@@kjgreen3Sorry, what you’re saying is completely sensible, but I disagree that it’s a requirement. BS7671 encourages the consumer unit to be constructed from non combustible materials (BS EN 61439-3) , whilst it’s good practice, I’m not aware of any regulations that stipulate it must be mounted onto a non combustible surface. Happy to be corrected if you have a reg number or IET guideline. 😁
@corymac No regulation number everything you have done is to regs. But regs are bare minimum. It's just nice to lift the bar. Seems strange that the regs only stipulate non combustible enclosure but you could mount the db on the side of a straw bale if you wished. Not having a go, more venting at the duality of some of the requirements in BS7671. Love your work since you left Artisan.
Very nice European product: Hager has the ADA940U RCBO for example. (but the import tariffs on EU products are of course extremely high on the island) 🙂
I was really looking forward to the wiring tbh. Thoughtful of you to not to waste people's time but we follow you for that reason tbh! More in the entertainment business than the education business
The Aico Relay is installed to sound the smoke alarms when a sprinkler head is activated. Your concealed sprinkler heads woluld acivate at 68 degrees if the sprinkler bulb is red. Only the sprinkler closest to the fire wilol operate. BS9251 requires that when a sprinkler is activeted an alarm sounds. Happy to help you further if needed?
Came here to say this as well. I’m in the US but unless it’s a preaction system (it’s not) the pump controller is on a pressure switch/flow switch. When the heat becomes great enough it will break the glass bulb of the head (or link, if it’s link type) allowing water to flow from THAT HEAD ONLY, this will then trigger the pump to run to maintain pressure as well as the flow switch triggering all the alarms to warn occupants. Here we use red bulbs for 165f in normal locations, yellow for 175f in utility areas, and green for 200f in special designated zones. You can usually get a second set of dry contacts on the flow switch that you can tie into HA for water flow notifications without touching the system proper. You also may want either a feed from the system if it has it for pump running alarm or for isolation you could use a vibration sensor on the pump into HA just in case a contractor sticks or something with no waterflow, could keep you from burning up a pump. That said, let the controllers do their job and don’t put anything in between, monitor only if you will. Life safety systems are there for a reason after all. ❤
andyca15@@andyca15 It can be your best friend or you worst enemy. I've been running it for a few years, for lighting, heating, house alarm, smoke alarm (but still hardwired). The trick/challenge is to try and avoid any cloud based services/third parties. It's normally these that cause you the most issues.
Yonks ago we were all sent on an electrical safety course because we'd be maintaining battery back up for telecom kit. Still stick in my mine the statement from the lecturer that on average then (1980s) there were 30 fatalities a year due to electrocution. 90% were qualified electricians i.e. the very people who should know what they were doing.
Awesome Cory! Just what we need as the country heads to more self reliance from the grid! Please can you cover the lack Earth Neutral bond issue that can happen with certain inverters 👍🏻 also be interested to hear your take on shared water supplies of neighbours and how that can effect bonding if they have an earth fault.
In my country Norway have we IT powergrid, no neutral wire its holding 115-120V on blue wire and 115-120V on brown wire. Only local earth wire with yellowgreen cable to ground locally.
I've noticed that the smaller electronics get, the more people think they have to figure out how to cram it all into a smaller space instead of adding more electrical boxes and cabling paths to make it easy to access.
John Ward suggests that most TNS supplies are now actually TNCS. So maybe we are best providing local earthing in any case. Also what is your take on using DC isolators as this seems contentious now.
I've just started on the HA learning curve and it's something that can make you tear your hair out! Main problem is that there is loads of info on the WWW but a lot does not pertain directly to the current releases so you end up down dark alleys looking for commands that your particular install does not have - be prepared for some fun. I'm running mine in Docker on my Synology NAS- I wish I'd just got a Pi so that I could run the full install 😒
Great to see spakys getting in to the home assistant rabbit hole. Looking forward to see how you integrate it? Ive just wired all my lighting circuits with shelly pro2 relays in a panel build works great as theyre lan attached and not reliant on wifi or the internet. My whole house is ran by home assistant, theres some great home assistant youtubers out there for advice.Great video
Can't wait to see how this all ties into Home Assistant, i've been rewiring my house in a very specific way to take this into account as well, be interesting to compare
sygad1@@sygad1 HA is a bit of an overkill for this, you can buy self contained change over switches. He mentioned knx, so I'm assuming he'll be using that/those devices for monitoring power and doing the switching.
