Newbie question - new ring

What 3-4kW loads are you controlling by simply cutting the power to them?
As ive said above, ive got multiple, redundant fire detection systems ready to install around my servers. Im actually quite paranoid about fire risk. But there will be no gain from them if they wont be able to automatically switch off the power.
 
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I need two 16A and two 13A sockets. I need those sockets connected to mains through switch/switches like this . Lets keep it simple. Can I just tell my electrician to install one of those caravan hook up units plus two sockets?
You can tell him whatever you want. It may not be necessary.

Preferably i would like him to reuse two 25mm oval conduits which are chased into a wall behind freshly installed insulation and plaster. Is it even possible to reuse those or he needs to replace them with 30mm oval tube instead?
It may be possible to reuse them if they are straight runs. How can we possibly tell from here?

Look at it this way - if you wanted a mock-tudor garage built, would you go on an internet forum an ask how many bricks and pieces of wood you need or would you discuss it with a builder on site who could see what was involved and just do it all?

We get lots of people like you who take hours asking electricians on and internet forum but seem totally at odds with talking to one in person who can see your house and anything that may be involved.
 
As ive said above, ive got multiple, redundant fire detection systems ready to install around my servers. Im actually quite paranoid about fire risk.
Maybe a better plan would be to not use servers so flaky that they are likely to burst into flames, not install them in an environment where they will overheat, and have the electrics installed by someone who can do it without creating a fire risk.
 
Yes, ive already acknowledged that. Now i actually feel bad about wasting my time to design it, because i found that there's a ready-made solution which i could have fitted and it's called "Caravan Hook Up point".


All my IT equipment is enterprise grade, but im going opensource way with HA.
I will have two (yeah, everything except actual Zwave/Zigbee transmitter will be redundant) Dell R220 servers working as home automation controllers (OpenHAB or Home Assistant). The bigger server cabinet will have a builtin halon-like fire extinguishing system. Additionally i will have a bunch of Zwave smoke alarms both inside and outside of cabinets, Zwave temperature sensors inside, FLIR camera outside of the cabinets and obviously each device will also feed self-diagniostics data to home automation controller. But all of that will be useless if i wont be able to remotely cut off the power from each cabinet in case something bad actually happens - and unfortunately my choice here is fairly limited - Zwave offers only 6A microswitches, 10A relays and very expensive 40A relays. Ive been also looking into MQTT protocol but i havent found any MQTT relays designed for high currents either.

You sound very paranoid about a fire hazard. Dell gear is generally very good, and I've never heard of any enterprise gear bursting into flames. Server/Desktop gear usually has thermal throttling/shutdown built into it - all AMD/Intel CPUs have thermal throttling for example.
Are you going to do SNMP monitoring on your setup ? That'll probably be more useful if you want to keep an eye on temps. You can configure something like zabbix/nagios to fire away a text message/email if the temps hit a certain threshold, although this tends to be more of a nuisance, since high temps != fire in 99.9% of use cases.

In terms of killing power to the servers, why not use a remotely controllable/programmable PDU? It'll do SNMP, you can cycle servers, monitor draw from each server and program it to kill servers if they are drawing more than x amount current. It'll do other useful things, and it can be accessible/manageable remotely.

If you're going to have a fire extinguisher system then in the least it'll need to be foam, I hope you're not planning on spraying water at electrics, even if you plan to kill the power to it before you do so. But even then, there is no guarantee you may hit the fire unless you can point the extinguisher in the direction of the fire.
Hopefully you lined your loft walls with fire resistant plasterboard before you skimmed, and you're not using cheap polystyrene insulation!
The FLIR sounds way way overkill. What's your rationale behind that?

It still doesn't explain why you'll be drawing 7kW from the wall. Are you running a rendering setup? or high traffic websites? The only use-case I can think of whereby you'll be drawing such currents constantly is if you're doing some crypto mining ;)

Also, what are your plans for ventilation? 7kW is going to generate a lot of heat.
 
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I need two 16A and two 13A sockets.
This has been asked several times already, but:

what are the loads / equipment that will be in use?

