Are you feeling grounded? It is an important question. Being
grounded keeps the bad feelings away, you know those warm
fuzzy feelings you get from an overdose of electrons that
are all excited and nowhere to go.
Electrons like to go home to their mother, mother earth that
is, and in their enthusiasm can be a little destructive on
the way. Rather like football hooligans on a train their behaviour
can be a bit shocking at times and they might even set fire
to things.
The answer is to give them a safe way home if they get a bit
out of hand.
A couple of months ago I was plugging a monitor into a computer.
The tingling sensation on the outside of the cabinet gave
me a warning of the shock that soon followed when I touched
the monitor socket. It livened my conversation up somewhat.
This is all too common a problem here in paradise where many
electricians and computer technicians learned their trade
selling watches on the beach.
Your protection from their skills (or lack thereof) is the
“earth” or “ground” for the electrical
system in your house electrical circuits. Unfortunately the
earth provides protection for what might happen in the future
and as such is not considered important by local people who
have a tendency to live in the moment.
The strict rules of electrical installation insist that appliances
such as washing machines, toasters, computers and the like
have their metal frameworks and steel cases earthed. Their
power cables should have three wires: “live” which
used to be red but these days is brown, “neutral”
which used to be black and these days is blue and earth which
used to be green but now is green and yellow striped.
The colours were changed when it was found that one or two
too many colour blind electricians were connecting the green
earth wire to the live turning a washing machine into a death
trap. In Indonesia you will find that the old red and black
wires are still often used.
The live and neutral wires carry the power while the earth
is the electrons escape route to mum.
In most house wiring, the lighting circuits have only the
live and neutral wires while plug sockets, ceiling fans and
air conditioners have all three.
The earth wires come from each plug socket and connect back
to your house distribution board, that’s the one with
all the “electrocutus interruptus” circuit breakers
in it. Here the earth wires are connected together and in
turn are, or should be, connected via a cable to a metal rod
which is driven into the ground. The metal rod may be steel
or ideally copper or copper coated and should be over a metre
long.
Circuit breakers have replaced the old fuses. Remember those?
They were those little glass tubes with a fine wire inside
or, before that, a piece of thin wire connected between two
terminals in the fuse box. If something accidentally got connected
to earth, such as you touching a live wire, the electrons
would make a dash for earth causing a surge in current that,
if it went through you, could burn or kill you. The surge
in current would melt the fuse wire hence cutting off the
power supply. Fuse wire was used for generations but was replaced
many years ago by circuit breakers which are far more effective.
Circuit breakers, locally called “stop kontak”,
are more correctly called “earth leakage detectors”
and are far more sensitive than the old fuses. They have a
rating of usually 6, 10, or 16 amps, which is marked on the
breaker just above the switch. This is the electrical current
that the detector is rated to normally allow.
If the electrons break loose the breaker detects a surge in
power and immediately switches off. They work extremely fast,
faster than it take to say “Flipping Heck that hurts!”
faster even than an Aussie offered a free beer at a footy
match. This is because electrons move pretty fast when they
get excited, you’d have trouble catching one I’ll
tell you.
The result is that you live to tell the tale and your house
doesn’t burn down.
There is, however, one unfortunate snag. Earth leakage detectors
don’t work properly if the distribution board is not
earthed. In Bali you will find that many houses are not properly
earthed.
I recently inspected some professionally built villas. The
electrical systems look well installed using good materials
but when I looked in the distribution box the earth cables
were hanging loose, none of them had been connected and an
earth cable had not been installed.
You will also find that if you use low cost plug sockets,
plug boards or plugs themselves they may not have earth connections
in them. You should check this. Have a look at all your plugs,
and particularly plug boards, they should have two pins or
holes for the live and neutral power and then two metal strips
down the outside which engage with metal strips in the plug
or socket. If either the plug or the socket don’t have
earthing connections then they are not earthed. This is alright
on an appliance such as a hair dryer with a plastic body but
things like washing machines and computers should always have
an earth.
Lightning conductors also need to be earthed properly. Most
houses don’t have such things but if you have a house
in a high position you may consider one. A copper spike on
the roof connected by a substantial copper ribbon to a heavy
duty earth rod. If lightning strikes the copper it provides
a safe path to earth protecting your building from what could
be substantial damage.
A friend recently reported climbing onto his roof and finding
that his internet dish had been bolted to his lightning conductor.
To make matters worse the top of the dish was installed higher
than the conductor. He rang the well known company that provide
the internet service and they told him they usually bolt the
dish to the lightning conductor.
Not a good idea.
At the highest point of your house you have a metal dish connected
to your computer which in turn is connected to earth. In the
highly unlikely event of a lightning striking your house you
may have twenty million billion trillion electrons all heading
home to mum through your computer and Windows doesn’t
come with a lightning conducting programme.
You could go into Google and do a search for a driver for
your lightning conductor but I suspect you may have trouble
finding one.
A better idea is to avoid using “Lightning Internet
Services” even if they do promise fast download speeds.
So to summarise, check that your house has an earth connection,
that the plug sockets are all properly earthed and that your
computer is not connected to Benjamin Franklin’s kite.
Phil Wilson
Phil Wilson a project director for Focus Indonesia and a partner
of MrFixit property maintenance services. Opinions expressed
are those of Phil Wilson. If you have any questions or comments
he can be contacted at the office on 0361 288 789 or through
the website at www.mrfixitbali.com
