Housing Projects

I wonder how come we do not hear about thousands of electocutions in Thailand since ground wires seem to be rare!

Zidane wrote:

RALPHCUSENS wrote:I HAVE NOT LOOKED AT THE PRICES AROUND, BUT I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT FOR 10 MIL, YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO BUY A BEACH FRONT PROPERTY, IN PLACES SUCH AS HUA HIN &CHA AM!

Absolutely.......a beach front villa with its own swimming pool.You could sit out and relax with a few ice cold Beer Changs,listening to the sound of the ocean and dream of Peter Crouch firing Pompey to the top of the Premiership !

Well maybe the beach front villa and swimming pool could become a reality,eh !

Zidane

No Zidane, A beach front villa sounds terrific, but Crouchy taking Pompey to the top of the premiership? Nah, if I thought that, I would be the only fool thinking it, now, without Crouchy, that may be a different matter

Last year in Chiang Mai 5 children swimming in a klong were electrified to death. The culprit was a welding machine NOT grounded.

My wife has lost a relative to the crappy wiring here. I've been shocked at least a dozen times.

220 is nothing to play with.

I wonder how come we do not hear about thousands of electocutions in Thailand since ground wires seem to be rare!

Good question I wondered the same thing when I saw the wiring at my wifes sisters and also at her parents houses. I work electrical maintenance at a prison in Florida USA. We have the power company come check our grounding annually. They have a tester that looks like a clamp meter but with 2 clamps one emits an electric field and the other measures the rate of electrical dissapation. They just put the clamps around the main ground wire goring the the grounding rod or rods. You want 20 ohms or less ressistance on the electrical dissapation. If its not 20 ohms or less just put in another ground rod but be sure you connect one rod to the other and make sure your phone system is grounded to the same grounding as the electric is, if not you could have problems with your electronics that are hooked to the power and the phoneline becouse if the ressistance is different the electric could jump from one ground to the other via your pc, phone, fax, etc and that is not good . The power company will come check it for free, just give them a call. Ground rods can loose thier abillity to dissapate the electric over time so if you have an old house it would be a good idea to put in a new or two. Make sure the ground rod is twice the distance it is long from the other ground rods. Say if you use an 8 foot ground rod you should place it 16 feet from the other one. Whether the power company in Thailand will check your grounding I do not know but there is probably some electricians or code enforcement that will check it for you. Grounding is a relatively inexpensive and easy thing to do and is emensly helpful.

fdimike - great post. I'd add one thing for anyone building a house in Thailand. Don't make the final payment to the builder until all the sockets have been tested. There is a simple device that you can plug in which shows if the socket has power and if the circuit is grounded.

What kills is those Tankless Water Heaters TWH, Oh YOu fools who install them, and not connect the mains to a RCD, Yes you say, the unit has a built in RCD/ ELCB, your correct, but in all the units I inspected some 20 plus at Global House the RCD only protected the unit, So what happens in a TWH

The RCD protects if there is a fault in the unit or water leaks/ steam / moisture to cross the Active / Nutural wire to form a circut, which goes down the path of the water to Big FAT FARANG, forget about Viragra or watermelon, you will have a instant stiff woody! and dead on the floor, so in comes the misses to see what the comotion is all about and Bang! 1 fried Pussy, and so the live wire is waiting for the kids to come to see whats happing, True story of 3 dead in Cairns from faulty water heater.

So the TWH has just triped out, if you have no RCD on the house mains , do nothing but get out of there fast, turn off the power at the mains

HERES the problem, them there TWH has 2 wires supplying power, feed wire, no problem,
The feed wire to the unit go inside the unit, no problem so far,
The Feed wire connect to the Unit wires inside the unit and the RCD/ ELCB, no problem
The TWH after a few years will fail, the tank splits, plastic or the copper tank corrodes, or the pipe will fail at the joints, inside the unit no problem as when this happens the water will cause the short between wires and the trusty RCD/ elcb will kick off the power FEEDING THE HOT WATER TANK. fat farang is safe. !WRONG!

The tank is now isolated from the supply, the 2 wires comming into the unit, BUT those 2 wires comming into the unit if they are not on a RCD protected circut, THEY ARE STILL ALIVE, this is the false impression that the TWH are safe

So now your tank has failed, the small tank blew a hole in it from old age or corrosion, water spurts out hits the ground wire and the Unit RCD/ ELCB shuts off the supply, the water now hits the 2 wires suppling the power comming into the Unit, as you have not protected that circut with and RCD at the main box the water will pick up the current from the units supply and take it to the Fat farang having a shower.

