Want to install electricity, PEA simply giving the business card of a private contractor

[thing31]

Hello everyone,

 

We contacted PEA to connect electricity in our land (15/45 amp). The house is now built, we are asking for a permanent meter and the installation to the house (about 200 meter from the public road, quite long as the access road is about 170 meter long). The officer had a look on the Chanote, another guy came to see our land one week before. He said the first step was to contact a private contractor to install the cables/poles between the house and the land entrance (public road). Then, PEA would check that work, and install the meter.

Even though I often heard it was better to contact a private company to deal with the installation on the land, cheaper and in some cases more reliable, I was very surprised, especially because the neighbor did the same last year, and PEA installed the 2 poles necessary on his land. My questions:

1. What might be the reason to automatically give the job to a contractor and not trying to get the job done by themselves? Anything to worry about this practise?

3. We will meet the contractor next week, so to check the quotation he would give, what is roughly the cost to install electricity along 200 meters. We live in the countryside in Chiang Rai province. What are the other costs? because they just told my wife the meter cost just something like 800 bahts but I always heard of a deposit of about 30,000 bahts.

 

Thanks for your help ????

[Crossy]

Once past the meter it's not PEA's responsibility although it's worth talking to the PEA supervisor. 

 

A lot of the chaps moonlight. Our poles were installed (on a Sunday) by a crew wearing PEA uniforms, driving a PEA truck, they brought the poles along too, cash in hand to the team supervisor (that's quite possibly what your neighbour did).

 

Sadly it was a goodly while back and I don't recall the cost.

 

Shouldn't be a meter deposit, they were all refunded last year (it was only 5k or so anyway).

 

[thing31]

3 hours ago, Crossy said:

Once past the meter it's not PEA's responsibility although it's worth talking to the PEA supervisor. 

 

A lot of the chaps moonlight. Our poles were installed (on a Sunday) by a crew wearing PEA uniforms, driving a PEA truck, they brought the poles along too, cash in hand to the team supervisor (that's quite possibly what your neighbour did).

 

Sadly it was a goodly while back and I don't recall the cost.

 

Shouldn't be a meter deposit, they were all refunded last year (it was only 5k or so anyway).

 

Thank you Crossy

I will wait to see other posts with more information about the cost estimate.

[Yellowtail]

Why don't you ask your wife to ask the  neighbor what they paid? 

 

With any quote, make sure you get a detailed material list.

[thing31]

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

Why don't you ask your wife to ask the  neighbor what they paid? 

 

With any quote, make sure you get a detailed material list.

Hello

 

We did ask him, but in that case he dealt with PEA, not a private contractor.

Thanks.

[farmerjo]

7 hours ago, thing31 said:

but I always heard of a deposit of about 30,000 bahts

That would be about the cost for poles,wire and labour for the contractor over that distance.

[Led Lolly Yellow Lolly]

For that length I'd for sure get a moonlighting PEA guy to bring his team and sling up some steel cables i.e. the same type PEA use for their low volt side. Copper over that run will be costly, it'll be heavy gauge, and if you use Aluminium it'll be the size of your wrist to minimise voltage drop. The steel cable PEA use is also VERY resilient. How far is the transformer (roughly)? If it's already a couple of hundred metres away before it even hits your meter you'll be wanting to save every dropped volt you can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Led Lolly Yellow Lolly

[arick]

Yes get the guys to come back and do it after their shift. You will need to buy a cement pole. now people are doing aluminium poles. My worker drilled through the main Last week in my brick wall and blow up the drill and curled his hair. The PEA guys came back and looked. They went and returned the truck  apparently live in our village so at 4:30pm they came back and rewired the cable to the box. By 5:30pm the power was back on and we gave them 800 baht. 

[arick]

3 hours ago, Led Lolly Yellow Lolly said:

For that length I'd for sure get a moonlighting PEA guy to bring his team and sling up some steel cables i.e. the same type PEA use for their low volt side. Copper over that run will be costly, it'll be heavy gauge, and if you use Aluminium it'll be the size of your wrist to minimise voltage drop. The steel cable PEA use is also VERY resilient. How far is the transformer (roughly)? If it's already a couple of hundred metres away before it even hits your meter you'll be wanting to save every dropped volt you can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cable isn't that resisilent. 

[Crossy]

@Led Lolly Yellow Lolly has a good point. 200m at 50A with 5% drop needs something like 50mm² copper (Doncaster Cables calculator https://www.doncastercables.com/technical-help/) $$$

 

Aluminium would need to be around 95mm² it would be considerably cheaper than the copper but if you can get the PEA stuff used that would be ideal.

[Crossy]

3 minutes ago, arick said:

The cable isn't that resisilent. 

 

Ouch!

That went rather well. Good that nobody was hurt.

 

Our incoming supply is visible (or in surface trunking) until it gets to our main breaker, not taking any risks with it getting damaged.

[arick]

8 hours ago, farmerjo said:

That would be about the cost for poles,wire and labour for the contractor over that distance.

