Have enough gasoline for your generator?

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My shallow well "jet pump" runs fine on my 120V 2500 watt cheapo generator. Every house and well set up is different.

Most of my neighbors bought generators around the 1998 ice storm or Y2k scare. Pricing was better than 1990 but mufflers are much worse than 2010! My chonda is in stealth mode compared to them.

If the weather's good and your neighbor (in posession of a generator) is willing, borrow a couple different sized generators and see how they handle your stuff. I advocate a 3600 RPM direct drive old school one at half load just because of the "flywheel effect" that will help start motor loads.

Co incidentally for just my internet and router I run a car inverter off a spare battery in my basement.
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I ran out of water, wood, gasoline during a week long ice storm in SO NH a few years back (DEC2008). No need for reefer as it was gold out and i could put freezer storage on my front porch in a couple coolers and above freezing cold storage on my 3 season porch.
 
I see the emergency generator as "life support". As such, it needs to be 100% reliable, efficient and easy to repair.

Power output: enough to run your critical items
Fuel: easy for you to source under all conditions, diesel or gas

I've mentioned it again and again.

I prefer the 11HP (5500W) , open frame (construction style) name brand portable.

Reasons:

It will run a well pump or large sump pump
It will run a 4500W water heater element
It will run a number of window AC units
It will run a typical stove element
It will run a furnace motor/circulation pump
It is portable, easy to fix and can be stored inside


I agree, not everybody can use such a small unit, example: house has electric heat only.

I also know that it's possible to make a smaller genset work in some circumstances. IE, Natural gas stove/water heater and no well pump.

But, for most single family homes, the 5500W genset is the best bet.
 
Personally, I think for an oil heated house, a diesel genset is the best choice. They're more efficient under light load (fuel usage scales more linearly with load than gas / CNG / LP). Plus, the furnace and genset can share a fuel source.

If you've got an existing 275 gallon oil tank, with a reasonably sized genset burning around 1gph, even if you run it 24/7, you could comfortably survive over a week with a full oil tank. Get it filled before the storm, and even in the dead of winter, you should still have at least 75 gallons left at the end of the week.
 
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I've become a gas storing nut after buying my generator. Currently have approx 140 litres ~37 gallons of fuel. Enough to run for 8-10 hours a day at half load for almost two weeks. I think that's the bare minimum.

Had I gone with the larger 6kw generator it would almost double my fuel requirements.
 
Our Honda EM6500SX doesn't consume fuel like crazy. We even had it run all night long the second night of power loss (to run the furnace) from that [censored] Sandy. I filled it up before we went to bed, the next morning it still had 1/4 a tank or more. Of course is was basically only running for hours with no load too. During the day with a 1/4 of a load or so it would easily go 7-9 hours.
 
It seems like the optimal scenario for the typical intermittent household loads would be a deep-cycle battery plus with inverter, and have the generator fire up whenever the battery dropped below a certain charge threshold. That would probably be significantly more expensive, however. Especially if you have any sort of electric heating.
 
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I have a couple batteries with one 400w inverter and another 600w inverter. So I could theoretically run the fridge and home office, but for how long? 30 minutes?

Now a large bank of deep cycle batteries might be an option.
 
my god, do you have 5-7 days power outages on a regular basis????
Haven't had one in our house since we got it 9 years ago, on the farm we had a 15 hr outage in '78, still remember the year. What causes all this? The hurricanes or something else?
I see the point of backup power... but what are the infrastructure people smoking???
 
well, I went through a 2 week power outage in Montreal during the ice storm in 1998. We've had a few full day outages here in our new place the past 4 years. I also work from home with a complex home network hosting voip, security and load balancing appliances. If I can't work, I don't get paid... worth the measely $700 for a generator and transfer kit. The UPS (4 x APC units) will keep everything critical up for 30-40 minutes. So the generator is going to be on hot standby for 10 minute deployment while I transfer specific circuits to generator power.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Donald
If you are not a city slicker and have a well pump, the minimum should be 5000W continuous. A 3/4 HP will need more like 7500W continuous.


Do they not put a soft starter on these pumps? That is enormous.

1 hp is 1380W or so. So a 3/4 hp motor is maybe 1kW of load.

I can understand that the inrush might be >10:1 on a current basis, but do they not sell, optimally, a basement or breaker box-mounted capacitor to provide some ride through? Especially for something like this, it would seem to me to be a no brainer...

If it could soft start, one might even be able to rig up a 240V inverter and run it off of a modern car 150A alternator... in a pinch.


