And THIS, my friend is what really grinds my gears.
They’ve done the hard work of fitting five floors with sockets, switches, trunking, cabling, consumer boards and all that jazz. It’s not hard to go the extra mile and do it PROPERLY. It’s called craftsmanship. It’s called doing your job.
That gave me a much-needed chuckle…
It’s a tired point, but Taiwan needs to give itself a damn good kick up the rear-end. Whenever I see obviously dangerous wiring at a friend’s house it’s ingrained in me that I must fix it. Then when I get the ‘you just don’t understand how things are done here’ bullshit I give them a slap and fix it anyway.
Demand more from your workman! And don’t forget to tip the rare few who do a good job!
Honestly, I have no idea what you’re all talking about. But, it sounds like I better make sure I have some good fire alarms and put my books in a fireproof box. So, thanks for the warning.
Quality? Hell, we got quality out the ass!
Not so long ago I had a nice meltdown due to bad wiring:
To the left is before, and the right side is after. A little warm here, even so much that a screw has totally disappered, I’m lucky that no fire started.
Then we called the local “electric guy”. He came and said I can fix this quick and easy with a lot of insulation-tape. This was his tool-bag, which got me confused, did my wife call the plumber?
We told him that we find would try to find another guy, and that one made a better job, even used ‘spade type terminators’ on every cable. So hopefully no more electrical problems.
You should not be feeding anything directly off 75A breakers. I had one 65A main breaker running an entire commercial music studio. A small apartment can comfortably run off one 30A feed split into ‘bit-sized chunks’ for each circuit. No wonder the wiring overheated!
If you can afford it, I would recommend having a European style consumer board fitted with 6A MCCBs for lighting, 15A for your socket ringmain, 20-30A for HVAC etc. Ideally there should be an ELCB (Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker) located between your supply feed and consumer board.
Thanks for the pics… the mind boggles. Where is his multimeter? Where is his earth leakage detector? What about a voltage sensor? In fact, where are his SCREWDRIVERS? WHERE ARE WE ALL HEADED? AHHHHHH!!
[quote=“stralle”]Not so long ago I had a nice meltdown due to bad wiring:
To the left is before, and the right side is after. A little warm here, even so much that a screw has totally disappered, I’m lucky that no fire started.[/quote]
That looks like a telecomm crimp terminal to me… at least, I hope it is. ‘I’ve run out of 2.5mm 3-core…’ ‘Hmm… I’ve got some phone cable in the back I ain’t using!’
[quote=“plotch”]Quality? Hell, we got quality out the ass!
[/quote]
Crimp terminals on circuit breakers? Definite no-no. Multiple conductors ran off the bottom of the 75A 3-pole breaker? Also a no-no. Is this a residential application? Just wondering what a 3-pole breaker is doing in a residential panel.
It’s weird that all the electrical installations I did in Taiwan were specified in extreme detail and ended up being some of the neatest, most professional looking wiring jobs I have ever seen in the world. But when I would walk around the streets in Taiwan I was always shocked (pun intended) at the state of the wiring in and around nearly every building. I guess I can’t compare a multi-million electrical installation in a place like Quanta Computer to the average Taiwanese building.
Get some young people to spend too long in your toilet.
I had a factory once with half a dozen employees and noway I could keep the toilets firmly on the floor. We had to bolt them in the finish.
[quote=“Miranda”] and the whole thing is one huge circuit breaker that would [color=red]only trip if it were plugged into the sun.[/color] Happy days.
.[/quote]
:bravo: I laughed at that. Very good.
On a less funny note, if you grew up here, you’d be doing the same thing. It is learned, they have to learn new ways.
My pet peeve right now is seeing the new fashion for external concrete finish instead of tiles. So easy to throw pigment in and have a long lasting finish. No, they have to paint it so it can peel a year later or sooner.
I live in one of those places where each rooms were rented out and stuff, and I looked at the breaker box, and I kind of wonder, what the hell is a 175 amp main breaker doing here? do we actually need that much power? we’re talking about 20 kilowatts of power here! I bet a factory doesnt even use that much power… You’d have to plug the wiring into a large factory to trip this thing… When I was living in the states, the mains breaker at our house was something like 30 amps or something, then a bunch of 5 amp breakers for different rooms and stuff… And we’re talking a large 3000+ square feet house with 2 large central AC (one on each floor) and those 2 sided 20 amp breakers were only used on A/C and washer/dryers. here I find breakers that is no less than 20 amps and I wonder if a neighbor decided to plug 20 space heaters in would it cause a fire?
Perhaps we can make a list of places that uses proper wiring and stuff? Oh and how do I know if the concrete has steel reinforcements? metal detectors? I was kinda hoping to drill a small hole into the pillar that contains the big steel I beam so I can earth my equipments… is this dangerous? will I cause the building to fall if I do this?
