Oaksbrook Glamping

Jane, of a nature based therapy company Natural Answer, approached us looking for help to launch her new glamping business. Our role was to supply technical support and to devise a suitable power solution as mains power was not available at her site. She wanted something robust and easy to use so that she could provide her guests with some modern luxuries for the duration of their stay.

With glamping it’s always important to understand your guests and provide appropriate caution with regards to a power system. Therefore it’s important to distinguish what appliances can and cannot be used, as some appliances such as hairdryers have high wattages and consume a lot of power over a short period of time. This could cause complications as they would drain batteries at a much faster rate than most appliances.

At first we looked at running 230V loads so that we could enable her guests to bring some of their own appliances and use them on site. To achieve this we looked into a variety of pure and modified power inverters to be able to make this a reality.

After some careful thought and troubleshooting we actually discovered that all the facilities Jane wanted to provide could also be powered fully on 12V. This brought great efficiency as there was no idle draw from a power inverter. This also eliminated the other challenge where guests could potentially prematurely drain their batteries or worse, trip their system with high wattage loads.

As this system became entirely 12V we added a 40A battery guard to ensure that the loads would not discharge the batteries below safe levels.

As 230V was taken out of the whole glamping hut, we then proposed the idea of a small portable powerpack so her guests could charge up their phones while they stayed. The PPT 100+ was the perfect candidate as this already had USB slots available as well as a 100w 230v inverter should they want to use any fast chargers.
Our only challenge then was to curate a second power system for a wash hut. This contained simple loads with a few extractor fans and lights. Creating a self-sufficient system here was easily achievable utilising a 200w solar panel with a 20A PWM solar controller on an AGM batter. This allowed the DC fans and lights to receive a full solar charge from the day.

We also utilised the same sized EP1200 AGM batteries for both huts as this gave Jane a universal system where she could cycle her batteries around, having some on charge and some being used, enabling Jane to simply switch out the depleted batteries with fresh ones, in a fast and easy manner.

The loads Included:

Shepherds Hut
(12V)

• DC Fridge
• LED Lighting
• TV
• Phone Charging

Wash Hut

• Extractor Fans
• LED Lighting
• LPG Boiler