Use aluminium pools at 370 baht each. You csn also have your cable under ground. I check ask the PEA guys in the village they said 200 metre cost 30,000 or up 

Edited June 29, 2021 by arick

[arick]

1 minute ago, Crossy said:

 

Ouch!

That went rather well. Good that nobody was hurt.

We still had electric but lower then 200v so air Con won't work.  It was all fixed within a few hours at a price of 800 baht. 

My partner just said it would be 30,000 or up. We are 200 metres from the line. And 300 400 m from the transformer. 

[bluejets]

Part of the cost will depend on cable size which is determined by length of the cable run and what load is intended to be connected.

This latter point being a rather important factor.

When running long distances such as the 200 metres you quoted, good move to limit any large current draw items such as 4kw shower heaters and the like.

Cables have to be sized to keep voltage drop down to a minimum (usually 5%) and adding large current draw items will quickly esculate the size and cost requirements of the cabling.

Naturally copper is a better conductor than aluminium and therefore smaller in size compared to aluminium BUT, leave the house unattended and before long can almost guarantee the cabling will disappear.

[Crossy]

1 minute ago, bluejets said:

BUT, leave the house unattended and before long can almost guarantee the cabling will disappear.

 

Yes, copper does sometimes get the wanderlust.

 

[arick]

12 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Ouch!

That went rather well. Good that nobody was hurt.

 

Our incoming supply is visible (or in surface trunking) until it gets to our main breaker, not taking any risks with it getting damaged.

It was my London idea. 555. I didn't want cables hanging (USA idea) . So it goes  under ground from the switch box to the house zigzags under the house up the wall to the  breaker. We are around 180 metre from the metre. The bungalow and gym we just ran a under ground I know we didn't pay alot for that we just but the a roll of cable at global. 

[jomtienisgood]

17 hours ago, Crossy said:

Once past the meter it's not PEA's responsibility although it's worth talking to the PEA supervisor. 

 

A lot of the chaps moonlight. Our poles were installed (on a Sunday) by a crew wearing PEA uniforms, driving a PEA truck, they brought the poles along too, cash in hand to the team supervisor (that's quite possibly what your neighbour did).

 

Sadly it was a goodly while back and I don't recall the cost.

 

Shouldn't be a meter deposit, they were all refunded last year (it was only 5k or so anyway).

 

About the same I experienced about 15 years ago in Korat province. I got a refund of 2000 Thb / meter last year..

[Orinoco]

Just had 3 concrete poles 80m wire  run, site box and 15/45 meter done private contractor 14k

[GreasyFingers]

Just another thing to consider is the height of the poles if the wires go across your access. We had a cement truck bring down wires and pole that had been there for 10+ years.

[Tropposurfer]

5 hours ago, arick said:

Yes get the guys to come back and do it after their shift. You will need to buy a cement pole. now people are doing aluminium poles. My worker drilled through the main Last week in my brick wall and blow up the drill and curled his hair. The PEA guys came back and looked. They went and returned the truck  apparently live in our village so at 4:30pm they came back and rewired the cable to the box. By 5:30pm the power was back on and we gave them 800 baht. 

Not sure the specifics of this tapping into the mains cable by a tradie (lucky dude he didn't die) .... this is why I insisted and inspected mains laying in to my home and had it done to Aussie specs (750 mm depth trench, bright orange electrical cable conduit in base of trench (primed and glued at all joints), clean sand to 200 mm over conduit, electrical warning tape on top of that, then after backfilling the remainder of the trench with soil posts and wall signs with 'warning electrical mains below' at either end of the underground run (in both Thai and English).

I also insisted on the entire build be wired to Aussie specs with colour coded wiring - active, neutral and earth (every circuit) - none of the rubbish of running circuits back to a centralised earth wire leaving switches and plugs with only 2 wires), legend diagram of colour coding in mains box. AND to make sure the electrician was fully licensed and he earthed every circuit as he made it live ... NOT like some Thai leckies - leaving the circuits live for days without earthing them (come back some time later and earth them OMG !!!!!). 

[thing31]

Hi

 

Thanks everyone for your help. Yes, I will definitely check where is the transformer and make sure we get the right poles and cables. 

[Yellowtail]

On 6/29/2021 at 8:27 PM, thing31 said:

Hello

 

We did ask him, but in that case he dealt with PEA, not a private contractor.

Thanks.

 

Would that not still be a good target price?

 

How much did he pay?

[thing31]

On 7/1/2021 at 9:12 AM, Yellowtail said:

 

Would that not still be a good target price?

 

How much did he pay?

Instead of getting 3 concrete poles for a distance of about 90 meters, he negotiated to get 2 poles (higher than the usual poles) with extra price. Totally the cost was 35,000 THB (5/15 A meter).

[Yellowtail]

33 minutes ago, thing31 said:

Instead of getting 3 concrete poles for a distance of about 90 meters, he negotiated to get 2 poles (higher than the usual poles) with extra price. Totally the cost was 35,000 THB (5/15 A meter).