[quote=“plotch”]Quality? Hell, we got quality out the ass!
[/quote]
That’s the phone box … right? 
[quote=“llary”]…
Thanks for the pics… the mind boggles. Where is his multimeter? Where is his earth leakage detector? What about a voltage sensor? In fact, where are his SCREWDRIVERS? WHERE ARE WE ALL HEADED? AHHHHHH!!
…[/quote]
That he will borrow from you … 
[quote=“rahimiiii”]I live in one of those places where each rooms were rented out and stuff, and I looked at the breaker box, and I kind of wonder, what the hell is a 175 amp main breaker doing here? do we actually need that much power? we’re talking about 20 kilowatts of power here! I bet a factory doesnt even use that much power… You’d have to plug the wiring into a large factory to trip this thing… When I was living in the states, the mains breaker at our house was something like 30 amps or something, then a bunch of 5 amp breakers for different rooms and stuff… And we’re talking a large 3000+ square feet house with 2 large central AC (one on each floor) and those 2 sided 20 amp breakers were only used on A/C and washer/dryers. here I find breakers that is no less than 20 amps and I wonder if a neighbor decided to plug 20 space heaters in would it cause a fire?
Perhaps we can make a list of places that uses proper wiring and stuff? Oh and how do I know if the concrete has steel reinforcements? metal detectors? I was kinda hoping to drill a small hole into the pillar that contains the big steel I beam so I can earth my equipments… is this dangerous? will I cause the building to fall if I do this?[/quote]
It’s possible it was a factory some time ago … 
Compared to how I was used to do electrical installation back in Austria the whole things here look like a joke anyway.
A standard house with electric oven for cooking and a electric boiler for warm water is dimensoned on about 6 kw there (as you wouln’t use all provided power at the same time). Besides that you get some “strong power supplies” with 3x380V with either 16 or 32 A. Gives you enought power. The whole supply is on 3 phases (or I think you call it lives?) and one neutral from the energy supplier. Voltage is 380 V between the 3 phases and 220 V from each phase to neutral.
The whole house you split on this three phases so you have plenty of energy.
The other problem is that with this low voltage you need to provide much higher current to get the same energy out. For higher current you need thicker wires to make sure they don’t overheat. The problem is, that that the energy which is lost in the cable and which causes it’s heating up is P = R X I
BP:
Yes it’s the phone box, but the breaker box for the ground floor is directly above it, and you wil see some large white wires which run down and behind the phone box and then come out in the bottom of the phone box… I guess it’s sort of a combination breakerbox and phone box.
Yessir, some nice well-dressed leads here, I’ll tell you what… and did I say we got quality?
[quote=“belgian pie”][quote=“llary”]…
Thanks for the pics… the mind boggles. Where is his multimeter? Where is his earth leakage detector? What about a voltage sensor? In fact, where are his SCREWDRIVERS? WHERE ARE WE ALL HEADED? AHHHHHH!!
…[/quote]
That he will borrow from you … [/quote]
For what? He has planty of insolation tape. 
Yes, it would cause a fire - and no doubt has on many occasions. The breaker should always be rated lower than the safe load bearing capacity of any given cable route. If you pump more ampage down a cable than this, it works just like an electric fire and radiates the excess energy as heat.
I would like to start collating photographic evidence of bad electrical wiring in the hope of someone in government finally taking notice. And yes, I know what you’re going to say, but I’m going to be here for a long, long time and it’s better to try to do something than complain about it.
PS: I hope you’re joking about using steel reinforcements for earthing?!
No, idiot! They’re what you use to splice wires when you run out of insulation tape. Dummy!
[quote=“belgian pie”][quote=“plotch”]Quality? Hell, we got quality out the ass!
[/quote]
That’s the phone box … right? [/quote]
I spoke to a ‘qualified’ Taiwanese ‘electrician’ not so long ago and he honestly did believe that bigger = better when it came to breakers. I thought he was joking but, no, ‘look… I got this 100A breaker - it’s REALLY SAFE’. ‘Err… but the maximum load on this circuit is 15A…’ ‘Yeh, but this breaker is EVEN SAFER’ bangs head on wall
Who the hell is training and certifying these people? Then again, most of them ARE certifiable.
[quote=“mingshah”]Compared to how I was used to do electrical installation back in Austria the whole things here look like a joke anyway.
A standard house with electric oven for cooking and a electric boiler for warm water is dimensoned on about 6 kw there (as you wouln’t use all provided power at the same time). [/quote]
Can I translate this as meaning my electricity bill is always going to be higher because energy is being lost in the small wiring between the outside supply point and the wall sockets/ appliances.