Craftsman To Check Grounding Of Electricity Of House

[THAIPHUKET]

House is well built, 30 years old, but would like to check wiring. Prompted by this http://www.thaivisa....zero-connected/

Who in Chiang Mai is reliable?

[worgeordie]

Thaiphuket, Good Luck trying to find a Thai that understands

that electrical circuits need to be earthed (grounded for our US friends]

the simple premise seems to be 2 wires good, 3 wires bad !!

Thats why so many Thais and Farangs are electrocuted here every year,

good luck finding your expert electrician

regards Worgeordie

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Seems unlikely that a 30 year old house has any grounding. Also grounding is not really required for most areas in the house. Also in Europe it's common mostly in kitchens, wash area for the washing machine, etc.

I'd select the places where grounding would be beneficial and then just run a ground wire. For my house I had it done in an office area and in the kitchen. It doesn't cost much.

[Semper]

Seems unlikely that a 30 year old house has any grounding. Also grounding is not really required for most areas in the house. Also in Europe it's common mostly in kitchens, wash area for the washing machine, etc.

I'd select the places where grounding would be beneficial and then just run a ground wire. For my house I had it done in an office area and in the kitchen. It doesn't cost much.

Bathroom?

[elektrified]

Just go to Global House or wherever and buy yourself a ground or earth rod and pound it in to the ground of your property with a sledge hammer. Attach a copper ground clamp. Run a 10-6 gauge wire to the receptacle(s) you want to ground. This is far less than perfect but better than you will get with a Thai electrician. To do it correctly you need to rewire your entire house and run ground wires all over the house to the ground buss bar in the panel which you don't have. We had a top guy come from San Kampheng one time and he couldn't understand why we wanted grounds! I had to insist. He bought a cheap ground rod, no clamp and ran 14 gauge 15 amp wire. Be sure your water heater in the shower is grounded.

Edited March 17, 2012 by elektrified

[Dellboy218]

If you do not have one fitted then whoever you get to check your house get him/her to fix in an earth leakage circuit breaker to cover the house , commonly sold here as a ''Safe T cut''. They are a lifesaver.

[Greenside]

Firstly, go pose the question about the minimum requirements for safety and peace of mind on the DIY Forum - there are several very knowledgeable and helpful members there who will give you sound advice. Don't just go banging in grounding rods any old place.

Sadly, the terms craftsman and electrical are seldom found in the same sentence here in Thailand.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Seems unlikely that a 30 year old house has any grounding. Also grounding is not really required for most areas in the house. Also in Europe it's common mostly in kitchens, wash area for the washing machine, etc.

I'd select the places where grounding would be beneficial and then just run a ground wire. For my house I had it done in an office area and in the kitchen. It doesn't cost much.

Bathroom?

Right, bathroom too. Especially if there is an electric water heater.

[Dante99]

Several past threads about electricians with some recommendations of qualified people.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

No matter how highly recommended and/or personally impressive the electrician, if he is Thai in the end you have to check it yourself anyway. The instrument is cheap and the process not difficult to learn - google is your friend.

[Dante99]

No matter how highly recommended and/or personally impressive the electrician, if he is Thai in the end you have to check it yourself anyway. The instrument is cheap and the process not difficult to learn - google is your friend.

"if he is Thai"

That demonstrates ignorance and is disgusting if not outright racist.

Disgusting is my opinion, ignorance is a fact because there are many Thais who do competent electrical work.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

"if he is Thai"

That demonstrates ignorance and is disgusting if not outright racist.

Disgusting is my opinion, ignorance is a fact because there are many Thais who do competent electrical work.

Wanna bet your life on it? Perhaps in other areas, but very rarely concerning proper grounding in my experience.

I didn't mean to imply Burmese/Laotians/Cambodians would be any better mind you, but I would **tend** to trust a farang electrician - one that was actually licensed back home.

But I'd probably check myself then as well anyway, since foreigners living here long-term seem to somehow get infected with so many local habits.

Seriously I love the Thais, they are superior to farang in so many ways, I've learned a lot of great value living here, but properly grounding electrical systems here is very rare, even at very expensive projects supervised by foreigners - witness the ongoing deaths by electrocution at international beach resorts - most recently in Phuket.

I'd hate for one's desire to be politically correct to cost them their life.

Not to mention the fact that your electronics burn out so much more quickly. However the poor quality of mains power here - even in large cities, not to mention upcountry, also causes similar problems, hence all my computers are on full-time pass-through UPS, as is my A/V system - well worth the extra expense.

