Discuss Apartment Load Schedule - Safe? in the Electrical Wiring, Theories and Regulations area at ElectriciansForums.net

Will I be safe?

  • Yes, you'll live.

    Votes: 3 100.0%
  • Burn baby, burn!

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    3
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G

gdi2k

I'm just about to move into a new apartment in the Philippines. I know the electrical code here will be different here to that in the UK, but if you could tell me if it's safe, or whether we're all going to burn to a cinder, that would be a great help! :)

I've attached the load schedule. I'm told the wire size in the last column corresponds to sq. mm. So the cooker uses 2x 8.0 mm[SUP]2[/SUP] wires for example.

Things that concern me:

  • The building manager is recommending 6 kW multi-point water heaters for our bathrooms (the first bathroom's heater also supplies the kitchen with hot water), but there are only a 20 A fuses supplying these. When I pointed this out, he said that everyone else is installing 6 kW heaters and there haven't been any complaints yet!
  • We want to put a 2.5 HP airconditioning unit in the Lliving / Dining room, and 2.0 HP units in the 2 bedrooms. The AC supplier tells us that our wiring is borderline, but they will install if we insist. The cable run length is about 15 - 20m.
  • The cooker we intend to get is around 9.5 kW max (if we have all the elements on full bore, plus oven), but it's only on a 40 Amp fuse, which seems a bit tight to me. Also: Is the cable size suitable for this? Cooker is very close to panel - I would guess that the cable run length is no more than 3m, but can't tell for sure.
  • Their KVA column is a lot lower than some of my appliances will be pulling at full bore, not accounting for power factor.
  • The fact that all connections use 2 wires may indicate that nothing is grounded - could this be possible or am I misreading the table? (Most outlets I see around here are not grounded and it drives me nuts).
Note that number 8 is the emergency generator power that comes on during power outages (marked with *).

The supply here (when it works) is: 230 V @ 60 Hz.

Feedback welcome!

Cheers,

GDI
 

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You have a 100A main supply to your apartment, so even with a multi point 6KW w/heater and all your AC units your no-where near boarder line. Don't go by the calculated demands, they are what they are calculated, and rarely bear any resemblance to your actual Max Demands!!! (calculated, always way over the top) So if you see even 60A being drawn, i'd be very surprised... lol!!

Also your MBC ratings are sized to protect the cables/circuit, not the appliance. Unfortunately they follow the Yank system in the Philippines, which is why you have high rated breakers. The protection curves on them aren't too clever either!!

Well according to your load schedule, every circuit has a ground/earth conductor, so if i were you i'd make dammed sure that these CPC's (circuit protective conductors) are connected and more importantly are functional. ...And that all socket outlets are of the 3 pin variety that incorporate an earth... except nothing less!!

Anyway, as far as loading is concerned, you don't have anything to worry about. you won't be using that water heater too much anyway, from what i remember even the water that came out of the cold water tap was warm enough to shower with, ....Well during the summer months anyway!!! lol!!
 
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Mind do not take the little Britainer mentality of our system is great everybody elses is pants I was called out to a flat yesterday to a Brazilian guy who said the circuit tripped and I dont know how to reset it so I pulled the fuse and put a new bit of wire in he then said I have never seen such a primitive system before as we have switch type fuses in Brazil (MCBs) also far east they tend to copy our systems and regs but there generation is USA based technology hence 230v 60Hz
 
A little more info to calm your fears, .... All the elements on your cooker cannot all be utilised at the same time, such as grill can't be used with main oven element. Manufacturers only give the connected load, eg 9.5 KW (in your case) when in actual fact that load can and will never be seen. Couple that, to all elements will be controlled via thermostats and be switching on and off during the cooking cycle, it is unlikely you will ever see anywhere near the given loading. Same goes for the AC units, they will only be drawing the higher power while the compressor is working to bring your ambient room temp down. Once at temp' they will cycle to maintain the set temp', only the FCU fan will be running continuously, and even that can be manually controlled speed wise.

What i'm trying to say, is that it's unlikely that you will ever have all the circuits in your panel running at full throttle, or anywhere near, in your lifetime!!
In the UK we have homes with 100A supplies, that will have 10.5 kw shower, 15KW cooker (and above) W/M, T/D etc, etc, ....along with god knows what other kitchen appliances and none have a problem with actual demand loads exceeding the service fuse rating. You have a fraction of what is connected in some UK homes, ...believe me!! ...lol!!!
 
Many thanks for all your replies, that's reassuring to hear! We've had all sorts of issues with the place, so it wouldnt' have surprised me if they'd completely underprovisioned the electrics to save a few pesos - good to hear that's not the case!

I had misread the wiring column and overlooked the grounding provisions, thanks for pointing that out Engineer54. I'm hoping for 3-pin sockets everywhere.

Side note: I find that using computers / laptops without being earthed results in the case becoming charged - on desktops it's the bare metal that is not covered with paint at the back, and on laptops it tends to be the edges of ports, especially video, but also exposed metal casing where the paint has chipped off on some (my laptop is built like a tank with a metal chasis). Why does this happen?

So now I just need to make sure that what is on the schedule has actually been installed, especially with regard to the grounding provisions. :)

Cheers,

GDI
 
  • The fact that all connections use 2 wires may indicate that nothing is grounded - could this be possible or am I misreading the table? (Most outlets I see around here are not grounded and it drives me nuts).

The table reads, for the cooker, 2 x 8.0 which are the 'live' conductors and, 1 x 5.5G, G stands for 'ground' wire so yes there is an earthing conductor present.
 
Anyone notice the strange metric cable sizes, well strange to those living/working in Europe?? These and other metric cable sizes are quite normal to see in the Far East... It's a shame that some of the metric cable sizes available elsewhere in the world are not available in Europe....
 
As i said me thinks the Asians use Americam guage sizes for their cables but have adopted the British IEE regs in other words why create your own when you can buy them off the shelve a tweek it yourself Europe has 230v 50Hz USA has 115v 60Hz and Asia has has 230v 60Hz
 
As i said me thinks the Asians use Americam guage sizes for their cables but have adopted the British IEE regs in other words why create your own when you can buy them off the shelve a tweek it yourself Europe has 230v 50Hz USA has 115v 60Hz and Asia has has 230v 60Hz

No really oldtimer, It's now basically only the States, and maybe a couple of S American countries that now use the AWG for there building cables. The rest use Metric. Some of the metric sizes may well reflect some of the AWG sizes mind, but are genuinely metric and marked as such. (...Even Canada are now Metric!!)

The Philippines basically follow the American NEC NFPA-70 electrical codes in virtually every other respect, adapting accordingly for their 230V/400V/60Hz distribution supplies, and always going down the cheap route wherever possible ..lol!!! There is nothing remotely reflecting the UK'S IEE Regulations in the Philippine wiring codes, you only have to look at the above load schedule. lol!! :juggle: :rolleyes2:
 

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