Mains Supply into a house

[Cashboy]

In the old house I understand that we only have a 15 Amp supply.

When the Thai girl had some welding done on the house for a new roof she said that the arc welder simply connected the electric before the main fuse in the house to get round lack of current.

Everyone else in the street similarly has 50 amp and gather that maybe the house just hasn't had the main fuse upgraded.  It appears to be one of those ceramic affairs with cartidge fuse.

 

Then I read in another post on here regarding Pizza ovens where Crossy  states that Thais have 3 phase supply and this image:

 

What does the first column mean?

I gather that the (figure) in brackets is the amps; what is the number before the bracket.

I understand the figure after the brackets is phases.

 

If you are building a reasonable sized house; are you better off  going for Single Phase 30(100) Amp or 15(45) 3 Phase?

And are the 3 phases or metered individually so if you split a house into 3 condos could charge accordingly?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Cashboy

[bluesofa]

The first column:

Yes, the last word in Thai on each line is "phase", so it's either a 1 or 3 phase supply.

It was explained to me the first two numbers, eg. 5(15) mean it's a 5 amp continuously rated supply, which can supply 15 amps for a shorter time (perhaps a shower?)

 

We upgraded from 5(15) to 15(45) for our house. The charge was 1,700 Baht to change the meter.

 

Afraid I can't offer any help with your other questions, sorry.

[bankruatsteve]

Unless you have extremely special electric requirements, you will  be good on 15/45 single phase.

[Naam]

4 hours ago, Cashboy said:

And are the 3 phases or metered individually so if you split a house into 3 condos could charge accordingly?

the meter is 3-phase but you could split the phases and install a private meter for each condo.

[Crossy]

As above.

 

To check what you have look at the meter, most of us survive on a 15(45), 15A is the calibration current, 45A is the maximum continuous current. That said, meters are incredibly robust and a 100% (90A) overload isn't going to blow it off the wall although the accuracy will be compromised (you can bet it won't read low). Those on a 15(45) will have either a 50A or 63A incoming breaker.

 

Whether you go single or three phase depends upon your load and what's available. PEA likely won't do a 30(100) outside a fairly major town in which case a 15(45) 3-phase would be the choice if your maximum load is over about 11kW.

 

I do sometimes wish we had gone 3-phase even though our 15(45) single-phase supply rarely gets stressed. My reasoning? Sometimes one phase (it seems always ours) goes low or off completely whilst the other two remain on and 3-phase motors (water pumps) are cheaper than single-phase in the larger sizes.