[uptoyoumyfriend]

when i had the house built there was only one inspection and they insisted on grounding otherwise there would have been no electrical service.

a third wire was then run to all receptacles etc. and connected to the grounding rod.

to this day i still don't understand the reason since when you have two wires one is usually the hot or the phase and the other one the ground. most appliances have only two connections at the plug for that matter.some time ago when things had a metal housing it was this that was connected to a separate ground.but now it is all plastic and now there are two seperate wires form every outlet going to the same g-rod.

[Dante99]

"if he is Thai"

That demonstrates ignorance and is disgusting if not outright racist.

Disgusting is my opinion, ignorance is a fact because there are many Thais who do competent electrical work.

Wanna bet your life on it? Perhaps in other areas, but very rarely concerning proper grounding in my experience.

I didn't mean to imply Burmese/Laotians/Cambodians would be any better mind you, but I would **tend** to trust a farang electrician - one that was actually licensed back home.

But I'd probably check myself then as well anyway, since foreigners living here long-term seem to somehow get infected with so many local habits.

Seriously I love the Thais, they are superior to farang in so many ways, I've learned a lot of great value living here, but properly grounding electrical systems here is very rare, even at very expensive projects supervised by foreigners - witness the ongoing deaths by electrocution at international beach resorts - most recently in Phuket.

I'd hate for one's desire to be politically correct to cost them their life.

Not to mention the fact that your electronics burn out so much more quickly. However the poor quality of mains power here - even in large cities, not to mention upcountry, also causes similar problems, hence all my computers are on full-time pass-through UPS, as is my A/V system - well worth the extra expense.

Sure I will bet my life on it and have been for over 20 years everyday just like everyone else in Thailand does who is anywhere near anything electrical.

What exactly is your experience? How many homes have you built in Thailand? How many electricians have you used for significant amounts of work? How many quality electricians, ones with experience on big jobs and top quality homes that charged you at least 50% more than the average rate?

[Ultrarelativistic]

>Dante99:

>Sure I will bet my life on it and have been for over 20 years everyday just like everyone else in Thailand does who is anywhere near anything electrical.

>

>What exactly is your experience? How many homes have you built in Thailand? How many electricians have you used for significant amounts of work? How many quality electricians, ones with experience >on big jobs and top quality homes that charged you at least 50% more than the average rate?

It wouldn't matter how much evidence he had or if he could prove he had built 100 homes in Thailand. You have already made up your mind on this one. And that's OK. No problem.

Killed by your own political correctness - I didn't know that was possible, until now...

[Dellboy218]

when i had the house built there was only one inspection and they insisted on grounding otherwise there would have been no electrical service.

a third wire was then run to all receptacles etc. and connected to the grounding rod.

to this day i still don't understand the reason since when you have two wires one is usually the hot or the phase and the other one the ground. most appliances have only two connections at the plug for that matter.some time ago when things had a metal housing it was this that was connected to a separate ground.but now it is all plastic and now there are two seperate wires form every outlet going to the same g-rod.

If I may, thats not quite correct. One is phase and the other nuetral. The nuetral is normally grounded at a power/sub station which may be some considerable distance from you. Practically that means it is not at earth potential by the time it gets to you. When I lived in the UK there was about 70 volts difference between my local earth and the power company earth, better to have your own. If the ground is rocky or very dry it is also not going to be very good as an earth either. A lot of equipment these days is ''double insulated'' which does not require an earth, this is denoted by the small square within a square marking stamped into the body.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Dellboy218

[WinnieTheKhwai]

No matter how highly recommended and/or personally impressive the electrician, if he is Thai in the end you have to check it yourself anyway. The instrument is cheap and the process not difficult to learn - google is your friend.

"if he is Thai"

That demonstrates ignorance and is disgusting if not outright racist.

Disgusting is my opinion, ignorance is a fact because there are many Thais who do competent electrical work.

Thank you; I thought exactly the same, but just couldn't be bothered to point this out -yet again- to the haters.

People like that really drag the forum down; it's embarrassing.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

It's not like I think the problem with lack of grounding in the kingdom is due to DNA, this has nothing to do with "racism". I'm not a "hater", far from it, I vastly prefer the company of common Thais to common farang, and as I've said many times have learned many valuable lessons in how to live life here that would have been hard to find back home.

