regulations". Yes I am sure too. I know that one neighbour has already approached my family to try to obtain electric power from us for his farm just across the government road from us, and has probably approached the PEA too... so there is some demand for power in that vicinity... just not enough customers to make it viable for the PEA to install it by themselves.

I note that you are from Khon Kaen, which is very close to our farm (only 1 hours drive away), so you will know that the soil in that region is a very poor quality sandy loam with almost zero clay content. I do not expect to see any further compaction, nor do I expect to see any expansion... but time will tell. It was sort of progressively compacted during filling by the trucks themselves and the bulldozers that was continually spreading out and levelling out the loads, and the weather was wet so there would have been some moisture in the soil. See below:

Ours is a 1 bedroom only, with 1 bathroom. Inside living area of 68.2 sq.m., external deck including Thai kitchen of 52.3 sq.m,. and covered car port area of 32.0 sq.m. Quoted cost to build (excluding tiles and lighting and appliances and benchtops) was 1.8 million baht.

Life has been extremely busy and we have had several family sicknesses and emergencies which have taken up a lot of my time... so, my apologies... I will post some more updates and pics later. And yes... the house is now finished and habitable.

"Lubrication" is something that we are considering, however the absence of a public road to put PEA poles next to is not going to be solved quickly. If it was 100K and we'd be guaranteed supply I would seriously consider it. The plans for the road are public and apparently there is an easement, but the existing neighbours have not agreed (or in fact been asked) if a road can be built there (and to whose account?) Too many variables with too many negative possible outcomes IMO.

Our house has direct access to a government road that does not yet have any PEA domestic supply. This is what we had to do to get power to the house. You can ready the full story in my topic here if you wish.

I'm not sure about the effectiveness of a vibrating roller, given our fill was a full 2m above the highest point of the bund walls of the surrounding rice fields. The problem is getting the air out... and we were lucky that it was a very wet wet season (heavy flooding in most of Isaan and much of the Chao Praya catchment areas as well as some areas of Bangkok itself) and we achieved good compaction. This was well demonstrated by the difficulties experienced when driving the piles... the land was very "strong". I posted a video of the pile-driving earlier in this thread if you scroll back and have a look... I have personally seen Thai highways and minor roads being constructed using vibrating rollers on the subgrade and subbase surfaces before applying the final asphalt surface material, and invariably after a year of operation (or sometimes less), there is evidence of subsidence and perhaps potholes. The only roads which seem to be immune to these issues are the reinforced concrete variety... so when investing in a house to stand on solid foundations... I personally opted for the rain over time method. Arguably we could have started construction earlier, as our piles were driven way past the previous land levels before filling, but then we would have risked our external steps (and driveways and garden beds etc.) not being aligned with house floor levels if further compaction happened after building. As it was, we got 40cm of compaction after 1 year of sitting idle, so our final NSL (natural surface level) at building time was 1.6m above the highest point of the bund walls of the surrounding rice fields. The external deck areas are 50cm above that, and the house internal FFL (finished floor level) is another 5cm above that, no absolutely no chance of ever getting flooded.

We had a meeting with the PEA district office in Prathai last Monday who are refusing to change over our perfectly functioning temporary meter and power supply from "temporary" to "residential". The rate difference is 4 vs 8 baht per unit. Apparently they have a "rule" that they failed to disclose to us when we paid for our temporary meter... the house must not be more than 40m from the meter, so you were luck being 75m away. We are 720m from the meter across privately owned farm land, so they want us to pay for more poles on a public road (which has not yet been built) and 70,000 baht for a new transformer. The PEA was most unhelpful even though I could prove to them that even over such a large distance we only experienced noticeable voltage drops when our 4.5kW electric water heater was being used for showers... everything else worked fine. My solar self-sufficiency plan might have to be accelerated... @MJCM My apologies for going off-topic a bit, but I thought I'd give readers an opportunity to be aware of another PEA "regulation".

We bought our second Mitsubishi MR-LX60ES 5 door inverter refrigerator recently for our Guest House up-country. The first one we bought was about 4 years ago for our current house in Najomtien. Very quiet, very reliable, recovers from power outages well, and the ice-maker is inside so no noise at all. It is a cleverly designed big fridge with a large freezer, and perfect for our lifestyle. You can check them out at HomePro, but I think that their online prices are pretty similar to store prices.

From the article: "Low prices continue to be on the horizon as 2023 ends and in the year to come. 2024 will be a challenging year, according to a major solar developer. Low prices will persist for a time, with the industry gradually starting to stabilize in 2025 and then recover, the developer said."

