3 phase install residential Q's? UK

K Battenbough · Jun 2, 2010

Good morning Gents

Ive recently bought a property and in about 6 months time, im looking at building a workshop attached to the property at the back, where I can walk into, from the house. My main concern is getting 3 phase power to it, im not 100% on where all the power cables are, but 3 doors down, it looks like the church has 3 phase going to it (for the organ I guess), from the telegraph pole across the road (see pic). Does anyone from the UK have any experiance getting 3 phase to a residential property? especially from over head? and have any idea on cost?

Thanks
KB

Clive603 · Jun 3, 2010

KB

This link looks pretty relevant to your situation, although its getting on for 3 years old.
IET Forums - Domestic 3 phase upgrade
Seems that it can be remarkably painless if you know the ropes.

Hafta say that when I enquired it was made pretty clear that every excuse to put the price up would be taken and that I'd be in business rate territory as it was for a workshop and that the council would be informed. It really does depend where you are.

Clive

adama · Jun 3, 2010

The cables burried in the middle of the street here. For that cost i can buy a lot and i mean a lot of inverters and have more capable bits of kit. But your still limited to your current main fuse.

I would be surprissed if you could get planning permission for a extension as a commercial enterprise on a back of such a residential looking area.

K Battenbough · Jun 3, 2010

Who's to say its not for personal use? cant we have a hobby that requires 3 phase? I have heard of 3 phase being put in to run ac heaters/coolers, walk-in refridgerators, and under ground heating elements.

Mark McGrath · Jun 3, 2010

I`ve got three phase in my house,but,only because it used to be three houses before it was made into one.All phases are live but only one being used.A workshop at the house with a three phase supply is ok with Scottish Power or whatever they call themselves nowadays.Prices vary tremendously so it`s a question of asking.An engineer comes out and has a look,sometimes gives a verbal ballpark figure then goes back to the office and works out an exact quote.
My feelings would be that anything under £3K would be acceptable just to get away from single phase motors and/or convertors.
If it was industrial minimum price up here tends to start around £10K.
Mark.

Joe Miranda · Jun 3, 2010

Can't you guys use phase converters? In the States the common application is 220v single phase coming into residences. So many of us that run machine shops from our houses or pole buildings simply use phase converters to generate three phase power. It's simple and pretty cost effective.

K Battenbough · Jun 3, 2010

Most people make do with phase converters, but I dont want to use 1 machine at a time for fear of over loading the inverter, my caz 360 alone has a 10hp motor on it, 30hp inverters are around the 3k mark, my thinking is if im going to be forking out thousands, I might aswell get the real thing......

Guest · Jun 3, 2010

Maybe things are different across the pond, but where I live in Southern California they want $50,000 plus so much a foot to run 3 phase, so if you aren't in an industrial complex where it is already at, you just use converters.

bcstractor · Jun 3, 2010

It sounds as though you are talking about a VFD but surely you can also use a rotary converter. I don't see how you can use all the horsepower all the time.

Chris P

Dave K2 · Jun 3, 2010

Was quoted £8k+ plus the council would be informed, heavy residential area so gave up.

Converted two lathes and two mills with VFD's and never regretted it, i did have a rotary but it would only run one at a time plus the noise was annoying.

VFD's are great

67Cuda · Jun 3, 2010

Their have been two references to the "council" being notified. Who is the counsel? Sounds like people live in fear of having the council notified.

Tom

K Battenbough · Jun 3, 2010

In the UK the council are the local authority who work for the goverment, pretty much ANYTHING that concerns you and your property is governed by them in your area, every borough in the UK has one.

KB

Sea Farmer · Jun 3, 2010

Has the Phase perfect digital converter made its way to the UK? Phase Converter, Digital Phase Converters - Phase Perfect

If so, it's a viable alternative to awkward or overpriced utility hookups. I'm pleased with mine, and if you search this forum you'll find plenty of other happy users.

Assuming you can get the thing, of course.

Limy Sami · Jun 3, 2010

K Battenbough said:
In the UK the council are the local authority who work for the goverment, pretty much ANYTHING that concerns you and your property is governed by them in your area, every borough in the UK has one.

KB

X 2,............... if they're sympathetic to small shops it's generally not too bad,......... if not they can (and will) make your life hell,............. and in short there's sweet FA you can do about it.

Dave K2 · Jun 3, 2010

Limy Sami said:
X 2,............... if they're sympathetic to small shops it's generally not too bad,......... if not they can (and will) make your life hell,............. and in short there's sweet FA you can do about it.

Got that right!

