You have very similar wiring methods and standards to the the uk
You have a typical consumer unit and what I was expecting to see from Ash
quote=“Tom Holton, post:181, topic:6864, username:tcholton717”]
I avoiding this discussion because I think keeping your shop completely separate on generator power would be the way to go.
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I brought that up earlier and it was met with some resistance
A little over the top for a residential consumer unit
But it’s online to what you are looking for to switch between utility mains and locally generated power
If that’s the way to go
Problem is we don’t know what is the most simple and cost effective means for Ash to go,
There needs to be a plan here and parts and labour factored
What I have posted is a very expensive switch
That I keep hidden here in the shop for that black day the lights go out and I need to repower something from a portable generator
Thanks, sorry, I noted earlier that I was planning on running the workshop separate, a few people had mentioned it and I really doesn’t make sense.
The plan is going forward to run the Workshop from the gasifier. I still want it to be connected from the feed in the main fuse box (via a separate change over switch) just in case I have any issues with the generator or gasifier.
I’d like to put in a separate changeover switch so I can use the generator to run the house (when the workshop is closed) but that will be done in time.
Dave, yes, these are very much like the fuse boxes we have here. I don’t plan on changing the whole thing and was hoping to add something like this
In the same way as some of the other electronics it’s just something I’ve never used before and wasn’t sure I’d anyone had any idea of the best design or type to use (as there many available).
I’ll add a basic drawing of what I’m thinking.
Thanks
Sorry for the bad drawing! Hopefully this explains it a little clearer.
The house and workshop can both run from the generator but only one at a time. The original power source from the house to the workshop will stay in tact but hopefully won’t be used.
The bigger rectangle being the house!
Crunch some numbers is it cheaper to buy that switch, hire an electchicken call for a permit and a inspection….
Or
Buy a roll of cable the required number of components wire a dedicated set on non utility receptacles to run what ever equipment required for your shop and simply plug them in the to your generator circuit
No electrician or permits inspections required
Third options involve grid tie systems are probably too expensive or done in shady ways
Good grief the paper work doing things on the level
For the shop, I think Option 2 makes a lot of sense. Safer than an Armory of extension cords.
Gold!!!
Really old stuff made by the Canadian railway signal and power control corporation
I build revisionist history devices with this stuff.
I even salvage old wire and old enclosers
The inspectors have no idea what they are dealing with or when it was built.
Too embarrassed to ask they generally except things as grandfathered or existing systems rather than ask difficult questions of me
It’s not that I can’t pull permits or buy new stuff
I just hate spending the money and filling the paperwork
In the uk and a handful of other countries they use a ring and spur system of wiring that keeps the need for large panels full of fuses or cbs and in dedicated cicuits down
They put the over current protection at the end
In the plugs for the devices, and they are sized too the device loads
It’s still a much safer and simpler way to electrify than what we do with the Edison three wire system here… in my opinion……
They would never let you plug a 16 awg extension cord into a 20 amp T slot under the governing rules of BS 7671
Off on a rambling tangent
If you ever wonder about sets and locations for films
Like where did they go to find a post apocalypse bunker
Good example that an old Pine tree line norad bunker
Watch close at the electrical equipment
All Canadian milspec 600 volt with special red coatings…
Looks like this stuff
You can’t even google it it’s like this stuff never existed at all
Reaching sticks for short people
Mystery parts for which no spares can be had
If you make any change to your service without pulling a permit and getting an official approval and your house or shop burns down it doesn’t matter if a wild fire came through. Your insurance company will not pay. That lack of inspection is a get out of paying card. It is the first thing a fire inspector will check.
I was the one that mentioned just adding the solar inverter, because I don’t see the cost savings. The original plan was to add batteries, in which case you need an inverter (and charge controller) anyway. And the higher end solar inverters include the ability to just plug in a generator and has all the battery management built in.
The #1 killer of home portable generators is they sit around for a year or two with gas in them, and they gum up, or have other fuel delivery issues like leaking lines. NONE of which makes a lick of difference if the are plan is to use woodgas. The inverter most likely has a rectifier so it can sync with mains voltage and feed dc to the battery bank, which eliminates any issues with frequency or square/modified sine waves.
Instead of spending 1500 on a good genset, a cheap used one which around here is a 100 bucks. And with other stuff like extension cords, add other stuff like extension it will be 1500 over a cheap genset. Which is about half of the cost of the inverter, and if the plan is to add a battery bank at some point in the future, an inverter and charge controller and wiring are all needed anyway which is the other part of the money.