The Chinese Module Marker (CMM), the OPIS benchmark assessment for mono PERC modules from China, was assessed at USD 0.123 per W, down USD 0.003/W week on week, while TOPCon module prices fell USD 0.004/W to USD 0.131/W. These new record lows come amid muted year-end demand as module makers cut production. Prices in China have seen particular declines. While most tier-1 players – including a top 5 solar major – generally offer modules at around the CNY1 ($0.21)/W mark, some sellers lowered prices past that psychologically significant threshold. PERC modules have been offered as low as CNY0.72 ($0.15), multiple manufacturers said. The winter season is a “weaker period of the year, hence, lower demand,” a solar market veteran said. China’s module makers are trying to clear their inventories, according to a module seller, during this off-season. Before their fiscal year closes in December, Chinese companies are attempting to sell stock and “bump up their revenues,” a different veteran said. You can read the full article from PV Magazine here.

I currently live close to Sattahip and would like to give these a try too... they look great! Do you grow them in full sun or in part shade? Are you planting them in pots or do you grow them direct in the ground?

I am sick and tired of the unwanted ads popping up in FaceBook and other apps (like CamScanner) on my Samsung phone. I know that there are ad-blockers available for Internet browers, but are there ad-blockers available for apps too? I know that ads are a necessary evil, as they help to fund the developers of the apps, but sometimes it can become extremely frustrating. Any suggestions?

Good advice. Just out of curiosity, what are "tab Tim"?

AIS really is the only viable carrier in our area - see this website. That sounds like my only option... thanks for the feedback. The one year basic pack plus an "on-top pack" : link And I will do as @MJCM suggested... pester the local fiber company to extend their services to our new home. Yes, the Archer MR-600 wifi router.

I know... I'm spoilt where I am now...

At my current home in Najomtien I have an NT fiber-to-home connection, and testmy.net indicates that I get about 65 Mbps downloading from London, 60 Mbps from LA, 76 Mbps from Tokyo, and 97 Mbps from Singapore. It would be great to get these download speeds from a 4G/5G connection, but I don't think it's possible.

18K is a bit rich for a fiber cable connection, but if it is the only alternative then I will pursue it. At least with fiber you can get 100 Mbps or better, but 4G is (currently) limited. The 4G LTE Cat6 router that I am looking at is capable of providing broadband speeds of up to 300 Mbps. I do not want to have to wait 4-5 months to have an internet connection... 4G or 5G is currently the only option.

We have just about completed building a house in rural Isaan, and I want to set up a 4G/5G SIM router for wifi use. Unfortunately we are located about 2km from the nearest village where fiber optic is available, so 4G is our only available option for internet. I have decided to throw away the AIS pocket wifi that I bought a few months ago because it simply does not have the range that a proper router has. My plans include setting up wifi security cameras as well as a wifi camera doorbell so a router with good wifi range is required. I have decided on the TP-Link AC1200 4G+ dual band Gigabit LTE Wi-Fi router, as it gets great reviews and will be able to be used with my TP-Link OneMesh products, to provide a single wifi name for seamless whole of property coverage. But my problem is trying to find an appropriate ISP. DTAC coverage is atrocious in our area, AIS is pretty good, 3BBB is non-existent, and I don't know about True or NT as nobody uses either their phone SIMs or fiber networks in our village. I have tried to find unlimited data AIS 4G SIMs with a 20 Mbps download speed but to no avail. I have found plenty that say unlimited data, but most are capped at 70GB of data per month then it reverts to 1 Mbps, which is unsuitable for my streaming and torrent use. Can anyone recommend a product (or provide a link) that I could try?

Solar Power related terminology

It sounds like a simple hose failure. There are hoses that are rated for hot water use... but they do get hard and inflexible over time and need replacing.

SOFAR Australia might be able to help. On that web page are links to the product data sheet and user manual.

Natthaporn Toprayoon is a hardline yellow shirt headline/attention seeker who also tried (and failed) back in January 2020 when he got the Constitutional Court to hear charges of the opposition Future Forward Party (FFP) and its leader, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy. Natthaporn also said at the time that the FFP party’s logo, an orange inverted triangle, "looks eerily similar to the symbol associated with the Illuminati, a secret society that conspiracy theorists believe seeks world control, and that the resemblance meant the two were probably linked." However the Constitutional Court acquitted the Future Forward Party (FFP) and Thanathorn, citing a lack of evidence. Natthaporn was also behind the allegations that the actions of three protest leaders at a rally at Thammasat University in August 2020 were an attempt to overthrow the constitutional monarchy. Based on Natthaporn's petition stating that they violated section 49 of the Constitution the Constitutional Court ruled that the protestors had "covert intentions to exercise their rights and liberties to undermine and overthrow the democratic regime with The King as head of state".

The pipes you are seeing in option 1 are likely to be 2" grey water drains from sinks and showers, with P-traps fitted to provide a water seal and to prevent odours. The pipes you are seeing in option 2 are likely to be 4" black water pipes from toilets, where there is an S-bend fitted into the toilet bowl body to provide a water seal and to prevent odours.

There are relatively inexpensive deflectors available on Lazada if you have a search...