SO whats the problem and how to solve it.

The power supply comming into the unit will be joined up with the units wire to give the unit power, the problem is that the junction of these wires where they are joined IS NOT IN A WATER PROOF JUNCTION BOX, some of the expensive TWH have proper water proof junction connection box, but most just a simple plastic joiner, So when the water leakes onto the junction box it can access the live wires, the unit will trip but the mains power feeding the unit will still be !HOT!

Put a RCD and the main power supply to your home, water proof the junction of the Units wires, to many think the unit is safe, but if you have no RCD on the house it useless.

Any one with a TWH can take off the cover, take a photo of it and post it here, I will mark on the photo the above problem

A picture says a thousand words, I have written only 600

From The Master Builder
"Theory of Relative Shock in TWH" Public housing ATSIH BANNED 2003 ( Aboriginal and Torress Strait housing)

Have a Powerfull day

Currently, (pun intended) when I take a shower in my rental unit and I adjust the metal shower head I get a steady, small electric shock. Scary.

Needless to say, no coffe needed to wake me up in the morning.

"Grounding is a relatively inexpensive and easy thing to do and is emensly helpful."
Something to keep in mind is the majority of the grounding rods in Thailand are what my wife calls copies. These rods are simply copper plated and are inexpensive. I purchased one in Surin and thought it not right as the world price for copper at the time didn't seem to equate. We took it back and exchanged it and about 2000bt more to get the real thing. The copies will provide the needed protection but will not last as long and will need more maintenance to remain effective. Hint take a magnet when buying or checking these rods.

sorry,didn't take time to read whole thread, so if redundant, sorry.

i'm thinking with type of upscale house, i may want a jacuzzi on balcony or roof, but no grounding, no thanks.

as far as the marketing, the price, the buyer, same everywhere, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. some for show, some actually for convenience and practicality, as a must, so live in comfort. how much are they worst, as all things, how much someone perceives the value and will pay.

not an option for my pitance of income and stash, or any option if i hit the lottery. but sure they will all sell and project #2 will be marketed afterwards.

DUPE POST

Hi,
Lee, Idon't know if you ever owned a merc., I've had two when i was in sothern africa, They were crap. Over three years my firm provided me with two the first i had for two years and nearly every six weeks it was in there garage getting something repaired, so the firm changed it for anothetr one but alas same troubles. I use to have to drive from Swaziland down to Durban every month, the ride was not impressive or easy. The same distants here would be from Udon to Pattaya which I have driven in eight hours in a rented Honda city and also in my own car which is a Toyota Vios. and the ride is far better than the Merc.
When I buy a house i do not buy it for show, or keeping up with the Jones. I have a wife and 2 girls, i ask myself do i need four bedrooms, the answer is NO but i would settle for three Do i need four bathrooms, NO but i would need two.
Do i need a double story house, answer NO since I had a stroke 6 years ago i would find the stairs daunting, i looked at a couple off houses when i first came to Udon and asked would they fit a chair lift on the stairs and they thought i was joking. The bunglow i bought, the people let me live in for a week and provided basic furn. cooker, fridge etc. for the week and this impressed me and my friend who has a building firm back home checked it out and for the price, 1MB he thought it was good value Also i liked the house and bought it after the week, don't say i'm a cheap charlie for getting acc. for free, I would advise anybody to do the same then you will find out all the shortcomings before investing a lot of money, BUYER BEWARE. The only fault i found was a slight water leak from one shower so they took some tiles of and fitted a new pipe and did a very good job. I must look on the bright side, I have saved myself at least 15MB which allows me to have regular holidays within Thai. and go back home once a year which lets me find out why i left my home for here.
fd whatever you do DO NOT conect a earth to your T.V. A T.V. set only has a live and a neutral and the chasse runs at half mains voltage. and besides making the set U/S can prove fatal.
Cheers Doug.

douglas wrote:Hi,
Lee, Idon't know if you ever owned a merc.

No I've never owned one, I'm happy with a cheap run-around like yourself. I was just pointing out a merc as an example, it could have been any prestige car.

I agree with Douglas. An EXTREMELY LARGE BUYER BEWARE when dealing with these people.
The Voice of Experience

nola-udon wrote:I agree with Douglas. An EXTREMELY LARGE BUYER BEWARE when dealing with these people.
The Voice of Experience

'Extremely Large Buyer'....does this mean heavily built persons only..


interesting though nola, have you brought one and was dissatisfied....?