ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades New supply -- Awkward location

Wow! Thanks for the calcs Alan, but the waterwheel notion isn't really a serious contender.

What's so darned annoying about this project is that we have mains power all around. It's not as though the place is miles from anywhere. If it wasn't for the guy in the house at the back end of the field I'm sure we'd have gone with the original plan.



6 ft. isn't a hill around here -- It's practically a mountain!

Here's the final chapter (for now) of this long-running saga.

Alan's comments about chickens perched on batteries pecking at the crocodile clips wasn't all that far off the mark!

The main feed to the inverter, for example, was two rusty old clips with the wires just wrapped around one side with some tape. It seems that the inverter itself, along with the regulator and load resistors for the wind turbine were perched on whatever junk happened to be there at the time they were "installed" and all wired up with whatever offcuts of wire were laying around in the barn, held up with sticky tape and bits of string.

Anyway. the whole sorry mess of assorted old car and tractor batteries is gone and we fitted a large plywood sheet on the wall to take the equipment.

The system is now running with four 100Ah deep-cycle batteries in parallel, the existing wind turbine which has been hoisted another 8 or 9 feet into the air, plus an 80W PV panel installed on the shed roof temporarily. That panel plus another two or three will go on to the roof of the new mobile home when it arrives (probably next spring).

I've installed a 60-amp bulk charger (Mastervolt) to give a boost when the genset is running. It was darned expensive, but with temperature sensing and voltage sensing at the battery terminals it's going to be just slightly better than the horrible battered old trickle chargers he'd been trying to use until now.

Of course, everything is now wired with decent-size cable and proper protective devices too. (I really don't need to tell you that there wasn't a fuse in sight before, do I? ).
I was going to try and take before and after pictures to post, but forgot to pick up my camera.

Anyway, there is still some "interesting" wiring in the barn where the genset is located about 200 feet away which drastically needs work. He's going to "let me know" about that one, but let's say that until it's done I've told him it would not be a good idea to run the dryer which is sitting in the shed!

Sometimes you get jobs you wish you'd never seen!

The next chapter:

Just added a second 80W PV panel and increased the battery capacity to around 800Ah. It seems that during winter/spring the wind turbine was providing ample power for much of the time (dumping into the load resistors), so the extra capacity should make better use of the turbine. Seems that for his modest needs he's now down to running the generator for just a couple of hours every 3 or 4 hours for a boost, so this should reduce that even further.

He's hoping to get finance for the larger mobile home this summer, then we'll transfer the existing PV panels and add a few more onto the roof of the new unit.

P.S. His planning application for continued siting of a mobile home for residential use is still pending after over a year!



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 06-01-2006).]

Paul,


This guy is not having a very good time with the local Authorities!.
Is there an Ombudsman for the People in the UK?.
I personally think that this guy is being unfairly treated by people that should be doing more.
To be censured by the Ombudsman here is tantamount to "You guys don't know how to do your own job!" it is also widely publisiced(sp?), not a good look for any local or central government, usually after the censure is issued, there is a vote of "no confidence" in the local council.
Councils here have been toppled by the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman is impartial and will not enter into any correspondence with any person.
The simple fact that this guy has got all this land that he cannot build on really tears my shorts.
Who, I ask, is he affecting by building there?
If he owns the bloody land I say build anyway!.
I'm going to stop before I hit 2nd gear!.

Ah, the joys of UK Planning Departments, the last vestiges of UK-style 1940's Stalinist Autocracy, run by [ not very ] civil servants.
My advice Paul, if the area is not in an area of outstanding natural beauty or green-belt zoned, is to tell him to submit a proper outline-planning proposal through an Architectural Draftsman's or Architect's Office. Take no notice of 'letters of intent' , the Officers all get promoted somewhere else every 2 or 3 years and policy changes with the next incumbent. One of the idiots I ran up against insisted all the elevations of a small country cottage extension must have 'golden rectangle' proportions, because he admired the Parthenon! Six months later, the new boss couldn't give a flying monkey's!

