Russian teen electrocuted at public basketball court in Pattaya - faulty wiring to blame?

[radiochaser]

On 12/16/2022 at 11:14 AM, asean said:

This is probably what happened, as i nearly got shocked at the beach last weekend from same thing.... a fruit smoothie street vendor 'tapped" into the city electric circuit that powered the beach lights. The uninsulated cable was touching the fence above me and had I not noticed a spark I could have been another statistic.

 

Tragic for the Russian boy and his family.

When I stayed in Thai police apartments (when on vacation) I watched a man building security frames for the balcony of one apartment.  He had his welder power cord run to the electric meter box in the stairway.  I went over to see how he was getting electricity for the welder because I had never seen any electric outlet that could be plugged into. 

The man had wrapped the two leads from the welder around bare wires behind one of the meters then left the door open.  Shook my head and walked away.   I later saw children looking at the same connection which was within their reach.   

I have had more electric shocks from devices in Thailand such as computers, refrigerators, and hot water heaters in the shower, when visiting Thailand since 1988, than I have in my over 70 years of life here in the U.S. of A.   

 

[Boyn]

On 12/19/2022 at 9:38 AM, xylophone said:

Combine those two and you have a recipe for disaster.......

Since i wrote my comment i have been up into my roof to look at the wiring , i cant put into words the mess up there ,nothing but tape joints and cable thrown everywhere. To say its dangerous would be an understatement. I am a qualified sparky so i know what im looking at. Remedial work starting now.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

13 hours ago, Boyn said:

Since i wrote my comment i have been up into my roof to look at the wiring , i cant put into words the mess up there ,nothing but tape joints and cable thrown everywhere. To say its dangerous would be an understatement. I am a qualified sparky so i know what im looking at. Remedial work starting now.

 

Taped joints would have been an improvement on the bare wires up in the roof of the family house.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 12/20/2022 at 8:14 AM, radiochaser said:

When I stayed in Thai police apartments (when on vacation) I watched a man building security frames for the balcony of one apartment.  He had his welder power cord run to the electric meter box in the stairway.  I went over to see how he was getting electricity for the welder because I had never seen any electric outlet that could be plugged into. 

The man had wrapped the two leads from the welder around bare wires behind one of the meters then left the door open.  Shook my head and walked away.   I later saw children looking at the same connection which was within their reach.   

I have had more electric shocks from devices in Thailand such as computers, refrigerators, and hot water heaters in the shower, when visiting Thailand since 1988, than I have in my over 70 years of life here in the U.S. of A.   

 

I can better that.

I discovered a knife switch in the family house carport that was wired directly to the live cables outside the house ie no safety breaker at all, and missing the cover, which meant anyone touching any metal part would fry. Cunningly, a load of stuff was put over it so one didn't know it was there till tidying up the carport.

My SafeT Cut wouldn't have saved me from that one.

I covered it up with a plastic box, and actually used it to run an arc welder that kept tripping the circuit breaker.

[xylophone]

14 hours ago, Boyn said:

Since i wrote my comment i have been up into my roof to look at the wiring , i cant put into words the mess up there ,nothing but tape joints and cable thrown everywhere. To say its dangerous would be an understatement. I am a qualified sparky so i know what im looking at. Remedial work starting now.

 

When I bought my first house here I found that I couldn't isolate the supply to the aircon in the main bedroom, and luckily enough I didn't get a shock because I tested it and even though I had switched everything off at the distribution board, the thing was still live – – then I found out why. It was wired directly from the supply coming from the pole outside the house before it even reached the distribution board, so it was never able to be isolated, which I soon remedied, being a qualified sparky like you.

 

None of the socket outlets in the kitchen were earthed, hence the reason my girlfriend was getting shocks from the oven, so after much inspection and testing I ran a separate earth and sunk an earthing rod outside the house, and ran an earth wire to all of the socket outlets from there (amongst other things) and that fixed it.

When I bought a second house to do up and sell, I encountered exactly the same stuff as you have and had to remedy that before I sold the place.

 

I was absolutely amazed at the state of the wiring in many of the places here, and still occasionally come across this when I'm asked to do a favour for someone because "something in their house isn't working properly". Amazing Thailand!
 

[jacko45k]

5 hours ago, xylophone said:

When I bought my first house here I found that I couldn't isolate the supply to the aircon in the main bedroom, and luckily enough I didn't get a shock because I tested it and even though I had switched everything off at the distribution board, the thing was still live – – then I found out why. It was wired directly from the supply coming from the pole outside the house

Yes, a bad arrangement. At my place the gate motor is tapped off upstream of the main distribution panel from a box on the outside wall. They did at least put a breaker on it. My maids room is fed from a single 32 amp breaker and no downstream DP.... lighting circuits fed with a 32 amp breaker!

[Boyn]

10 hours ago, xylophone said:

When I bought my first house here I found that I couldn't isolate the supply to the aircon in the main bedroom, and luckily enough I didn't get a shock because I tested it and even though I had switched everything off at the distribution board, the thing was still live – – then I found out why. It was wired directly from the supply coming from the pole outside the house before it even reached the distribution board, so it was never able to be isolated, which I soon remedied, being a qualified sparky like you.

 

None of the socket outlets in the kitchen were earthed, hence the reason my girlfriend was getting shocks from the oven, so after much inspection and testing I ran a separate earth and sunk an earthing rod outside the house, and ran an earth wire to all of the socket outlets from there (amongst other things) and that fixed it.

