Generators for yards without mains electric?

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PortuguesePony

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To those of you who have your own yards but don’t have mains … can anyone share any advice, or helpful hints and tips on generators please? We’re looking to move to a new yard but this doesn’t have any mains electric. We will be renting so not looking to put mains in either! ;)

I was told to look on eBay but there are hundreds on there and I have NO idea what to look for so where do I start?

In terms of our electricity needs … not huge… our clippers run off battery or mains power but it would be handy to be able to plug them in should they die mid clip, but it’s not essential. Need to be able to boil a kettle :), light 3 stables and a barn (2 light bulbs probably?), plus a haybarn and tackroom so probably 7 light bulbs in total. There are no light fittings or power outlets there at present so we would need to be putting all of this in ourselves.

So can anyone advise what to look for and what to avoid? Budget is a little a poss .. :o

Thanks
 
I suggest you run a 12v LED light system off a leisure battery and buy a camping stove to make your tea. Buy 2 batteries to make sure you always have one charged, but each one should last for weeks anyway if it's just an hour or so of lights a day. Generators are more of a pain than anything else, so stick to something simple!
 
We have no electric but our horsebox is there so we can boil a kettle on the hob. I take my generator up to clip but I dont leave it as it would disappear. We have bedazzled lights fitted in the stables (rechargable battery torch which fits in a holder and lights 3 bulkhead lights.
 
I don't have any technical know how, but I know of a small yard that has a solar panel set up. Cost less than £200 to set up, YO did it herself, and now all her yard lighting is free :D
 
We had generators for a few years as a progression from running lights off a car battery. I think we had 4 stolen in total most stolen from a double locked shipping container, one time they sawed through the hinges :mad:

Although there is a similarly remote livery near me who has a big generator which has always been fine, its one of the quiet ones which is self contained so although needs to be locked, doesn't get locked in anything as such. How secure is the yard would be my first consideration, as theives has always taken rugs etc as extras when stealing generators - very annoying!
 
If its only for lighting I would use LED, or energy saving bulbs and a 12volt system, very simple to wire up and if they steal an £80 battery.... If they think you have a generator they will heaven and earth to get to it.
I have a cheap generator that I run on gas(not for a yard), cost me about £300 but it you really want a geni buy a suitcase one and take it home.
 
If you do go for a generator and the buildings are all close together think about using a string of festoon lights, these are normal bulbs and fittings in one long string so when you fire up the genny the whole lot lights up, makes it much easier than wiring in fixtures and switches
 
We have a suitcase design geni which we take home after having the previous one stolen.

Tips: Don't buy a 2 stroke. They can be dreadful to start.
Make sure that your energy requirement is at least half of the generators output. If you
don't use enough of the generators power you will mess up the geni.
Use a gas stove type thing for boiling a kettle. We have a little caravan on our yard, cost £300. It has been the best £300 I have ever spent. We make the tea in there on a 2 ringed gas stove and it has a little gas heater which is fab on those wet cold days to have a warm and a brew.
Personally I wouldn't go down the battery route. They are just too nickable imo.

Our geni is 1KW cost £260 and runs 6 strip lights and 2 bulkhead lights. This comes to just over half of what it could power.

Good luck. There is no substitute for good lights
 
Thanks to everyone for their helpful input! Some really good thoughts and ideas here. I also naively hadn’t really considered how desirable a generator obviously is to thieves; all in all from everyone’s feedback I don’t think a generator is the best option for our needs. It had never occurred to me that I could do “proper” lighting off a 12v battery. This is sounding a much better option, cheaper too :D

I didn’t realise you could run a small yard off a leisure battery for lights so I Googled it and found a previous thread on here, oops sorry. :o

I’ve bought a neat little camping stove for less than a tenner so that’s tea/coffee sorted. I will take a look at all of those links and investigate the LED and energy saving bulbs suggested, as well as doing some battery research.

I have a few other yard owner questions but I’ll start another thread for questions about CCTV, field shelters and treating wood! LOL ;)
 
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