DIY grounding/earthing appliance or wall sockets

[KhnomKhnom]

I have read so much blather and dangerously wrong information here about grounding/earthing in Thailand, I am moved to give the facts.

This entry will apply to "most" Thailand homes that have TWO pin wall sockets. Basic facts:

-Hot wire is usually black and may be on either of the two pins on wall sockets.

-Neutral wire is usually white " " " " .

-there is no third pin, no ground, on the socket...... including three pin sockets where there is no wire on the third pin inside the socket.

-Do not connect the Neutral wire to ground. Do not connect the Hot to ground and not to the Neutral. In matters of grounding, just ignore the hot and neutral, in Thailand.

-You need to ground appliances or heaters that involve water, especially. Clothes or dish washers and dryers and the wall mounted hot water heaters on bath showers need grounding, and that means good connection to the dirt, not to a screw in the wall, as is often found.

-You can do this yourself, following my instructions, with small danger.

Example:

-Unplug the clothes washer.

-connect a #14 AWG green jacketed single wire from the ground screw on the metal enclosure of the washer, usually has a short pig tail of green wire on it and sometimes painted green.... Run the single wire, solid or stranded ok, in the shortest distance to the dirt/earth.

-Drive into real dirt, not a void under concrete slabs, a 2 to 3meter (6 to 8 foot) one copper coated steel ground rod.

-Connect the green wire to the top of the rod with the screw clamp sold for this purpose. Coat this joint with silicone sealer. Leave a 3inch loop of wire at this point to absorb dirt subsidence and movement up and down as Thailand dirt does in some places.

By eye, confirm that the green wire does connect the washer case to the ground rod.

This same process can be done for other appliances and especially the wall water heater in the bath shower.

If a person can touch simultaneously the bath shower water or knobs and any other grounded metal object, connect the ground rods together by wire which are attached to these objects. Make all things that can be touched same time ALL be connected with wire to all ground screw or at the ground rod at the dirt.

WIRING A GROUND AT YOUR SOCKET

The simplest way to obtain a ground at your two-pin socket is to install a three pin socket. If the socket is recessed into the wall, this will mean running the green ground wire outside the wall box and over the wall, so look at the alternative below.

-turn off all electric power to the home at the breaker box.

-open the socket and disconnect the black hot and the neutral white wires from the old socket.

-screw these two wires onto the hot and neutral pins of your new three-pin socket. If it is an American type socket that looks like a face with the ground pin at the bottom, the hot goes to the narrower pin opening and the neutral goes to the taller pin opening.

-screw your green ground wire to the ground pin on your new socket.

-run that ground wire to a ground rod as described above.

Make all new sockets in the room have the same ground rod. Do not install different ground rods for sockets that can be touched from one to the other; all new sockets in the room or near each other must have the same ground rod.

ALTERNATIVE

You can leave your two pin wall sockets undisturbed.

-get a two pin to three pin adapter that has a metal ring or tang on it sticking out the side; that metal tab connects only to the third grounding pin inside the adapter.

-solder or screw your green ground wire to this metal tab/ring.

-run that ground wire to the dirt and the ground rod as described above.

-plug into this adapter any three-pin plug and it will provide a ground to appliances or computers. If you use a three pin outlet socket strip, be sure the strip really has connection inside from the third pin on the plug to all the third sockets on the strip; many do not.

Notes...

-It would take more than 200amps to "overload" a good ground rod in dirt; well beyond normal home current loads.

-Ideal to connect with the green covered ground wire to all outside ground rods and connect all ground rods together with wire; ok to bury that wire or put it inside plastic tubing made to protect wires.

-Never connect your home neutral to ground; Thailand does not work that way.

-You can not obtain 110VAC from a Thai 220VAC wall socket by splitting (as can be done in USA); in Thailand, buy a large transformer made for this "step down" purpose to change 220 to 110.

-foreign strip outlet sockets with "protection" devices inside rated at 110VAC will just blow up in 220VAC in Thailand.

-No ground means no protection from "surge spike protector" socket strips sold for computers.

Good luck

[Crossy]

Mostly good stuff, just a couple of points KK

All new installations in the last 7 years or so should have 3-pin outlets with the third (ground) pin connected to a common 2-3m ground spike.

Thailand is now TNC-S with MEN (like Australia), a N-E link is REQUIRED on new installations and will be fitted if you have a Safe-T-Cut (front end RCD) installed, an RCD is also required on new installations.

Never link multiple ground rods together if they are more than about 3 metres apart, Thailand is a high lightning risk area, large ground potential gradients can lead to massive currents flowing in your earth links with the associated fire risks (Australia prohibits multiple rods for this reason).

14AWG wire does not exist here. The nearest metric size is 1.5mm² .

Avoid using silicone sealer on your ground rod, a coat of acrylic paint over the joint will do a better job of protecting it from the elements and is easier to apply.

200A will send your 14AWG ground wire into orbit, but good luck getting a rod anywhere near 1 Ohm unless you live in a swamp.

This document http://www.crossy.co.uk/Handy%20Files/groundwire.pdf is an official PEA interpretation of the Thai wiring rules, worth a look at the pictures for the way to connect that will get you past the MEA/PEA inspector.

You may wish to read the pinned thread on grounding here http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/694261-how-to-check-your-earthing-system/

Seen on the pool table notice board in the Seoul Pub, Korea "We don't care what you do where you come from, this is what we do where you are". The same applies all over the world to wiring regs, if you installed a home in the UK to US code it would fail on multiple counts (and vice-versa).

