Discuss 3 phase to single phase in the Commercial Electrical Advice area at ElectriciansForums.net

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Hello everyone,

I am doing a job which will involve removing a 3 phase board and replacing it with 2 x 12 way single phases and 1 x 4-6 way. My apprenticeship was all commercial and industrial (ending in 2002) since then and especially since becoming self employed it has been domestic with small amounts of light commercial, not really involving a lot of distribution gear. I'd really appreciate some advice on this job concerning balancing the load, RCD protection (RCBO's?) and regs that may be overlooked but relevant. I'd also love some advice on how to go about finding commercial works and contracts from you more experienced lads. Cheers.
 
I was thinking same Why not replace with a 3ph db then in the future if you require a 3ph circuit its available just need to remember circuit loads and the 400 touchability thinggy
 
Hi,

The DB changes are to customers spec, he is a very odd bloke who trys to use industry terms and slang and thinks he knows a lot more than he does! He says its because of his future plans for the building but is very vague as to what they are and it is probably all unnecassary but who am I to argue? work is work
 
you also NEED to take the use/loading into account for work you do its YOUR name on the certs at the end of the day m8
 
it maybe to the customers spec but like another on this forum mentioned YOUR name is going to be there at the end of the job YOU SHOULD be advising the customer if it goes pear-shape YOU ARE THE ONE IN THE ----!!!!!
 
Totally agree with that, at the moment its going to be a sandwich shop and I have full details of load etc, which is why my main concern is balancing. He wants me to use one phase per board and move all of the shop circuits onto their own board, and end up with a shop db, first floor db, 2nd floor db scenario. The other 2 boards would be unused at the moment. I never got involved with design during my commercial days and just worked from spec, however this seems bad design to me?
 
It sounds like he`s thinking of dividing the property into flats or sub-letting the floors to other tenants in the future, and will need these areas on separate meters. As long as he`s paying your invoice and the electricity bill for the unbalanced load, i`d just get on with it.
 
oh my its one of them , right , balancing is your biggest problem ,but to split them up you could keep the three phase board but install three meters before the board one for each phase so it would work out three phase switch then to 3 meters then to the TPN dist board , then he can monitor each phase for consumption ,and charge accordingly but as has been said phase balance could cause problems , but the main switch is essintial as you have to isolate the complete installation with one switch
 
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