The deeds to our house list a covenant regarding home businesses, if they knew what was in my shop they would probably sh*t themselves

pistonskirt · Jun 3, 2010

Looks like you are going to cross a main road with the 3 phase supply which is likely to be the killer, somewhere back in the late 70's a friend of mine needed 3 phase for his small one man workshop next to his end of terrace cottage (he did some very clever welding & needed TIG, at that time 240v TIG was none existant I think) the 3 phase was overhead & on the other side of a slightly wider main road than yours, as I remember it cost over £5,000 back then, added to which he susequently suffered 3 years of hell because the linesmen did not make the earths properly, but that's another story.

However, if you are Welsh & the house is in Wales if you can come up with some sort of "ancient celtic craft revival" sort of wheeze there are probably innumerable government agencies with coffers overflowing ready to step in & surmount any obstacle, financial or practical, with little cost to yourself.

I do however like Marks point, buy the next 2 houses & get instant 3 phase (assuming that works the same with overhead supply) and no one from the council or the power supply company would be any the wiser

Good luck KB

Regards

Brian

adama · Jun 3, 2010

Piston skirts that ok in theory but you gotta remember std small houses here only get a 60 ish amp main fuse. Explaining to the girlfriend - isolating house circuits when you do something heavy gets agrivating fast.

If a transformer needs replaceing it gets expensive. Around here theres not to many pole pigs, a lot more small substations feeding a few blocks each in USA terms. Debending on the vercinity a lot of thoes subs don't have much spare cappacity either. At least not when it comes to big hook ups. Cheeper pole pigs are only common out of towns - villages.

oly2brf5 · Jun 3, 2010

Installing a 3 phase Supply

I installed 3 phase at home about 9 years ago. I live in a residential area, albeit in a fairly rural village. In my road we have single phase and telephone overhead and 3 phase underground.

The electricity board had no problem in coming out to do a survey and quote a price. Total cost was £2500 including VAT for a run of about 60 feet. Unfortunately the underground supply runs up the far side of the road to me. According to friend in the house building game that adds about a grand to the price, as the electricity company need to dig up the road, and they have to guarentee the road repairs for a year. I could have saved some money by digging the trench on my drive, but didn't think it was worth it. There was also some confusion about conduit for the cable, but in the end I don't think any was used.

However, organising and paying for the installation was the easy bit. The actual installation was a comedy of errors and took over a month.

The house runs off one phase and the 3 phase meter seems to run happily off the unbalanced phases. As far as I'm aware I pay no premium for the 3 phase, I just get charged the normal domestic rates per kWh.

There was never any mention of informing the council, and I certainly haven't told them.

Andrew

K Battenbough · Dec 26, 2010

Update

Ok guys, now that I am back home, I have since had a ball park figure for the install over the phone, yet to be finalised by a site visit, unbeknown to me there is a transformer on my side of the road that is still in use (see pic), so running it to my workshop underground is no problem. When I enquired about the install I was sent a form to list all the machinary I intend to use, what horse power they were, what kva they use, and my total kva requirement was, I worked out that I would need a total of 50kva supply, going over board to take into account motor startup draw on amps, they came back with 2 options, first of all the transformer would need upgrading because it is limited to 100 amps, and run a huge cable to my workshop for around 10k, or option 2 run 100 amp cable in and use a star delta conversion for 5k, so my next Q is, from my limited net search, im guessing the cable will come into the workshop, enter a star/delta panel box and then run to my machines? does that sound right?
Im no sparky by any means so any help would be appriciated.

Ps, was also told forget a welder get a genny for it!..

KB

Mark McGrath · Dec 26, 2010

If you have given them total connected load in amps or Kw`s,they should then apply a diversity factor as it is accepted practice that all machines will not be running on full load all the time.
As it is a home based workshop I doubt very much that you need more than 100 amps a phase and am quite sure that if no heavy welding plants are involved you would live quite happily on 60 amps a phase.
It is good practice never to mention welding plants to electricity boards as they panic due to the high uneven loads they place on the mains.
I am saying you would get by on 60 amps because I once bought a small factory unit after enquiring with Scottish Power if the supply was upgradeable without a new cable.They said no problem then after it was bought needed £10K to run a new cable so I stuck with the 60 amps.
On that sixty amps I had a lot of stuff but the main machines that ran all day long were three multispindle lathes.Two had 20hp motors and the third had 15hp.One of the 20hp`s was direct start,a three terminal motor.Full load on the 20hp`s was 28 amps.Also ran other machines at the same time.
Never once did we blow the main fuses
Mark.

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