Repeated Power Cuts In Sankamphaeng

[msg362]

OK,

Now 3.30 in a Moo Baan just outside Sankamphaeng

12.50- no notice- power off for about 30 min

then on for 2 min, then off for two min then off for about 40 min

3.30, seems to be back on

I was working on a video edit which I saved because I a UPS

What about others?

Are there no dialysis machines/ cardiac res machines?

There was no wind/storm/rain so why?

why can't they lay a loop around when they instantly decide to stop the power?

I know Thais don't like to complain but is there nothing we ca do?

[gotlost]

You can call the power company and ask them whats going on. That number should be on your meter or billing bin box. This is not the west where the power companies give prior notice. I live in Doi Saket and the amount of unscheduled power outages has been un real. No notice..

[uptheos]

My house is by the river, just 10 minutes from Night Bazaar and Airport

It seems that every time the wind blows or a dark cloud appears, the electric in the whole area goes off.

It's annoying, but enquiries fall on deaf ears.

[twofortheroad]

Your concern for fellow sufferers is admirable. There were probably a considerable number of people on dialysis or cardiac machines in San Kamphaeng when the power cuts hit, but sadly they are probably no longer in a position to complain.

As the saying goes "You can complain until you're blue in the face, but it won't get you anywhere".

It's those people that were in the middle of a video edit, that don't have the benefit of UPS that I feel sorry for.

Edited June 24, 2010 by twofortheroad

[elektrified]

My house is by the river, just 10 minutes from Night Bazaar and Airport

It seems that every time the wind blows or a dark cloud appears, the electric in the whole area goes off.

It's annoying, but enquiries fall on deaf ears.

Ditto. Ruam Chok Market area of Sansai. Power goes off all the time; several times per week. Sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for up to 3 hours!

[FarangFlyer]

My house is by the river, just 10 minutes from Night Bazaar and Airport

It seems that every time the wind blows or a dark cloud appears, the electric in the whole area goes off.

It's annoying, but enquiries fall on deaf ears.

Ditto. Ruam Chok Market area of Sansai. Power goes off all the time; several times per week. Sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for up to 3 hours!

Same here in a moo ban area East of Ruam Chok. Regular power outages. I called the electricity helpline number printed on the electricity bill to complain on each ocassion (press 9 for english and skip all the thai pre-recorded crap). I lodged some 32 complaints in the past 3 months! Now when I call they say 'hello Mr G!' which makes me realise two things, 1. I have been complaining way too much, and 2. None of my Thai neighbours have been complaining! Each time I politely ask them to call me back with an ETA as to when the power will be back on, if it is a scheduled outage for maintenance, I have them call me 24 hours before (the printed notice is written in Thai!) and suggest to them that the power supply serving my area must surely have faulty equipment and should be replaced. You get the ocassional....'Have rain in Chiang Mai' bs, but I soon put them right! I asked for a written explaination from their management as to why my supply is so unreliable. They seemed to take that quite seriously, although I am sure I will never get it. Persistancy is key.

Finally, they have now been upgrading this equipment, and the electricity supply has been more reliable than ever in the past 14 days. On the last outage 2 weeks ago for 8 hours of maintenance, I insisted that they provide me with a generator to supply my house with electricity. I could not believe when it actually arrived outside my door 40 minutes later! Judging by the looks I got from some of my neighbours...neither could they!

[cmsally]

In the town centre (Tapae) power seems to have been particularly bad over the past couple of weeks. Before we have had no problems. Had a bad connection blow outside which they had to come and fix. Next morning power out for about an hour over the whole area - cause I don't know. And power regularly dips, enough to make fluorescent lights flicker and fans slow down.

If you want to call electric company don't bother with number on the bill (it goes to swtichboard in BKK).

Call CM electric office directly on 053241226

If outside city ask them if there is an alternative number to call.

I believe there is also another number for Huay Kaew district.

[millwall_fan]

My house is by the river, just 10 minutes from Night Bazaar and Airport

It seems that every time the wind blows or a dark cloud appears, the electric in the whole area goes off.

It's annoying, but enquiries fall on deaf ears.

Ditto. Ruam Chok Market area of Sansai. Power goes off all the time; several times per week. Sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for up to 3 hours!

