Standby generator - recommend source?

[Bird]

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It exercises itself once a week for about 12 minutes. Not under load though

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Now I'm certainly no generator expert, but that's something I definitely would NOT do; i.e., run one for that short a time and not under load, for the reasons Pat has already explained.

[GaryM]

Well maybe not, but it's built into the unit by the manufacturer. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] The Propane unit runs for 12 minutes and the natural gas unit runs for 15 minutes. Don't know why there's a difference.

It does seem to get completely warmed up in that length of time.

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
built into the unit by the manufacturer

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In that case, they probably know more about their product than I do. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] But I still wouldn't do it. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] This run-without-load business finally caught up to the health care industry with the new specs calling for a minimum percentage of load be available or else an artificial load like a load bank. The problem has always been that everyone wants to exercise the machines in an off-duty time of day so you don't interrupt any vital stuff during the wink that occurs when you changeover to generator power. Of course then that means that NOBODY IS AROUND to USE power so you have to FIND load somehow in order to get a good test. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] When they had the big earthquake in LA in, what was it.....1994? Lots and lots of facilities had to go on generators. There were a lot of horror stories about equipment that wasn't well maintained or was located on the eighth floor penthouse with a 300 gallon tank and burned seven gallons per hour; old and cracked fan belts; diesel that had gone to jelly; gasoline that had become varnish;old and stiff radiator hoses; batteries that would not crank up the engine; it was all there when the BIG ONE hit LA. Only the hospitals had decent, effective equipment, and even some of those had to be downloaded because of electrical problems that never showed up during annual INFRARED inspections because of very low current. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] ANYWAY......this has nothing to do with household gen set selection, but is interesting nonethe less. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] My BIGGEST 'sniff'....'sob'...was when I had a chance to get a big Waukesha in-line 1200 RPM "chuffer" for free, complete with generator. The only problem was that it was in a basement and the hospital had grown over the top of it. They took it out of there piece by piece with an air arc....'sniff'...'sob'.. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] When I was still living on the Jest Coast I installed several sets for friends who had critical stuff like aviaries that HAD to have ventilation or A/C and as you know, power outages were/are a fact of life out there in La-La land. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Bird]

I can understand about that hospital, Dave. Very shortly after I was promoted to the rank of captain and assumed command of the communications division, we had a power outage in about half of downtown Dallas. At that time we were still in the "old" city hall and there was a natural gas fired generator in the basement. It came on, as it was supposed to, and our radios and lights worked. However, the telephones did not ring nor did the buttons on the different lines light up. I learned that the generator had been "tested" weekly; i.e., run with no load, but they'd never actually cut the power to run it under load or confirm that everything necessary was hooked up to it. So when we built the new communications center, we made sure that the utility company power was actually cut off to the whole building every Sunday morning (yep, our slowest time, but we made sure we had all the load on it we would ever need in an emergency).

Incidentally, the day of the power outage, a local TV newsman showed up with his tape recorder and camera man. I answered his questions until his camera man ran out of film. The next morning, he wanted to "interview" me again so I again answered questions for an hour or so. I learned that evening on the news why it took him so long to get the answer he wanted. The only thing they showed on TV was the one time he finally came up with a question to which I answered, "I don't know." [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] That was all he wanted; didn't care about any other answers. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[JoeR]

"The only thing they showed on TV was the one time he finally came up with a question to which I answered, "I don't know." That was all he wanted; didn't care about any other answers. "

Man oh man! No wonder the people of the U.S. are so confused! Once again, our media has a way of slanting the truth and not really giving all the details! You just gave another example of why I dislike the press. You can't trust any news stories! Worse than politicians for lying!

I have stories too bird about the media turning a situation around!

Joe

[rozett]

I have a 30 KVA generator that runs for about an hour every saturday at noon, without load, to keep the battery charged. It's been doing that since it was installed by the previous owner in '84. I do have a service guy out for a checkup once a year, including oil change, anti-freeze check, etc. He always checks the belts and hoses. It's powered by a 300 CID Ford truck engine. Because of our subzero winters, it's running on propane. Running full-time, it will chew through 250 gallons of fuel a week. But it sure is nice to have power when CMP is out. [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] You ought to see the reaction of our armed forces personnel in Iraq; who are killing insurgents at the rate of 20:1; when they see the U.S. media reports of "how we are losing in Iraq". GIs hate the U.S. news media and distrust imbedded reporters. We are kicking some major butt over there but nobody reports on that because the media hates Bush and wants their liberal party back in the White house no matter what. [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img] REGARDING the little problem with the telephone buttons not lighting up.......not a big surprise since power to the phone room would be from some minor circuit somewhere and would be easily overlooked. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] I did some test work for a huge VISA card computer center which had twin V-12 Caterpillar gensets. They had never actually got up enough nerve to intentionally dump utility power, but finally decided that they should do it just to be sure that everything worked right. They dumped the main at just after midnight.....the generators started.....but would NOT transfer. After seven minutes of trying different things, they decided to get back to utility power before the UPS gave out and when they closed the breaker it POPPED OUT again. Repeated tries were to no avail; it was popping out due to a ground fault. Finally they determined that the underground line to the generator shack was wet and once they isolated it the main held in OK. By this time, seventeen minutes had gone by and the UPS had already failed at the eleven minute mark because of poorly maintained batteries. People all over the world were presenting VISA cards and they were being rejected because the compooters had totally crashed. I got there at 3 AM and here are all these people running around in pajamas. I thought: "Boy is THIS place casual!" I didn't know that they had to get everybody out of bed to get things back up and running. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[Bird]

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REGARDING the little problem with the telephone buttons not lighting up.......not a big surprise since power to the phone room would be from some minor circuit somewhere and would be easily overlooked.

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Yep, that's just what had happened, and of course that generator had been installed many years earlier and the question the reporter finally asked to get me to say, "I don't know" was when he asked who the individual was who failed to hook up that circuit. It would have been someone in the Building Services Department, but I had no idea who, or whether he even still worked for the city. Of course I do think we (the police department) were at fault, too, for not having properly tested the system.

And the reason for the power outage . . .? A small fire in a downtown hotel and the power company employees thought they were only cutting off power to that one building and instead cut off half the downtown area. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

Now I do read the news in the papers, and I watch the news on TV, but years of experience with newsmen has led me to take everything they say "with a grain of salt" or maybe a pound of salt. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[JoeR]

Not to change topics CJDave, but a close friend of mine is from Iraq, and he can't stand our media or the Arab media. His Mother and siblings still live in Baghdad, and tell a completely different story too. His family told him to vote for Bush, because they didn't want the U.S. to abandon them. He also stated that most of the problems in Iraq are caused by Syria and Iran... Overall, I listen to him more than the media since he has first hand knowledge of Iraq, and relatives still living there.

Joe