canopy

Good topic. So then just to verify one can find premixed cement-sand, but not the all in one cement-sand-gravel like Quikrete that you just add water to? The premix I have seen in Thailand is called mortar mix and I did not see a cement:sand ratio or even a strength rating on it.

I am wanting to lay foundation footings and would prefer premix for accuracy since mixing will be done by hand though it begs the question can one trust the accuracy of these mixed bags or might they be botched by somchai doing the mixing? Otherwise if going from scrach I am thinking 1:2:4 portland cement:sand:gravel for workability and proportions that are likely to be mistake proof. Thoughts?

For those that have been around a while or know, does the Mekong get real low every year? I have seen some polaroids at Ubon, which is way downstream, that seem to be from the 1980's and it looks like it gets real low in the dry season. Another datapoint is I was in Nong Kai 5 years ago in the dry season and the Mekong was very low, mainly wide dirt banks, not picturesque at all and that shocked me at the time as I never knew it had a wide seasonal variance. So how different is this year?

My first reaction seeing the China statistics is they couldn't cause it to dry up. But on second thought if it is true the Mekong normally gets real low then taking any percentage away this time of year is going te make a tremendous difference because there just isn't much water there in the first place and the amount from China could then make the difference between having some or none. Though it must be said blaming China, rightly or not, is unfortunate since Thailand is using more and more water every year and it has reached the point of unsustainability from all I have read.

Yes, your slab is too thin for bamboo rebar. But in the off chance someone else is considering this it is noteworthy that bamboo rebar does work *IF* used correctly which like most things doesn't happen 99.9% of the time. Used incorrectly it is a disaster--the bamboo slowly swells as it gets wet which cracks up the cement, then the bamboo shrinks back down when it dries leaving loose joints and avenues for bugs to eat it. The net result is much worse than no rebar at all.

The US Navy has a published document on bamboo rebar for construction with good guidelines. It covers selection, curing, reinforcement design, strength, and just everything you need to get it right in a fairly compact document.

The fine particles in air now exceeded the standard 120

It is so way past the standard. The views are restricted by smoke, the sun is blotted out, and I have met people who think this is all just a pretty fog in the air this time of year. How much longer will this madness last? I don't mean this year, I mean until they finally put a stop to it. They have the data showing it is a health hazard and now they have the tools with satellite to pinpoint the location of each fire being set instantaneously. The fires I see being set are totally unnecessary and serve no purpose other than "that's just the way it's done here".

In Australia we had a 10,000 gallon water storage...We collected the rainwater off of the roof, Never ran out and never had to worry about how long the shower you take is.

This one had me thinking. Given the rainwater patterns, that capacity would be practical in Thailand for a household of 2 people and have some water for landscaping. It could be done with a tank footprint of about 3m x 7m. Placed next to a house and screened it might not be of much visual issue. Anyone attempted such a thing, cement I presume, and cost?

This is an excellent thread. Any recommendations on which wood varieties to use or avoid for a timber frame house? My thinking is posts should be mature teak for termite resistance, but not positive on this or what would be appropriate elsewhere. Open to all suggestions.

out of curiosity, how much water is stored in one ong (those big ceramic water holders)?

The jars hold 1.8 cubic meters in my area. And despite being given a coat of paint to look the part, they are most definitelly not ceramic. They are made of cement using a technique called ferrocement. They cost under 1000 baht and are useful not only for a rainwater catchment supplement, but also as a backup water supply as in many areas water is not consistent. For instance in my village there is no water at night and in the day it is off and on. But these tanks have downsides. They usually have slow leakage and are a breeding ground for mosquitos due to improper lid usage.

i take it that u arent including irigation or watering of plants /gardens/lawns

Right. And that would be a good use for greywater.

since for the most part there is rain most of the year in thailand

Not true. Last year I only recall one single rain from november to march. The dry season in Thailand can be bone dry. That said, the last few days we had some wonderful rains here.

The deal breaker for above ground tank storage is the dry season lasts 5 months give or take in areas of Thailand I am familiar with. It just isn't practical to have such a vast array of tanks to hold half a years water supply. A well or aquifer which are already recommended would be more realistic and preferable to pond water.

This is horrific and at the sime time the practice is likely widespread. Just one squirt of cyanide destroys about 1 square mile of coral. This goes some way to explain why Thailand has many dead areas and no good coral areas as far as I have seen.

What amazed me was that the labour cost of 80 baht/sq/mt was all inclusive of the boss,his assistant,the guy who mixed the cement,the guy who carried the cement and the guy who did the tidying and cleaning up......5 of them sharing 80 baht !! on a total area of 46 sq/mt

They took 4 days and shared 4000 baht

FWIW, that comes out to 200 baht a day per person which is a normal price for Thai labor.

If anyone can claim that life in Bangkok, Pattaya or Chiang Mai is less polluted and quieter than the village,

It makes me question other points in their post.

All the apartments I've stayed in in Bangkok have been utterly quiet day and night. Although I've been careful choosing them. I can't hear morning announcement speakers, motorbikes, traffic, monks, ice cream sellers, gai yang rickshaws, political megaphone trucks, dogs, chickens, or my neighbors.

Agree 100%. I have lived in Bangkok and tiny villages. In my experience, Bangkok absolutely has better air and is quieter. It's not that Bangkok is either quiet or has clean air, but rather the doses of bad things are much, much worse in the villages and there's no sealed, air conditioned space for protection. In my area there is no garbage service at all. Everyone is expected to throw all their plastic in a heap and burn it daily or find a spot in the forest and dump it. And that's exactly what they do. As burnt plastic smoke wafts through the houses around absolutely no one sees anything wrong with it.

