Aircon cost - I gave the wife money for a 2.5HP 24K BTU. She bought a 5 TON 60K BTU.

[Dave Hounddriver]

40 minutes ago, JoeLansing said:

I guess I'll have to solder near a water pipe and use it as a ground.

You have metal water pipes?  I never had those in the Philippines.  Always plastic.  I never found a real ground anywhere.  The air conditioners were always grounded to a bit of metal rebar sticking out of the concrete somewhere.  And yet they always worked.  I gave up asking the workers why there was no ground a long time age.  Best answer I got was that people steal the metal so useless to put in a grounding rod.  Worst answer was that the electricity provider did not provide a ground so obviously they did not need one.

[Tommy T.]

15 hours ago, Lee said:

Do you possibly have the instructions that should be used to properly ground the air con unit? We had the same aircon installed a year ago and there were no instructions of any kind in the box that I saw.

Our house turned out not to be grounded after all and even when in the "contract." I will contact my air/con guy to ask him about that since he is very responsive and great with the air/con installation and service.

2 hours ago, JoeLansing said:

I looked hard and all I can find are these 2 documents:

https://koppel.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Koppel-Floor-Mounted-ERA-Operation-Manual.pdf

https://koppel.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Koppel-Floor-Mounted-ERA-Series.pdf

Grounding in Philippines is still making me twitch.  2 prong outlets?  I do soldering, and micro SMD/SMT soldering, and computer repair, and I really want to be grounded.  They don't even have a ground on the outlet I can poke a wrist strap ground into.  I guess I'll have to solder near a water pipe and use it as a ground.  :(   I hear a lot of "use a UPS or your electronics will die".  No wonder if nothing has a ground to filter off the evil.

- Joe

 

 

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

You have metal water pipes?  I never had those in the Philippines.  Always plastic.  I never found a real ground anywhere.  The air conditioners were always grounded to a bit of metal rebar sticking out of the concrete somewhere.  And yet they always worked.  I gave up asking the workers why there was no ground a long time age.  Best answer I got was that people steal the metal so useless to put in a grounding rod.  Worst answer was that the electricity provider did not provide a ground so obviously they did not need one.

We had a truly certified electrician who knew what he was doing install two grounding rods the proper way with the proper material. Unfortunately, they are only connected to some appliances (not the air/con) but they do include the washing machine, freezer and refer.

To truly make things as complicated as possible, in their infinite wisdom, the electricians who created the electric grid here in Davao uses only two wires for connections and transmission and they are BOTH hot - each one carries 110 volts. It caused us some real grief and adding in some external wiring after ants apparently short circuited something embedded in the cement floor. The power poles are grounded and it looks like there may be a ground wire between poles. The pole grounding is serious and looks to even USA code with each pole having insulated supports and then heavy, open wire running down the poles to posts driven into the ground.

In order to repair our ant destruction to our house feed line, the electrician ran two separate wires, each in its own plastic tube so that they cannot be shorted because of ants. I even took the extra step of spraying malathion in each tube before and after wires were led through.

Even with all of that, we still use surge protectors for sensitive equipment but, when adequate funds are available, will install a whole house surge protector/AVR. Maybe these are not perfect solutions, but they make sense to me....

[hk blues]

Perhaps the most surprising thing here is that despite the various and real issues we have with outages, fluctuations and lack of power infrastructures in our homes, we still suffer from very few equipment failures.  In my 8 years here I have lost an A/C unit but it was 7 years old and I suspect it was not a major fault and could have been repaired with a knowledgeable technician.  

For me, the main point is to buy appliances of a reasonably good quality which are more likely to handle the shortcomings here.  

[baronapart]

16 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Perhaps the most surprising thing here is that despite the various and real issues we have with outages, fluctuations and lack of power infrastructures in our homes, we still suffer from very few equipment failures.  In my 8 years here I have lost an A/C unit but it was 7 years old and I suspect it was not a major fault and could have been repaired with a knowledgeable technician.  

For me, the main point is to buy appliances of a reasonably good quality which are more likely to handle the shortcomings here.  

We bought a Panasonic AC. I had to show my wife the difference between Panasonic and Pensonic :-)))

[hk blues]

3 minutes ago, baronapart said:

We bought a Panasonic AC. I had to show my wife the difference between Panasonic and Pensonic :-)))

We have 2 Panasonic units as well as 1 Hitachi.  Happy with all 3 and they are not so much more expensive than other brands. Even though we lost 1 Panasonic we replaced with another as I'm happy with their performance.

[Possum]

39 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

Even with all of that, we still use surge protectors for sensitive equipment but, when adequate funds are available, will install a whole house surge protector/AVR. Maybe these are not perfect solutions, but they make sense to me....

I have a whole house surge protector for the incoming Meralco AC power as well as DC surge protectors for the solar inverter. They aren't that expensive. Check out Midnite Surge protectors. I have had no issues due to power surges. Low voltage concerns me but our more expensive appliances are inverter and they are pretty forgiving. The better ones see low voltage and say, nope I quit but resume when they get proper voltage.

[Possum]

3 hours ago, JoeLansing said:

I looked hard and all I can find are these 2 documents:

Check out the installation manual.

http://www.koppel.ph/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Installation-Manual-for-3TR-inverter.pdf

Look for a grounding lug, should be clearly marked with the ground symbol and hopefully a green screw.

Hope this helps

 

[Lee]

23 minutes ago, Greglm said:

Hope this helps

It does to a point. I will look closer but from what I see the manual says to ground the unit but to what is the question. Anyway, thanks.

Poor wire installation workmanship has bit us in the buttocks twice over the years. Both times the "tech" had run out of wiring when making a pull in conduit  so he simply twisted together an extension to the original, taped it up, and called it good.

(Should have added that not unlike what another poster recently said-------we don't have any metal water pipes to ground to also)

Edited June 6, 2023 by Lee
clarification

[Tommy T.]

1 minute ago, Lee said:

so he simply twisted together an extension to the original, taped it up, and called it good.

I think I will buy stock in electrical tape manufacturers here in Philippines....

 

[Possum]

18 minutes ago, Lee said:

Poor wire installation workmanship has bit us in the buttocks twice over the years. Both times the "tech" had run out of wiring when making a pull in conduit  so he simply twisted together an extension to the original, taped it up, and called it good.

(Should have added that not unlike what another poster recently said-------we don't have any metal water pipes to ground to also)

One would think they  would measure the distance before pulling but you have to remember they are not aware of any building code or standard practices. The general thinking is, that's the way we have always done it. On the other hand once they understand you have different standards they adapt pretty well. They learn to love wire nuts if you supply them but will they use them on the next job? Not likely. I introduced concrete tap screws, commonly called Tapcons to the guys building our house. They loved them and agreed they were MUCH stronger than the nylon concrete anchors they had been using to secure windows etc. They had a licensed architect come look and he too thought the tapcons were great but when I told him they were about 5 pesos each he said he couldn't justify using them. When I asked if he didn't worry about how the houses he built held up in a typhoon he said people expected damage., there is no extra pay for no damage. There is no arguing with that kind of logic in the absence of building codes