U108294 Posted April 20, 2015 Report Share Posted April 20, 2015 Only a thought, driven by another thread... We lost power for five days last Chrismas but got by using a 7-hour petrol gennie and a extension lead. "Getting by" made me think of a more "robust solution"... My local electrician fitted (1) an external input socket, (2) a feed to the DCU (domestic consumer unit aka fuse board) and (3) a changeover switch. This allows an external gennie to be lugged into the fuse board, isolating the electricity board supply, to feed the essential bits of your home. I balanced the capacity of the gennie to the "need to have" bits by turning stuff off on the fuse board and then " zoning down" to individual appliances like freezers. The whole modification cost £250, plus a 3.5KW genie from eBay for £300. Not cheap but better than no Christmas... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kennym Posted April 21, 2015 Report Share Posted April 21, 2015 Do you, 1) have canned food & water stashed under the floorboards 2) a bugout bag 3) a zombie gun lol, sounds like a good idea to be fair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marty Posted April 21, 2015 Report Share Posted April 21, 2015 Got my own well , dry freezed food lasts forever , dry herbs and plentiful rabbits wildfowl and deer covers it I think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brown dog Posted April 21, 2015 Report Share Posted April 21, 2015 Only a thought, driven by another thread... We lost power for five days last Chrismas but got by using a 7-hour petrol gennie and a extension lead. "Getting by" made me think of a more "robust solution"... My local electrician fitted (1) an external input socket, (2) a feed to the DCU (domestic consumer unit aka fuse board) and (3) a changeover switch. This allows an external gennie to be lugged into the fuse board, isolating the electricity board supply, to feed the essential bits of your home. I balanced the capacity of the gennie to the "need to have" bits by turning stuff off on the fuse board and then " zoning down" to individual appliances like freezers. The whole modification cost £250, plus a 3.5KW genie from eBay for £300. Not cheap but better than no Christmas... Excellent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will0 Posted April 21, 2015 Report Share Posted April 21, 2015 That's a reminder: we need to run ours up. The old man got a similar setup sorted years ago, but it's a tractor (PTO) mounted gadget. Big enough to keep the house and the yard going! Although I don't think it'll do the three phase Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mauser3006 Posted April 23, 2015 Report Share Posted April 23, 2015 Only a thought, driven by another thread... We lost power for five days last Chrismas but got by using a 7-hour petrol gennie and a extension lead. "Getting by" made me think of a more "robust solution"... My local electrician fitted (1) an external input socket, (2) a feed to the DCU (domestic consumer unit aka fuse board) and (3) a changeover switch. This allows an external gennie to be lugged into the fuse board, isolating the electricity board supply, to feed the essential bits of your home. I balanced the capacity of the gennie to the "need to have" bits by turning stuff off on the fuse board and then " zoning down" to individual appliances like freezers. The whole modification cost £250, plus a 3.5KW genie from eBay for £300. Not cheap but better than no Christmas... There is really no substitute for "training". (Or having actually lost your power for 5 days!) What else did you learn, what did you need, what did you have that worked well? I have been thinking that the next time my family are away I should flip the electricity off and see how I cope over a weekend. I bet it would throw up all sorts of issues that were easily solved, but I haven't thought of. Better to learn before the power goes off for an extended time for real. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DL. Posted June 8, 2015 Report Share Posted June 8, 2015 Only a thought, driven by another thread... We lost power for five days last Chrismas but got by using a 7-hour petrol gennie and a extension lead. "Getting by" made me think of a more "robust solution"... My local electrician fitted (1) an external input socket, (2) a feed to the DCU (domestic consumer unit aka fuse board) and (3) a changeover switch. This allows an external gennie to be lugged into the fuse board, isolating the electricity board supply, to feed the essential bits of your home. I balanced the capacity of the gennie to the "need to have" bits by turning stuff off on the fuse board and then " zoning down" to individual appliances like freezers. The whole modification cost £250, plus a 3.5KW genie from eBay for £300. Not cheap but better than no Christmas... Many thanks for this recommendation, I had an electrician do this today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FGYT Posted June 28, 2015 Report Share Posted June 28, 2015 I do this for freezers if we go down for more than a day they are in a Utility which has its own ring main I have a lead with a plug on both ends so can plug the Genny into any socket in the ring I do make sure the main breaker is off and that the Ring main RCD is off this isolates the house from the grid and the Ring from the rest of the house SO i dont waste power on all the stuff plugged in on standby or let the Solar system power up as they where not sure what the fairly dirty supply from the Genny would do the to the Solar power unit (only works if there is main supply ) Light the fires and candles etc Father in law used to ave this set up incase of a cut as his wife had to have pumped oxygen in the house so could run the oxygen generator in a powercut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phillips321 Posted October 4, 2016 Report Share Posted October 4, 2016 I have a lead with a plug on both ends You realise just how stupid this is? Just incase you didn't think about the scenario... It's dark, the powers out, the fridge and freezer are defrosting, you fire up the generator and plug one end in, you're in a rush. You can't find the other end of the cable on the floor so start fishing for it...ZAP! Game over! Do yourself a favour and get one of these off flea bay for nice and cheap and it'll do the change over and grid disconnect for you :-) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm//272258690237 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cervusman Posted April 17, 2017 Report Share Posted April 17, 2017 I also an wired up for a generator and I have a buzzer wired up to the grid side that is normal switched off, switched on during power failure so as soon as the power goes back on I'll know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted April 18, 2017 Report Share Posted April 18, 2017 Some good ideas there guys. We're right in the middle of a new house wire-up so have been thinking about this, and our focus sharpened last week when a cyclone hit the country and we had no power for 18hrs.. Our new setup includes 4.8kW of PV panels so it has complicated these considerations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tackb Posted April 18, 2017 Report Share Posted April 18, 2017 Do you, 1) have canned food & water stashed under the floorboards 2) a bugout bag 3) a zombie gun lol, sounds like a good idea to be fair. a zombie gun ? will one of my normal guns be ok ? are there energy and velocity requirements to be zombie legal and is it different in Scotland? