How close have you come to being electrocuted in Thailand?

[arick]

What's the closest you've got to being electrocuted. 

I had my kitchen redone and the electrician instead of going and redoing the switch left it as it was. I was washing up the kitchen and some of the bleach water ran underneath the counter through the electric hob and landed on the switch The whole of the kitchen went into orange glow. As I was running away with the cleaner in one hand. My Thai partner looked at me and said what have you done. An hour later after smoke settled. We went to take a look at first I thought it was the electric induction stove that shorted out but here it was just the plastic switch. 

[simon43]

No risk of electrocution, but an interesting event nevertheless.

 

Ex #3 was building a small hotel resort, and had a temporary electricity supply installed by the local PEA, with a breaker switch housed in a white plastic box and mounted on a wooden pole next to the building site.

 

Dopey brother-in-law decided to connect his arc welder to that supply, not a good idea since the welder needed a high current which the temporary supply couldn't handle....

 

They phoned me in the middle of the night with shouts of 'fire!'. (They used to work at night because it was cooler).  I wondered how they could set fire to buildings that were made of concrete!

 

I hurried to the building site and indeed there was a fire.  The breaker switch, plastic box and wooden pole were all in flames.

 

All that was left after the fire subsided were the charred PEA wires 🙂

 

[Ralf001]

I get tickled every time I touch my laptop case/3D printer/Fridge/water cooler/washing machine/etc etc etc.

 

Closest to really fried was when the shower water heater let smoke out after a loud bang, I was quick to get out !

[2baht]

 Yes, we can see his talent! 

[KhunLA]

In our house, very confident not a problem, as I double checked everything.  Use extreme caution in rentals or hotels.  Never grab a handle to turn water on.

 

Knocking around town, I don't touch anything with open hand.  If anything, rest the back of my and on step railings, and avoid all illuminated signs when raining or ground wet.

 

Was walking on walkway after a rain on Phuket, and a dog a few meters in front of us got zapped/killed.  Don't know if it was just stepping in the puddle, or it actually touch the 'illuminated sidewalk sign w/wheels".

 

Scared the sh!t out of me, as I was walking with my daughter and she could have easily touched the sign.  Rest of the journey was in the street.   Very eye opening how dangerous it can be here.

[BKKKevin]

Wearing flip flops…

So marked safe from electrocution… 

[Gsxrnz]

Was at a country wedding party and they had run a wire through the trees and suspended about 30 lights from the cable. On closer inspection, I saw the bulb holders were connected to the wires with two safety pins. I assumed maybe they were DC, but nope.  I traced the cable back to a 220v outlet.

[arick]

2 hours ago, KhunLA said:

In our house, very confident not a problem, as I double checked everything.  Use extreme caution in rentals or hotels.  Never grab a handle to turn water on.

 

Knocking around town, I don't touch anything with open hand.  If anything, rest the back of my and on step railings, and avoid all illuminated signs when raining or ground wet.

 

Was walking on walkway after a rain on Phuket, and a dog a few meters in front of us got zapped/killed.  Don't know if it was just stepping in the puddle, or it actually touch the 'illuminated sidewalk sign w/wheels".

 

Scared the sh!t out of me, as I was walking with my daughter and she could have easily touched the sign.  Rest of the journey was in the street.   Very eye opening how dangerous it can be here.

We had a local up the road was out early in the morning or in the night frog hunting and he touched open wire somebody's switch to the well pump and the next morning found him stiff as a doorknob.

[arick]

3 hours ago, Ralf001 said:

I get tickled every time I touch my laptop case/3D printer/Fridge/water cooler/washing machine/etc etc etc.

 

Closest to really fried was when the shower water heater let smoke out after a loud bang, I was quick to get out !

Yes it's quite common to get tickles from the back of your fridge from aluminum surfaces like the microwave or the back of your fridge.

[bbbbooboo]

Hmm… whats black, charred and hangs from the ceiling? A thai electrician. 

[norbra]

Survived many in Australia,here I have been zapped twice.

