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No, my wife contacted a local company to do it. We are located in Najomtien... not so far from Pattaya's Darkside. Their contact details are below:

Has anyone used the Cobra iRadar app? I have seen quite a few comments on Thai langauge motoring forums and it seems popular.

Vast arrays of solar panels floating on calm seas near the Equator could provide effectively unlimited solar energy to densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa. Our new research shows offshore solar in Indonesia alone could generate about 35,000 TWh of solar energy a year, which is similar to current global electricity production (30,000TWh per year). And while most of the world’s oceans experience storms, some regions at the Equator are relatively still and peaceful. So relatively inexpensive engineering structures could suffice to protect offshore floating solar panels. Our high-resolution global heat maps show the Indonesian archipelago and equatorial West Africa near Nigeria have the greatest potential for offshore floating solar arrays. Heatmap for offshore floating solar panels. Red areas are best, followed by yellow, green and dark blue. The grey lines show tropical storm tracks. Image: Author-supplied, using OpenStreetMap base, CC BY-ND You can read the full article from PV Magazine here.

I have not had that problem with my polycarbonate sheet roofing here in Thailand... This is the polycarbonate roofing over our Thai Kitchen (facing South-East) - 8 years old now and "as-new". This is the polycarbonate sheeting over our external storage area for garden tools (facing West) - also 8 years old now and "as-new". "The length of time that polycarbonate roof panels will last depends upon the maintenance that the roof is given, and the kind of weather that it’s exposed to. If a roof is well maintained, it can last between 10 to 20 years before it’s going to need to be replaced. There are even instances where the polycarbonate roof panels have lasted 30 years" See here.

I have seen many such houses in the villages in Isaan... we drive through 4 separate villages from the highway turnoff on the way to my wife's village, and most such houses have been abandoned because of termite infestation... saying that they are made of hardwood that is termite-resistant is simply not true unless it has been chemically treated with a product like Chaindrite and regularly re-applied. I'm sure that I would not like to risk my health by living/eating/sleeping in a chemically treated timber house. I'm 65 now and my knees are shot from playing football in my youth... I want a house that has as few stairs/steps/landings as possible, and is as maintenance-free as possible. I also want a comfortable house, one that is not subjected to the uncomfortable ambient temperatures around Songkran time. Our Guest House will be quite passive by design, and will cost next to nothing to maintain (maybe a lick of paint every 15 years or so?) For me it is not a burden... but it is certainly a challenge, and one that will be rewarding for me and my family. But each to his own...

We like the look. Our current house has 2.15m high doors and the ceilings are only 2.4m high (with 2.6m high recesses for aesthetic appeal). And yes... they are all solid teak wood. It does not look disproportionate to me.

To be honest I don't know yet... Door supply was originally part of our builder's scope of supply, and I kept asking him regularly had he ordered the doors until he finally admitted that he could not order what we wanted from the usual outlets, and that we would have to go with custom-made doors. The reason why I was asking him was that I wanted to be able to lock up the bedroom area and use it as a storage area for some furniture that we had ordered and was being held (reluctantly) by the store in storage. They wanted to deliver it ASAP, and we needed somewhere safe and clean to put it. I guess we will have to wait until we rationalise the BOQ at the end of the project to determine if the cost is to our account or his. 2.2m high doors have been on the drawings since day 1...

You could DIY with a couple of these from HomePro... 1m wide and available in a range of colours too. See here.

And this morning (3 August) the doors and frames were delivered to site:

Time to talk about our 3 internal doors... we have 1 for the bedroom which is 90cm wide, 1 for the bathroom which is 80cm wide, and 1 to exit the house to the Thai Kitchen on the south side deck outside, and all are 220cm (or 2.2m) high. This is the style of door that we wanted, as it closely resembled the kitchen cabinets and would provide a nice modern appearance combined with our 3m high ceiling line as opposed to the typical 200 cm high doors that you see on display in ThaiWatsadu etc.: Unfortunately despite the big stores advertising on their websites that non-standard door sizes can be made to order, they won't do it. Anything that is not either 70, 80, or 90cm wide and 200 cm high... forget it. They are not interested. Our builder recommended getting the doors custom made in seasoned timber with a melamine finish to get the results that we wanted. He said that they will fit perfectly and will only cost a little bit more than the composite doors that they sell in the big stores (although he hasn't exactly mentioned how much extra they will be). So we agreed, and he went off to get the custom doors and frames made. This is the colour/finish that we selected: And here they are in fabrication progress:

Our building site experienced a strong local storm last night... the temporary accommodation for the workers suffered as a result, and they took refuge in our carport. Thankfully nobody was hurt.

Thank you. Yes I would have liked to have been on site more, but my other house and business meant that I could not, hence regular visits at regular intervals. Having the in-laws take photos of progress and sending them daily gave me a good idea of progress and problem areas, and we were able to discuss the issues in the evening with our builder using the LINE app. Regular meetings and discussions on site with the builder included progress, rectification, plans, modifications etc. and it all has gone pretty well so far. For sure there have been mistakes but what job (especially house building) ever goes 100% error-free? The most important thing for me was to restrain myself and not get frustrated... I continually remind myself that the workers are not university or trades-school graduates, and that their experience is an on-going learning process, so some aspects of our build may have been new to them. Our builder is very accommodating, and does not get upset or angry... and has never knocked back a request to change or rectify anything due to construction errors on the part of his team... I highly recommend him if anyone else is considering building within 100km of Khon Kaen city. He has also been fair with his pricing for extras, which we have negotiated with him to a standard rate of cost plus 10%, which I feel is very reasonable. If anyone is interested in using him please send me a PM and I will forward his contact details to you. Yes... this is our guest house... and I intend to be living in it full-time and being on site every single day when the time comes to build our main house.

