Single to 3 phase in garage Auckland

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secca2, Jun 20, 8:34pm
a bit off-topic but has anyone connect 3 phase in their garage in Auckland, looking at options cheers.

bill1451, Jun 20, 8:47pm
Better budget around $3000.0 to convert

macman26, Jun 20, 8:51pm
What do you need 3 phase for? And what sort of load? There can be options using single phase to power 3 phase motors

tweake, Jun 20, 8:58pm
check with power co first as it may not even be an option.
there is also a possibility of increase amps on single phase.
you of course will have all cost of wiring from the street.
3k is more like bare minimum.

marte, Jun 20, 9:04pm
You probably already have 2 phases supplied.
And the house next door has the other phase.

Its silly really, if you want 3 phase I think you have to pay commercial rates. But its the exact same electricity thats being supplied to you & your neighbour.

Electric cars will probably change a lot of this, it wont get cheaper though.

secca2, Jun 20, 9:07pm
decent compressor 15hp, 11 kw, mill machine, lathe, welding. just using this equipment every now and then as a hobbyist and not all at 1 time

macman26, Jun 20, 9:31pm
There are a few options available for single to 3 phase drives. But the cost may be more than putting on 3 phase. Especially at those sizes.

serf407, Jun 20, 10:23pm
During the Pet Williams interview with Michael Kelly. Kelly said some person wanted a fast charger for their EV. but the subrub was maxed out and it was going to cost $2mill to upgrade the cable.
https://www.magic.co.nz/home/news/2021/03/is-a-fully-electric-energy-resourse-even-possible--physicist-mic.html
3 phase hush kitted diesel generator and hold mini rock concerts as well?

gblack, Jun 21, 7:20am
I guess talk to your electricity provider or go directly to lines company.

Suprisingly my house has second meter and 3-phase power (along with small chimney in the garage).

Turns out the previous owner who built the house back in the 1970s, was an artist who put in a kiln when the house was built. House even had underfloor heating

intrade, Jun 21, 10:07am
you realise that 3 phase lines charges industrial rates are horrendous compired to single phase. you better research it full i got a 30kw 3 phase deutz should i ever get a tesla to supercharge.

intrade, Jun 21, 10:11am
i have a T10 phase converter it uses 300 watts idle powers mz 7.5kw screw compressor and the 2.5kw 3 phase hoffman 2 poster lift via single phase . My underground feed cable is 3 phase untill i ditched the idea of paying for 3 phase. But have bigger cable and extra core should i need more 1 phase power .

apollo11, Jun 21, 10:15am
It must depend on where you live. We are a little way out of town and have the house on 3 phase, doesn't cost us any extra for power.

tmenz, Jun 21, 10:15am
Not in my street - one phase only available.

s_nz, Jun 21, 10:51am
You really need to get in touch with your retailer or lines company to see the cost of getting the extra phases hooked up. There is massive variation. If three phases are available on your side of the road, with capacity available it could be just a few thousand. If it is underground on the wrong side of the road, it could be $30,000. If there is no available capacity without major upgrades upstream it could be in the millions.

Some lines companies charge higher ongoing rates for residential 3 phase connections, but I don't think vector does (if you are in their area). Vector rates are below:

https://www.vector.co.nz/personal/electricity/about-our-network/pricing

esprit, Jun 21, 10:05pm
I've got three phase in my house and garage in Auckland. Depending on how far to get from the street I would budget on between 8k and 20k. More if they need to bring phases across the street.

Its bulls**t that you need to pay commercial rates. My power bill is exactly the same as if I had a single phase supply. Once you've paid the up front cost there is absolutely zero extra fees or costs to pay.

two9s, Jun 22, 11:19am
All streets have three phase: Its just that it doesn't go to each house. If you follow the powerline spaghetti mix in your street you will see that every third house is on the same line. Your house has 1 phase plus neutral return to give you 230 volts. Get the other 2 phases into your house and you will have 400 volts between phases.

intrade, Jun 22, 12:25pm
post 15 page 4 excluding GST and power factor correction charges. bigclive.com has said powerfactor corrrection will come one day in uk. just wait till they add it to normal housholds in nz.
power factor is from what i understand we dont have dc but AC and divises chop up and only use part of the AC to make DC the rest is lost and the Generator plant has to put the full AC in So when they do powerfactor correction they calculate how much you wasted of the AC wave and charge you for the wasted energy Shitty transformers for example use. I tested All my led bulbs with the hopi meter that reads power factor. my dehumidifier is about 99% power factor . would be interesting to see what PF them electric cars really have.

blogzy, Jun 22, 1:39pm
is there any advantage to 2 phase ?

tygertung, Jun 22, 2:26pm
2 phase is only used in countries like USA where they don't have enough voltage to run any decent size appliances like ovens. They use 2 phases which are 180 degrees apart to get the 220v.

esprit, Jun 22, 2:36pm
Yes, if you have a lot of high-load devices you can split some of those loads across different phases so as to not overload one phase. Modern homes with large ducted heatpump systems, induction cooktops, multiple ovens etc you can end up drawing a LOT of current.

Most houses will be able to draw an absolute maximum of 50 or 60 amps into the building. That's about 12-14kW. Now your hot water cylinder is generally 3kW, an oven can be 6+kW, an induction cooktop can be 6+kW, a large heatpump could be 3-4kW. you can see how all this could add up to more than your connection will allow.

Of course, these figures are only when everything's drawing high load, but it's possible someone could be taking a shower in the middle of winter when you're cooking a large meal you can overwhelm the supply and trip the main breaker.

Two phase connection will double the available power as you can wire some of the house onto one phase and some onto another. If you've a third phase you can split that off again to further spread the load.

My house is wired as such and it's pretty handy. It's also good as if the power supply drops a phase or two (as sometimes happens), you still end up with power in some of the house.

I also have three-phase on-demand electric water heating, which means no hot water cylinder, simply a box up in the ceiling space that draws about 30kW to give you instant hot water, which is a nice bonus.

tygertung, Jun 22, 2:48pm
Although sometimes people have hot water cylinders heating at night on the "off-peak" rate.

tmenz, Jun 22, 3:17pm
Not in our street. The 3 phases are 'starred' out from the transformers, such that one phase goes to several houses back down the street, the second phase goes to several houses up the street and the third phase crosses over to go to several houses back down the other side of the street. The next transformer does a mirror image of this with one phase going up the street and the other two crossing over to go up and down the other side!
Each house has only one of the phases going past it.

bill1451, Jun 22, 6:31pm
Not correct I have had occasions where there are two phases to a domestic and the link on the oven has been removed to allow it to run on 2 phases, although not seen much these days, older houses maybe where the mains cable was smaller than single but 2 phase.

tygertung, Jun 22, 7:20pm
So running between the two phases and no neutral?

incar., Jun 22, 7:30pm
In the same boat. But I'm just building a twin tank 76 cfm piston compressor pump. 16hp petrol motor with centrifugal pulley is pushing it to the correct rpms. and for machinery just getting a single to 3 phase inverter which for my needs is around 8k. just some other options you might want consider