18 year old technician electrocuted at East Pattaya House

[chrisinth]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

At eighteen he wouldn't have even been qualified to carry out such work. A basic apprenticeship is 4 years before you are licenced and accredited.

What this has to do with a Thai 'electrician' I fail to see.

He was Thai and working as an electrician, that is what it has to do with thai electrician. I am saying he was probably an unqualified electrician.

And certainly not a technician at the age of 18 as implied in the title of the thread.............................

Chooka, to say he was working as an electrician was also pushing him up the ladder. A probable better description would have been a kid learning to be an electrician.

In full agreement with the 4 years apprentice time as well.

[transam]

I turned the power off in my house to do stuff. Guess what.......?.............Air con and shower stuff don't go through the switch box...................Live all the time......Cannot turn it off..........Great eh..........They haven't got a clue...........Yeh I am still alive cos I used my head......

[joepattaya1961]

Funny how people respond, talking about qualifications and training. It's probably the same people who rather pay THB 300 than THB 500 for solving a problem.

Luckily I know some technicians who do have common sense; they stay away from electrics: "I not make, I don't know"

[boike]

Nice sympathy of the bashers. At least he was a working lad.

Sent from my S4 LTE

[FredNL]

It is a 3rd world country and will always be a 3rd world country !

A couple of years ago I was crossing Sukhumvit in BKK using a bridge and when I touched the railing I had 220V going through me. I would have died if my friend didn't push (punch) me off the stairs. I never touch the railings of bridges again. Many are under 220 V or higher voltage due to leakage or bad wiring.

Last week walking in my "soi", there was a plastic tube accross the sidewalk what was installed a week earlier. I just stepped on it and I had 50 Hz going through my body. I allerted the security guards. The only thing they did was pulling up their shoulders and said, not our problem.

Edited February 11, 2015 by FredNL

[manxninja]

He was just trying to earn a wage, no age to die.

There will be many more.

[ExPratt]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Funny how people respond, talking about qualifications and training. It's probably the same people who rather pay THB 300 than THB 500 for solving a problem.
Luckily I know some technicians who do have common sense; they stay away from electrics: "I not make, I don't know"

And that problem carries over to major companies as well,

Most construction jobs here are sub-contracted out several times so although the company may be a huge Multi-national the people doing the work are small local firms. I worked for the biggest construction company in Malaysia, they build everything there all the Major projects. They were main Contractor they then subbed the work to 2 massive companies 1 the biggest in the UK the other the biggest in Australia,who formed JVs with local small to medium local companies, This nearly always happens to save money on the expensive ex-pat staff and a local subby will know how to "Grease the wheels" when there are problems,

The JVs then subbed out each individual work activity to small local companies spread across the length of the job (350k) and I'm talking about family firms mainly firms with relations in the Government or high ups in the Main contractor, These companies employ untrained, inexperienced foreign labour for one thing , cost or lack of it. Because these small companies are connected nothing serious is done about safety. Nine died on that job and not 1 company was fined or removed , I think half of them were illegal workers , so even less reason to take action because who is going to fight for an illegal worker. The managers of the companies employing them would be brought in and bollocked , but that was about it

This is pretty much how it works everywhere Ive worked in Asia and will be the same here.The whole system stinks and nothing will change , basically its corruption. The ex-pats working on these jobs do what they can and try and improve the safety , but rock the boat too much and they will manufacture a reason to get rid of them and try and blame the safety people for the accidents or fatalities. Sounds terrible but you actually become immune to people being killed and injured after a while. The Chinese are the worst of the lot and their schedule comes first everything including life comes after that

[SickOfEm]

It is a 3rd world country and will always be a 3rd world country !

A couple of years ago I was crossing Sukhumvit in BKK using a bridge and when I touched the railing I had 220V going through me. I would have died if my friend didn't push (punch) me off the stairs. I never touch the railings of bridges again. Many are under 220 V or higher voltage due to leakage or bad wiring.

Last week walking in my "soi", there was a plastic tube accross the sidewalk what was installed a week earlier. I just stepped on it and I had 50 Hz going through my body. I allerted the security guards. The only thing they did was pulling up their shoulders and said, not our problem.

What's the next lottery numbers?

[jacko45k]

I turned the power off in my house to do stuff. Guess what.......?.............Air con and shower stuff don't go through the switch box...................Live all the time......Cannot turn it off..........Great eh..........They haven't got a clue...........Yeh I am still alive cos I used my head......

I would track the incoming lines and try to find out where these higher-power items tap-in ahead of the circuit breakers.

You might find they tap in upstream of the meter.

[transam]

I turned the power off in my house to do stuff. Guess what.......?.............Air con and shower stuff don't go through the switch box...................Live all the time......Cannot turn it off..........Great eh..........They haven't got a clue...........Yeh I am still alive cos I used my head......

I would track the incoming lines and try to find out where these higher-power items tap-in ahead of the circuit breakers.

You might find they tap in upstream of the meter.

The meter is outside my land boundary. Think I know where the "sticky tape" stuff is, but I cannot get up there and my eyes ain't good for fooling with it. Why they never put this stuff through the switch box is beyond me. One of our electrician members is coming round to look at a wiring fault prob so perhaps he can take a look at a fix.

I did put safety trips on all the shower and A/C feeds myself, "live".......

[petercool]

Post with just a quote and no comment removed

[xylophone]

Don't know what happened there as I was trying to quote a post by "transam'.

Anyway I had the same thing happen to me in the house I bought here, when I was "renovating" parts of it. I couldn't isolate the aircon in the bedroom, despite asking the girlfriend to turn off the circuit breakers individually to see which one controlled it, and then I eventually turned off the main breaker which should have killed everything in the house, but no, this was still live.

I got into the roof space and found that the feed supplying the aircon had been taken directly off the wires coming into the house under the eaves (off the pole on the road) before they got to the main distribution board. Luckily I was testing everything with my voltmeter before taking it for granted.

In addition to that, we were getting shocks from the appliances in the kitchen, and when I took a look behind a couple of the sockets, I found that there was no earth wire connected to any of them, so I had to sink a 2 m copper/steel rod outside the place an run and earth to each of the sockets.

Furthermore, the kitchen extractor fan was connected to the back of a light fitting via wires about as thick as those used to charge your mobile phone, and just twisted together and laid in plaster.........oh and just to finish off the story, many of the wires in the ceiling spaces were just twisted together and covered in tape, making poor connections resulting in flickering lights etc.

All in all it was a bloody nightmare and I wouldn't recommend anyone who isn't fully trained to work on these things (I served an electrical engineering apprenticeship in my younger days).

Edited February 12, 2015 by xylophone