When I bought a second house to do up and sell, I encountered exactly the same stuff as you have and had to remedy that before I sold the place.

 

I was absolutely amazed at the state of the wiring in many of the places here, and still occasionally come across this when I'm asked to do a favour for someone because "something in their house isn't working properly". Amazing Thailand!
 

I have now discovered i can not isolate my pool pump room i have no idea where the supply comes from , only one set of tails leave the meter and only one set arrive at consumer unit ,so there must be some sort of underground joint. I also have no earth so will need to provide an earth stake.

[Boyn]

11 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Taped joints would have been an improvement on the bare wires up in the roof of the family house.

yes but the price of tape not something you can use rashly.

[radiochaser]

I don't know if this is an off topic question or not.      Here in the U.S. of A. I have devices I use to plug in and check the wiring in electrical outlets.  It tells me if there is an "open ground", "open neutral", "open hot", "hot and ground reversed", "hot and neutral reversed", and "correct wiring".   The device also has a button I can push which will activate a GFCI (I don't remember the term I have seen used on Aseannow forums), which shuts off power off to electrical outlets.   

This device is for 120 volts here in the U.S. is there an equivalent plug in device I can purchase in Thailand in say, a Home Pro store that is for 220 volts that I can use to check two prong and 3 prong outlets to verify that the outlet is wired correctly?

Also, is there a way to use a multi meter to check hot water heater electrical feeds to see if the heater is wired incorrectly (even if it heats water)?   I really do not want to feel that electrical tingle when I am taking a shower, much less to be electrocuted and end up naked and dead on the floor of the shower!!!

I am not a sparky, even though I have found and corrected miss wired electrical devices here in the U.S. of A.!

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by radiochaser

[jacko45k]

11 hours ago, Boyn said:

I have now discovered i can not isolate my pool pump room i have no idea where the supply comes from , only one set of tails leave the meter and only one set arrive at consumer unit ,so there must be some sort of underground joint. I also have no earth so will need to provide an earth stake.

Is the pool room located roughly between the meter outside and the DP in the house? A lot of what they do is to save on cable and they may have tapped off between the two at say a box on an outside wall. It obviously needs some breaker as anything simply jointed upstream has the potential to support very high currents. If you have switched off your main house breaker and the pool house still has power that is a worry. 

[Boyn]

10 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Is the pool room located roughly between the meter outside and the DP in the house? A lot of what they do is to save on cable and they may have tapped off between the two at say a box on an outside wall. It obviously needs some breaker as anything simply jointed upstream has the potential to support very high currents. If you have switched off your main house breaker and the pool house still has power that is a worry. 

Yes it is a worry, there is nothing i can see around the house inside or out , i would say its an underground joint somewhere, just another bodge .

[jacko45k]

13 hours ago, Boyn said:

Yes it is a worry, there is nothing i can see around the house inside or out , i would say its an underground joint somewhere, just another bodge .

Do the cables arrive at the pool house to a breaker box/distribution panel? 

[Boyn]

10 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Do the cables arrive at the pool house to a breaker box/distribution panel? 

Yes they do but its single cables in conduit, no earth of course.

[jacko45k]

14 hours ago, Boyn said:

Yes they do but its single cables in conduit, no earth of course.

So a pretty big junction (100 amp cable) somewhere under the lawn or driveway eh.... I can see your concern!

[mahjongguy]

On 12/22/2022 at 1:54 AM, radiochaser said:

... is there an equivalent plug in device I can purchase in Thailand in say, a Home Pro store that is for 220 volts that I can use to check two prong and 3 prong outlets to verify that the outlet is wired correctly?.

Haven't seen one in Thai Watsadu etc. but Lazada has them.

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/i316566794-s634644285.html?urlFlag=true&mp=1&tradePath=omItm&spm=spm%3Da2o4m.order_details.item_title.1

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by mahjongguy

[Boyn]

10 hours ago, jacko45k said:

So a pretty big junction (100 amp cable) somewhere under the lawn or driveway eh.... I can see your concern!

Probably a tape joint in the garden somewhere.

[morrobay]

The whole place is booby trapped. These people are lucky if they can tie their shoes every morning. This is next to a light post in Jomtien. Step on this when it's raining...

[radiochaser]

On 12/23/2022 at 7:43 PM, mahjongguy said:

Haven't seen one in Thai Watsadu etc. but Lazada has them.

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/i316566794-s634644285.html?urlFlag=true&mp=1&tradePath=omItm&spm=spm%3Da2o4m.order_details.item_title.1

 

Thanks.  I looked at the picture in your post and thought, great, I would have to get someone to translate the Thai into English.  Then at the link (using google chrome to translate into English LOL) I found they sell them with English too. 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On 12/26/2022 at 9:54 PM, morrobay said:

The whole place is booby trapped. These people are lucky if they can tie their shoes every morning. This is next to a light post in Jomtien. Step on this when it's raining...

Be nice. They actually used shrink wrap instead of the usual insulation tape. LOL.

[balo]

So the boy picked up the basketball in the grass near the pole and got electrocuted?

Any other country in the world with normal safety standards this would not happen. 

Crazy. 


  

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, balo said:

So the boy picked up the basketball in the grass near the pole and got electrocuted?

Any other country in the world with normal safety standards this would not happen. 

Crazy. 


  

I don't recall reading about what exactly electrocuted him. Was it the pole, or something else?

[jacko45k]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I don't recall reading about what exactly electrocuted him. Was it the pole, or something else?

I thought he touched a chain link fence....