Testing Electrical Capacity of New Offices?

An anonymous reader asks: "Running a small graphic design studio, we've hit a snag that I'm sure many tech-reliant small businesses have hit before: our small flock of file servers, multi-processor machines and 22" monitors draws more electricity then the wiring in our current space can take. We're looking for a new space for this and other reasons, and as we look around we're generally forced to take the word of landlords as to what sort of amperage an electrical system can provide. Does anyone in the Slashdot community know a reliable way to test and see if an electrical system can support the needs of a computer-reliant business?"

Comments

Easy.

[pi_rules]

Have everybody bring in their microwave when touring offices. When they say it'll support situation X have people walk out their car, grab microwave, and plug it in. See if they're still confident in supporting that load. If they are, flip 'em on.

Nothing beats proof you can actually see. Just figure out what how many microwaves you need to simulate your load.

Re:Have you considered?

[Old Uncle Bill]

You also may want an SLA stating the expected available power at the location. That, and have everyone bring their hair dryers.

Really simple test

[Anonymous Coward]

Take all your computer equipment with you to the office you're thinking of renting. Plug it all in, and leave it for an hour or so. If the building burns down, that's a bad sign -- find another site. Otherwise you should be ok.

Test

[BCoates]

Go buy a handful of These. Each one in parallel should draw ~1.0-1.3 Amps across a power jack, and scare the living crap out of whoever's showing you the office.

Or if you're feeling cheap, use These but don't leave them powered for more than 5 seconds. (read the datasheet).

bring in supplemental power

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, this is easy to fix. We had the same problem at a small 4-story office rental.

You need to bring in power from an outside source. Due to electrical codes, and the questionable ability of your existing wiring, I recommend the following procedure.

First, you need to rent some space in an adjacent property. Preferably at the same height from the street as your current property.

Then you need to buy 10-20 large microwave ovens, approx. 50 feet of copper tubing (like you can get at the hardware store), a set of wrenches and screwdrives, and 10-20 metal (not plastic) trash can lids.

Unfortunately I can't go into more details due to the gag order but I think you can figure it out.

Our power problems are solved. However we had to give up WiFi. On the plus side, our coffee is always hot!

Hope this helps.

Hot stuff

[fm6]

I'm reminded of a bit of tech history:

After a few winter months, the gas company sent us an estimated bill for $350. Our bills had been between one and two dollars because we heated the space with computers rather than gas. Mass Gas was convinced we were stealing from them. They replaced the meter twice, and still got absurdly low readings. Eventually the meter reader came up to our office agreed that the computers produced a lot of heat

Re:Dummy loads

[karnal]

Plus, if you're using a bunch of hair dryers, you can also test the air handling system to see if it will keep up with the heat disbursement at the same time!

Re:Have you considered?

[Johnathon_Dough]

Also, see the troubles they had when the power went out an hour or so before they were set to open...

Mostly revolving around the fact that they would not be able to run off of a generator easily...if at all.

"because there are other people here to freak out for me, if freaking is warranted. They'll handle it."
One of the people he has to "handle it" woke me up from a well deserved nap to ask where one can get a generator at 9pm on a Friday...answer: you can't.