Charging and storing a club buggy fleet

The shed is an electrical installation before it is a building

The history is the same at club after club. The fleet grew one or two machines at a time and the charging arrangement grew with it, until there is a line of extension leads running off a couple of sockets originally fitted for a strimmer and a light. It works right up until it does not, and what fails is rarely dramatic: a tripping board, a warm cable, a charger that stops in the night, a machine that is not ready on Saturday.

What makes buggy charging different from most outbuilding loads is duration. A charger draws for hours rather than minutes, and every charger in the row draws across the same part of the night. So the question is not how many sockets to fit but what the incoming supply will carry with the whole fleet charging alongside lighting and everything else on the board. That is an assessment for a qualified electrician working from your actual supply, made against the fleet you intend to have.

What to ask the electrician

Go into the conversation with the fleet size, the charger details from the maker, and a clear idea of how the shed will be used across the year. A specification written from those three things is a different document from a quote for some sockets, and it is the difference between an installation that outlasts two fleets and one that has to be extended again in three seasons.

Ask for the answers in writing and keep the certificate somewhere other than the shed. It is the document an insurer asks for after an incident and the one nobody can find, and it also tells the next committee what was actually installed rather than what somebody remembers being discussed. Note the date the installation should next be inspected in the same place you keep the fleet service records.

• What the incoming supply will carry with every charger running at once, alongside lighting and anything else on the board.
• Dedicated circuits for the charging bays rather than a ring shared with tools, heaters and a kettle.
• Residual current protection arranged so that one fault does not take the whole row of chargers off overnight.
• Sockets at working height, rated for a damp outbuilding, with cable runs off the floor and away from wheels.
• A clearly labelled means of isolating the charging bays that a member of staff can find in a hurry.
• The certification you will be given, and when the installation should next be inspected.

Ventilation, and why lead acid changes the room

Flooded lead acid batteries give off hydrogen while they charge, most of it towards the end of the charge. Hydrogen is lighter than air, so it rises and gathers at the highest point in the room. That single fact drives the design: a vent at high level matters as much as one at low level, and a tightly sealed, well insulated shed is a worse building for this job than a draughty one. It also rules several things out.

No smoking, no grinding or welding in the charging area, no petrol equipment or fuel stored alongside, and switchgear positioned with the gas in mind rather than wherever was convenient. The requirement for your particular room comes from the battery maker's and charger maker's documentation together with a competent assessment of the space. Give the watering job somewhere proper to happen as well, because flooded packs need topping up with the right water, on a routine, after charging rather than before.

Fire separation and the questions your insurer will ask

Your insurer sets the terms here, and the time to ask is before anything is built. The concerns are predictable: how the charging area is separated from the clubhouse and from anything else valuable, what the building is made of, whether there is detection and alarm, whether charging happens unattended overnight, and what else is kept in the same space. Ask in that order and you will usually get a straight answer.

That last point catches clubs out. The greenkeeping fuel store, the mower shed and the buggy chargers are three things that should not share a room, however convenient it is to put them together. Keep the charging bays clear as well: nothing stored under the machines, nothing draped over them, no cardboard or fertiliser sacks against the wall. Put the question to the insurer in writing and file the answer with the electrical certificate, because a broker's verbal assurance is not a policy term.

Floors, drainage and washing down

The floor takes acid, water, oil and grit for years, so it wants to be sealed, laid to a fall and easy to sweep. Somewhere to wash machines that is not the members' car park is worth designing in, because otherwise the washing happens wherever there is a tap and the run off goes wherever the ground slopes. Keep an acid spill kit where the watering is done, and make sure the people doing the watering know where it is.

Eye wash, gloves and an apron belong with it, and the battery maker's safety data sheet says what protection is actually required rather than what habit suggests. What you may discharge, and to where, depends on whether the drainage runs to the foul sewer, a soakaway or a watercourse, and that is a question for your water company and the environmental regulator covering your part of the UK. Settling it before the floor is laid costs a phone call.

Security, because it is one building and one loss

A fleet kept in one shed is a single point of loss, and buggies are portable, in demand and straightforward to load onto a trailer by anybody who has thought about it in advance. Insurers know that, and their requirements tend to be specific rather than general, which means the policy wording is worth reading before the doors are ordered rather than after a claim has been made.

Serial numbers are the item most clubs discover they do not have on the morning they need them. Photograph every machine and its identification plate, keep the list with the insurance documents rather than in the building it describes, and update it whenever the fleet changes. The same list is what a supplier asks for when you order parts, so it earns its keep long before anything goes missing.

