A four-bedroom home in Somerset West that lost everything during an outage, gate and
fibre included, now runs its essential circuits off a hybrid inverter and battery.
The brief
Keep the house running
The owners did not want a system that pretended to run everything. They wanted the
fridge, the lights, the internet, the gate and one plug in the study to stay alive,
and they wanted to know exactly what would happen when the power went.
We measured the property's usage over a week before quoting, then split the board so
the essential circuits sit on their own supply. The rest of the house waits for the
grid, which keeps the battery smaller, the cost lower and the runtime honest.
What went in
The installed system
Every item was named by make and model on the quote before a cable was pulled.
Nothing was substituted on site.
Hybrid inverter
Single-phase hybrid unit wall-mounted in the plant room, configured for grid support with battery priority in the evening peak.
Plant room
Lithium battery bank
Wall-mounted lithium storage sized against the measured evening load, with room on the rail to add a second module later.
Expandable
Essential-loads board
Separate board carrying the fridge, lighting circuits, fibre and gate motor, each breaker labelled so the owner can read it.
Labelled
Surge and isolation
Surge protection on the incoming supply, DC and AC isolators mounted where a technician can reach them without opening the board.
Safety
Monitoring and sign-off
App set up on the owner's phone, a walkthrough of the limits, and the Certificate of Compliance issued on completion.
Handover
On site
How it was left
Cables in trunking, isolators reachable, board legible. The parts nobody sees are
done the same as the parts they do.
