My wife’s going to kill me if she ever finds this, but I have to tell this story of electrical (un)safety.
A couple of days ago, I got back from work and noticed that my wife’s hair dryer was in the bin. I was surprised, beacause she always asks me to try to fix stuff before it gets thrown out. I got to thinking why it could possibly be that she was trying to sneak this one past me. One of the possibilities I though of was that it had been dropped in the sink (full of water). I picked it up, and sure enough, water dripped out of it.
You see, our cat will ONLY drink water from out bathroom sink (see below), so it is usually full of water.
The only power point in the bathroom it to the right of the sink, and when I use it, I make sure the sink is drained first.
So how did this happen? Well, I was expecting my wife to say that she had simply dropped the hair dryer into the sink, but no. She had plugged the hair dryer into the socket, and then left it sitting on the washing machine (you can see it to the left of the sink in the photo). She then gave our son a bath in our shower area. She left the hair dryer going to heat the room up a little. :loco:
Well, it seems obvious to me that there is a 100% chance that the hair dryer is going to vibrate itself into the sink, especially since the cable was coming from the other side of said sink.
End of story? OH NO!! I asked her about whether anything dramatic had happened. You know, like a fuse had blown or a switch had tripped. Absolutely NOTHING happened, except for the hairdrier getting fecked. At no time did any of the electrical safety measures kick in.
Problem is when I try to “educate” my wife about these things she gets really pissed off with me. This sort of scenario reminds me of that scene at the beginning of “The Beach” where that cleaner is cleaning the fuse box with a wet mop.
[quote=“irishstu”]My wife’s going to kill me if she ever finds this, but I have to tell this story of electrical (un)safety.
A couple of days ago, I got back from work and noticed that my wife’s hair dryer was in the bin. I was surprised, beacause she always asks me to try to fix stuff before it gets thrown out. I got to thinking why it could possibly be that she was trying to sneak this one past me. One of the possibilities I though of was that it had been dropped in the sink (full of water). I picked it up, and sure enough, water dripped out of it.
You see, our cat will ONLY drink water from out bathroom sink (see below), so it is usually full of water.
The only power point in the bathroom it to the right of the sink, and when I use it, I make sure the sink is drained first.
So how did this happen? Well, I was expecting my wife to say that she had simply dropped the hair dryer into the sink, but no. She had plugged the hair dryer into the socket, and then left it sitting on the washing machine (you can see it to the left of the sink in the photo). She then gave our son a bath in our shower area. She left the hair dryer going to heat the room up a little. :loco:
Well, it seems obvious to me that there is a 100% chance that the hair dryer is going to vibrate itself into the sink, especially since the cable was coming from the other side of said sink.
End of story? OH NO!! I asked her about whether anything dramatic had happened. You know, like a fuse had blown or a switch had tripped. Absolutely NOTHING happened, except for the hairdrier getting fecked. At no time did any of the electrical safety measures kick in.
Problem is when I try to “educate” my wife about these things she gets really pissed off with me. This sort of scenario reminds me of that scene at the beginning of “The Beach” where that cleaner is cleaning the fuse box with a wet mop.[/quote]
Are all apartments really this bad?? Sometimes on forums you only hear the bad points from people; i wonder if a lot of apartments really aren’t that bad!! I feel scared to come back to Taiwan Surely, it cant be that bad. And if i was to live in an apartment and fit all of those socket breaker things to every plug would that make everything much safer? I mean, that would add the ability for the system to trip when it wouldn’t normally. I have no idea about electrical stuff, so i probably sound stupid :help:
This is one of the few times when I will say: yes, it really IS this bad. I have not seen one single Taiwanese-owned apartment, house or commercial building with 100% safe electrics. My apartments in Taipei were nothing short of disgraceful, and even my almost-brand-new house in Taichung has a list of problems as long as my arm.
If you mean the plug-in residual current breakers, they only protect against certain fault conditions in equipment connected to them. They’re mainly designed for protecting outdoor equipment such as lawnmowers where you may short any combination of live/neutral/earth through moisture or cutting the cable.
Since my main concern is overloading or fault conditions along the ring main and high current circuits, most places are looking at a complete rewire to get up to common Western codes. As a bare minimum a proper consumer board would need to be fitted with working RCCBs, ELCB and a good earth connection.
Unfortunately, for most people there’s not much you can do. Use common sense - don’t overload circuits, make sure things are unplugged when unattended or not in use, don’t use any outdoor or bathroom electrics, inspect for old/worn wiring/sockets/switches and you’ll be safe-ish. Fire seems to be a greater threat than electrical shock hazards.