It's impossible to do any kind of design or suggest possible solutions without that information.
That also applies to any electrician you may contact to do the work - just stating you want a certain socket installed will not get you very far.
A 16A or 13A socket does not mean that it requires 16A or 13A all the time or even ever.
 
If you're going to have a fire extinguisher system then in the least it'll need to be foam, I hope you're not planning on spraying water at electrics, even if you plan to kill the power to it before you do so. But even then, there is no guarantee you may hit the fire unless you can point the extinguisher in the direction of the fire.
Hopefully you lined your loft walls with fire resistant plasterboard before you skimmed, and you're not using cheap polystyrene insulation!
The FLIR sounds way way overkill. What's your rationale behind that?

It still doesn't explain why you'll be drawing 7kW from the wall. Are you running a rendering setup? or high traffic websites? The only use-case I can think of whereby you'll be drawing such currents constantly is if you're doing some crypto mining ;)

Also, what are your plans for ventilation? 7kW is going to generate a lot of heat.

Thanks for your post. Im going to use APC switched PDUs for some of the equipment but not for everything. Of course i will have monitoring in place and will be feeding Home Automation controller with some of that data.

Fibre-based Storage Area Network with a lot of storage, fibre test lab, large network of PoE powered devices around whole house. Both PoE and fibre switches are power hungry, but obviously not all of that energy will be dissipated in the cabinet.

Ive already provisioned for AC and futureproofed when calculating 7600W.
 
This is a wind up, or some daft exam question.
Why won't he detail the loads.
Why no A/C, it won't work without it.
Electric cost is approx £7000 per annum, not including A/C
The total load of 7500w, seems to be blade servers that have individual 250w power supplies, thats 30 servers.
Why use blade servers, there only purpose is to save space and as such increase heat output.
I have never seen blade servers used as intended, they always need additional space around them to disipate heat. One blade server and two empty spaces seems standard.
He has gas fire suppression, what is he doing about pressure relief.
Where is the ups or other backup supplies.
All this stuff weighs a lot, can the ceiling joists carry the weight.
I'm out
 
Thanks for your post. Im going to use APC switched PDUs for some of the equipment but not for everything. Of course i will have monitoring in place and will be feeding Home Automation controller with some of that data.

Fibre-based Storage Area Network with a lot of storage, fibre test lab, large network of PoE powered devices around whole house. Both PoE and fibre switches are power hungry, but obviously not all of that energy will be dissipated in the cabinet.

Ive already provisioned for AC and futureproofed when calculating 7600W.
A fibre SAN for a home network? blimey, what are you doing with that ? or is it a part of your lab? I'm guessing it's on it own fabric. Do you have a network topology diagram? and an inventory of HW? and what work loads will you be putting your setup through?

Remember that spec sheets give you the max load of a given piece of hardware. During normal operation, unless under constant load, you won't be hitting the max load very often.

The joist issue is a legitimate concern. Ceiling joists are designed to carry a fixed load w/ a max load for a given span + timber dimensions, over which you risk compromising it's integrity. This can result in the joist buckling/cracking and in extreme cases giving way.
 
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A fibre SAN for a home network? blimey, what are you doing with that ? or is it a part of your lab? I'm guessing it's on it own fabric. Do you have a network topology diagram? and an inventory of HW? and what work loads will you be putting your setup through?
Well, to be honest i'd a chance to build a couple of Stornext solutions based on Brocade and Quantum hardware under supervision of one of the top Stornext consultants worldwide. Now im maintaining those solutions and decided that building them is a path a want to take in my career. Obviously at this time im far from designing a complete, working solution on my own, but for start im planning to do build a similar solution using previous gen hardware, and sooner or later i will get there.
Also, annoyingly slow 100MB/s transfer speeds in my home LAN are my nightmare so i can kill two birds with one stone here.

The joist issue is a legitimate concern. Ceiling joists are designed to carry a fixed load w/ a max load for a given span + timber dimensions, over which you risk compromising it's integrity. This can result in the joist buckling/cracking and in extreme cases giving way.
I know, but one thing at a time. I wont be able to to anything about that without help from structural engineer.
 

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