Although it's a normal part of the process, most of the time maintenance comes unexpected and so is disturbing in relation to the things we planned to do at a certain day.
On the other hand it's also nice to fix things again by ourselves.
The water we use from our well contains some chalk. Although we have several filters and clean them on a regular base still the pressure switches in the pumps stop functioning. A matter of demounting a part of the pump and clean the switch on the inside. Last Thursday we discovered no water running and, in the middle of the night because of better temperatures (27 degrees C) I could do the job in two hours.
Ants, many different species, are back. They come in armies. So we need to be very careful with everything (actually that's all food here) that contains sugar. But some very small ones attack electric outlets and switches as well as circuit boards. Circuit boards we cannot repair ourselves and it cost time and is expensive to get repaired or renewed.
But still, this is part of living here.
The frustrating part of maintenance is that Thai people got in their genes always to go for the cheapest (shit) quality.
As many of you know we designed the interior of an old shipping container and used it for about one and a half year as our bedroom and bathroom at our construction site. Now we use it as our TED's. Talk, Eat and Drink place/private bar.
A specialized company build it for us. But... the Thai way, with cheap shit quality materials we recognize over and over again.
Last week we discovered the main water pressure pump switched on many times. Sign somewhere there must be a small leakage. But Everything seemed to be OK and nothing leaking.
Yesterday Phatsamon discovered it was the tap to clean your feet at the bathroom of the TED's. Not the fitting but the body of the tap. When I wanted to check, water switched off, the whole tap broke (se picture). It was not possible to take the base out of the fitting. So, the only option left was to cut the wall to repair the leakage and change to a, so far temporarily, tap.
So, not only frustrating but also as the Dutch say: "Buying cheap will work out to be expesive". In reality it all is much more expensive and less comfortable.
This brings me to the 'frustration' of buying and ordering materials at the hard ware stores.
Loads of staff, lazy, hanging on their mobile phones in rows, most not having any knowledge. If you ask for something many times they tell you the easy sentence: "My mi" (we don't have). Walking a bit further you find what you were looking for. So just laziness.
We wanted a so called Air-Free inverter airconditioner of Samsung and I checked already everything and found many reviews on Youtube of expats living here.
When you go to a shop (all full of different brands of Airconditioners) a staffmember comes to you to tell you you made the wrong choice and immediately shows you another brand. Because they don't have it anymore, it's not working well, it's hard to clean, you only can get it with AI now, etc.. Not true because we already have one of this airco's in one of our guest pyramids working great and I know how easy it is to clean.
Basic thing about this is staff members get different percentages of commission if they sell a certain product brand. Not my thing.
And what about an air conditioner with Artificial Intelligence? I, personally, do not need and want an app on my mobile phone to switch on or off our airco's.
"If you do not want it, it's not necessary to use it" was the answer of a staff member. You only have to pay around 250 Euro per machine more and again parts that need expensive maintenance if they break down (or are swallowed by an army of ants).
So, finally, third attempt of shop, we found at HomePro the ones we wanted and they ordered them to be installed coming May.
This blog, a bit to write my frustration away ;). All part of the process.
Frans & Phatsamon
