i am currently in the process of decorating and 3 storey town house into something liveable .. with just very basic decorating .. nothing fancy .. which is why i'm doing it all myself mostly cos i dont trust any thai to do even a half decent job , and also cos its fun learning how to do things myself as im pretty DIY minded already ..when we (me and the gf) got the building we had no water running upstairs on the 1st floor where we wanted to live, the pressure was only enough for the ground floor, so i had to install a water tank and all the pipes etc which is almost finished , i can't do anymore until i get the pump installed and for that i need electric .. and that is where you guys come in .. hopefully
i'm not an electrician .. far from it .. and to be honest it scares the hell out of me..lol .. but i want my home grounded for my own safety , my gf's , all my home
appliances and also for the little nieces and nephews usually running around
the existing system is 2 pin sockets etc and the big old circuit breakers?? and fuse
this is a rough electrical plan of how things are currently , sorry if its not very clear it makes perfect sense to me ..
basically the dark green line is the mains power coming in from outside
into the purple boxes which are circuit breakers (as in top photo)
the lighter green lines are thicker cables than the others and seem to just be taking the power from floor to floor
the red lines are the same as yellow lines .. but red show the power supply throughout the radials and the yellow just go direct to the light bulbs
the red squares represent the power sockets and yelllow are for the light switches
the blue squares are for where im going to want new sockets etc which are grounded
each point will only ever have certain things plugged into those areas ..so incase that makes a difference they will be as follows
- point one: will be the lounge area so will be the TV, DVD player, maybe a home PC at some point, my laptop, and a fan etc
- point two: will be the kitchen area , this will have a table top oven that is 2000W , toaster , hot pan , rice cooker, kettle, microwave, food mixer etc and also a washing machine and fridge
- point three: is the toilet area which will have an electric hot water shower
- point four: is the bedroom .. not much in here , maybe a tv , the home pc might go in here when i get it .. and the laptop will be used in here often too
- point five: is under the stairs where the water pump is going
- point six and seven: are not needed just yet and can be added at a later date but will be for any appliances needed in a food shop , so again for an oven , food mixer etc ( i only say this now because im not sure how that affects the RCCB/ELCB(if thats what i need)
the existing circuits can stay as they are .. but i want the new grounded circuits added along side it all .. i dont care much for the cosmetic side of how this all looks as the building is only rented and everything is only temporary (long term enough to bother having this done for now) but i can easily rip out any work ive done to put the building back to normal and take anything with me to the new place etc and re-use it all where possible
the gounding is pretty much the only thing im really unsure of .. i know how to put wires all over the building and connect them to the sockets etc , what i need to know is that im making the correct type of circuit for whats needed and with the right size fuses etc
i know the grounding rod needs to be in a wet area of ground for better conductivity etc .. but thats the problem .. thailand is covered in concrete , front and back of the building is full of concrete , as you can see the back
left corner:
middle:
Right corner:
and the front left:
and right:
the water pipe is metal and already concreted into the ground , could this be used as the ground rod .. and how would i test it to see if its ok ?.. with an ohmeter or voltmeter ?
so basically .. in a nut shell .. id like any advice on either a decent electrician (one who you know can ground properly) and a rough idea how much you think this would cost
OR what i'd prefer is to know what materials i'd need .. starting at circuit breakers , do i replace those with an ELCB ? .. what type of cables should i use .. does a ground wire need to go from each plug socket direct to the ELCB or can the ground link from socket to socket the same as normal cables do
should the oven be on its own radial etc .. any info you think i'd need to do this correctly .. ( apart from telling me an electricians course etc ...lol )
some more pics i took just incase they help with anything:
electrics outside:
plug socket near point one showing the different thickness of cables (the difference between the light green lines and red/yellow lines on the plan)
and the red line near point one with the two forked ends (like snake tongue) is this cable that seems to have been put in for something before we moved in:
my pump:
my oven:
incase anyone has trouble viewing the photos here you can see the whole album here :
Building Plans pictures by ToodKeng - Photobucket
and if anyone is interested in adding to the original plan i have the original copy in photoshop psd with all layers seperate to make life easy for any changes
at the very least .. id like to run the cables all over the building myself and get the grounding rod into the ground properly so i know it is down atleast a metre down and 10 cm above the ground not just 4 inches deep or the ground wire poked just below the surface out of sight .....and then only have the electrician come in to test everything is working fine
so .. let the advice , or flaming begin .. lol