John Noble
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At our previous house we had a small generator used successfully during power cuts to power the essentials - fridge, heating, some lights, tv. We just plugged the generator output into a socket in the kitchen.
Our present house has a 3 phase supply to 2 consumer units. One has a few non-essential connections -sauna, steam shower, spa bath pump and will be left unpowered during mains failures. The other powers the rest of the house - including the garage with an 11kw car charger using all 3 phases. This would be tripped out if using the generator and the rest of the loads restricted to less than the 3kw rating of the generator.
During the couple of power cuts so far, I have just connected a lead from the generator to a socket in the kitchen to power the fridge freezer etc and some lights and sockets in the rest of the house on that phase with no problems.
Clearly that is not very satisfactory so we have just installed a 3 phase changeover switch to the essentials consumer unit with a couple of outdoor sockets by the back door a few feet away from the changeover switch. The generator sockets are both earthed to main earth pin outside the back door The generator would be just outside the door with 5ft cables from its 2 outputs into the 2 sockets. All 3 phases would be powered from the generator which should work with the car charger tripped and suitable load restriction.
RCDs are fitted to the 2 cables between the changeover switch and the generator supply. One cable is connected to one phase and the other to the other two. This is not really necessary as the 2 sockets on the generator are wired in parallel but at least either output CB can operate independently. At present alas any attempt to connect the generator trips the RCDs.
The generator is an inverter type where I understand both live and neutral outputs are 115 v to earth, giving the desired 230v between them.
I do not think the RCDs are essential but are confused by the inverter generator output. So is the answer to remove them?
Any advice would be most welcome.
Our present house has a 3 phase supply to 2 consumer units. One has a few non-essential connections -sauna, steam shower, spa bath pump and will be left unpowered during mains failures. The other powers the rest of the house - including the garage with an 11kw car charger using all 3 phases. This would be tripped out if using the generator and the rest of the loads restricted to less than the 3kw rating of the generator.
During the couple of power cuts so far, I have just connected a lead from the generator to a socket in the kitchen to power the fridge freezer etc and some lights and sockets in the rest of the house on that phase with no problems.
Clearly that is not very satisfactory so we have just installed a 3 phase changeover switch to the essentials consumer unit with a couple of outdoor sockets by the back door a few feet away from the changeover switch. The generator sockets are both earthed to main earth pin outside the back door The generator would be just outside the door with 5ft cables from its 2 outputs into the 2 sockets. All 3 phases would be powered from the generator which should work with the car charger tripped and suitable load restriction.
RCDs are fitted to the 2 cables between the changeover switch and the generator supply. One cable is connected to one phase and the other to the other two. This is not really necessary as the 2 sockets on the generator are wired in parallel but at least either output CB can operate independently. At present alas any attempt to connect the generator trips the RCDs.
The generator is an inverter type where I understand both live and neutral outputs are 115 v to earth, giving the desired 230v between them.
I do not think the RCDs are essential but are confused by the inverter generator output. So is the answer to remove them?
Any advice would be most welcome.