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tikka4Sika Posted April 18, 2017 Report Share Posted April 18, 2017 are there energy and velocity requirements to be zombie legal and is it different in Scotland? There are different seasons for male and female zombies in Scotland but its difficult to differentiate as they all wear skirts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radd Posted April 19, 2017 Report Share Posted April 19, 2017 You realise just how stupid this is? Just incase you didn't think about the scenario... It's dark, the powers out, the fridge and freezer are defrosting, you fire up the generator and plug one end in, you're in a rush. You can't find the other end of the cable on the floor so start fishing for it...ZAP! Game over! Do yourself a favour and get one of these off flea bay for nice and cheap and it'll do the change over and grid disconnect for you :-) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm//272258690237 If you kill yourself, it's your own fault.... If you send 240v back into the grid (out here in the sticks, it goes through the pole transformer that transforms it to 11,000v) and it stings the guys that are busy trying to repair the fault.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sauer Posted September 15, 2017 Report Share Posted September 15, 2017 All home electric wiring aside ..... For those who want o keep it dead simple for now ...as in power goes out ...I wan to run couple of freezers .... I can wire a plug that's it as far as electricity goes for me .... which is voodoo ! So how do you work out if the generator you have is fit to run say two chest freezers ? Basically how do I work out capacity and capability? And can anyone recommend a generator ? Looking for something so that If I'm away from home wife can fire it up turn of a key and plug in e freezers say Cheers Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted September 15, 2017 Report Share Posted September 15, 2017 Paul, The freezers should be OK for 6-8 hours if the power goes out. I'd guess a 2KW generator would do the job if they need to be kept going beyond that. Plenty of 2KW gennies on E Bay many with key start for about £400 However, they generally have small fuel tanks which means regular topping up if the power is out for a while. Cheers Bruce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eldon Posted September 15, 2017 Report Share Posted September 15, 2017 All home electric wiring aside ..... For those who want o keep it dead simple for now ...as in power goes out ...I wan to run couple of freezers .... I can wire a plug that's it as far as electricity goes for me .... which is voodoo ! So how do you work out if the generator you have is fit to run say two chest freezers ? Basically how do I work out capacity and capability? And can anyone recommend a generator ? Looking for something so that If I'm away from home wife can fire it up turn of a key and plug in e freezers say Cheers Paul The general killer for Genies is a kettle. If you are going to warm water up by say a gas stove then a small Genie (2KW) will be ok but a kettle would need something over 3kw as a minimum. The numbers go like this 240 volts x one 13 amp plug = 3.12 KW That is of course only one item so if you had freezers etc. on demand then you would either need to disconnect whilst using the kettle or choose a higher output Generator. Personally I wouldn't buy anything less than 4kw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moorlander Posted September 15, 2017 Report Share Posted September 15, 2017 The problem with ebay genies are most are crap and have false output figures, if it fails you have to mail it back , usually at your expense , better to buy locally and if it does fail you can drop it off and have a face to face discussion . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted September 15, 2017 Report Share Posted September 15, 2017 It's largely a case of you get what you pay for in gennies. I did extensive homework and talked to various trade people before deciding on a EU-70is Honda inverter. Rated 5.5kW continuous and super clean power. The builders on the new house used it the other day during a planned outage and three sets of guys were running power tools off it with zero issues. I had the electrician put in two input sockets ( need two as they're only 15A each) with the correct switching gear. We'll be able to run the freezers, water pump (live on a life sentence block), some lighting circuits ( all LED) and a couple of specified power points. Will keep us more than ticking over I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted December 19, 2017 Report Share Posted December 19, 2017 (followup on old thread) Moved into the new house a few weeks back. Ran a test of the gen connected and it seems sweet. Simply plug it in, turn it on then turn a rotary switch on the exterior switch board from "Mains" to Off then "Gen". Pretty damn simple it seems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejg223 Posted December 19, 2017 Report Share Posted December 19, 2017 Very tidy. That's the way to do it. We had 4-5 days power outage this year. For some it meant no water/heat/light. We had water but our electrics down, mobile phone provider went down, internet down, land lines down. In Ireland some areas might not even have a radio station. We receive one single radio station in our house on a good day. Money is only spent on the capital city.... A genny and sat internet would be a great idea. edi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted December 19, 2017 Report Share Posted December 19, 2017 That looks like a lot of A/C units to be running off that size generator!! Cheers Bruce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-NZ Posted December 19, 2017 Report Share Posted December 19, 2017 Deceptive- there's 5kW of PV panels on the roof Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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