Thanks for your advice, i will use the common sense approach of unplugging everything. I suppose aswell ignorance is bliss right!! I lived in Taiwan for 3 years and didnt worry about this stuff once and never came across any problems. But reading this link kinda freaked me out. Taiwanese ad-hoc-ness has probably come about because of the swift growth of the country. The place has grown so quickly over the past 30-40 years its crazy. But that doesn’t mean that people who know about safe electrics should not try to make their Taiwanese pad a bit safer. I mean the idea of waking up to a burning apartment is pretty scary (a previous posters idea of buying some good smoke alarms is also a great idea!!). However, i wouldn’t ever walk about whistling at night, or get upset or angry in public, etc. etc. these are the things in a culture that we have to respect. But i feel other things are not really so sacred. Having said that, i would never mouth off to a Taiwanese person, telling them that their electricians suck or anything like that. That would be direspectful. I think we all grow up knowing what is around us, in our own culture. But i am sure every culture could learn a lot from other cultures in other parts of the world. We could form the perfect race if you combined all the best parts of every culture in the world.
Anyway, i think you get my point, even if i am not explaining myself too well… i can never be bothered to structure posts properly, sorry
You don’t know the reason behind all of this … remember when the KMT came to the island? … they only were to stay for a short while … so why the need to make something for eternity? Everything here is build with that in mind … sure cosmetically it all looks great … at least on paper.
Even today in new buildings they use cheap stuff and sell very expensive … they can get away with that … it looks good! But save? Noway … so so will do.
yeah, that is also a good point. for a long time they probably thought they would be going back, thus a lot of things were probably thrown up. And that mindset has been made a part of the culture.
My former landlord owned a lamp factory, so you would figure he’d know a bit about how electricity works, right? I get home and find the eletricity out, so I gave him a call to have it get fixed. He comes over the next day with an electrician, and they spent the day sorting out the short out.
That night, I get home and hit the switch to turn on the lights. No result. I call up the landlord, who assures me “it’s fixed.” I point out the obvious fact that it cannot be “fixed” if my apartment doesn’t have any electricity. Lots of hmmmming and hawhhhing later, he says that they found where a couple of rodents had chewed through the wires (their bodies were there), so they capped off all the loose wires they’d found.
Their assumption? They thought the wires “might” be connected to a long-defunct store sign out front and, thus, ought to be capped off. Hopped up on whisby and bing lang, they completely forgot the main reason for their coming over.
didnt care alot bout this thread until just now when I had to replace the tube lamp in the kitchen. these are the view from behind the beautiful ice glass on the ceiling:
see how the cables got connected and swaying around each others? unluckily i didnt see gas pipe overhead…
[quote=“kolibri”]normal, and also COLORFUL.
anybody knows what each color of the cable means?
I have red, green, white, yellow, blue, and even brown from above pic.[/quote]
What? You mean the colours have a meaning behind? I am not allowed to use them how I feel or regarding which ones are just cheap at the moment?
[quote=“mingshah”][quote=“kolibri”]normal, and also COLORFUL.
anybody knows what each color of the cable means?
I have red, green, white, yellow, blue, and even brown from above pic.[/quote]
What? You mean the colours have a meaning behind? I am not allowed to use them how I feel or regarding which ones are just cheap at the moment? [/quote]
No, there is a sequence you need to follow, but price goes above all … then sequence … you start out with brightest color and (yellow) than green, blue, red, purple, brown, black … using white is a nono, that’s the neutral …
Color of tape is of no concern … use the cheapest you can get … even clear tape if needed …
Actually, this is a problem in any lighting situation because you often have several different switched circuits coming into the same backbox/lighting ring/junction box. Lighting is a rainbow-coloured experience in any country.
However, in a properly configured lighting circuit only the live wire should be switched (so you won’t electrocute yourself when changing the bulb etc.) I would normally use black as neutral throughout, red for unswitched live and the other colours as switched live. Unfortunately I just opened up some light switches upstairs to find the red wire carrying neutral, so never make assumptions with wiring installed by somebody else. Sigh. At pennies per roll it’s so hard and expensive buying black and red sheething too…
The only sure way to tell which is which is to open up the ceiling rose or junction box and see what goes where.
[quote=“kolibri”]normal, and also COLORFUL.
anybody knows what each color of the cable means?
I have red, green, white, yellow, blue, and even brown from above pic.[/quote]
We can laugh or cry because of the poor infrastructure in Taiwan, the “I don’t give a fuck attitude” of trade workers" etc., but “shoddy workmanship” can be a huge problem in developed countries. Here is an interesting example:
Surely, it cant be that bad. And if i was to live in an apartment and fit all of those socket breaker things to every plug would that make everything much safer? I mean, that would add the ability for the system to trip when it wouldn’t normally. I have no idea about electrical stuff, so i probably sound stupid :help:
