Electricity current question
 

Hi,
Is the basic electricity current in Hungary 16A? I've read on here about having the electric upgraded to 32A otherwise it will constantly trip. Just wondering what can be run on 16A. I have three houses in mind that I'm interested in, but only one mentions '3 phase electricity', which I believe is the uprated version. My favourite house that I really want does not mention anything about the electric current, so I'm assuming it has not been upgraded. It does have an electric boiler in the bathroom and I would've thought these things draw a lot of current.

Re: Electricity current question
 

A 3-phase system is normally only required if you are going to have a cooker using induction or ceramic hob, or running a restaurant or something.
Depends a lot on what groups are sitting in the fusebox and the capacities of the various groups.The most it will do is kick offline if it gets overloaded (if you have a modern system fitted).

Re: Electricity current question
 

3 phase power is common in Hungary and most old house will only have 16amp 3ph power unless they have been upgraded. We have that in our old house. We are planning to have ours upgraded to 40 amp 3 phase because we are doing a modern kitchen. Our barn also is hooked to this same power, we plan to eventually have it placed on its own meter. Is it necessary? probably not but I tend to overkill things plus the barn has a lot of electric circuits in it, It once had a cabinet shop in it.

Re: Electricity current question
 

Not planning a restaurant.:teeth_smile: But looks like an electric oven/hob would be out of the question without an upgrade, but was only expecting to have a gas cooker running on LPG (or PD Gaz as they call it) I'm use to that anyway as we have LPG where we live in the UK now. There is also a solid fuel stove. The house we want has barns & outbuildings but want to run these on a small solar system.

Re: Electricity current question
 

Presently we have a gas cooker with the gas oven and it works well but it is a pain to light the oven. I guess they never heard of gas igniters for cookers here? Might have run the cost up another 5,000-10,000 ft :scarper:

Re: Electricity current question
 

Our oven in the UK is hard to light too as the igniter doesn't work, so used to that.:teeth_smile:

Re: Electricity current question
 

The standard supply here is 32A. If you want more than 32A it will cost aprox. 5,000 huf per amp over the 32. If you have a 16A supply (the old standard going back about 20 years) you will need to upgrade the system to the modern standard of meter boxes etc. The upgrade from 16A to 32A is free, the new meter box etc. is not !! It doesn't matter whether you have 3 phase or 1 phase the total amps before payment is the same (so 3ph. would give you 3 x 10A free, 10A, 10A, 16A means you would be charges for 4A over the 32.) 3ph gives safety implications as well as you will have 415v between the phases which is a lot more deadly than 230v with single phase.

Unless you are going significantly over 32A IMO you are better off with 1ph. at 32A because e.g. a washing machine with a 2kW load will draw about 9A which means that it would use 1 10A circuit with little to no opportunity to use anything else without tripping the fuse. If you have all connected to the 1 32A circuit there is better choice of what can be run together and in all probability you won't get problems.

If you are using an electric water heater (very common here) you can have within the rules a 32A night meter that will be separate from the normal meter and will thus take your water heating load off the other house load. This meter is charged at a (slightly) lower rate to the day meter and is switched on by the elec. co. when they want to load balance with a guaranteed minimum of 8 hours a day. You can also run washing machines and dishwashers off the night meter providing the machine does not have digital switching requiring power to start and delay operation. Freezers can also be run on the night meter because 8 hours is enough to keep the temp down and modern freezers will survive 24 hours without power without the temp rising to a damaging level.

It is common here to get combination cookers, gas top electric ovens. With such cookers the ovens can be plugged into a normal socket as thay are less than 16A. (Socket circuits here are 16A not 32A like the UK as ring mains are not used, rather radial circuits are used)

By the way the bottled gas here is PB gas because it is a mixture of propane and butane gas. Equipment can usually be re-jeted from mains gas to PB gas.

A note to Jack Russels4ever - you wont be able to have a separate meter to your barn unless it is a separate plot (as defined by land office) because the power co. (gas or electric) will only allow one supply to a plot. You can of course have your own sub meter if you want to do separate billing or monitoring.

Re: Electricity current question
 

Thanks for the detailed reply, Peter. Very interesting. I meant PB not PD.:).

Re: Electricity current question
 

Well if they won't allow 2 separate meters, we may be looking at solar panels for part of our needs then because 3 phase 40 amps may not be enough for everything,

Re: Electricity current question
 

It will probably be much cheaper to up your grid supply rather than put in solar panels. If you go the solar panel route you will need to get an off grid system which would be stand alone and will need battery storage of some sort to give you a stable supply with a stand alone system. You can't install solar panels connected to the grid supply to increase your capacity because you will still be restricted to 40A max. load.

By the way is your supply 3 x 40A or 3 phases adding up to 40A e.g.10A +10A + 20A

Re: Electricity current question
 

I'm planning a basic solar system for outbuilding use but that will just be for lights & electric fencing. Couldn't find any cheap solar solutions in Hungary, so will have to buy in UK & take over. Will cost around £400.

Re: Electricity current question
 

Right now it is 3 phase 16 amps per phase. for a total of 48 amps I want to increase it to 3 phase X 40 amps for a total of 120 amps. Really if it were available I would go even as high as 3 phase 100 amps X 3 for 300 total amps. but I have already had that conversation with E-ON and was told 40 amps X 3 is all I can get. My house has 6 breakers in the panel and the panel in the barn has 24 breakers and half of that is 3 phase outlets.

Re: Electricity current question
 

That sounds like you are planning a small factory......and I thought you were going to retire here.

Re: Electricity current question
 

If the outbuilding is on a plot with mains electricity, even if it is a couple of hundred meters away IMO you will be better off running a cable to the out building. Small solar units have batteries that will need replacing every few years (same as the large stand alone systems) and there is the limitation of no power tools, welders or concrete mixers. IMO the limitations soon become a PITA.

Oh and I have found that mains powered electric fence units are better than the battery powered type

Re: Electricity current question
 

No factory, just my nature to overkill projects. I am going to put some wood working equipment out in that barn. I am planning to build some kitchen units and some speaker cabinets in the future. Just a hobby of mine and since the barn already is wired for serious power it will be easier.