• Keys kept away from the machines, signed in and out, and never left in the ignition overnight.
• Doors, windows and roof lights secured to whatever standard your policy actually specifies.
• Ground anchors, wheel clamps or an immobiliser arrangement suited to the machines you have.
• Trackers or marking, with a record of every serial number kept somewhere other than the shed.
• Lighting, and cameras covering the approach rather than only the interior, where that is justified.

The walk from the shed to the first tee

The part of the design most often left until last is where the machines stand during the day. If the shed sits a walk away from the professional's shop and the first tee, somebody has to bring the fleet out every morning and take it back every evening, and every issue during the day becomes a round trip for a member of staff who was already busy at the counter.

A marshalling area near the shop, on hard standing that does not turn to mud in February, with the keys kept in one place, does more for daily operation than another few metres of shed. It puts the machines where staff can see them, which helps both security and spotting a flat tyre before a golfer does. Think about access for a lorry or trailer at the same time, because a new fleet arrives on a vehicle that has to reach the building and turn.

What changes if the fleet is lithium

The two jobs that shape a lead acid room disappear. There is no watering and no hydrogen, so the ventilation regime built around gassing does not apply in the same way and the routine maintenance burden on staff drops considerably. For many clubs that is the whole reason for the change, and it is a real one. What replaces those jobs is a different set of questions, and most of them belong to somebody else rather than to the club.

Ask your insurer specifically about lithium storage and charging, because the answers on separation, detection and unattended charging are not always the same as they were for lead acid. Charger and pack must be matched, and the battery management system is part of the vehicle rather than an accessory to work around. Treat a damaged, immersed or oddly behaving pack as a stop rather than a puzzle: isolate the machine, keep it away from the fleet and speak to the supplier.

Getting the sequence right

The order of the work matters, because each step constrains the next and most clubs only build a buggy shed once in a generation. Deciding the building first and asking the questions afterwards is how a club ends up with a structure that has to be altered before it is used, and alterations are always more expensive than the same work would have been while the ground was still open.

Doing it in the order below costs a few weeks at the front of the project. Doing it in the other order costs a rebuild, and it usually costs it at the moment the new fleet is standing on the delivery lorry. Take the time while nothing is committed, because the fleet is straightforward to change later and the building is not.

• Decide the fleet size you are building for, including any growth, before anybody draws anything.
• Get the electrical assessment done against your actual incoming supply, not a standard assumption.
• Put the fire, storage and security arrangements to your insurer in writing and keep the reply.
• Settle drainage and wash down with your water company and environmental regulator before the floor is laid.
• Only then price the building, the racking, the chargers and the hard standing outside.

Common questions

Do golf buggy chargers need their own electrical circuit?

In any fleet arrangement, yes. Chargers draw for hours at a time and a whole row of them draws together overnight, which is a very different load from occasional tool use. The real question is what your incoming supply will carry with everything running, and that needs a qualified electrician to assess and certify against your actual installation.

Does a golf buggy shed need ventilation?

With flooded lead acid batteries it does. They give off hydrogen while charging, and because hydrogen rises and gathers at the highest point in a room, high level ventilation matters as much as low level. Sources of ignition have to be kept out of the charging area. The requirement for your room comes from the battery and charger makers' documentation and a competent assessment.

Can buggies be stored in the same building as greenkeeping machinery?

Ask your insurer before assuming either way. The usual concerns are fuel, hot work and what shares the space with a row of chargers running unattended overnight. Many clubs end up separating buggy charging from the fuel store and the mower shed for exactly that reason. Get the answer in writing and keep it with your electrical certificate.

How should a club store buggies over winter?

Under cover, dry, and with the batteries looked after rather than forgotten, because a pack left discharged through the winter is the most common way clubs shorten a fleet. What that means in practice differs between flooded lead acid and lithium, and the battery maker's manual sets the routine. Keep the security arrangements running through the quiet months too.

What changes about charging and storage with lithium buggies?

The watering disappears and so does hydrogen gassing, which removes a maintenance job and changes the ventilation picture. In its place come questions your insurer will want to discuss specifically, on separation, detection and unattended charging. Chargers must be matched to the packs, and a damaged or oddly behaving pack should be isolated and referred to the supplier rather than charged.

Where should a buggy shed be built on a golf course?

Close enough to the professional's shop and the first tee that staff are not walking the fleet out and back twice a day, with hard standing outside that survives winter. Make sure a delivery lorry or trailer can reach it and turn. And check the drainage route before the floor is laid, because wash down water has to go somewhere lawful.