Increasing the Kva in a villa

[maccasa]

Surely that's only for motors and usually 3 phase large ones - for the things we are talking about max 2 kW on heaters it doesn't apply. The motors in washng machines etc are usually 0.5 kw.

[RichardHenshall]

As far as I know just about everything except resistive heating/lighting elements will have a power factor that isn't 1.0 but that doesn't mean that it's significantly different to 1.0, especially in a domestic environment, but it all adds up for the electricity suppliers' ability to supply the power needed. If the supplier limits the kVA, then it's up to the customer to optimise his load to get maximum kW for minimum kVA.

[joeysoap]

As far as I know just about everything except resistive heating/lighting elements will have a power factor that isn't 1.0 but that doesn't mean that it's significantly different to 1.0, especially in a domestic environment, but it all adds up for the electricity suppliers' ability to supply the power needed. If the supplier limits the kVA, then it's up to the customer to optimise his load to get maximum kW for minimum kVA.

I was out last week for a short break and having read this thread on the forum decided to have a look at my setup out of curiosity. 6.9kva is what appears on my account.

I had a look at the trip switch board. Main fuse is 40a. There was about 10 trips with the number C10 on them and another 8 with C16 on them. The C10 ones were lights and the C16 were sockets and air con and the bubble bath thingy. Every so often I have to defrost the freezer part of the fridge freezer and have to throw the main switch to do this. Don't understand why but no amount of throwing the sockets switches affects the fridge/freezer

[RichardHenshall]

... Every so often I have to defrost the freezer part of the fridge freezer and have to throw the main switch to do this. Don't understand why but no amount of throwing the sockets switches affects the fridge/freezer

The fridge/freezer and its cabling should be protected somewhere but I would guess that your house is wired in such a way that it is deliberately both difficult to turn off the freezer accidentally and its circuit won't be affected by random nuisance tripping (of RCDs?). It might have a dedicated 10A circuit of its own, if it's hard-wired.

[maccasa]

There are usually at least 2/3 fixed safety circuits in a house partic. if its less than 10 yrs old. The pool pump timer, the fire alarm/emergency light and the house alarm. Your freezer may be wired into one of those "safety" circuits.

[joeysoap]

Thanks Mac and Richard,

Only an apartment, built around 2008/9 so probably wired as you both suggest. Know that when we first went to defrost the freezer we had every trip thrown and it was still going strong. Only throwing the main swich does the trick. 6.9kva seems to be pretty ok for us anyway.

cheers