Got the gen set, no outage.

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] I have thee most beautiful setup for standby power that you could ever ask for [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] and ...... well, .... we haven't lost power? On Sunday's 5-something-o'clock evening news the weather man all but GUARANTEED us that we would be outa power by Tuesday so I got out of my recliner and beat feet to Menard's for a generator on sale. I got there fifteen minutes before closing time and they had two left. I bagged one and was headed for home by seven PM. On Monday I serviced the unit and test ran it with some temporary cables. I filled up my fuel cans and got them ready. It was a pretty wild Monday night and we did get one heck of a lot of ice, but we were just a bit south and west of the main front and were kind of going from ice-to melting-to-ice-to melting all day on Tuesday. We had some pretty serious power winks, but the juice stayed on. Just twenty miles farther west is a MESS. Trees and poles and lines down all over the place. Our daughter and her husband bought a Menard's generator too and were just getting it set up and testing the engine when POOF their power went out.
[img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] Yes, what we have here is a teeny unit, only 5500 watts, and yes, I have always intended to buy a big unit (10,000+) on Propane, but this was one of those cases where "intend" might have left us out of power so we bought this intrim unit. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] We have had our house double-wired for a generator ever since we remodeled in '02. '03, and '04; but power outages were so infrequent that we never bought a generator. We had never seen an ice storm until last February. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Oh well, at least I finally got busy and finished out my standby power system; getting the neutrals isolated and the permanent cables made up. I'm setting everything up for 50 AMPS 240V , even though this little unit is less than half that. We still INTEND to get that big one someday. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[egon]

If your really serious about trying out the generator get some fishing line, some chain and take a walk down the road and do some casting! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] I'm going to have to wait until the batteries in the new emergency lighting unit are completely charged; it takes 48 hours, and I just plugged them in this morning. I sure wouldn't want to wrestle the gen set into position in the dark. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Dave, I too have had thoughts/intentionis of maybe getting a genset like Gary has. I want propane fuel with auto start and auto switching of the mains.

10-12 Kw should be ample.

What I do have is a couple of smaller ones, one is 6Kw steady state manual start and the other is "rated" for 12Kw starting surge and 7 Kw or so steady state manual or electric start.

Even after you get your FINAL SOLUTION it is good to have a redundant backup.

I have a small propane powered genset in my pickup camper and if things required it I could use it to power a few things in the house.

We too were expecting outages but only got a few blinks. Friends 1/2 mile away were out for a day and a half. Not far away were things were hit worse there are still thousands of folks out of power, many in shelters.

Pat

[jml755]

Pat,
Good to hear you didn't get hit bad. Guaranteed if you didn't have the gens that you would not be surfing the net yet. That storm would have targeted your place. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

I put in a Transfer switch and outdoor plug, so the only cord is from the generator (B/S 13.5kw surge, 8kw continuous) to the outside (inlet) plug. The manual transfer switch is 6 circuits and I was lucky that I've got 6 circuits on my main panel that let me have light in all the BRs, baths, some main floor and basement lites without having to do any rewiring or running extension cords. Biggest hassle is rolling out the electric start genny to the back of the house.

Would have put in a whole house unit (natural gas, auto-start, auto-transfer and weekly self-test feature) but we don't plan to be here another 5 years. Next one will surely have one.

[Pat]

Generators and transfer switches are sort of portable so you could have one now and take it with you without too much hassle.

Right now I have a 21x48 open on one long side shed on the side of my garage-shop (36x48.) As it is well ventilated and not adjacent to a living space and the intake for the fresh air ventilation system is not nearby I keep at least one if not both generators under roof in the shed and they can be run there safely. There is a sub panel there as well for feeding power.

As soon as my list of projects gets rearranged and re-prioritized (it keeps getting longer faster than I can finish off items) I will get an autostart auto transfer setup with a propane fired engine. Propane is just the bee's knees as it has no storage life problems, no pouring gasoline in wind and weather and it gives easy starts in low temps as it is already vapor.

Folks seem to think diesel is the primo fuel for backup generators but not true in most residential installations. There are fuel storage issues and short run issues. Propane burns so clean short runs are not such a big deal and fuel lasts essentially forever without degradation. That, and I have 2 propane tanks at 1000 gal each (800 usable each) so I am covered there.