Same here in a moo ban area East of Ruam Chok. Regular power outages. I called the electricity helpline number printed on the electricity bill to complain on each ocassion (press 9 for english and skip all the thai pre-recorded crap). I lodged some 32 complaints in the past 3 months! Now when I call they say 'hello Mr G!' which makes me realise two things, 1. I have been complaining way too much, and 2. None of my Thai neighbours have been complaining! Each time I politely ask them to call me back with an ETA as to when the power will be back on, if it is a scheduled outage for maintenance, I have them call me 24 hours before (the printed notice is written in Thai!) and suggest to them that the power supply serving my area must surely have faulty equipment and should be replaced. You get the ocassional....'Have rain in Chiang Mai' bs, but I soon put them right! I asked for a written explaination from their management as to why my supply is so unreliable. They seemed to take that quite seriously, although I am sure I will never get it. Persistancy is key.

Finally, they have now been upgrading this equipment, and the electricity supply has been more reliable than ever in the past 14 days. On the last outage 2 weeks ago for 8 hours of maintenance, I insisted that they provide me with a generator to supply my house with electricity. I could not believe when it actually arrived outside my door 40 minutes later! Judging by the looks I got from some of my neighbours...neither could they!

Well....I mean....full marks for getting what you want but...do you ever go out or relax...you do seem to be trying to replicate the efficiency of the West in Chiang Mai. I wonder what that generator would have been used for if they hadn't lent it to you in order to help you to not lose face....Cardiac machines? dialysis machines? - or others who really needed it?

[gotlost]

Thailand is continuing to upgrade and expand its infrastructure. Thailand is not the west never has been and never will be so to complain based on western attitude makes no sense and well not get you very far. About 2/3 of the way to Doi Saket on the south side of the 118 Highway is a brand new electrical substation that EGAT has put in also with new High and Low Voltage transmission line from the super highway pass Doi Saket. Back in February EGAT was doing the cut overs on the system and one day I counted 6 outages from 10 minutes to 1 hour.. In that month alone I counted 16 outages. Was I or my neighbours notified NO. Was I pleased NO but did I make a big thing out of it NO. The wife made one call to find out what was going on and I had plenty of cold beer. Now that the up grades have been made it is back to normal. Take life easy, this is not the west and things happen differently hear.

[NancyL]

Wow, the previous posters must have come from some really efficient countries! We live in Chiang Mai city and have been very pleased with the power reliability. It's much better than what we "enjoyed" living in Michigan where power outages were frequent and often happened in the coldest part of winter. Here the outages last for just a few hours, at the most, and are less frequent. In Michigan we had back-up generators, but we were running a business. Now the biggest inconvenience is that I don't want to open the refrigerator door during a power outage so the food will keep longer. So, we got a smaller second refrigerator that we use for beer and ice! End of inconvenience.

One nifty feature of our Michigan power company was their automated 800 number you called during an outage. You input a few items like your residence phone number and street address and an automated voice expressed regret for our outage and said it was noted. You could push another key to get an "estimate" of when power would be restored -- usually it was something totally frustrating like "day after tomorrow", which meant the power could come on in 2 hrs or 2 days.

[Donnyboy]

power outages can happen when its not rainy/windy/stormy

transformers sometimes blow from old age,lack of oil or maintenance

or someone may have taken out a power pole

otherwise it could be line maintenance

[cmsally]

power outages can happen when its not rainy/windy/stormy

transformers sometimes blow from old age,lack of oil or maintenance

or someone may have taken out a power pole

otherwise it could be line maintenance

What maintenance?

Seriously, I have never seen anything being maintained unless it packs out and has to be fixed/changed.

I believe one of the problems is that a lot of the work is contracted out, although the fixing is done by the electrical people.

[elektrified]

My house is by the river, just 10 minutes from Night Bazaar and Airport

It seems that every time the wind blows or a dark cloud appears, the electric in the whole area goes off.

It's annoying, but enquiries fall on deaf ears.

Ditto. Ruam Chok Market area of Sansai. Power goes off all the time; several times per week. Sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for up to 3 hours!

Same here in a moo ban area East of Ruam Chok. Regular power outages. I called the electricity helpline number printed on the electricity bill to complain on each ocassion (press 9 for english and skip all the thai pre-recorded crap). I lodged some 32 complaints in the past 3 months! Now when I call they say 'hello Mr G!' which makes me realise two things, 1. I have been complaining way too much, and 2. None of my Thai neighbours have been complaining! Each time I politely ask them to call me back with an ETA as to when the power will be back on, if it is a scheduled outage for maintenance, I have them call me 24 hours before (the printed notice is written in Thai!) and suggest to them that the power supply serving my area must surely have faulty equipment and should be replaced. You get the ocassional....'Have rain in Chiang Mai' bs, but I soon put them right! I asked for a written explaination from their management as to why my supply is so unreliable. They seemed to take that quite seriously, although I am sure I will never get it. Persistancy is key.

