Boiler fused spur and power cut

The combi boiler is certainly run from a single point. Although thermostat is wireless, is supposed to work without internet manually but not tested that ever maybe I should.

Unlike the back boiler, from what I remember there were a few things including a separate pump.

Changing the fcu to the socket & plug, is easy, but not practical, in terms of connecting to the portable power supply, and other things to connect to it. Like router and cctv and a few other bits, don’t draw a lot of power, but need to be on ideally.

Not practical to go commando and have a geny sat outside ready to go, but did consider the gateway and batteries for an auto switch but not practical.

If we were pushed we would be using the microwave, if we wanted a warm meal, we batch cook so have a few options readily available. But at this point it’s starting to get a little serious.

Locally speaking we have had some power issues last year, and power was off for the day whilst it was fixed and a couple hours on subsequent days as it was finished off. Certainly can cope with that kind of outage as long as we can keep warm.

End of the day it’s a temporary and probably not used, certainly wouldn’t be wanting windows opened when trying to keep warm.

Think I have enough to make a plan, just now need to do some maths to work out how big I need the storage to be to get us comfortable.

madwayne said:

The combi boiler is certainly run from a single point.

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A boiler is a single load point, and so could only be run from a single source point.

madwayne said:

Unlike the back boiler, from what I remember there were a few things including a separate pump.

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On modern boilers, the pump is fed/powered by the boiler.

Made a mistake, the jump start pack is 300 watt not 150 watt, it was the one which plugged into a cig socket which was 150 watt.

Alan 483256 said:

Some require an earth connection that the portable power supply might not supply.

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That is true, I know my 5 kW inverter auto connects neutral to earth with a power cut, but never tested my smaller inverters. And we also have true sine wave and simulated sine wave. I don't have an oscilloscope, so no real way to test.

madwayne said:

Changing the fcu to the socket & plug, is easy, but not practical, in terms of connecting to the portable power supply, and other things to connect to it. Like router and cctv and a few other bits, don’t draw a lot of power, but need to be on ideally.

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Not really sure why you think it is not practical? I look at inverter generators, (better sine wave to non inverter), inverter battery, and inverter battery with solar panels, of different sizes and prices, and I have no idea which would and would not power central heating. Due to weight, really limited to 2000 watts. But unless it has a second use, it is rather expensive. I look at these, at the moment not permitted in the UK, but I think we will see a change in the regulations, if this happens we will likely see a lot more adverts for them.

I am watching with interest to see what happens. I have a balcony so hanging one of these units on my balcony would give me solar earlier in the day, and be used every day, not just when we have a power cut.

My solar inverter does not have an emergency socket for use in a power cut, but if and when it fails, I will get one that does.

The size in terms output power, is not an issue for running the boiler, practicality is location and space, power output becomes an issue if you want to run something like a kettle, the microwave would work on many units but need 1200-1500W to run the microwave plus other bits. Need nearer 3000W to use kettle and at that point couldn’t have kettle and microwave on at same time.

how long I want to be able to use it for would be the issue if only running boiler and router. 200W draw = 5 hrs from a 1kWh battery. So I will lose some capacity over time so 2kWh would probably do. Speaking with about options. There is an optimum value, in terms of price versus output and capacity., also they get a bit heavy.

I can have eps on my solar and battery, but it’s relatively low output and small battery, but wouldn’t want to go back to the outbuilding in the cold to make a brew, if it had been practical at the time and had the money, we would of had a bigger inverter/ battery and a gateway set up. But couldn’t find many that were interested and those that were wanted more than double what we paid for what we got, which just wasn’t affordable at the time. Again space would also be a consideration.

If I lived out in the middle of nowhere and got regular power cuts then chances are it be a higher priority and we would probably have more to spend. They would be affordable now, just not got the space and we could create the space easily enough in the out building, have the gateway and battery in the out building and have the cable to feed the house run a few meters under the path to the consumer unit and meters etc, might be a bit tight for space for the few bits that would be needed but probably possible easily enough. But have other priorities. So yes a cheap flexible option for now.

madwayne said:

I can have eps on my solar and battery

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ericmark said:

but I think we will see a change in the regulations

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I would wait, as I can see there being a change in the regulations, and once we have the MPAN number assigned to our meter for export, who will know what we have added?

Had I not got solar panels and my MPAN number this would seem a good buy, but a third battery for my existing solar inverter is around £1000, and 3.2 kWh not 2.042 kWh and the one for existing inverter will pay back money for at least 4 months of the year, moving off-peak to peak times.

I wish now we had gone bigger, for inverter and panels, but I have a SWA cable taking the EPS from inverter to kitchen, to supply my freezers, and at 5 kW yes it is limited as to use, and as you say power cuts are rare, however the front of house sockets tripped on the RCBO and I could wait until morning to investigate, as freezers still running, had I not had an EPS supply to freezers, I would have needed to do something straight away.

The problem with an auto defrost upright freezer is the time it can go without power is dependent on when the last defrost cycle ran. If the cycle had just completed when you get the power cut, you have less than an hour, if however the cycle was a couple of hours before the power cut, then likely looking at a day without power.

We do live in a town, back in history there was once a market here, so classed as a town with a town council, but really it is more like a village, three food shops, all small, and high prices, one part of a garage, other two hard to park, so we tend to keep a good stock of food.

Last house, had a freezer go bang, literally, so knew it had just failed, I had an old fridge freezer in garage, used to brew beer, so emptied it of beer, and switched on to let it cool, before starting the transfer, likely less than an hour, and items in top had already defrosted. Down just 12 inches, and all still solid, but I suspect it had just finished defrost cycle so the heat from behind the back panel defrosted the top 12 inches, so with a battery pack/inverter one would need to be at home when the power went off, to transfer the freezer to the pack, where the EPS is automatic.