[KhnomKhnom]

Mostly good stuff, just a couple of points KK

All new installations in the last 7 years or so should have 3-pin outlets with the third (ground) pin connected to a common 2-3m ground spike.

Thailand is now TNC-S with MEN (like Australia), a N-E link is REQUIRED on new installations and will be fitted if you have a Safe-T-Cut (front end RCD) installed, an RCD is also required on new installations.

Never link multiple ground rods together if they are more than about 3 metres apart, Thailand is a high lightning risk area, large ground potential gradients can lead to massive currents flowing in your earth links with the associated fire risks (Australia prohibits multiple rods for this reason).

14AWG wire does not exist here. The nearest metric size is 1.5mm² .

Avoid using silicone sealer on your ground rod, a coat of acrylic paint over the joint will do a better job of protecting it from the elements and is easier to apply.

200A will send your 14AWG ground wire into orbit, but good luck getting a rod anywhere near 1 Ohm unless you live in a swamp.

This document http://www.crossy.co.uk/Handy%20Files/groundwire.pdf is an official PEA interpretation of the Thai wiring rules, worth a look at the pictures for the way to connect that will get you past the MEA/PEA inspector.

You may wish to read the pinned thread on grounding here http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/694261-how-to-check-your-earthing-system/

Seen on the pool table notice board in the Seoul Pub, Korea "We don't care what you do where you come from, this is what we do where you are". The same applies all over the world to wiring regs, if you installed a home in the UK to US code it would fail on multiple counts (and vice-versa).

I hope you do not think I am Crossing you, but your advice, in spots, is either dead wrong or misleading for those applications with only two wires.

Multiple grounding points, rods or other metal in the earth at different points on the dirt should, dare say MUST, be connected together to avoid one point becoming at a higher potential than another. This is proven in grounding in large new buildings and clearly in installations of antennas and electronics at radio tv transmitting stations.

Testing acrylic paint and silicone sealer over a 30 year period on metal exposed to lots of sun and weathering has proven to me that silicone sealer, preferably black in color, is vastly superior to acrylic paint. You are wrong on this point, too.

I see you are the local sparkie expert and will stop correcting you for fear of being banned. I only speak about what I know for sure, regardless of what Australia says or anyone else.

[Crossy]

Don't worry KK, I'm not going to ban you for expressing a difference of opinion.

Rules vary around the world, over the years various members of this board (both past and present) have determined that AS3000 is the closest 'Western' regulation book to the requirements of Thailand, similar environment similar supply system (TNC-S with MEN).

Yes multiple rods if used should be tied, but if more than 3m or so apart then there could be potential gradient issues, of course if you are designing a grounding system that needs multiple rods you'll be tying them together with big conductors running outside the building. To be honest, if individual applaince rods are that far apart the chances of contacting the appliances connected to them at the same time are remote.

As noted, Australia actually prohibit multiple rods for the reasons cited.

We are in what is effectively a third world location, we have to take a pragmatic approach. We should replace all the two wire systems with three wire, but few are going to do that, so we do the next best thing.

If you read the Thai regs, you will find that earth rods MUST be thermic welded to the cable and the joint buried (unprotected) how many of us do that (ours is clamped and painted but in an earth pit so no sun issues).

[thaibeachlovers]

Some advice please.

I installed an earth rod on either side of the house and ran earth wires from closest plugs to each.

It seems as though that is wrong, so, should I connect all the wires from one rod (disconnected from rod ) and run through one wire of what size to the far away rod, or run individual wires from each plug to the far away rod?

Thanks.

[Crossy]

What you SHOULD do is run wires from each outlet to the distribution board and then a wire from the distribution board to a single rod.

I'm assuming this was a retro-fit to get a couple of earthed outlets (PC and washing machine perhaps)

If you now have a rod each side of the house connected only to a socket near that rod (and not linked anywhere) and any kit plugged in to each outlet cannot be touched at the same time I would leave as-is.

How far apart are the rods?

[thaibeachlovers]

What you SHOULD do is run wires from each outlet to the distribution board and then a wire from the distribution board to a single rod.

I'm assuming this was a retro-fit to get a couple of earthed outlets (PC and washing machine perhaps)

If you now have a rod each side of the house connected only to a socket near that rod (and not linked anywhere) and any kit plugged in to each outlet cannot be touched at the same time I would leave as-is.

How far apart are the rods?

Thanks.

The rods would be about 10 meters apart on opposite sides of the house.

What you SHOULD do is run wires from each outlet to the distribution board

In a perfect world, but in my world that ain't going to happen. I almost killed my wife falling through the ceiling last time, and no way I'm going back up there without a better reason than an earth wire. If you saw the house you'd understand why- it's a construction nightmare.

I'm assuming this was a retro-fit to get a couple of earthed outlets (PC and washing machine perhaps)

Plus hot water heater in the bathroom and AC in the bedroom. I seperately rewired the bedroom and kitchen with earth included, and ran each to a different rod.

[Crossy]

Whilst what you have isn't 'to code' it's a lot safer than having no grounds at all. I would leave as-is, if you ever do a full re-wire do it properly.

Do you have a Safe-T-Cut (RCD. RCBO)? If not install one as the next upgrade.

[thaibeachlovers]

Whilst what you have isn't 'to code' it's a lot safer than having no grounds at all. I would leave as-is, if you ever do a full re-wire do it properly.

Do you have a Safe-T-Cut (RCD. RCBO)? If not install one as the next upgrade.

first thing i did was install a safe t cut. saved my life a few times since.

thanks for that- will do.