Finally, they have now been upgrading this equipment, and the electricity supply has been more reliable than ever in the past 14 days. On the last outage 2 weeks ago for 8 hours of maintenance, I insisted that they provide me with a generator to supply my house with electricity. I could not believe when it actually arrived outside my door 40 minutes later! Judging by the looks I got from some of my neighbours...neither could they!

Well....I mean....full marks for getting what you want but...do you ever go out or relax...you do seem to be trying to replicate the efficiency of the West in Chiang Mai. I wonder what that generator would have been used for if they hadn't lent it to you in order to help you to not lose face....Cardiac machines? dialysis machines? - or others who really needed it?

Yeah, really. I would have never even bothered to call. It happens all over Thailand often. This is not the west and never will be. I remember every time I ever came as a tourist to Thailand that there were power outages often. I usually just relax until the power is restored.

[gotlost]

Relax. Don't get you knickers in a knot. Have a beer and chill out.

[tigerbalm]

power outages can happen when its not rainy/windy/stormy

transformers sometimes blow from old age,lack of oil or maintenance

or someone may have taken out a power pole

otherwise it could be line maintenance

Quite agree jack of oil trades maintenance of none.

Edited June 26, 2010 by tigerbalm

[jackr]

Not too bad Mae Jo area. Don't mind the odd outage, it's the cycling off and on that does the damage. If it trips out, it should be staying off for at least a minute as opposed to mere seconds and screwing your bits n bobs.

Bearing in mind that the winds we've been having of late can also easily cause trees to sway against the HTs. There's also the possibility of lightning strikes of course.

With all the moobaans going up, though, could also be them knocking off to connect up, but more likely your area is overloaded and shits itself when everyone has their aircon on. My advice is to call them up and tell them if they don't sort their shit out, you'll cancel and buy a genny.

[genset]

Don't mind the odd outage, it's the cycling off and on that does the damage. If it trips out, it should be staying off for at least a minute as opposed to mere seconds and screwing your bits n bobs.

Hi Guys,

I have a thread running in the DIY Housing Forum called 'Generators in Thailand' which addresses the issue of standby power generation in the event of power-outages and also sustained brownout periods. It's been fairly quiet lately, so you may have to look back through my previous posts to find the thread, but it does contain a lot of info for anybody who's interested.

With a correctly manufactured Automatic Transfer Switch (transfers your home from Utility Supply to Generator Supply automatically when required), it is possible to adjust the ATS controller so that once a power outage or brownout occurs, it will wait until it senses a sustained, stable restoration of the Utility Supply before it shuts down the generator and transfers your home back from Generator to Utilty Supply. This avoids the cycling on and off of power to your home that can be not only annoying but potentially damaging to some electrical appliances.

Cheers, Genset...

Edited June 27, 2010 by genset

[millwall_fan]

Don't mind the odd outage, it's the cycling off and on that does the damage. If it trips out, it should be staying off for at least a minute as opposed to mere seconds and screwing your bits n bobs.

Hi Guys,

I have a thread running in the DIY Housing Forum called 'Generators in Thailand' which addresses the issue of standby power generation in the event of power-outages and also sustained brownout periods. It's been fairly quiet lately, so you may have to look back through my previous posts to find the thread, but it does contain a lot of info for anybody who's interested.

With a correctly manufactured Automatic Transfer Switch (transfers your home from Utility Supply to Generator Supply automatically when required), it is possible to adjust the ATS controller so that once a power outage or brownout occurs, it will wait until it senses a sustained, stable restoration of the Utility Supply before it shuts down the generator and transfers your home back from Generator to Utilty Supply. This avoids the cycling on and off of power to your home that can be not only annoying but potentially damaging to some electrical appliances.

Cheers, Genset...

I really must remember that "with a correctly manufactured Automatic transfer Switch it is possilbe to adjust the ATS controller so that once a power outage or brownout occurs it will wait until it senses a sustained, stable restoration of the Utility Supplybefore it shuts down the generator and transfers my home back fro generator to utility supply" I really feel that my life in Chiang Mai is going to benefit from this information and I thank Genset for taking time out to explain things ot us in such knowledgeable detail.

[gotlost]

This is the way that power outages should be announced but I have never seen anything like this in any news outlet for Chiang Mai.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/378973-blackout-in-phuket-tomorrow/