Thanks for the suggestion @Muhendis I will convey that to the builder immediately. I know that they are returning to site tomorrow morning after the holiday. I will be there the week after next as the uPVC windows and doors will be arriving, and I want to make sure that everything is fitted correctly, the right way around, and in it's correct location.

And while we were there I took the drone to perform a brief flyaround to capture the progress to date: Building Site 27 July 2023.mp4

As the PEA had not been specific about the "electrical problem" I was suspicious of their motives and reasoning... I observed them walking around our property and they were taking a good look at everything including the roof (possibly looking for solar panels?). I heard one of them mention the word "solar" and our builder was quick to point to our solar powered bore water pump about 200m away across the rice fields, and they were pretty dismissive in their manner, so I gathered that that wasn't what they were looking for. After they left, I drove around to the meter box (about 2km by car) and look a look to see if there were signs of anyone "borrowing" our power, but there were none. However, I was alarmed at the speed that the disk on the meter was turning... 20230725_125722.mp4 The rattle noise in the background is from the Mitsu Pajero behind me, but have you ever seen a meter spin so fast? I reckon that the cables (and earthing rod) were reconnected incorrectly after last year when they all fell down during the wet season. I reckon that they have gotten their wires crossed and have incorrectly connected the earth to the active incoming feed instead of the neutral feed. I reckon we have an earth leakage somewhere... any other guesses? As all the workers are now on holidays for the 6 day weekend, our builder has promised to fix it immediately after the holidays. I think that I will also be presenting him with the electricity bill when it comes later this month.

We also were paid a surprise visit by the PEA, who told us that there was a problem (without being specific) and they wanted to inspect our wiring. Our builder was on site too so we were quite happy for them to come in and look around. After inspecting all the connections from the meter to the consumer unit they left, but called my wife the following day saying that there was still a problem and that they could fix it for a fee. My wife told them not to bother as it was our builder's responsibility to find and rectify any and all faults, and that we would not be paying any extra money for them to come and fix it. Our builder was 100% agreeable with this.

We were on site again on 25th July as the Mazuma water filtration system I had bought was to be installed. It was a surprise to me as I was under the impression when I bought them that I would be installing them myself, but apparently the installation by Mazuma including first fills were free. It is a relatively simple filtration system to make our raw water supply from the bore cleaner, clearer, and softer... but will not be used for drinking purposes. The raw water is supplied via a 1" PVC pipe, which is then passed through the filters into a 2000L water storage tank which has an internal float valve fitted, then the filtered water is then pumped to the house via D32 PPR piping. The individual filtration components are as follows: 1 x CLEANFLOW 10G-R30 (BLACK) 30 micron particle Filter 1 x B19 DB AUTO FLOW-RS 20L Resin Filter +SAT100 salt regen tank 1 x B19 DB AUTO FLOW-CB 20L Activated Carbon Filter

That is why we went with Daikin... spare parts are readily available all over the country. Our initial preference was Mitsubishi Electric (not Heavy Industries) but due to a shortage of the exact model we wanted and a forecast 6 month lead time for new supply, we opted to go with Daikin. No other makes or models were entertained (even though some suppliers tried to sell us alternative models or old stock). Do your homework first... and stick to your guns when shopping... the results will be exactly what you want.

For both Mitsubishi Electric and Daikin cassette type AC units the height of the physical units range from 270-345mm and are supported by rods suspended from the roof steelwork, so only 500mm space or more is require to mount them flush with the ceiling. See the recent installation of our 24K BTU Daikin unit below:

Nice installation Looking at the road quality in your photo, the reflective markers on the posts either side, the overhead power lines arrangement, and the gum trees in the background etc. I'd hazard a guess at being located somewhere in Oz... one of the Eastern states perchance? Is that a LiFePO4 battery I see next to the inverter in the control housing?

Our temporary meter is also about 1km from the house, but we do have a clear and direct line of sight to it. Rather than walk across the rice fields to take a look at it, I have used the drone on a couple of occasions to fly over and zoom in on the meter to determine the current reading. Because it is out in the open on a public road it would be easy to spot if someone was trying to "borrow" our power.

Eventually all our domestic electricity will be solar powered... however initially (or until we get our house number and the PEA changes our usage rate) I will not be installing any visible PV panels. We may have a few solar-powered lights dotted around the property and perimeter wall, but nothing too serious. I'd rather give the PEA nothing to be concerned about when they visit our property so we have the greatest chance of keeping our existing spinning disk meter. Most electric gate openers range from 370W to 1200W (depending on the weight of the gate that it has to move) so it is definitely an item that would benefit from being powered by solar power.

According to the data for that particular pump (from Mitsubishi Electric's website here) it is a constant pressure pump with an automatic pressure control switch. There is a user manual (in Thai language) here.

I can assure you that all walls are perfectly straight and vertical. I know... because I used a laser level to verify them (as did the builder too).

I hope that ours will be considerably quicker than that. It was the PEA that made the suggestion originally... ie. a temporary meter and rate. I posted about it here back in March 2022. I believe that all we have to do is to apply to the local government for a house number, then a rep will inspect the property and in particular the sewerage plans and details, then we can notify the PEA, then they will change the charge rate. All the power poles and cable from the PEA meter on their pole to our guest house were paid for by me... and they are not on public land.