 

So you're probably 4-6 times that. 

[thing31]

On 7/2/2021 at 8:13 PM, Yellowtail said:

 

So you're probably 4-6 times that. 

Sorry, I misunderstood the information I got. This price (35,000) includes also 2 poles installed by PEA on the public road.

Actually, the person recommended by PEA (business card) is a PEA staff working as 'private freelancer'. He came to our land and here is his quotation (15/45 Amp meter). We managed to reduce the distance to 160 meters as we prefer to connect to a warehouse, then connect the rest in a cheaper way (yellow pipes underground) to the house and other buildings:

- Six 8 meter concretes poles: 6 X 3,900 bahts

- Cable (Aluminium, 25 mm2) 180 meter X 2 X 30 bahts

- Other stuff 7,000 bahts

So, total is 41,000 bahts for 160 meter.

I argued about getting a cable with higher diameter (voltage drop). The guy answered that it was not possible for this kind of installation/poles, and if I really needed, I should request PEA later to increase the power....Let's see...

 

[Crossy]

That cable is really too small if you are going to be drawing any significant power, 180m at 40A would need 35mm² copper, 50mm² in Al for a 5% volt drop.

 

PEA can't "increase the power". There is no reason whatever that you can't put 50mm² on poles, he probably can't get it on the cheap.

 

But Al cable is inexpensive, so if you run in to problems you could replace it relatively easily.

 

By the way, running underground in conduit is not going to be cheaper. You can't use Al cable and it has to be the insulated and sheathed NYY type to avoid issues with the damp getting in.

[thing31]

On 7/7/2021 at 8:10 AM, Crossy said:

That cable is really too small if you are going to be drawing any significant power, 180m at 40A would need 35mm² copper, 50mm² in Al for a 5% volt drop.

 

PEA can't "increase the power". There is no reason whatever that you can't put 50mm² on poles, he probably can't get it on the cheap.

 

But Al cable is inexpensive, so if you run in to problems you could replace it relatively easily.

 

By the way, running underground in conduit is not going to be cheaper. You can't use Al cable and it has to be the insulated and sheathed NYY type to avoid issues with the damp getting in.

Thank you Crossy. yes I got your point and I asked my wife to ask him two times about that. I also didn't like/understand his answer, it doesn't really make sense. The other thing is that your Doncaster cable calculator has many type of cables and other parameters to consider, and I don't know which one he will use (or could use), and I don't imagine at this point of the discussion to ask him more about his cable. Maybe from your experience you have some idea of the usual cable they use ? or which one did you select to say that for 180m and 40 A, 50 mm2 would be required? I appreciate your help ! very nice.

[Crossy]

7 minutes ago, thing31 said:

Thank you Crossy. yes I got your point and I asked my wife to ask him two times about that. I also didn't like/understand his answer, it doesn't really make sense. The other thing is that your Doncaster cable calculator has many type of cables and other parameters to consider, and I don't know which one he will use (or could use), and I don't imagine at this point of the discussion to ask him more about his cable. Maybe from your experience you have some idea of the usual cable they use ? or which one did you select to say that for 180m and 40 A, 50 mm2 would be required? I appreciate your help ! very nice.

Just plug in current and distance, select "in free air" for the method of installation.

The calculator is optimised for copper, generally go one size bigger for aluminium.

 

He will use whatever PEA suggest which is for a "typical" (not far from the meter) installation, in this case 25mm² Al. Surely you, as the customer, should be telling him what you want, so long as it's not smaller than the recommentation.

 

In reality, unless the supply at the meter is already low you'll probably be OK, modern appliances are pretty tolerant of supply voltage, if it only dips when you use the shower no problem.

 

 

[thing31]

41 minutes ago, Crossy said:

Just plug in current and distance, select "in free air" for the method of installation.

The calculator is optimised for copper, generally go one size bigger for aluminium.

 

He will use whatever PEA suggest which is for a "typical" (not far from the meter) installation, in this case 25mm² Al. Surely you, as the customer, should be telling him what you want, so long as it's not smaller than the recommentation.

 

In reality, unless the supply at the meter is already low you'll probably be OK, modern appliances are pretty tolerant of supply voltage, if it only dips when you use the shower no problem.

 

 

Thanks. I used the calculator again and it gives me 35mm2 for 40 Amp, 180 meter. And 25 mm2 for 30 Amp, i.e. 6,900 Watts. We will not have air conditioned, but the main appliances that will require some power and work (possibly in the same time but sometimes not) will be : refrigerator, microwave, a simple shower heater, air purifier, air cooler, usual power tools and ordinary concrete mixer. Total: about 6000 - 6500 Watts. So it should be fine, even if we need to use more power in the future, we will have cold showers for a while (saving 3500 W) ????

 

[Crossy]

Yeah, with that minimal load you should be good to go.

 

If it ever becomes an issue you can always double up on the cable.