Pat

[JazzDad]

Think of your generator as insurance. Just don't think like some of my customers who want a refund when they don't "use" their insurance. [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat, for more than a dozen years I got paid for getting up early and running pre-dawn standby generator tests on everything from hospitals to creameries. I can tell you that automatic transfer switches are not for everyone. They are finicky and complicated, and the only real justification for marrying yourself to one is that when someone is flat on the table in O.R. you NEED that gen set to come on and SWITCH in eight seconds or less so that the heart-lung machine doesn't stay stopped too long. OR....if you have a pool of molten auto windshield glass that HAS to be kept moving or it will take three weeks to restart the process. OTHER THAN THOSE KINDS OF SITUATIONS, the hassle of maintaining auto transfer gear isn't worth the teeny tiny benefit to be derived from instant changeover. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] I don't even have a double-throw switch on my setup, choosing instead to move large plugs from black, "Normal Power" outlets (50 AMP and 30 AMP) to red, "Emergency Power" outlets which are connected to a red-painted 60 AMP disconnect switch fed by the gen set, and then gleefully and ceremoniously throwing the handle on that red-painted, 60 AMP disconnect switch to "ON". [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Dave, I do understand the expense and complication angle and manually switching IS within my capabilities. With access to good quality connectors at decent prices (would shop the used/surplus market) I would be happy with a set up similar to what you mention. (I'm the guy who hammers copper tubing flat and drills it for machine screws to make my own busses for solar DC setups.)

My motivation for the automatic system is not based solely or even primarily on my convenience or a desire to part with significant numbers of fun tickets. Consider these inputs into decision making:

1. Three refrigerators and a freezer
2. House plumbing
3. Potential for wife home alone
4. Potential for no one at home
5. Area prone to ice storms and lightning initiated power outages.

If I could SAFELY assume I would always be home or only a few hours away then manual switching, either home brew or commercial would be a real good option, no doubt. IF my wife was here alone and for some reason the electric start didn't then it gets pretty iffy whether or not she would successfully get a manual start and you can forget switching generators. I'm sure a laminated card with instructions would get her through a home brew changeover from grid to genny OK.

If the dollar value of lost food and rotten meat and the smells and cleanup chores (can you ever get the smell out of a freezer?) and the intrinsic value of the lost food don't equal the cost of the automatic switching, I'd bet you would evaluate the overall hassle as significant enough to warrant regretting not having the automatic feature.

I haven't done it yet. I will have to weigh the facts carefully. I am not hard over toward automatic and am neither for nor against manual. I am leaning toward something on the order of 10Kw propane powered dedicated genset and am slightly predisposed toward a fully automatic setup wtih test runs and the whole enchilada.

For a time I thought I'd get a portable engine run welder and use it as a backup generator. Of course then there is the issue of religiously parking its little trailer in its spot and hooking up the wires to the house so if the wife needed to use it that it would be a likely success. I personally don't think the little combo welder generators make great generators but that is just me.

Life is what happens while you are making other plans. So, right now I have jury rigged portable generator capability that can't be used by my wife if the need arose.

Right now, improving the generator situation isn't near enough to the top of the pile of projects to get me to buying a generator or parts for the system yet.

It was in the 60's yesterday, the 50's overnight, and is forecast for the 20's later on with wind, rain, and snow.

Pat

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] One of the things that is required in facilities with rapid changeover is a DELAY PROVISION for all of the refrigeration compressors. We have a delay relay on the air conditioning, but not on the fridge or the freezer. We had had some on-off-on-off-on cycling from the utility company last summer, which just HAD to be putting the hurt on the refrigerator. I need to brown-out proof the thing, but if I did, I would have to do it with a 24V relay on the input side of the compressor, and that relay would use the same sort of delay timer that my A/C uses. The BIG GRUNT is always getting the gen set going. Once your sweetheart did THAT, a few, red-painted, double throw switches would do the trick, and be a very straightforward system. What you would do is stage them such that she throws number 1 and then number 2, and then number 3. Hospitals are staged according to priority, the TV sets are last of course. The little welders are not usually very good at following the load and the voltage varies tremendously as the engine RPM "hunts" for a sweet spot. Gimme a nice, 12V-71 two-stroke Detroit road oiler anytime. Yeah, they scream at you, and yeah, they leak a lot of oil, but that two-stroke system follows the load better than any four stroker can. Hey,....they fire twice as many times per rev. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]