Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rock]

I live in an old house emitting electrical shocks. Reported it to the police after a landlady blamed me for using too much electricity(system oveload/lack of modern circuits.) So here's my theory.

Someone tapped a line nearby, increasing and exposing even more elecicty, because the old house was improperly grounded. I could've been electrocuted, as well as neighbors, and am now seeking compensation.

But how, exactly, does one steal electricity? I mean, how can you prove it? At the moment the whole street I live on is being torn up. I'd read someone can tap into your water piping, or something like that, and this is exactly what passerbyes are looking at when they pass my house.

So I'm pissed! I want compensation. I just need more proof though, and might add, the neighbors across the street have a possible criminal network.

[nathanrutledge]

My father is an electrical contractor and I've worked with him on and off for about 20 years. The only way they could be stealing electricity from you is if they are tapped into the line on YOUR side of the meter. So, easiest thing to do is find the meter, follow the line into your house. You should have only 1 pipe going into your place. If you see some wires coming out of the pipe going somewhere else besides your house, someone is stealing from you.

It is possible that there could be only one wire, but unlikely. See, you need a minimum of two wires (hot and neutral) but for safety you should have a third (ground). But neutral and ground meet up at the same place, so in theory, since I assume you live in a villa of some sort, they COULD have taken the hot wire and tapped it and then are running a ground wire back to the water pipe, but just because you see a wire on the water pipe does NOT necessarily mean that they are stealing from you.

Of course, reading what you wrote, my opinion is that you just have a shoddy electrical system. Most apartments here will have two, maybe three circuits. In the US/Canada, we run 15 amps, 110 volts, but here, they are 10 (I believe) amps and 220 volts, so you do get a little more bang for your buck, but still, if you have a TV, computer, dvd, video game system, stereo, alarm clock, etc and you're running all of these on one circuit, you'll pull some high amps and blow the circuit. If you use a rice cooker or some other high amperage appliance, you could blow a circuit as well, depending on how much you're running.

But, long story short, you'll overheat things and cause a fire, yes, but shocks and sparks, no. You probably have old wiring, it's not grounded properly, and you're arcing things when you plug in. Not your fault at all. In the U.S., you'd definitely have legal recourse, and here, I imagine it's the same.

Hope my long-winded treatise helps.

P.S. Depending on the building construction, the pipe from the meter could pass by somewhere you cannot see, and someone inside the building could be swiping your power. Of course, the easiest way to figure this out is look at your bill. Where do you live, what do you pay, and compare that to what others pay.

[Rock]