ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades New Zealand is an interesting place

I always ask for 2 keycards so I have 1 to leave in the dumb slot during my stay.

It really sucks when you come back to the room to find out that the A/C has been turned down so low that it will be hours before the room gets comfortable.

They had the same thing in a hotel in Cairns, Queensland, Australia I stayed in back in 1986. I later found out electric rates in Australia are north of 30 cents/kilowatthour. And I thought the 16 cents Pubic Service Electric and Gas charges was pricey...

I notice a couple things missing, from what we see

Single phase is fairly uncommon in Germany but main switches over there usually only switch the phases and not the neutral. In Austria I've never seen a main switch, usually the RCD performs that function (theoretically you're supposed to have more than one to prevent the whole place from going dark if the RCD trips but I've never seen that in homes other than mansions, except in places I wired myself).

Steel consumer units are virtually unknown on the continent, flame retardant plastic is the way to go. Could have something to do with TT supplies where you aren't supposed to earth anything that isn't on an RCD (hard to get the earth resistance low enough to trip a 25 A+ main fuse or even 100+ in case of a riser mains in case of an earth fault). Meter cabinets are occasionally steel but double isolation still has to be achieved as far as I know. Back in the old days of homebrew steel enclosures we'd sleeve the individual wires with flexible conduit at the meter, resulting in something like UK double-isolated meter tails. I last did that in 2003, not sure if such cabinets are still acceptable.

The flying splice in the consumer unit wouldn't fly here, although it's fairly common to do that. No inspections round here... and little testing done by the electricians too. Unless forced by some authority or the customer, most electricians will stick a voltage tester into the sockets at best. No isolation testing, RCD test etc. (all required by the regulations).

Gidday Greg,
I hope you're enjoying your stay over here.
Just a few comments on your pics, if I may.
Please bear in mind that our motel rooms are built to a price (cheap as possible), the architect will stipulate where they want everything installed and as long as it's not electrically unsafe, the electrician will pretty much do as they are told.
I understand what you're saying about the placement of the light switches though, you'd think that the architect had been smoking crack before planning a lot of the motel
lighting plans (at least the ones I've been in anyway).
The layout of that room is dangerous to say the least, especially them tiled steps, get them wet and you've got a slipping hazard.

Greg,
The reasoning behind that master switch at the entrance is this, it's pretty common for people to hire a room, go inside, shower, get changed and leave the room with the lights and heating on and come back in X number of hours later to sleep, our electricity is quite expensive here, even at a commercial rate.
Not sure about the stick they're using there, but originally there would have been a plastic tag that
has the room key attached to it, so you can't lock your room up without turning off the lights and heating.

Something looks strange about the 4th picture you've posted, that is supposed to have a socket-outlet on the end of it, the black wires are neutral conductors, the red wires are the phase conductors, the phase and neutral conductors need to be twisted to each other or the socket-outlets downstream won't work, this is what we call a "loop circuit" over here.
Our 230VAC is derived from a single winding of a delta-star three-phase transformer, plus the neutral that is taken from the star-point of that transformer, the star-point is also earthed, this system of supply is called the multiple-earthed-neutral system.

Them plug-tops are becoming more and more common over here, they are designed so that elderly people that may have arthritis can easily withdraw the plug, should this be necessary.

I note in that sub-main panel you posted, the electrician has chosen to put more than one wire into the terminals of the neutral and earth busbars, this is no longer allowed with new work over here, in that you have to be able to disconnect a circuit without affecting the neutral or earth conductor of another circuit.

Not sure what your problem is with the hair-dryer, would you care to elaborate?

In the US a hair dryer will have an immersion detector in the plug and it will be grounded.

I am back now but still a little shaky from 54 hours in transit. We did have a great time in New Zealand and I recommend it for anyone who likes beautiful places and friendly people.
Driving on the "wrong" side of the road can be tricky tho.

I did manage to get about 2000 km on 2 rentals with no dents.
(One in the south and one in the north)
We got around quite a bit.

Greg,
Our Operations Manager at work is from South Dakota, he's been here about a year or so, he pretty much said the same thing, driving all your life on the "right" side of the road and then come here.

With respect to the hair dryer, it does not need an earth because it has Class II insulation (Double Insulation), the RCD in the switchboard will protect anyone from electric shock.

It's a shame we never caught up, I only saw this thread of yours after you would have been in the North Island, I could have shown you around some of our HV stuff and a decent commercial install.

Glad you had a good time here, I mean it was never going to be as good as the US, in terms of the size of things, while the people are friendly, it's like anywhere I suppose, you can get mugged or shot in some parts of Wellington or Auckland, just like you can in a few places in the US.
What did you think of our roads here?, of course they'll never be as wide as in the US, but the quality of our roads are terrible, what do you think?

So Greg, what did you see in NZ?
I hope for Godsakes you saw the glow-worms at Waitomo caves?
It's a shame you didn't spend more time in the South Island, it is the prime time for fishing salmon and trout out of the southern lakes.

I thought the roads were great. I understand you don't have interstates but we were not going that far at any given time so that was not an issue and there were only a few places where I thought they were narrow. The main roads are as nice as any 2 lane blacktop in the US and better maintained than most in the Northeast here.

This is an idea of where we went (the hotels)

Driving either hand is an acquired skill. Living in UK ,(left) and frequently visiting Europe, (right), it soon becomes second nature, though I do prefer a hire car so that the driving seat is in the right place.

In Germany (and probably Austria) hairdryers HAVE to be class 2 and that's been in effect since the early 60s I think. There's an endless thread on submerged hairdryers in a German forum and the consensus seems to be that in a bath with non-metallic drain it could happily keep running without tripping the RCD but killing anyone in the bath.

Isn't the "loop circuit" what you'd refer to as daisy-chained outlets in the US? That'd be one cable starting out from the MCB, going to the first socket, then another from the first to the second and so on, all sockets in parallel but if you disconnect the outgoing wires all downstream sockets are dead.