Lockdown during Covid had many effects. Most of them not good. However sometimes adversity leads you down a new path. In our case a more profitable one. We had always provided what we called fun catering services. Doughnuts, candy floss etc. During lockdown we had a number of our corporate clients ask us to provide catering services more along the lines of a main meal.
This led us into providing a range of services such as gourmet burgers, Chinese noodles, jacket potatoes etc. This was a good move as it turned out. However it did rapidly create a major problem for us. Namely that of power requirements.
For doughnuts etc, the client would provide a single 13 amp socket which was more than adequate. however when we moved up to mains catering, we would have for instance a couple of chip fryers, a couple of hot plates for the burgers, a chip warmer and perhaps a water boiler.
All told we could quite easily need not far off 40 amps. So the conversation would go like this.
“We need at least four seperate 13 amp supplies”
Client, “Yep no problem”
Only on the day what would happen is would set up, ask for our power supplies and be handed a 6 way adaptor with the comment that 4 were for us, and the other two for the DJ and pizza van. So they were intending to run around 60 amps from a single 13 amp supply. Predictably we would either melt the socket, or more usually blow the fuse or circuit breaker.
10 K.V.A. Generator
We already had some 10 K.V.A. portable generators, which combined with some new LPG powered equipment we obtained, allowed us to carry out most events.
Unfortunately many venues don’t allow the use of LPG due to the purported safety risks. So eventually we decided that we would need more electrical power.
66 K.V.A. Higher Power
We investigated what was on the market, and took an in depth look at what are requirements were, and come to the conclusion that around 30 k.v.a. would be fine.
So obviously we went out and bought one with a bit over twice the power at 66. Why you may ask?
Easy, 30 would do us for the time being, but any expansion or multiple items at the same time and suddenly we would be back to struggling with power again. Additionally the larger unit was only some £800 more than the smaller version. Was physically the same size, and used the same engine, so running costs should be on par. In short the only difference was the actual electrical alternator which converts the engine motion into actual electricity.
We had a selection of single and three phase sockets added for ease of use, had our new branding applied to the unit, and added one of our new spill kits to provide insurance in the case of any fluid spills.
We also had a custom built trailer unit made from our friends at Fairtech Fabrications, this allowed us to transport the unit behind any of our range of vans.
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