Planning will then have to make a proper decision, yay or nay, taken with consultation with elected councillors, ooh, they hate that!
If nay, appeal. This really gives them the diahoreas, as the appeal is to the Minister, and the costs are astronomical. He has a statistical 36% chance of success based on latest data, very much improved by a solid case properly drawn up by an experienced professional with good cogent arguments. Many of the failed appeals will be DIY jobs of cretins wanting to put up a totally unacceptable pink cement carbunkle in a conservation area!

Oops!


I meant to say just a couple of hours every 3 or 4 days!

As for the local council, I've yet to find anyone in the area who hasn't had some problem or complaint (yours truly included, and I have a stack of papers a mile high to prove it).

The planning committee here seems to have its own very specific agenda based upon the personal preferences of its members. Several people on my estate who have submitted quite reasonable plans have been rejected while they've allowed some monstrosities of "executive-style" homes to be built in a nearby village which are completely out of keeping and stick out like a sore thumb. It's clear that they don't like approving anything which isn't yet another boring red-brick "conventional" house.


As it stands at the moment, the pending application is for continued siting of a mobile home, as he intends to get rid of the tatty old single-unit and replace it with a nice double-wide "park home" style unit.

I think he's so throroughly fed up with the council (and who can blame him?) that he's just going ahead with siting the new home anyway. If the council can't be bothered to answer in over a year, what else can be done? Do they think people can just put their whole life on hold while their endless committees shuffle pieces of paper around indefinitely?



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 06-03-2006).]

Yeah Alan,
I know what you mean there,
Building Planning places are bloody funny things.
I'm looking to get permission to build on a block of land that was gifted to me years ago,
nothing huge, but I went to the local Council (called a Territorial Authority these days) to see what I needed to provide and what have you for my application.
Bearing in mind I want to also install a radio tower of some sort, I booked an appointment with one of the Inspectors.
(I will say that I wasn't speaking to a friend of mine who is a local Building Inspector, they like to have total impartiality, so I was talking to a different guy.)
Anyway, after coming out of that meeting (that lasted an hour and a half!), I knew everything that I wanted to know, I knew fully where I stood, with respect to what I want to do.
I was to be honest, bloody amazed, local builders here like to paint Inspectors like some idiot that has no idea of "how the builder of today feels".
It's all BS!.
Most Inspectors here (like Electrical Inspectors) come from an extensive background of practical Trade knowledge.

How these things ought to be done:

Last year an old farmer turned up on the doorstep, cap in hand. Please would I come and translate for him with a local English couple, as he wanted to sell them a "bit of land". This turned out to be well over an acre of beautiful flat meadow hedged in with cherry trees and old oaks alongside their existing house. The old boy wanted 200,000 [ancient] franks, which is about US$3500 dollars. There are two barns on it, piped water and an electricity pole. They bought it of course! When I went with them to the Mairie to translate about planning permission for a new house on the plot, M. le Maire bloody near jumped over his desk at them in sheer happiness! "Oui! Quelle bon idée! Gerard!! [assistant] le Calvados [local rocket fuel], tout suite!!"
Planning granted in just 8 weeks with some pics and drawings for the prefecture and a design for the sewage system from an engineer.

There is no Building Control or Inspectors; as on old Maire told me many years ago-
"You build a house and it falls over- What's that got to do with me?!"

It will be only the second house built in our commune since the 1830'S.

Alan

I can't imagine that happening at the North Norfolk District Council offices!


My sentiments exactly.

Next installment of this long-running saga.....

The planning application at the local council is still pending with not a word from them as yet.

The old mobile home was just about at the point of disintegrating and the owner has a young lady arriving from the Philippines soon to become his wife, so he decided an urgent interim plan was needed.

He's set a new concrete pad, large enough to hold a double-wide unit eventually, but for the moment has acquired a good used 36 ft. single unit -- A vast improvement on the old one!

We got the power and telephone all hooked up yesterday, still on the battery/inverter system. I did lay in a 4-core SWA cable to the unit so that we can provide a separate sub-feed direct from the generator supply should he want it later for the washer, heating, etc.

He's planning on extending the PV system when money permits.