doxford jim
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2007
- Messages
- 1,007
- Location
- British Columbia, Canada
- Tractor
- 1959 MF-65 sold, 2007 Jinma 554 diesel.
Save yourself headaches and buy a purpose built standby generator. If is a protable unit it will be handy to use around the place on other projects.
If you use a dedicated fixed unit - say in a shed or leanto, it will be instantly available. Either way you still have the tractor to help deal with the heavy snowfall clearing etc.
In my case, the place I purchased has a heat pump for heating and A/C. Without standby power this expensive heating system would be useless and I would need to use the propane backup furnace. The previous owner had a dedicated generator installed in a shed some 30ft from the house. It is a 12kW unit and gives the house 100 amp service. It also has a professionally installed change over switch - that is required by law here.
When the standby unit is run (Kubota diesel) the electrical mains is disconnected and the house power is then switched to generator incoming power via the change over isolating switch. This is legally required to safeguard any person working on the downed electrical lines.
We get two or three days of outages a year up here in central northern BC. In the five years I have owned this place I have racked up 103 hours - and that includes test runs every month or six weeks, some on house load and some unloaded as well as having being run for extended periods during blackouts. I have also done the required manitenance and oil changes.
For what it is worth, I would foget the PTO generator and go with the dedicated standby unit.
Cheers
Jim
If you use a dedicated fixed unit - say in a shed or leanto, it will be instantly available. Either way you still have the tractor to help deal with the heavy snowfall clearing etc.
In my case, the place I purchased has a heat pump for heating and A/C. Without standby power this expensive heating system would be useless and I would need to use the propane backup furnace. The previous owner had a dedicated generator installed in a shed some 30ft from the house. It is a 12kW unit and gives the house 100 amp service. It also has a professionally installed change over switch - that is required by law here.
When the standby unit is run (Kubota diesel) the electrical mains is disconnected and the house power is then switched to generator incoming power via the change over isolating switch. This is legally required to safeguard any person working on the downed electrical lines.
We get two or three days of outages a year up here in central northern BC. In the five years I have owned this place I have racked up 103 hours - and that includes test runs every month or six weeks, some on house load and some unloaded as well as having being run for extended periods during blackouts. I have also done the required manitenance and oil changes.
For what it is worth, I would foget the PTO generator and go with the dedicated standby unit.
Cheers
Jim