canopy

As far as contact area, that is why it is not unusual for a house in the US to have 8 ground rods, each one being of large diameter and long--each much bigger than the ones you see in Thailand. Besides contact surface area, other factors impact resistance such as moisture of the soil. Ground rods should be buried away from the house where they will be in contact with damp soil, not under the house where the soil is dry.

In the US, acorn clamps are approved for the connection. Recently I noticed in electrical shops in Thailand that ground rods come with an acorn clamp, something that never used to be the case. I have never seen acorn clamps sold separately. Ground rods sold in electrical shops are not copper, that is only a plating. I bought solid copper rods in china town Bangkok and acorn clamps in the US because I wanted the best ground.

Just connecting the ground even to an acorn clamp needs done with care. The cable does not go between screw and rod. It goes on the other side between clamp and rod. The cable is above the clamp and turned downward. And there are more important details that should be met on the connection. Due to the life or death importance of a ground, the materials and workmanship should meet or exceed every part of the specification. This is not an area to skimp or turn a blind eye to bad practices.

The division is charged with air pollution, noise pollution and vibration control management.

Pollution Control Department Online complaint form (English)

Farming free range chickens in Thailand was completely banned circa 2004. It was a measure taken to protect chickens from bird flu since it is contracted by migrating birds to outdoor flocks.

There are free ranging chickens around peoples yards except in cases where they use too many poisons in the nearby fields that winds up killing all the chickens.

One thing I find sub-optimal is places like Tesco Lotus there is a line of sinks in the bathroom, but curiously only one has a soap dispenser. This arrangement is common in brand new, modern bathrooms at various places. I don't get it.

As pointed out, it is considered a must to use tiles with no paints or coatings. Also you don't want PVC to be used for your down spouts or anywhere that is in the sun because sunlight breaks down PVC and leaches toxins into the water.

As far as flushing the contaminants away that have collected since the last rain, Thai's do this manually by pulling the pipe away and moving it back into place. In other countries they use a simple device made for this purpose that makes it automatic and such devices don't even use electricity making this a snap.

If it was up to me, people would not be allowed on aeroplanes until they had demonstrated that they could accept whatever culture they were going to find themselves in, without whinging about the behaviour of those they found there.

Thai villagers use technology, loudspeakers in this case, to engage in unnecessary behavior that is destructive to the entire village. There is nothing wrong with someone asking how to cope with it. You are the only one whining.

Anyone know if channel drains are available anywhere? Also known as trench drains. Very grateful for any tips.

Projects like this work in a developed countries, but without answering a simple question I do not think it can be successful. What are you doing to prevent this degradation from happening again? Because once the reforestation project finishes, the forests will be looted and burned by the locals and become depleted all over again. Nothing of value will survive. Paying a pickup load of local women to do the planting will not change this behavior.

Wait till the floods come and they tell you get the hell out of there you will be praising them there speakers.

The loudspeakers don't work for announcing things that are important or urgent. Some may be in the fields at the time, some may be too hard of hearing, some may not speak Thai, the power may already be out, etc etc.

In my area 4" diameter poles cost 90 baht each from people who have bins of them in their front yard for sale so that equates to fetching about 5000 baht a ton retail price for small trees in small quantities. By the way, is there an easy means to identify if you have the good or bad type of eucalyptus trees growing as far as wood quality is concerned? I'd like to know which type ones growing on my property are.

That sounds right that only the grey is from Thailand, but their site saraburigranite.net shows they offer types imported from all over the world. Some are quite reasonable, some very high. Glad to hear there are folks out there who can do a good job with the seams. I may need to look up such a crew in the future. I love granite and hope to see how your back splash comes out.

Granite in saraburi costs just a fraction of that price and I have seen that type there. Holes are 100 baht each, edging is free. 5 hours of install shouldn't add much. So I don't know why you would need to spend 15000 for that, but I guess the convenience has to be factored in. How is the seam between the two pieces? In many countries they've got it down to being just about invisible but I noticed in Thailand there always seems to be a glaring edge.

I have found many types of trowels in Thailand, but never a 10" brick trowel and have looked in HomePro and many others. Thai's just do some thing differently, using a little trowel is one of them.

In my area rice straw is mostly heaped and set ablaze. There are no baling machines here so I made a hand baler so I can go out to random fields and bale straw for free if I can get to it before they light it. I find rice straw valuable for organic farming, composting, and building walls.

What kind of pipe would be best to go through a slab for water supply to a house? And is some sort of sleeve or protection advisable? Due to the difficulty of access, I would favor the most durable solution in this situation. Homemart recommends PE pipe for burial.

I am not sure what is more incovenient, having to walk 700 meters in the heat and humidity, with packs and shopping bags

Yet another deceptive claim from this news piece. The reality is people have to walk a certain distance to get to the station. Adding an additional 700 meters means most will have to walk over a kilometer--twice! Having to walk 2 or 3 kilometers just to step onto a train will be a deterrent because at some point that becomes just too long, too hot, and too difficult.

My vote is close the extension. Make SP the end of the line just like before when the sky train wasn't so crowded, more speedy and pleasant to ride.

The Governor stated that around 4,000 people will be affected by the change.

Not true. There are a lot of tourists that use this station due to the hotels there and ones going to the river transport. If just 10% of the riders at that station are tourists then perhaps 100,000 tourists a year will be affected. Over just 5 years a half a million tourists could be effected. Does the TAT know about this?

I was considering making a land border to an adjacent field with bamboo planted in a row. It would be ideal if each grove stays less than 2 meters in diameter over time. What bamboo types might be suitable for this?

On the topic of oxygen, yes compost needs oxygen. However, turning compost piles is old fashioned and seems to be a ritual that lacks scientific support. People seem to do it because they see other people do it. It may be interesting that research has found that within 15 minutes of turning a compost pile the new oxygen content is already depleted. Bottom line is turning a compost pile has little sustainable influence and a lot of research has been done side by side with turning versus no turning to support this conclusion. While you can turn a pile to increase aeration, a properly constructed compost pile needs no additional aeration and never needs turned. Having myself switched to the modern no-turn method, I can concur it works. In Thailand, keeping the pile wet year round I have found to be the key factor.

You seem confused. Please re-read the forum title.

A vinyl seat cover is terribly hot and sticky in this climate making it perhaps the most unsuitable material you could come up with, but alas that's all I have seen for sale as well. Ergonomics don't seem to have made it in Thailand. A work around would be to import a decent one.

Turning the pile is a common misconception of composting. As mentioned, turning is a good idea for batch composting. For the majority who do backyard composting incrementally a bit at a time, you never turn the pile. What you want is for the new material to heat up to a high enough temperature to break things down. That doesn't happen if you dilute it into the old stuff. Composting is a cycle and ideally you want to give your material the opportunity to go through each step of that cycle without interfering with it.

Not qute sure how anyone is in a position to suggest a relistic working solution to the OP's problem without having a resonable understanding of the failure mechanism, the subsoil structure or the slope geometry, none of which has the OP described in sufficient detail.

You seem to be new so just a quick side bar. The de-facto model in Thailand for just about any sort of construction related thing is to just make something up without having expertise. Sort of like everyone tries to reinvent the wheel but the shape is always a little off. It won't work right and fail quickly, then you go through repair and replace cycles over and over trying to patch it up. This is seen as the normal way. In our countries we would implement proven techniques developed by professionals with guaranteed results that would be long lasting and sure. It is a very contrasting approach. I do hope the OP posts pictures to see your ideas which I imagine will be pretty good.