First time in un earthed house with Safety cutout MCB that was tripping frequently for no apparent reason,trying to eliminate possible defects got caught out checking the external front doorbell button mounted in a cast iron gate post.

A bit of a surprise that my normal reactions (in AUS I would immediately be a metre away ) didn't kick in as I looked around for a safe landing spot.

The second followed immediately after kitchen modernization including providing earth cabling to all power outlets etc which was done while I was in AUS.

First touch of the microwave revealed that the active was connected to the microwave frame,so no protection from the Safety cutout MCB

[ross163103]

Supposedly my house is grounded but I started getting tingles from the shower faucet, disconnected the water heater. Now I love cold showers! I never trust the electricity over here, even walking down a footpath I never touch any metal poles or anything with electricity connected to it. Too many horror stories over here of people getting elctrocuted, especially in the rainy season. 

 

One time I was going to have an electrician--and I use that term loosely, install a water heater in one of my showers. To test it I told him after he was done I wanted him to stand in the shower with the water on and turn it on, he never came back to do the job. I thought it was a reasonble request. If you trust your work it wouldn't have been a problem.

 

 

On 7/6/2024 at 10:55 AM, arick said:

Yes it's quite common to get tickles from the back of your fridge from aluminum surfaces like the microwave or the back of your fridge.

That's why in the villages they have some sort of cloth on the handles of refridgerators.

[J Branche]

Guy hired to replace electric Hob looked at my voltmeter, ignored it and touched the wires to check the electric.

 

On nightly walk the voltage detector was out on the table so decided to test some of the electric poles and wires that are directly on sidewalk.  Probably 10% showed high detection level.  Thai Massage shop ladies asked and girlfriend told them what I was doing.  One moved her motorbike away from the pole.

[rwill]

That is a circuit breaker switch.  Normally the breakers are placed inside of a case.  Even in the case on the top where the wires come in(or out) there is space for water to run in.  Best to use silicone to seal around it if it is somewhere it can be exposed to water.

[Confuscious]

Closest to electrocution was about 10 years ago, when my water heater turned faulty.
The water made contact with a heating element and the water at the tap was conducting electricity (220V)
Lucky for me, I only get a light electric shock from the water and turned the electricity OFF.
If this would have been happen as I stepped in the shower, I would not been writing this.
 

[simon43]

I forgot about this incident 🙂  I was living in a rented house in Phuket with a water tank atop a metal tower, about 5 metres in height and located next to the house.

 

Great I thought.  Just the place to attach my radio antenna!  So I climbed up the tower and stood next to the plastic water tank while I adjusted my metal antenna rods.  Unfortunately, the end of one of the rods came into contact with the 220 volts on an open water level switch and got stuck there!

 

I dropped the antenna after the first electric shock, but then it was in contact with the metal tower and the whole structure became live at 220 volts with me on the top of the water tower jumping up and down like a live prawn in a hot frying pan!

 

I was about to throw myself off the tower and onto (through!) the concrete roof of my house, when luckily my foot kicked the antenna and it came away from the water switch...

 

I think my hair was standing on end for the rest of the week!!

[rickudon]

I was trying to plug a light extension lead into a a plug on an extension lead and it was hard to push in. I grabbed hold of the extension plug hard and got an electric shock from a screw holding it together, Numbed my whole forearm. All because the shop i went to didn't have the extension plug i wanted. At our house we have about 5 manufactured extension leads with multiple plug points where at least one plug socket has  melted and another that no longer works! Always now very careful to only turn on AFTER connecting everything up. In the UK, only ever had this happen  once in 50 years.

[ChaiyaTH]

Funny post to read, we had a short circuit caused by a rat eating our electric cables (he/she died due to that), we were almost electrocuted in the shower after aside from having a high chance of burning down the house. It took 5 electriciens and a serious threat to the landlord to find the issue, after being shocked hardcore a few times myself with 'temporary weird fixes'. At the end they found out several other major issues of wrong wired things as well.....

