One-a-larf

[bobpape]

There I am,
Christmas day stretched out in the bath,
Looking forward to christmas dinner,
What happens?
A power cut...the third this month and the forth this year.

I am on a combi boiler in the annexe so no hot water to shower off with,
Son who lives in the main house has an old wet system,

He also has a little three KW generator in his van which we hook up to via an extension lead, it gives us some light and TV and his heating works on it
whereas our combi will not work on it, it keeps cycling in the start mode,

The house and annexe has two consumer units on one service head,
which means two seperate supplies from the genny is necessary,

This connection is made not via the meter tails as would be normal,

We made up two extension leads with plugs on both ends which we simply
plug into a conveniant socket outlet after isolating the system from the
incoming main by breaking the main rcb, the main fuse is not touched,

We visited our relations over christmas and mentioned all this by way of
conversation,

Would you believe my brother who is a retired electrician in his eighties
could not take the method onboard, every half hour or so he would say
tell me again what you do.

On the other hand my brothers son who is doing engineering at uni understood immediately,

It seems the oldies have been so brainwashed they are no longer able to
think outside the box,

Sorry I ment my brothers sons son...my nephew....

 

[REDSAW]

what u say is,
u prefered the tin bath next the fire eh bob?

 

[migoplumber]

most boilers get upset with polarity changes on the mains, its to do with the flame rectification. bet if he plugged the generator in, back to front ref +ve -ve it would work!
came accross this problem a lot overseas

 

[quality]

don`t talk wet he is talking AC voltage which changes itself back to front 50 times every second. Voltage peaks and troughs from small generators can cause real greif with any electronic circuits

 

[migoplumber]

all i can suggest to your comment quality, is that read up about it. nearly every appliance in your house will work live neutral reversed - ask any sparks. the only problem with that comes when your comparing a voltage to earth, as in flame rectification. easily checked and you will find it as a common fault in many boiler install instructions.
having lived with a generatore myself i can assure you they dont offer a perfect 50hz, you can obtain 30 to 70 quite happily from the little b*ggers, an yes off course thats at 230/240 volts, you also should install a small rectification circuit in your house if you plan to use one regular. i assumed rightly or wrongly that this was so. nowt 'wet' about my comment. sorry if it didnt please you.

 

[quality]

No offense intended but agree on the voltage to earth point as some generators are total isolation types with 0 potential to earth (which is the idea) with no centre tapping which if there was, there would be half the nominal to earth.
ps the wet thing was meant to a joke as this is a plumbers forum with water and all