Perhaps the problem is my use of the term "electrician", which in more developed countries implies someone with formal training, certification, perhaps even some sort of government-regulated licensing scheme. The fact is that 99% of the electrical (and plumbing) work here is done by self-taught handyman types. For myself, if someone claims to know how to do electrical work, I'll refer to them as an "electrician", and then judge them by the quality of their work. Just as many farang living here are called "teachers", although they may not have much formal training in that profession.

If you're paying for a loved one's English classes, and you found out the teacher was a Thai national, do you think it would be sensible to just assume they're going to get a good education? Is expressing the thought that the odds of that are slim "racist"? I don't think so - AFAIC it's an objective fact that most Thai teachers of English have a very very low grasp of the language themselves. I'm not sure if the ratio among Thai nationals of

"competent English teacher" : "all English teachers"

is higher or lower than

"people who do routinely do proper grounding" : "all people doing electrical work"

but I'd be willing to bet neither is in the double digits as a percentage.

So, the crux of the matter - I think the process of training and "certifying" electricians here is flawed - are there even any laws about licensing issues? If so they aren't enforced in normal circumstances. I'm sure there are firms that have internal training and quality control procedures in place that ensure these things are done properly, but how can the customer effectively verify these? Are you going to rely on their marketing materials? Word of mouth? I'd only trust a recommendation from someone I knew had the prerequisite technical knowledge and experience to know.

IMO it's much easier to simply check the outcome at your own site.

As for my experience, I'm not in the building business, just coming from an end user POV. I have rented office space in Bangkok "class A" space (CP Tower on Silom Road) where the ground turned out to be connected to water pipes, perhaps sound in theory but in fact there wasn't a proper ground.

Out of eight private rooms/houses that I've rented, only one had good grounding, and it was a shophouse that turned out used to be a CAD workshop using expensive electronics.

I'm not saying that **all** Thai electricians are clueless on this topic. I **am** saying that **I personally** would check for proper grounding myself, and I advise anyone reading this to do the same.

The problem is that sometimes people think they know how to do something when they don't. Or they honestly believe it isn't important. Or they would lose face by admitting they don't know, so they pretend they do.

If you think just paying more money guarantees solid grounding, that's your right - I would still advise checking. If you write your contract so that your final payment isn't made until the owner of the contracting firm has personally certified that the grounding is OK - speaking for myself I'd still check 8-)

[CMHomeboy78]

No matter how highly recommended and/or personally impressive the electrician, if he is Thai in the end you have to check it yourself anyway. The instrument is cheap and the process not difficult to learn - google is your friend.

"if he is Thai"

That demonstrates ignorance and is disgusting if not outright racist.

Disgusting is my opinion, ignorance is a fact because there are many Thais who do competent electrical work.

Thank you; I thought exactly the same, but just couldn't be bothered to point this out -yet again- to the haters.

People like that really drag the forum down; it's embarrassing.

These are the idiots who are spoiling the scene for all of us.

[OldGringo]

It's not like I think the problem with lack of grounding in the kingdom is due to DNA, this has nothing to do with "racism". I'm not a "hater", far from it, I vastly prefer the company of common Thais to common farang, and as I've said many times have learned many valuable lessons in how to live life here that would have been hard to find back home.

Perhaps the problem is my use of the term "electrician", which in more developed countries implies someone with formal training, certification, perhaps even some sort of government-regulated licensing scheme. The fact is that 99% of the electrical (and plumbing) work here is done by self-taught handyman types. For myself, if someone claims to know how to do electrical work, I'll refer to them as an "electrician", and then judge them by the quality of their work. Just as many farang living here are called "teachers", although they may not have much formal training in that profession.

If you're paying for a loved one's English classes, and you found out the teacher was a Thai national, do you think it would be sensible to just assume they're going to get a good education? Is expressing the thought that the odds of that are slim "racist"? I don't think so - AFAIC it's an objective fact that most Thai teachers of English have a very very low grasp of the language themselves. I'm not sure if the ratio among Thai nationals of

"competent English teacher" : "all English teachers"

is higher or lower than

"people who do routinely do proper grounding" : "all people doing electrical work"

but I'd be willing to bet neither is in the double digits as a percentage.

So, the crux of the matter - I think the process of training and "certifying" electricians here is flawed - are there even any laws about licensing issues? If so they aren't enforced in normal circumstances. I'm sure there are firms that have internal training and quality control procedures in place that ensure these things are done properly, but how can the customer effectively verify these? Are you going to rely on their marketing materials? Word of mouth? I'd only trust a recommendation from someone I knew had the prerequisite technical knowledge and experience to know.

