Which brand of Generator do you prefer? (We have heard that CAT and ONAN are the bes).
Which fuel would you prefer? (We have Natural gas hook up......father in law wants us to have dual fuel).
What type of setup would you use? (battery bank? dual fuel? tie in to grid?)
Thanks for any comments or suggestions!
As always,
FReegards!
DCB
BWAHAHAHAHA!
Consult a competent, licensed, bonded, and insured electrician.
Step two: What kind of risks do you face? Are you in an earthquake prone area? If so NG may not be a good bet. If the threat is primarily weather (torndadoes, etc) NG may be the better choice.
Dual fuel is never a bad thing. Options are ALWAYS good IMO.
I think once you answer those questions you'll be on a better decision tree. Just my opinion of course.
Good luck.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to go solar panels? and maybe a windmill thrown in for good measure?
What’s available to you locally? I would go that route. Someone that can provide service along with your purchase. Have you talked with your local electric company?
Worked at a radio station many years ago....middle of nowhere, Illinois. We needed dependable one-touch power because of any weather event could knock out commercial power.
We went with Onan and never regretted it....
Preparedness/Survival ping!
Do you have any suggestions for this guy?
Email me to be added or removed from this ping list.
Your power co. should be able to size it for you or a good electrical contractor. If you have available natural gas that’s a plus.
Questions for Freeper Preppers:
Which brand of Generator do you prefer? (We have heard that CAT and ONAN are the bes).
>Either
Which fuel would you prefer? (We have Natural gas hook up......father in law wants us to have dual fuel).
>Diesel/NG
What type of setup would you use? (battery bank? dual fuel? tie in to grid?)
>All three. You will need a special switch to prevent backfeed
Thanks for any comments or suggestions
We have a gas-powered Honda that puts out about 5500W. This is not enough to run “everything in the house,” but all we have to do is use fewer lights, etc. A couple of suggestions: get one with a battery for startup (for when you get older and do not have the muscle mass to start a stubborn generator); and install a transfer switch. The transfer switch we have is manual and distributes power through eight different circuits. Took about six hours to install.
Generac is the gold standard however it is a waste of money to size a generator that will run your whole house and a waste of money to operate such a large generator.
Figure out what you truly need during an emergency outage. Generally this is heat, the ability to cook and some light. Everything else is an unnecessary luxury.
I’m no expert, but I’m planning on doing a similar project, except I want to do a battery array and create a system that is capable of being entirely off-grid if need be.
Per my research so far, it looks like diesel is the way to go for less maintenance, more freedom to use different utility companies than natural gas, and the ability to run on cheaper home heating oil also appealed to me. I hadn’t really considered dual fuel, but the diesel seemed diverse enough, with the HHO ability and even kerosene with small adjustments.
BTTT
And bookmark to follow the discussion.
Years from now we will have an off-grid getaway place.
I have seen one brand that was a “tri-fuel”. Of course, one of those fuels is NOT diesel.
If you have diesel, unless I am mistaken, there is no way to make it run on NG or propane.
One of the extreme circumstance fuels that you could use is a “wood gasifier”. Basically, you can run your generator on the gases coming off of a smoldering pile of biomass in a trash can. Plans are online. This has been used before, in WWII.
Diesel has advantages as well, as you can make biodiesel, but I’m not up on the process of creating biodiesel and will leave that to others.
I don’t personally own one, but I’ve been eyeballing the Onan generators for a while. They’ve got a lot of good info on their website, including a calculator to help you figure out what you need for power. Your wife sounds like my wife, so you may have to look into the commercial generators. lol
http://www.cumminsonan.com/residential/products/homestandby
One way to approach it is this:
If you have a 200 amp service now from the utility, and you truly do want no change in capacity when the power is out, then you need a gneset with 44kw capacity (220v * 200a).
But that’s awfully big....
her criteria is to be able to run everything in the house if the power goes out.
???
Good Luck. Unless you are billionaire, that is a pretty steep order.
Very expensive requirement.
Better strategy is to assume there will loss of food stuffs in the fridge and plan on using them before they go bad on you.
I have some experience in this.
First off is budget. If you want to run your whole house, you’re going to spend a LOT of money.
My generator runs my well pump, the fridge, some lights, the computers and the fireplace insert.
If I could afford it, I would have a diesel.
My mom has a “whole house” generac that cycles itself every 2 weeks for 10 minutes, it is also auto cutover. I think all totaled, it ran about 15k. Your mileage may vary.
I have one where I pull a big cutoff have to run a 220 cord to the well and a 110 cord for everything else.
My service provider started offering a generlink http://www.generlink.com/about_generlink.cfm which I may get.
Have a 25KW Katolite auto-start here. Runs on propane, which we also use for heating. It has a 4 cyl. Nissan engine and a Chinese generator, but it still came with a “Made in USA” sticker.
It will run our 2500 sq ft house with heat pump, electric stove, etc. without trying too hard. 15 kW is the most load it ever has had, and that was when I load tested before writing the check to pay for it. With installation, the total price came to just over $10K. Bought it because Hurricane Isobel knocked power out for folks just a mile or so from here for a week. (We had a 1 hour interruption.) Our place is on well/septic with no natural gas available, so it would be difficult to impossible to cope with a week power outage.
Although natural gas usually holds up better than electricity during a storm, it also can fail, so you really need a second fuel source. If you go with natural gas as the primary, it might be possible to use propane as the backup, although I believe the carburetor settings are slightly different.
We have a 500 gal propane tank already and just tap the generator into it. At max load, it consumes around 2.5 gal/hour if I recall the stats right. In an extended outage, I would run it part of the day.
So far, the longest continuous run time is 25 hours, in February during the 24 inch blizzard.
One other point - our generator has a 1 KW block heater that runs 24/7 in the winter - this is so that the generator will crank and start no matter how cold it is. This increases our winter electric bill about $75 a month. If that’s a problem for you, check whether a block heater is standard and if so whether it can be disabled.
Jack
“Size” your needs first - how many kW avg, how many peak?
Dual is good - NAt gas with a porpane as standby. Fuel spill can be expensive.
Onan and Kohler are good and make ‘home standby’ systems. Check to see if theunit has an oil or water jacket heater. Needed in cold weather.
ENsure the unit is in an enclosure and a real good muffler system.
Before your buy, ask to see and hear a similar (or, better yet) an exact installation.
ASk how often (how many hours) service is required, and how much the service will cost. Ensure any unit has an hour meter, that is how you do maintenance.
AUtostart or manual and switchover - check your local codes.
Be prepared to pay a lot, here just installing a manual bulldog box to switch over and dropping a tail for the genset to hook to is about $2L - by a licensed and ponded/insured electrical contractor.
Remember what Mike Holmes say - if the guy can do the work tomorrow, you don’t want him...
Hope this helps.