@@jasonmart1081 I didn't take it as HA to control the switch over, I took it more that HA is going to form an integral part of the automation side of things
@@corymac i'm working towards a 45way CU, ultimately for individual control of EVERY room, both ring final and lights. I'd love one of the SPAN units from the states that have power monitoring and an app but I don't see anything like that for the UK, unless you know differently? Not sure you're comfort level or access to HA knowledge, but hit me up if you have Q's, i'll try and answer what I can
Now you got me intressted. KNX and HA. I love how stable knx are compared to anything else. Never ever had to restart it. Even in big comercial building with over 3000 devices. I run KNX as base at home then through HA bind it toghter with plejd, trådfri, hue and Modbus. It's just cool to control a hue light with a knx swtich with the help of HA :)
I was a bit stupid & didn't properly isolate what I was working on, & got a shock from all 3 phases at once; not nice, it took about 1/4 hr for feeling to come back to my arm. There's no such thing as too safe with electricity. Wow! that is properly impressive job you've made of the install.
So like you I have a db for the house and a db for my protected critical loads hanging of my victron ess. I used a changeover switch to essentially be a maintenance bypass of the inverter, because if the inverter fails or needs a firmware update - all your critical loads will go offline. I also have a downstream ups for the computer gear.
Great timing as I’m hoping to book you in for a solar install. I have home assistant and a lot of smart integrations so whatever goes in will be integrated if possible. I can recommend Shelly kit if you are going to integrate as it just works. They do din mounted switches, dimmers, etc.
A video outlining how to convert a complete botch into a professional commercial style UPS back-up distribution board. Typical smart and well thought through work Cory! One question though, does the water sprinkler system shut off the power to the house automatically if it starts pumping water? 🌧⚡⚡
Welcome to the world of new builds, I’m afraid! Even if it’s a small scale developer, they’re thrown together as fast as possible and as cheaply as possible. That being said, yours does sound exceptionally bad with live cables being left everywhere!
Could you expand on the earthing arrangement? You mentioned that you need to replace the existing TNCS. What prevents you from connecting the rod to the MET as an additional ground?
@@gavinnoname1424 the general thing is that if you want to be running when the grid is down, you need to be completely isolated from the incoming cables so anyone working to fix it upstream can work safely without worrying about and backfed power. If you're on TNCS then you're still connected via the earth even if you've isolated L and N through the inverter. Also there's the concern that if you rely on the incoming earth you might not actually be connected to ground during a power cut
You do not need to **replace** the earth from the DNO - the way it is 'explained' in this video isn't clear and would lead you to think that you must replace it if going 'off-grid'. There **is** a mandatory requirement to install an additional measured earth electrode and connect it to your installation MET if you intend to install any form of generation (whether operated in parallel with the DNO supply or used as an alternative source). The assumption is that you can't rely on the DNO supply earthing being effective during a fault scenario. Convention is that this additional earth electrode would be permanently interconnected with the DNO earth at the MET. BS7671 actually recommends (reg 411.4.2) that you have an additional earth electrode installed and connected to the MET if your supply is from a TN system (the vast majority of DNO supplies are from TN systems). There is some debate amongst some installers regarding deliberate disconnection of the DNO earth while the installation is operating 'off-grid', particularly where the DNO supply is from a TN-C-S system. This **is** permitted under BS7671 but requires careful consideration and full compliance with the regulations.
@@protectiongeek Very well explained and I can follow the logic. I'd add that, in my humble experience with earthing (for radio/comms installs), a single earth rod won't cut the mustard. Apart from the peeing on the ground ,before taking the reading ,you really need two or more rods suitably installed. Another beef I have is that I see a lot of installers making nice coiled piggy tails in their earthing connections - DON'T - it can add impedance and will underperform if there is lighting in the area.
For the fire alarm what starts the pump is the pressure switch on the line, if a sprinkler head thermal link ruptures and line pressure drops the pump starts to spray water at the broken sprinkler head edit: it could also be a flow switch, depends if it's a dry system or not
New build - seems about the standard 😮 Great job pre-planning the EPS side of things rather than having to figure it out later - if it wasn’t for added bureaucracy I’d have a full back-up but as it stands the worst power cut has lasted less than a few hours - 30kWh is huge but looks like you have a gas boiler rather than heat pump?
Question about Short Circuit Loop Impedance on an off grid system: Would the prospective fault current needed to fast trip a circuit breaker ever be achieved? A grid supply has a lot of "strength". The supply voltage wouldn't dip if you had a short circuit so the breakers would fast trip at 3-5x the rated capacity. With an off grid supply, you might achieve the Zs according to wiring regs. But the inverter wouldn't have the strength needed to maintain voltage during a short circuit. As a result, your breakers might never trip in off grid mode because your voltage gets dragged down. You're entirely reliant on the inverter itself tripping out). It makes me wonder whether wiring regs for off grid use purposes will eventually get updated. Essentially: Thermo-magnetic tripping mechanisms get replaced by 1. Programmable-electronic current tripping mechanisms which don't rely on prospective fault currents to fast trip. 2. ROCOV/F (Rate of change of Voltage/Frequency) relays.