IMO it's much easier to simply check the outcome at your own site.

As for my experience, I'm not in the building business, just coming from an end user POV. I have rented office space in Bangkok "class A" space (CP Tower on Silom Road) where the ground turned out to be connected to water pipes, perhaps sound in theory but in fact there wasn't a proper ground.

Out of eight private rooms/houses that I've rented, only one had good grounding, and it was a shophouse that turned out used to be a CAD workshop using expensive electronics.

I'm not saying that **all** Thai electricians are clueless on this topic. I **am** saying that **I personally** would check for proper grounding myself, and I advise anyone reading this to do the same.

The problem is that sometimes people think they know how to do something when they don't. Or they honestly believe it isn't important. Or they would lose face by admitting they don't know, so they pretend they do.

If you think just paying more money guarantees solid grounding, that's your right - I would still advise checking. If you write your contract so that your final payment isn't made until the owner of the contracting firm has personally certified that the grounding is OK - speaking for myself I'd still check 8-)

You talk too much, Johnny.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

It's not like I think the problem with lack of grounding in the kingdom is due to DNA, this has nothing to do with "racism". I'm not a "hater", far from it, I vastly prefer the company of common Thais to common farang, and as I've said many times have learned many valuable lessons in how to live life here that would have been hard to find back home.

Thanks for that; I guess it's in the semantics, because I would of course agree with you that many (most?) of the local 'handymen' are pretty much cowboys who aren't qualified or knowledgeable enough to work on electrical installations without supervision. Just I'd never word it as an ethnical trait. There are good ones too; somebody built the BTS Skytrain after all, and many other solid electrical engineering projects.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

You talk too much, Johnny.

Sorry about that. If it annoys you, then perhaps you're reading too much 8-)

Feel free to killfile me.

Thanks for that; I guess it's in the semantics, because I would of course agree with you that many (most?) of the local 'handymen' are pretty much cowboys who aren't qualified or knowledgeable enough to work on electrical installations without supervision. Just I'd never word it as an ethnical trait. There are good ones too; somebody built the BTS Skytrain after all, and many other solid electrical engineering projects.

I think the western PC brigade has gone way overboard in forbidding discussion of differences that tend to follow sex/ethnic/racial/religious/sexual preference etc. lines. All generalizations are going to be inaccurate - as long as you keep that in mind, doesn't mean they aren't occasionally useful from a practical POV.

BTW the electronic components of the BTS were installed by Siemens. The actual construction work was originally supposed to go to SNC-Lavalin, a Canadian firm, but political interference caused this to change to "Italian Thai".

I'm sure there were lots of Thai electricians involved at the ground level, but I'd be surprised if you there weren't foreigners involved further up the food chain, writing the detailed specifications and quality-control followup. I'd also bet that although the main train-connected electrical systems are all well-grounded, if you go out to the storage areas, repair yards etc and check the container-offices and workshops, you'd find a lot of improperly grounded circuits.

[Dante99]

I vastly prefer the company of common Thais to common farang

So go chat with them and leave us common farang free of your drivel.

[elektrified]

when i had the house built there was only one inspection and they insisted on grounding otherwise there would have been no electrical service.

a third wire was then run to all receptacles etc. and connected to the grounding rod.

to this day i still don't understand the reason since when you have two wires one is usually the hot or the phase and the other one the ground. most appliances have only two connections at the plug for that matter.some time ago when things had a metal housing it was this that was connected to a separate ground.but now it is all plastic and now there are two seperate wires form every outlet going to the same g-rod.

If I may, thats not quite correct. One is phase and the other nuetral. The nuetral is normally grounded at a power/sub station which may be some considerable distance from you. Practically that means it is not at earth potential by the time it gets to you. When I lived in the UK there was about 70 volts difference between my local earth and the power company earth, better to have your own. If the ground is rocky or very dry it is also not going to be very good as an earth either. A lot of equipment these days is ''double insulated'' which does not require an earth, this is denoted by the small square within a square marking stamped into the body.

Totally correct. There is a proper way to insert the ground rod in the soil using a chemical or some good soil and charcoal to insure good earth ground. I didn't get too much into detail in my previous post. Also the stranded copper ground wire needs to be welded to the clamp on the ground rod. I have not seen that in Thailand.

[elektrified]

No matter how highly recommended and/or personally impressive the electrician, if he is Thai in the end you have to check it yourself anyway. The instrument is cheap and the process not difficult to learn - google is your friend.