Great post, resonates with my experiences. It appears some of the bigger problems with living in villages are modern and did not exist for thousands of year, but rather are new in just the last few generations. They seem to be a misuse of technology:

There never used to be agricultural burning because every crop was grown organically and the stalks had value in regeneration. The modern way of farming is fertilizer. Now the stalks are an agricultural waste product burned simply to get rid of them.

The loud speakers from the village, the trucks driving around blaring their wares, super noisy motorcycles, and the like came with electric and gas power.

Loei owns the title as the coldest province in Thailand. But while Loei does get very cold in the cold months, it can get very hot in the hot season depending where you are. Nothing to do with temperature, but in my search for a cold climate I gave up on the north because the forests are systematically burnt down and the air quality is an appalling stinking haze for a couple months out of every year. That is the bad news. The good news is I did discover there are micro climates in Thailand here and there. Some are good, much better than the temperature being monitored in a bigger place an hour away. These are hard to find, but worth the effort. I found the best weather situation to be in the mountains of Phetchabun. But there are bound to be other places as good or better elsewhere.

For instance, 7” by 10” would be a nice ballpark size. The biggest I have seen at lumber yards is about 4” by 4” which is too small. If nothing big is sold, are portable sawmills available so one could process their own trees? This query is for Phetchabun province though interested in understanding the situation in other areas. Am not interested in cement, stick, or metal framing.

wind turbines have limits as to maximum allowable wind speed. The better turbines will feather the blades then their limit is reached.

Every product from windgen.net specifies a survival wind speed of 50m/s (111mph). So theoritically it would take a category 3 hurricane to destroy them, but in practice they failed to deliver. Regardless of where the fault lies, it seems it will be lurking to catch the next unsuspecting buyer. It is odd that for a technology more affordable than solar there is just one person known to date who has tried it.

To summarize a thread about wind power in the Phuket forum one person was finally able to track down a source, try it apparently in a windy location (duh), and the blades immediately broke off making a useless piece of junk. Before closing the book on wind power in Thailand, are there any success stories or quality offerings? I wish to generate 10KwH/day off grid. Solar is out of the question, costing millions for even such a modest setup.

This is a disappointing thread. To summarize: one person was finally able to track down a source, try it apparently in a windy location (duh), and the blades immediately broke off making a useless piece of junk. Before closing the book on wind power in Thailand, are there any success stories or quality offerings? I wish to generate 10KwH/day off grid. Solar is out of the question, costing millions for such a modest setup.

I received this in the mail as well which is a bit baffling how they developed a list of names and addresses of foreigners in Phetchabun. None the less, I look forward to their opening. Just the sort of variety Phetchabun needs so good luck to them.

There are quite a few companies setting up to produce and sell PV products, have a look here...

I had made an attempt to contact a number of companies on that link. I received disconnected numbers, email queries that went unanswered, and visited addresses that did not have the listed business. For all my efforts, I had 0 success. It is telling how some of those telephone numbers are formatted with 7 digits just how ancient some things on that list must be. So in addition to first hand experiences, anyone providing sources that actually EXIST and serve the DIY market would be helpful.

Thanks Sheryl. Nice to have someone with real world results back up what I have said which by the way is not my idea at all but rather a recommendation from a renowned expert in water systems design.

The distance of the arch depends on pressure, and not the 2-inch extension pipe.

100% irrelevant. Let me make this crystal clear. Imagine a hypothetical pipe the same diameter as the water tank itself. That would make one heck of a shower, gushing down like a powerful waterfall knocking the person to the ground and flooding them in water in an instant. Hence, pressure is not required for a shower because increasing flow can do the job.

While a shower isn't among them, in some cases you absolutely do need pressure and lots of it like a fire truck to direct water several stories up.

A 2-inch inlet wall mounted or hand held shower head will still not spray, but only dribble due to poor pressure.

This is the one part of your post that is plain wrong. Whatever water comes out of a half inch shower, you will get more than 10 times more with 2 inch. Though sayinjg that I too have not noticed a source for oversized fittings in Thailand designed for consumer applications. Such an approach is cheaper, easier, and quieter than pumps or pressure tanks. Perhaps because they take the 3rd solution in Thailand like in this case which is to mai pen rai it and just have tenants accept the weak water as part of the package.

In many cases more pressure is not actually required, but just more flow. So I wonder why larger size fittings aren't used to solve this problem. For instance, if the fittings and pipes were increased from the normal half inch to two inch, that would increase the flow coming out of the sink and shower over 10 to 1.

It would not be surprising if burning wood is worse for the environment than gas and I see no way this can be justified as being green. There are real green alternatives like using a solar cooker or changing to a raw food diet.

On a related note, it is apalling how some who use wood to warm their house point fingers at those making big log houses as being environmentally insensitive. Ironies like this is why there are so many green bashers.

It is important to understand the life of the forest is the dead tree, not the live one. Burning them robs the forest of habitat and nourishment that is critical in newing the flora and fauna.

Seems to me that If no water is used then the cement mix can never start to cure and the blocks will always crumble.

Yes, this sounds an awful lot like an operator error. Never mind it seems obvious to the most casual observer that cement must have water to cure.