Discuss Volt drop to summer house heating in the UK Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

S

sizz1806

Hi. First time poster here so please go easy on me.


A customer of mine has had a summer house built at the rear of her garden which has been supplied with two 6Kw heaters! Yep, 12Kw!! She would also like 2 switched double sockets and about 4 LED spots installed. Now the problem, as if a 12Kw load isn't enough, is that the summer house will be on the end of roughly a 65m run from a switch fuse inside the house. The obvious problem is volt drop and whether enough diversity can be applied to make this install possible. As a note, the heaters very basic instructions state that they DO each need a 26A supply.


Should I even apply diversity to the heaters knowing full well that the customer is intending to use them to full capacity? The customer explained that they would like to eat Christmas dinner in the summer house. This set the obvious alarm bells ringing - heaters on, cooker on, kettle on, hair dryers on....Boom....darkness.


At 52A I can get away with 16mm SWA if I have calculated correctly. But chuck in 10A + 50% of a power circuit and 66% of a lighting circuit and I think it all begins to fall apart. I have tried talking her into more efficient heating methods but she remains hell bent on what she already has. Surely other people have bought these summer houses and heaters. And at ÂŁ20k a pop I'm thinking a fair few of them will be at the end of big gardens! Surely not all of these people can be on 3 phase supplies?


Any advice, even if it's 'say no to the customer' greatly appreciated.
 
assuming these heaters are thermostatically controlled, then your 52A is a reasonable assumption of max. load, allowing for diversity. so 16mm will be more than adequate for CCC, but calc. your VD on a design load of 52 A ish.
 
Thanks for the quick reply!

Unfortunately there is no thermostat. Each heater is split into an upper and lower section. It comes pre-wired with one 3 core and one 4 core to be wired into a 2 gang switch. The extra core in the second cable is for a built in spotlight. So it can be switched on at half capacity at 3Kw or at full at 6Kw. Come to think of it, will your standard MK or BG weatherproof switch handle 13amps on each gang?
 
I hope I'm reading that wrong, but I'm a little bit concerned now.
I've read that as meaning you are currently planning to install a 2gang weatherproof light switch to control a 6KW heater!
 
Are they?
Would a single means of isolation not be more sensible than 2 per unit?
And what about control? Or are they just going to be switched on and left to keep heating the room indefinately?
 
Well the idea of the heater is that you can have either half or all of the heating elements working depending on the climate so single isolation isn't the ideal option. It does worry me that they can be left on without anything stopping them from running all day and night. The madness of these heaters is that the summer house is open fronted with only roll down nylon covers to keep the warmth in but there are still plenty of gaps beneath the roof for the heat to escape. I suggested 4 1.5Kw infrared heaters instead but no joy there really.
 
Look, you need to discuss this with the client and design a suitable way of controlling the heating. If they have already bought the heaters then that is what you will be fitting, no chance of changing that.
 
At this stage,i would certainly be contacting the heater manufacturer or supplier,and requesting details of what THEY would deem appropriate,circuit/switching wise...and maybe have a google translate on stand-by...:stooge_curly:
 
PEG, yep got the name and number of someone who, in the customers words, "knows about the voltage etc". Should be an interesting conversation....
 
Think it might be heading that way! The building is a breeze house but the heater they show in a picture on their website, although 6Kw, isn't the same as the ones supplied. We'll see what they say but I'm not holding my breath for good news!
 
Rough calcs based on a 60A design current (taking into account a couple of sockets and a few lights on top of the 52A for the heaters) you're looking at 35mm cable.

If the customer can swallow the price of the required cable you might earn some decent wedge on this job.
 
Why not control the 2 heaters via a thermostat in turn controlling a contactor?
 
The heaters should have some sort of thermostat room stat
This room is open fronted with roll down nylon shutters ! In winter how weather proof will this be? will you get frost inside the building damp etc ?
You don't seem to have thought a lot of this through from some of your replies
How would you connect to.the house electrics ? If you do run 35ml or ,25 ml is the house supplied by 16 ml
I would have a good think before I started this job as half way through you can't come on here and ask more questions
 

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