A Brand New Padel Club — and a Cheap Imported Generator We Could Not Touch

We were called to a brand new padel club. New courts, new building, new business. The one thing that was not new thinking was the power.

They had been sold a cheap imported air-cooled generator as the primary source of power. Not standby. Primary. Sold by a company with no real technical knowledge and no support behind the machine once the pallet left the yard.

That is a “box mover”. They sell a crate. They do not sell a power system.

Why we could not help

The club wanted us to look at it, sort it and make it work.

We had to say no.

If we start undoing, rewiring or “improving” a machine like that, we invalidate the warranty — if the warranty is worth the paper it is written on. A lot of these imports come with a document that looks like cover and behaves like a shrug. No UK parts stock. No engineer who knows the set. No one at the end of the phone when the club is full on a Saturday and the lights go out.

We will not put GES Power’s name on that. We do not sell cheap imported rubbish, and we will not pretend we can stand behind someone else’s.

Everything we sell, we back. Generator, ATS, cables, commissioning, service. If it fails, you call us. That is the difference between a supplier and a box mover.

Air-cooled and “primary power” do not belong together

An air-cooled import can look cheap on a quote. It is cheap because it is built for a different job.

Padel clubs have floodlights, HVAC, compressors, kitchens and a building full of people who expect the power to stay on. Using a light air-cooled set as the only supply is asking a garden-machine philosophy to do an industrial job. When it gets hot, when the load is uneven, when one phase is heavier than the others, that is when these sets complain — or stop.

10 kW three-phase is not 10 kW single-phase

This is the bit the box movers rarely explain.

A generator marked 10 kW three-phase is not a 10 kW single-phase machine.

On a three-phase set the power is shared across three lines. Pull the whole load down one phase and you do not get the full 10 kW. As a rule of thumb you should treat single-phase capacity as about a third of the three-phase figure, unless the manufacturer has designed and derated the set properly for single-phase use.

So a “10 kW” three-phase import used on a single-phase building may only be good for around 3–3.5 kW before it is overloaded. Lights flicker. Breakers trip. The engine labours. The club thinks they bought 10 kW. They bought a label.

The same applies the other way. A single-phase load dumped onto one winding of a three-phase alternator overheats that winding. Cheap sets have little protection and less documentation. That is how new kit dies in the first season.

Proper suppliers derate. We size the machine for the real load, the real phase arrangement, starting currents and the fact that a club will grow. Box movers size it from the biggest number on the brochure.

What we would have done

Had the club come to us first, the conversation would have been different.

• What is the real load, phase by phase?

• Is this prime power or standby?

• Water-cooled, supported industrial set, not a cheap air-cooled import

• ATS, cabling and commissioning included

• A warranty that means a UK engineer, not a PDF

We cannot unwind the purchase they have already made without putting their paperwork at risk. We can be honest about it.

A short warning

If the deal looks half the price of a proper generator, ask what you are not getting. Parts. Derating. A phone number that answers. Someone who will stand in the plant room with you when it will not start.

GES Power does not sell that kind of kit. We sell machines we will still talk about in five years.

If you are specifying power for a club, farm, factory or anything that cannot afford to go dark, talk to someone who will still be there after the pallet is unloaded.

01246 380525 hello@generator-man.co.uk www.generator-man.co.uk

GES Power Ltd – We sell generators. We do not sell boxes.