@@anthonydyer3939 your concerns are absolutely valid and I think many installers don’t even consider the difference in fault level between being interconnected with the DNO and operating in island mode. Certainly, the end users won’t! A typical inverter will usually have a short-time rating of 120% of the nominal rating. Lots of inverters are type-tested devices rated at 16A nominal output, so short-term rating is around 19 to 20A. Any overcurrent device rated above 6A on a BS EN 60898 B operating curve (so tripping expected between 18 to 30A) is unlikely to operate. That said, I remember a demonstration I witnessed as a young graduate trainee engineer, where the live and neutral from a typical flexible cable were bared and laid about 10mm apart on a block of wood. The bare ends sat in a very shallow pool of tap water and the flex, protected by a domestic 13A fuse was energised. It was smouldering within about 6 minutes. Sadly it’s impractical to protect against every eventuality. The inverter will shut down for overcurrent/overload conditions to protect its output electronics. Almost all incorporate RoCoF protection to satisfy G83/G59/G98/G99 requirements to detect loss-of-mains but this is not likely to pick-up for an overcurrent or overload condition.
My mum property have sprinkler system and I tell you, it's can get expensive real quick on repairs! We have several faults on leaks and losing pressure. Pump activate when there's a loss in pressure such as popping a sprinkler head or small leak in the system. We've finally fixed all the problems and is now working and run automatic service test once a week. Smoke alarms will not activate sprinkler system like you see in the movie! 🙄😀
I've managed engineering teams for years and you had your 'go to' really great guys and some that struggled with a screwdriver. They were all trained and qualified but when out in the field that then changes. Oh the days of the 4 fuse if your lucky Bakelite board with lead or rubber sheathed cables. Back in the days and it was still there in 1975 when I was 10 years old was my great Aunt had an off grid farm in Devon!! meaning there was no electricity but what she did have a wind generator behind the farmhouse and 12v lead acid batteries and lights just with 12v bulbs. Not enough power for anything else but that was the job for the range and the open fire.
Every video I've seen of yours in new builds discovering these cowboy jobs makes me so worried that these same builders are leaving these special surprises for people to get shocked or burnt. Many other Grenfell incidents waiting to happen. :( Glad do see there's some quality traders out there doing their thing and showing folk how it's done, I'm not a sparky but it's good to know what to look out for.
Firstly, long time watcher and my favourite RU-vid spark btw. Wanted to ask, do you having some kind of ats to switch between the battery and grid? Not done much of that kind of stuff. Cheers!
Usually its all done in the inverter, in my case I have a Vicrton Energy Multiplus system, so decide which circuits are bi-directional (and coupled to the grid through ESS - usually high load), and which circuits are critical (so run off batteries 24x7). These days its very very rare for the substation to fully fail (usually if its in a flood plain under water - but it has happened once in 60 years to myself!), normally the grid is off for a few hours / day at most (tree brought down cables etc.), so depending on where you live will dictate your level to resilience.
Yip one of those new starts. Was due to start collage this year but had to delay a year. Pretty sure most of new starts or competent DIYrs could do a better job then that board started as! Ps! Should have filmed the rest of the house issues to keep content going.
TN-C-S-System should be Terre Neutre Combiné Séparé, not Terre Neutre Combiné System. Unless you're talking about TN-C-System. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I may be an electrician, but my main work is in industrical applications. Last time I had to know about TN systems was in my apprenticeship. Maybe I should revisit that some time lol
Cory, how would you do such a system in an apartment environment; how would you Earth it if there is no access to bare ground (concrete everywhere and other complications) for independent connection to Inverter? Can the grid "earth" be used and what happens if grid goes down? thanks for the great content!
Great video, thanks for showing a very practical changeover solution. One question. Could a car with vehicle to load (V2L) like the new MG PHEV, be used to top-up a battery via the inverter or maybe using a mobile battery unit as intermediary. This would extend your home heating run time off grid. Thanks.
Yes, you would need something like a Victron Energy Quattro (with dual AC IN ) linked to a Cerbo GX to be fully compliant (at least in the UK) - but you can overcome this with an EV & IOG (as you can get it to extend the off peak rate from about 8pm to 4pm next day)
Do you only have one phase coming in? I can only see a brown wire and a blue one. In Denmark, the brown will be a phase (L), and the blue 0/neutral (N). We have three phases and 0 (L, L, L and N) so it is 400V that is distributed to an HPFI relay and then a 400V fuse and the 230V fuses otherwise needed for the installation, unless it is a very old apartment in Copenhagen, where you typically see only one phase.
It actually looked reminiscent of ours pre board swap. Lashed in by new-build guys, then a couple of additions over the years by sparks who were booked as part of e.g. EVSE install who didn't have time or capacity to make it good = absolutely no room for anything. To be fair we didn't come across any random wagos when we eventually replaced it!
