wiring caravan hookups

[IQ Electrical]

This is where a designer's experience of applying diversity is literally worth his weight in copper!

 

[telectrix]

exactly, can't see the full load of 230A being pulled. . diversity would bring it down considerably.

 

[Adam W]

Where did this 230A come from? It seems an awful lot for 5 caravans and showers for 5 caravans.
Are we talking about everyone on the site using an electric shower at the same time?

 

[vitoboy]

no there is a 9kw instant water heater a load of outside lighting and a holiday cottage all to run from this....and knowing the owner some more will come along in a while.
the hookups will be mostly using less than 5A most of the time and the instant water heater only running for a min or so at a time.
cottage not yet up but i can assume shower/cooker/ect im alowing 40A for the cottage.
with five vans on site i would think that mornings and evenings both showers could run constant ish for at least an hour or so....as everyone in there vans makes toast!
what do you think guys...how much to alow for all this!

 

[malcolmsanford]

no there is a 9kw instant water heater a load of outside lighting and a holiday cottage all to run from this....and knowing the owner some more will come along in a while.
the hookups will be mostly using less than 5A most of the time and the instant water heater only running for a min or so at a time.
cottage not yet up but i can assume shower/cooker/ect im alowing 40A for the cottage.
with five vans on site i would think that mornings and evenings both showers could run constant ish for at least an hour or so....as everyone in there vans makes toast!
what do you think guys...how much to alow for all this!

Think you a little out on that designing to be honest. You can not hook up a caravan on anything less than a 16amp socket to BS 60309-2, so what would you give them a 10amp supply or go for the 16amp supply.

What supply is there now? I assume single so what size is it, what is the earthing.

 

[Adam W]

Are we talking about touring caravans or static caravans?
Last time I went caravanning pretty much everything ran off calor gas except for the lighting and fridge - toast was made under the grill and water boiled in an old fashioned whistling kettle. In a larger van you might have a small telly as well.

 

[IQ Electrical]

Think you a little out on that designing to be honest. You can not hook up a caravan on anything less than a 16amp socket to BS 60309-2, so what would you give them a 10amp supply or go for the 16amp supply.

What supply is there now? I assume single so what size is it, what is the earthing.

And this is why it's so important to involve the client.

Will the electricity be charged as an extra or 'all in' ?

If it's all in, my caravan site would have a 6A protective device at each hookup and a £25.00 charge to reset the MCB

Seriously, yes you have to use a minimum of a 16A socket but can you imagine the fan heaters etc. blasting away all night in the caravans and tent things that 'they' attach to the caravans to make them larger (book a hotel).

 

[vitoboy]

ive got five caravan hook ups....so applying some dirversity i think a 40 or 50A ring curcuit would be capable of suppling 5 x 16A sockets or am i a long way off here!
if you look at this job with no diversity then the total load is huge...but so is a house and you dont often see a 80A house fuse blown by high load.....well i dont.

 

[Adam W]

I reckon you could run them all off 30 or 32A - small fridge, small telly, maybe 100W of lighting in each van and you're looking at maybe 4A or so for the lot.
People don't have fan heaters in caravans because caravanning is generally done in the summer, or you can light the hob for a bit.
If you started taking kettles, toasters, deep fryers, waffle irons, sandwich toasters etc with you you'd have no room in the caravan to sleep.
OK someone might want to use a hairdrier or hair straighteners, but that's not going to take up 30A.

 

[IQ Electrical]

I reckon you could run them all off 30 or 32A - small fridge, small telly, maybe 100W of lighting in each van and you're looking at maybe 4A or so for the lot.
People don't have fan heaters in caravans because caravanning is generally done in the summer, or you can light the hob for a bit.
If you started taking kettles, toasters, deep fryers, waffle irons, sandwich toasters etc with you you'd have no room in the caravan to sleep.
OK someone might want to use a hairdrier or hair straighteners, but that's not going to take up 30A.

I take your point but my post was based on a PIR that we did at Wansbeck Caravan Park last November when we had the heavy snowfall.

There were 6 caravans on that site, 3 of them owned by 'travellers'.

The 'travellers' caravans were packed with every electrical item imaginable, including fan heaters and the attendant was moaning about resetting the MCB's!

That was my main reason for mentioning consumption, on 'all in' sites, the supply is raped, on pitch-metered sites, caution is exercised!

 

[Adam W]

Again, it's down to how the site will be used. I'm assuming it'll be a few couples or families turning up for a week or weekend in the summer wanting a step up from camping, rather than a bunch of freeloaders wanting to live there on the cheap.

 

[vitoboy]

IQ there is no supply there at the mo
ive just looked at the job so far and am tying to ball park some numbers for the guy.
dno are bringing in a new tp-n supply to the site but this must also run 5 3 bed flats as well as all the other stuff ive listed.
the new supply is limited to what is avalible and dno have not got back with final numbers of costs.
ive worked on lots of factorys houses shops ect but no parks of this type hence i have no exprence on just how much load/diversity is normal.
i think when i return to site tomorrw i must have a good look at the whole thing...but as you all know,the customer will not always know what they want now or in a year from now.

i will agree old skool caravans didnt have much stuff to run...but now days its all mod cons fridge,microwave,tv playstation laptop sky tv.

like the idea of a £25 reset charge and a 6a mcb though!

 

[malcolmsanford]

Vita look at this like a factory you have worked on. Did every final circuit go back to one umpteen way TP+N board or did you have sub boards around the place.

Now that you have told us it is a 3 phase supply the work should be easier for you. The caravans will come off of one of these phases. Each of your flats I assume will have it's own CU in it, and so your caravans IMO should be the same.

Off of your 3phase supply I would run a sub main, as you will to your flats, to a central point in the caravan park. Then from each pitch take a, whatever supply you want from whatever size Socket 16/32 amp to your sub board controlled by RCBO's as each socket must have it's own RCD protection.

To my mind this must be a better way to do it.

 

[richy3333]

I regularly work on a caravan site and campers now a days come overloaded with electrical appliances. They really hammer the provision of electric hook-ups. Personally I would be looking at worst case scenario when it comes to diversity. In the summer the owner will want all the pitches hired out. The british weather will turn sour (as it always does) and the campers will retreat to their vans to watch TV, charge cameras, phones, run fridges, heaters etc - Trust me, if they can use 'free' lecky or their own gas (which they have to pay to replace) they'll hit the electricity hard! If you under estimate then you could have an unhappy customer when his new system fails to perform when the demand is high?

The Regs are quite straight forward about the hook-ups, cable routes and depths etc. And dont forget that a TNCS/PME earthing system is banned under ESQCR 2002

 

[ayjay]

hi guys andy here first post--i live in a p/h on a hoburne naish holiday park (own it )
theres about 180 units on our residential section, each home has a sorrel plastic cabinet in the garden with a meter &a 40a mainswitch/rcd ,30ma rated trippingcurrent. the supply incomer to each plot is 10 mil 3 core swa(the earths not used) earthing via a stake wired from the dis board inside each home
theres dist buildings at various points , all the 10 mil armoureds go back to these seperately , no loops, i havn,t had a look inside the buildings/mains rooms but there must be a multi way board in each& i daresay a ringmain in armoured supplying the dis buildings
its overhead supply here too