How to get power to a site

hexosan

I need to supply power to my site for the various trades so I need to get a generator.

I came up with the idea of adding a power point to the house when its finished so if there was a power outage I could plug in a generator to power the essentials. So with this in mind and since I need a generator on site now does any one know what size or a good brand that I should be looking at and is what I'm considering even feasible.

Any advice or info appreciated.

mfceiling

Whatever one you get make sure it is well secured.

Keep an eye on donedeal for a large diesel one but again make sure it is well hidden or almost impossible to move...the hi ace lads could make any decent size generator disappear!!

hexosan

Like everything on the site ill have it well nailed down, transit bandits are very active around my way.
Any idea what size would run a 4 bed house.

JD6910

the standard rule of thumb for a domestic house construction is that each trade brings there own power/generator.
you'll find that you will spend a fortune on petrol/diesel!! you will be broken up drawing fuel to it!!!
the guys will leave the generator on all day even during the 10am tea break!

pass that cost to the guys lucky enough to be doing the job for you in these recessionary times!!!
every tradesman has his own power nowadays.

hexosan

JD6910 wrote: »

the standard rule of thumb for a domestic house construction is that each trade brings there own power/generator.
you'll find that you will spend a fortune on petrol/diesel!! you will be broken up drawing fuel to it!!!
the guys will leave the generator on all day even during the 10am tea break!

pass that cost to the guys lucky enough to be doing the job for you in these recessionary times!!!
every tradesman has his own power nowadays.

While ill be hoping they all have their own power and its worked out that way so far, ill also be doing a lot of work around the house myself to cut down on labour costs so I'll need lights & power for the long winter evening when everyone else with sense is home warm in their beds.
The first thing the guy on site at the moment does every evening is load back up his generator and take it away with him. It seems you can't leave a hammer down without the tool fairy been in during the night to take it away.

Mahogany Gaspipe

What stage is the house built to? You may be able to get mains supply itself to the house?

hexosan

Groundworks are completed and basement will be finished in the next two weeks. Still a long way off mains supply and don't fancy paying the ESB their temporary connection charge.

Mahogany Gaspipe

Right your a bit off, mind you the house only needs to be sealed up (roofed, windows and doors, outside plastered) to get the regular mains supply connected.

The completion, or even commencement, of any internal work whatsoever is not required to get connected. And it probably this internal work that you'll need the power for.

May schedule the work to this end.

tred

hexosan wrote: »

Groundworks are completed and basement will be finished in the next two weeks. Still a long way off mains supply and don't fancy paying the ESB their temporary connection charge.

For the end result, where you want to have option of Genie powering house during an ESB outage, you need to install a changeover switch. This switch takes power from the metre box, and from a genie. depending on which way the switch is, defines where the power is coming from. Youd need a decent genie to power a few rooms in the house. I put this in, but have only used it once since i moved in to test that it works ok, and to give the genie a run. I have the genie in the garage, bolted, and vented...if they want it bad enough theyll get anything i suppose..

hexosan

tred wrote: »

For the end result, where you want to have option of Genie powering house during an ESB outage, you need to install a changeover switch. This switch takes power from the metre box, and from a genie. depending on which way the switch is, defines where the power is coming from. Youd need a decent genie to power a few rooms in the house. I put this in, but have only used it once since i moved in to test that it works ok, and to give the genie a run. I have the genie in the garage, bolted, and vented...if they want it bad enough theyll get anything i suppose..

Thanks for the info wasn't aware how the set up would work.
What size generator have you installed and if you can't name the brand can you PM me.

tred

hexosan wrote: »

Thanks for the info wasn't aware how the set up would work.
What size generator have you installed and if you can't name the brand can you PM me.

ill double check thinks its SDMO HX4000 ill check later...Honda engine...
its got some type of regulator in it, so is suitable as house backup genie.

hexosan

Am I better off with a petrol or diesel generator. My thinking been green diesel is a lot cheaper.

cikearney

hexosan wrote: »

I need to supply power to my site for the various trades so I need to get a generator.

I came up with the idea of adding a power point to the house when its finished so if there was a power outage I could plug in a generator to power the essentials. So with this in mind and since I need a generator on site now does any one know what size or a good brand that I should be looking at and is what I'm considering even feasible.

Any advice or info appreciated.

Any decent contractor should have his own genny and should have priced for it especially for a one off!

hexosan

cikearney wrote: »

Any decent contractor should have his own genny and should have priced for it especially for a one off!

I'm aware of that and as I've said elsewhere in the thread I will also need power myself when I'm doing work on site cant expect each trade to be leaving me with their genny.

rockabaloo

You need to get your spark to fit a transfer switch (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_switch) when he's wiring up the house.

The size of the generator for emergency power won't need to be all that big. LED lighting will barely have an impact, a LCD runs at about 100W, fridges and freezers don't take too much power to run (although they have a bigger demand during start up) and an oil boiler only takes a small amount of power.

If you avoid power hungry devices during a power outage (kettles, etc) then a 1-2kW genny should do the job.

gctest50

The generator you pick will need to have "clean output" ( output is sine wave and so on ) if you want to run PC's n stuff from it.


bit more about power transfer :

http://www.justgenerators.co.uk/pages/powertransfer.htm


.

Eoghan Barra

hexosan wrote: »

Groundworks are completed and basement will be finished in the next two weeks. Still a long way off mains supply and don't fancy paying the ESB their temporary connection charge.

Don't think the ESB do temporary connections any more anyway, at least that's what they told me a couple of years ago when I was getting going.