Terra neutral combined separated. The earthing conductor and neutral is combined in the supply but separated in the installation. The only allowed earthing arrangement in Ireland.
@@corymac I believe the whole line is worse checking online or asking someone on the chat but I was told that they don’t advertise it because it should be standard. Some manufacturers might be like that too.
@@corymac Thanks for the response, I know you are looking for suggestions for videos, how about a video showing how to setup an earth rod for an off grid system, ie. is the earth rod connected to the case of the inverter? are the earth wires in the consumer unit connected to the earth rod, etc. etc. I have my own off grid system but how to connect to the earth rod has confused me.
I've just avoided the rabbit hole of KNX, DALI and everything relying on home assistant. You can do some really cool stuff but, domestically, you have to be really careful to avoid dependencies that mean you can't turn the lights on because of a home assistant update.
Interesting configuration. Do you need to contact the dno for this ? Also would it be feasible to put a grid tied inverter circuit into the supply/grid row or would it cause issues with the off grid inverters?
As someone that is still learning about electrics, is 30KW hr a good amount that would last a while if you needed to use it?. What’s the average KW hr and what is considered a low KW hr? If anyone can help me understand this then it would be much appreciated👌🏻class video as always my man😁
So in the event of a power outage, does the supply RCBO in the grid board to the inverter / charger remain live (back fed from the inverter) or does it go dead? I assume it goes dead and the inverter has a separate EPS output that feeds your extra EPS boards? You've probably guessed there will be a part#2 to this question! 😉
lol I’ve just started playing with home assistant for mine I’ve got my house whole home I’ll use home assistant to turn off the devices at the plug when there’s a power cut I’ve only had one incident of it and apart from the app telling me there is a power cut the missis had no idea so now all the lights flash when the when the grid is gone I mights have a light that stays red until the grid comes back so she is aware not sure about that yet, also Hager have bi directional RCBO’s as well
Nice one Cory. I'll email you with my Homeassistant 'key points' that I have learned in the past year to aid your decision making and avoid the same problems I had (which take time to correct).
If you have circuits from an off grid inverter power running close to grid power is that an issue? I noticed quite a few volts (not grid volts but a concern) on the off grid cable (switched off) when run in the same conduit as the regular mains power and thus concerned that the frequency wouldn't be that of the grid. I separated it and the volts dropped down to less than a few volts and nothing has gone up in smoke as of yet. Could you do more about grounding TT, TNS, TNSC etc with regards to off grid and cutover isolation switches. The transfer switch suggests should have common neutrals for grid and off grid which to me sounds dangerous as off grid is not going to run in sync with the grid. Do you thus just use TT (copper earthing rod) then I believe there should be distance if there are other grounding rods.
With the emergency power back from the inverter, how do you protect the cable. Looking at the manual it says to have a red prote thin so we have always had a DB by the inverter protecting that distribution cable back to the board? Does it not need protecting with an rcd until its supplying a emergency circuit??
could you please tell me software name and details the you are using to do drwing I've been waiting for such a long time to find the software To do a electrical drawing for rewire or adding extra circuit to existing system but I wasn't coming across a good one seems like you got a good one and I wonder if you can give me a little bit specification and the module of this software that you're using and whether you think is good or not thank you so much
Yes, here in France conduits are obligatory. They make repairs SOOOOOO MUCH quicker and easier. No need to destroy the walls. Just pull through a new wire. DONE. The same goes for sockets because our wall-boxes are round ! Drill the wall with a hole saw, push in the wall box, fix two little screws. DONE.
Curious question. If your property drops off grid, why do you need the rod? The whole point of the earth is to keep the property at the same potential as neutral. If you lose grid, have a contactor that drops the whole grid similar to how a PEN fault device works but at the property. A floating propery is far safer given theres no chance you have step voltage.
You talked a lot about your system working in a power cut but I saw no gateway device where the house is completely isolated from the grid in a power cut, without this your inverters etc will simply turn off in a power cut to protect anyone working on it? I have a Tesla Powerwall system that does isolate the house and keeps the whole house running.
I am not familiar with higher powered electronics, but at 6:00, what is keeping him from getting shocked? Aren't these wires coming from the power station on the street?
If you look at 12:08 you will see there is no steel wire seal on the main fuse, that means the fuse could have been pulled out and plastic cap replaced. Maybe there is also an unseen breaker between the street and the house.
What is the rogue MCB to the right of the battery 2 isolator? Also does that software work with design of control panels? As I've been looking for a cad panel design software for a while. I don't build them often enough to fork out big bucks though.
@@corymac 'off grid db2' is on the left hand side and has a single breaker to the right of it. I'd be really worried if I didn't know what a meter was 😂
