What wire to run 180 meters to run a water pump and workshop

[canuckamuck]

Story first, and then the question.

We have a patch of land at the back of our village. The area we want to run electric to is about 180 from the nearest house in town. My wife has been asking PEA about how we can run electricity out there, but she gets the same moron on the phone who says you can't go further than 20 meters. I have no idea what that even means. 20 meters from where? Anyhow, this is Thailand and we have all been stumped by the inability to be articulate or even understood.

However, we have a cunning plan. The nearest house to our land happens to be a new house without electricity yet. And it happens to be a friend of ours. We are proposing that we pay for them to get a 15 amp meter, and we will split the power from their line to another meter, and then to our land 180 meters away. We will pay for what we use and they will pay the rest.

The electricity will be for a well pump, an irrigation pump, and a new building that will have very light electrical needs, probably just lights and occasionally some power tools. Sorry we haven't bought the pumps yet, so I don't know what they draw.

The question is, what type of wiring do I run over the 180 meters. Our cousin (a Thai chang fi) says you can use 25mm aluminum for that distance.

[Crossy]

A very, very, quick-and-dirty rough estimate of available load gives you about 3HP worth of pumps on the end of 180m of 25mm² aluminium cable (with about 10% volt drop on start).

So your man is pretty close

[kamalabob2]

For the OP. Crossy is probably spot on in his calculation and wire suggestion. However you owe it to go with a good translator (my wife is not), copy of land papers showing location, and go in person to the local PEA office. If anything like Buriram, they have full knowledge in a data base at their fingertips to show what is currently in your location and what is possible for money. For my house on a private road they had accurate information and went to google maps to confirm some aspects. I have helped friends get better electric service and new electric service by going in person with a good translator to the PEA office and listening to what the PEA is offering. The PEA will send staff out to survey, will write down prices and can be most polite if you listen to their options. The OP should consider a proper control box for the pumps. Control boxes if installed properly have proven valuable to pump owners in my observation.

The Buriram PEA office on Highway 2074 has back to back computer monitors at the service desk counter, so you can see on a large computer screen what the engineer is suggesting.

[canuckamuck]

For the OP. Crossy is probably spot on in his calculation and wire suggestion. However you owe it to go with a good translator (my wife is not), copy of land papers showing location, and go in person to the local PEA office. If anything like Buriram, they have full knowledge in a data base at their fingertips to show what is currently in your location and what is possible for money. For my house on a private road they had accurate information and went to google maps to confirm some aspects. I have helped friends get better electric service and new electric service by going in person with a good translator to the PEA office and listening to what the PEA is offering. The PEA will send staff out to survey, will write down prices and can be most polite if you listen to their options. The OP should consider a proper control box for the pumps. Control boxes if installed properly have proven valuable to pump owners in my observation.

The Buriram PEA office on Highway 2074 has back to back computer monitors at the service desk counter, so you can see on a large computer screen what the engineer is suggesting.

That's good advice, and I will follow that up. It would be good to get this done and have it under our own name instead of the neighbor. Right know we have a suspicion that they may not get their electrical hooked up for a long time yet. They likely don't want to pay to have a power pole put in there yard yet.

I don't know what a control box for pumps are all about yet. I will get to that if we get somewhere on getting electricity.

I wonder is it feasible to run a well pump from a generator? I have 2500 watt generator that does very little in a year.

[impulse]

canuck, You may want to rethink the 15 amp meter. That runs a microwave and an A/C in my apartment. I'm not a household E- guy so I don't know what size is best...

[Crossy]

canuck, You may want to rethink the 15 amp meter. That runs a microwave and an A/C in my apartment. I'm not a household E- guy so I don't know what size is best...

I assume he means a 15/45 meter (not a 5/15 which is generally called a 5 Amp meter).

A 15/45 will happily run an average sized home with aircon, water heaters etc.

We couldn't get the 30/100 I originally wanted from my demand calculations so we are on a 15/45, our incoming 50A breaker has never opened on overload

[canuckamuck]

canuck, You may want to rethink the 15 amp meter. That runs a microwave and an A/C in my apartment. I'm not a household E- guy so I don't know what size is best...

I assume he means a 15/45 meter (not a 5/15 which is generally called a 5 Amp meter).

A 15/45 will happily run an average sized home with aircon, water heaters etc.

We couldn't get the 30/100 I originally wanted from my demand calculations so we are on a 15/45, our incoming 50A breaker has never opened on overload

Yes 15/45