Are electricity blackouts a common occurrence in Pattaya? It seems my building (a couple year old condo building) gets them quite often about 5 times in the past 3 months and usually lasts for 5-10 mins before the power comes back on. This morning it happened one time. I could understand if it was from a heavy thunderstorm/rainfall which was only once but all the other times it was during the day time in the morning.

8 minutes ago, bbi1 said:

Are electricity blackouts a common occurrence in Pattaya?

Yes

It's extremely variable, short blips due to poor HV switching are very common (several times a day) and are often long enough to crash your PC.

 

5 in 3 months is fewer than we get here in northern BKK, nearer one a week that's long enough for the genset to start (30 seconds). In our case if it's not back on after 10 minutes it's going to be several hours.

 

If you are getting PC and router problems a UPS can be had for a few k Baht.

 

Don't know much about electricity, but I know from experiense that 'Thai electric' can't withstand rain, or even windy conditions. In short; it sucks.

4 minutes ago, Crossy said:

It's extremely variable, short blips due to poor HV switching are very common (several times a day) and are often long enough to crash your PC.

 

5 in 3 months is fewer than we get here in northern BKK, nearer one a week that's long enough for the genset to start (30 seconds). In our case if it's not back on after 10 minutes it's going to be several hours.

 

If you are getting PC and router problems a UPS can be had for a few k Baht.

 

For me its really rare, things have changed here for the better (not Pattaya). I do get blackouts of a few seconds (less then 30). Thank god for an UPS. 

 

Your right if its is not back after 10 minutes it will be a few hours.

Actually I find Thai electric to not be very bad at all - try some other countries.  Here in Bangkok normally only outage is second or two for a dirty (out of sync) switch of power (holidays and weekends when second team working I suspect).

 

Are you sure condo is not testing their generator power by chance?

 

 

In Pattaya, at an old condo, for the last 4 months, there were 4 power interruptions. 2 interruptions, that lasted several hours, were caused by a cat and a rat, climbing onto the huge main condo transformer, getting fried, causing a short circuit with a big bang, and blowing the fuses on the mains leading to the building. The 3rd & 4th interruptions were for a few seconds - not sure of the cause.

 

 

Very rare were we live,but a lot of rich Thai people live around here ,lol

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50 minutes ago, bbi1 said:

Are electricity blackouts a common occurrence in Pattaya?

We get them very rarely in my condo in Jomtien. There are scheduled outages once or twice a year when the PEA are working on lines, but apart from that hardly anything. Perhaps once a month, and for a few seconds.

30 minutes ago, Crossy said:

If you are getting PC and router problems a UPS can be had for a few k Baht.

Unfortunately this only helps with the PC itself and maybe the router if connected - but not with the gateway in the house. But your external connections will be down.

 

And then the other devices. For me the most scary thing are auto-updates of firmware so I will disable them all. If a power failure strucks while my region code B imported BluRay player updates. If that fails I had to send the player to Europe. A nightmare. I have as well a region code A player but this does not help for all the older B (BluRay) or code 2 (DVD) discs I brought with me.

In Pattaya I experienced it two times on my short visits over the years.

Once most of second road north of central rd. was dark.

But of course in Pattaya always quick responders on duty.

I would assume if burying the cables underground is finished this should become very rare in central Pattaya.

 

At our place in the sticks it has become much better.

Short drops might occur. I finally gave in and bought a UPS.

 

But the last major event was just nine days ago.

And that was very heavy. About 45 minutes in the early evening AND at least two districts in the dark incl. traffic lights AND very rare: even mobile phone connection was in some emergency mode (very weak signal).

Nope, only a couple of times on pratamnak in the last 5 years.

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9 hours ago, trigpoint said:

Nope, only a couple of times on pratamnak in the last 5 years.

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I frankly find that hard to believe unless you ignore the second to two type - here in Bangkok it would be an almost daily resetting to keep a non-battery microwave clock right - suspect most of us just do as I do and ignore the time.  There are short second to few seconds outlets many places due to power switchovers.  If using a desktop without UPS you likely have personal experience with this factor.  But there are normally not the longer power outages for more than the hour or two (to change blown transformer fuse) that many countries in the region experience.  

On 2/12/2019 at 5:28 PM, KittenKong said:

We get them very rarely in my condo in Jomtien. There are scheduled outages once or twice a year when the PEA are working on lines, but apart from that hardly anything. Perhaps once a month, and for a few seconds.

What he said.

 

Starting in 2004, I used to live on Soi Watboon in Jomtien, and there were plentiful outages.  It would be surprising to go two weeks without a total power loss (in addition to the almost daily "blips" mentioned above). 

 

The past few years I've lived in a condo in the Jomtien Complex area and unplanned outages are very rare.  When the PEA plans an outage there is usually a notice by the elevators a week in advance.

Two power failures in my condo in Chiang Mai in the past 9 years. The standby generator gets planned maintenance once a year, which shuts down power for about 4 hours.