I upgraded my pump from 1/2 HP to a 3/4 HP and when I tried to kick the pump on I had to turn off almost everything else in my house. Its was a Coleman Powermate 5000/6600.

These are capacitor start motors. But the capacitor can be in the house (control box) or in the pump. Much less starting current if its in the control box. Two power wires to the pump indicate the capacitors are in the pump. Three power wires to the pump means they are in the control box. I am thinking there may be a starter winding and a regular winding.

I am suggesting people to measure everything they are going to power with a digital ammeter (peak hold). Good time to switch lights to CFLs. They can add up. The meter is I think $12 at HF. But you need the more expensive one to get peak hold.
 
Originally Posted By: MichiganMadMan
[ You don't need 6KW to turn on a night light.
When the remnants of Sandy went through here, I lost power for about 30 hours. I didn't even fire up the generator until the house got cold.
I also have a small one that has just enough power to keep the fridge going. 1 gallon will last most of the day. I use the large generator only when I need to power the furnace, etc..

This two generator set up may be the easiest solution to stretch out the gas supply during an extended outage without the big up front investment of LG/NG or diesel powered units.

I.E. run one large gen to power high draw items such well pumps, furnace, etc. Then switch over to a small 3000W gas sipper to run the fridge, a few lights and TV.

Furthermore, if one gen were to take a dump there would be a back up.
 
Originally Posted By: lars11
my god, do you have 5-7 days power outages on a regular basis????
Haven't had one in our house since we got it 9 years ago, on the farm we had a 15 hr outage in '78, still remember the year. What causes all this? The hurricanes or something else?
I see the point of backup power... but what are the infrastructure people smoking???

The power lines are above with too many large trees close by. Big wind or ice storms comes through, down go the trees and lines with them.

With Hurricane Sandy this happened throughout the region and many utility poles were snapped in half by the force of the wind alone. Add in the fact power companies have cut way back on lineman to save a few bucks and you have multi-day outages.

I read a newpaper article that say New Jersey has over 10,000 insurance agents, yet at the peak there were only 8500 linemen working in N.J. most from out of state. This because untilities are government granted monopolies and thus don't have to compete in the free market.
 
The power gird in much of Southern New England in owned by a BRITISH company, National Grid. Sure they have local offices, but ya think, in the end, they give a bleep for anything but profit? BTw they also own the GAS company.
 
Originally Posted By: Rock_Hudstone
Originally Posted By: lars11
my god, do you have 5-7 days power outages on a regular basis????
Haven't had one in our house since we got it 9 years ago, on the farm we had a 15 hr outage in '78, still remember the year. What causes all this? The hurricanes or something else?
I see the point of backup power... but what are the infrastructure people smoking???

The power lines are above with too many large trees close by. Big wind or ice storms comes through, down go the trees and lines with them.

With Hurricane Sandy this happened throughout the region and many utility poles were snapped in half by the force of the wind alone. Add in the fact power companies have cut way back on lineman to save a few bucks and you have multi-day outages.

I read a newpaper article that say New Jersey has over 10,000 insurance agents, yet at the peak there were only 8500 linemen working in N.J. most from out of state. This because untilities are government granted monopolies and thus don't have to compete in the free market.


The selling of America.
 
I have sold a lot of standby generator systems to folks in our area. We don't lose power for extended periods, so it is a bit overkill, but if we ever get a bad storm these folks won't miss a beat. The system is hardwired into the panel, and it runs off of natural gas. In most cases. they only backup two or three circuits, but still, not cords to drag out, no gas to store, no trying to start the generator. Price is a concern, the units start around 2K but look at around another 2K for installation.
 
Originally Posted By: Rock_Hudstone

Add in the fact power companies have cut way back on lineman to save a few bucks and you have multi-day outages.

I read a newpaper article that say New Jersey has over 10,000 insurance agents, yet at the peak there were only 8500 linemen working in N.J. most from out of state. This because untilities are government granted monopolies and thus don't have to compete in the free market.


No, it's because 99% of the time the utilities don't NEED that many linemen. Most people don't own generators because they know they won't need it 99% of the time and it may not be worth the investment....that's the exact same reason utilities don't have more linemen. Hurricane Irene was supposed to be a "100 year storm." Do you really expect the utilities to keep all those unnecessary people on the payroll for something that's supposed to happen every 100 years?
 
Originally Posted By: exranger06
Do you really expect the utilities to keep all those unnecessary people on the payroll for something that's supposed to happen every 100 years?

Yes.

We've had three so called "hundred year" storm/floods in the past three years and JCP+L now wants a rate increase.
 
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