"if he is Thai"

That demonstrates ignorance and is disgusting if not outright racist.

Disgusting is my opinion, ignorance is a fact because there are many Thais who do competent electrical work.

Thank you; I thought exactly the same, but just couldn't be bothered to point this out -yet again- to the haters.

People like that really drag the forum down; it's embarrassing.

+1

[nattydread]

i can see i have got u a little worried old buddy after we were dicussing this in your house the other week

as one of the other posters said fit a Safe T Cut electrical box that has an RCBO cot out switch.......cost about 4000 baht for a 6 switch version

theres a couple of electrical shops near CM gate that could probably point u towards a reputable electrician

[Dellboy218]

i can see i have got u a little worried old buddy after we were dicussing this in your house the other week

as one of the other posters said fit a Safe T Cut electrical box that has an RCBO cot out switch.......cost about 4000 baht for a 6 switch version

theres a couple of electrical shops near CM gate that could probably point u towards a reputable electrician

Or Global House, they have a selection of them and doubtless someone to fit it as well.

[dhrobertson]

Please be sure of the facts when giving advice.

There are two reasons for having a ground connection

1) By connecting exposed conductive parts of all equipment to the main body of the earth, there can be no potential difference between anything and therefore no chance of shock.

2) A separate ground allows faults to be identified and circuits to be disconnecting automatically.

Whereas neutral is connected to ground at the transformer star point and several other points, it actually supplies current during 50% of the cycle. In a single phase ac system, the phase voltage alternates beteen +220V RMS and -220V RMS 50 times per second. This is why neutral and phase ("hot") are both considered to be "live". Both wires carry current and therefore exhibit potential (voltage).

A separate ground has been required on most circuits in thailand for many years (including for luminaires less than 2.4m above floor level).

Usually, best ground performance is achieved using TN-C-S ground system. This involves bonding neutral to ground at the main load panel and adding ground rods to achieve less than 5 ohms to the main body of the earth. (Use 3m, copper clad steel rods, typically 3 in a delta array). Yes connections by exothermic welding are good (and common in Thailand), but compression joints are generally fine.

ELCB/RCD/RCBO protection is required for water heaters and certain other situations in Thailand. International standards require this protection for socket outlets. For small installations, I recommend a single main ELCB (Safe-T-Cut or similar) SET TO 30mA.

Problem in Thailand is that "electricians" are not licenced and generally have no knowledge of the THai EIT code.

Also, new installations are supposed to be checked by the PEA/MEA before a meter is installed. Sadly this almost never happens.

I will answer specific queries if contacted directly.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

That's a great post.

On the other hand though, you also need equipment that makes use of the ground, i.e. was designed with a plug with a third pin *that is actually connected to the metal body of the appliance*.

I do have grounded sockets in my kitchen.. looking at my appliances, most do not use a ground connection. (Rice cookers including a fancy Japanese one, blender) The ones that do (an electrical oven, the fridge and a coffee grinder), come with a European style edge ground connector, and my sockets are the 3 pin North American flavor. What this amounts to is that unless I change the plugs, I might as well not have grounded sockets in the kitchen.

[dhrobertson]

Yes, well spotted!

This is a real example of Thai Cynicism if not criminal behavior!

The plugs you are talking about are European style "Schuko" plugs (short for Shutzkontakt - security contact). In France, socket outlets have a male ground contact which makes contact with the hole in the schuko plug. In Germany, sockets are countersunk and have ground contacts at the edge which also connect properly with a schuko plug.

In Thailand, the TIS industrial standard requires appliances with exposed conductive parts (which are not double insulated) have a 3-core cable and a plug with a ground contact. However, and this is literally the killer, there is no requirement that the plug ground contact shall make connection with the ground contact at the socket!

Why do they do it? So they can sell appliances to people who only have 2-pin socket outlets.

Cut these plugs off and fit a standard 3-pin plug or use an adaptor (available from Home-Pro) which adds a ground contact.

Brown goods (A/V gear) and some small appliance are double insulated and require no ground connection.

Be VERY careful with refrigerators and water chillers. These are often sold with 2-core cables and 2-pin plugs. If you look at the back, you will see a ground symbol. They expect you to connect ground here! Answer? Do not buy equipment from these manufacturers!

Sadly, I sometimes have to investigate the root cause of fatalities. You can imagine why my nickname is Mr Angry!