The point is the cost savings isn’t there. The difference is the upfront money. Provided as Wallace brings up the wiring doesn’t need to be replaced.
They have made some changes so the EU is more standardized. I don’t understand the ring and spur system, I thought they ran two hots to get the 230v to the plug, but looking at a page on the changes. They have a hot, neutral and ground. And I was under the impression they now require a 4th wire to eliminate floating grounds similar to NA for 240v plugs which kills people if there is an internal short. so is the neutral the second hot wire?
Quite possibly the whole house needs to be rewired to bring it up to code, but the bigger pain is you can’t use outside walls for running the lines.
On the bright side, you can diy it, but it needs to be inspected which is true in the states as well.
The breaker is the actual fuse, which are the resettable flip switch type. versus the one shot blowable screw type fuses. A breaker box (sometimes referred to as a fuse box) that holds the breakers (or fuses) is akin to your consumer box.
If you make any change to your service without pulling a permit and getting an official approval and your house or shop burns down it doesn’t matter if a wild fire came through. Your insurance company will not pay. That lack of inspection is a get out of paying card. It is the first thing a fire inspector will check.
I’m an electrician
Prove it wasn’t like this when I bought the house
Also
I’m an electrician
And it’s code compliant
I’m not suggesting anyone break any rules or do work they are not qualified to do
But as I see it so much work had already been done to my home including a service upgrade with no inspection ( no idea who did this other work it was not me dating from The 70 and 80 s )
there really is not much to be said other than it’s in far better shape since I owned than when I bought it
Before regulations began to change before college of trades and ESA inspectors pulling a permit was easy
I did not mind following the reasonable paper work
Now its a circus
Added 14 days later…
Like harry Tuttle will I meet my end lost in the paper work.
That’s a ring
The line and common go the devices and return to the same place.
The idea is if something gets damaged in the wiring you still have the other connection
I don’t remember the terminology but uk equine of gfci is supposed to detect the fault on the ring
It’s a good system a modernization of uk wiring post WW2.
I think lessons learned improved building code safety after the war
It is a gen2 grid, and in part they did it because it saved a lot of money on wire after the war. You get the same amount of energy with a smaller wire. I think there was some political contract thing with the manufacturer of the fuses as well. They have changed a few things over the years to make it better. But the older NA system has made changes as well, like oh oops the neutral does actually carry current. 
Where is shines is motors and anything else that is affected by the long dead spot like flourescent light flicker or anything rectified.
Hi All,
Thank you for the input, the electric work will be signed off, I just want to be sure I’m getting what I want done before I instruct. At the end of the day, having a back up generator wired in to both the workshop and house certainly isn’t illegal here and how I’m curling it is not the electricians business.
In regards to rest of the electrics, they were all re-done around 10-15 years ago, so nothing major will be changing until we renovate the house.
The main thing I want to do is get a generator running and pumping some free electric in to the house, I’ll no doubt hit 100’s of bumps in the road but the way I’m doing it is a nice easy set up and it’s cost efficient.
In an ideal world I’ve have an inverter, batteries and solar but unfortunately it is out of my budget. Generators over here are a lot less available than they are in the us, yes, I could pick one up for £100 but as a general rule - you get what you pay for. I’d rather buy new and make sure I’m getting something that’s going to last with somewhat of a guarantee.
Once this rig is up and running and I’m recovering some costs the plan is to rebuild the gasifier and fine tune the whole system, I’ll also be doing a lot of reading and research in to batteries/inverters (thanks again for all the battery university info Wallace). I wouldn’t like to have a system fitted before I fully understood how it all worked.
Thanks again
Keep your ear to the ground for a lister SOM
You don’t need the engine just the electrics
At some point down the road you can upgrade to another engine
The generator on the SOM can act as a starter, and it’s a very good one able to spin your engine fast to help it start on wood gas without worry of burning it out
Sean, yes. That’s correct, the ring main is used to carry extra current using less wire, I believe these can now be changed to a single wire legally but it has to be a 4mm T&E as apposed to two 2.5’s.
Lights, ovens, shower etc all still run off a single wire, only the ring main (sockets, some fuse spares) run on a ring.
All irrelevant to what I’m doing though as the integral electrics won’t need to be amended.
When you do a parallel run you can go a little less than half the size as a single run due to better cooling in a very few cases it’s still a parallel run your using more length than a radial system
Not sure on the tiles for spurs but I think they need to match the ampacity of the loads calculated