 

Then a week later, I hade a dangerous snake in my house on top of that, waiting to jump on my at the stairways. Life is good, still alive.

[ChaiyaTH]

Just a week ago there was some video clip on the facebook page of CP or 7/11, saying how amazingly proud they were on staff trying to take off a fire with water on a electrical pole..... It had ten thousands of likes and comments, all in the positive, I guess just as positive as the electric was.

 

So much for basic logic in one of the richest companies, posting on their social media pages applauding .....

[arick]

16 hours ago, rwill said:

That is a circuit breaker switch.  Normally the breakers are placed inside of a case.  Even in the case on the top where the wires come in(or out) there is space for water to run in.  Best to use silicone to seal around it if it is somewhere it can be exposed to water.

Will silicone around the wire hole. Also around the hob

[arick]

17 hours ago, Sticky Rice Balls said:

my gecko bbq dinner...just waiting on one of the big ones....

Samsung air conditioners love ghekos. But I don't like the repair bills so no Samsung's in my house.

[kennypowers]

Koh Samui, 2008. A resort in Bang Rak. Woke in the night and reached over to turn on the lamp. Fondled for the switch but touched a part of the lamp near the bulb. Was thrown across the double bed and fell onto the floor. I was in shock, literally. No idea why it happened, and neither did reception. I am no electrician, but presume a wiring fault or poor grounding?

[n00dle]

I have had a few close calls. I remember a rain full moon party where the entire bar structure was live to the touch.

I also had a maid nearly burn my house down using a phone charger her husband had repaired.  

[ross163103]

All these stories above--and my own experiences over here, lead to two conclusions; 

 

Don't trust anything electrical over here--unless you're a certified electrician and can check it out yourself.

Don't touch anything electrical over here unless you're 100% sure it's not live.

 

These two rules have served me well.

[GarryP]

Many years ago I was staying on a raft/bungalow which was moored at the river bank and had it's electricity supplied from the owners house. It had been raining and as I walked around the raft and grabbed the corrugated roofing I got a massive shock which sent me flying for a short distance. Luckily, there was a fence around the raft which saved me from ending up in the river. I was stunned for quite a while.

[NotEinstein]

In my computer engineer days in the 80's I was called to a city stock broker to repair a non-starting CDC 9766 300MB exchangeable disk drive which used a large motor to spin the pack - I put my fingers on the start capacitor and started to 'white out' until I fell away - had some nice burn marks on two finger tips as a souvenir!

[simon43]

The worst electrical shocks that I've had were not in Thailand - they were in the days of valve radio transmitters that I used to build - some of these large glass valves (beautiful when lit), have got a couple of thousand volts DC on the metal top cap.  I got a shock of 1,600 volts from a transmitter that I was testing - literally flew across the room!

 

Here in Thailand, if I have to touch anything made of metal - lamp-posts, railings etc, I always tap it quickly with my finger before making a firmer grip....

 

[FruitPudding]

On 7/8/2024 at 2:18 PM, norbra said:

Survived many in Australia,here I have been zapped twice.

First time in un earthed house with Safety cutout MCB that was tripping frequently for no apparent reason,trying to eliminate possible defects got caught out checking the external front doorbell button mounted in a cast iron gate post.

A bit of a surprise that my normal reactions (in AUS I would immediately be a metre away ) didn't kick in as I looked around for a safe landing spot.

The second followed immediately after kitchen modernization including providing earth cabling to all power outlets etc which was done while I was in AUS.

First touch of the microwave revealed that the active was connected to the microwave frame,so no protection from the Safety cutout MCB

 

Sorry to be a lexical f@nny, but you didn't survive an electrocution.

 

You survived an electric shock.

[FruitPudding]

I got zapped a few times (in my previous profession). Nothing major. 

 

I did get indirectly shocked by lightning in Thailand though, ironically because I insisted on my house being earthed. 

 

 

[norbra]

7 hours ago, FruitPudding said:

 

Sorry to be a lexical f@nny, but you didn't survive an electrocution.

 

You survived an electric shock.

Where did I mention that I was electrocuted?