Generator PTO generator feedback

Soundguy · Jan 26, 2010

yep.. ditto that.. a full tank of hot water should stay hot a while. if anything.. get up 1 hr early and start the genny and heat some water...

soundguy

BobRip · Jan 27, 2010

JB4310 said:
T

I would like to learn about and hear more discussion on alternative power sources, that would be part of the back up electrical plan. Like a simple bank of deep cell batteries and an inverter, so you wouldn't need to be burning fuel for just a few lights and a TV or computer.
Charge the batteries when you fire up the gen to do the heavier tasks. along the line of better power management.

JB

JB, good summary on your note.
I bough a 1kw continuous, 3kw peak inverter with 4 large golf cart batteries. My main use was to run my CPAP machine and then also refrigerators. It ran the CPAP machine fine and also a small freezer and a small refrigerator. It would not start my large, 22 cubic foot refrigerator even though it pulls only 200 watts. The peak rating evidently is a very short term rating compared to the start time of a compressor. Note: Don't think you can run a refrigerator a few hours a day and keep food cold and safe. On a duty cycle test on my big refrigerator it ran 50% of the time.

I also had a problem with the battery charger not shutting down and it may have damaged or ruined the batteries. I have not done a prolonged test to see if they are OK.

After a night's use it takes many hours of charging to get back up to full charge.

My experience has not been good. The main learnings are oversize the inverter (the peak rating is meaningless) and be prepared to buy very large batteries and replace then fairly often. Get a really good charger to.
I do plan to use the inverter to run my solar hot water heater pump (40 watts) when needed. It needs power from 11 am to 4 PM. Normally I would not need the generator then. I will also power the small freezer and refrigator.

Soundguy · Jan 27, 2010

buying lots of large batteries and replacing them often? I think that's time to get a generator???.. even a cheaper standalone model...

soudnguy

Diamondpilot · Jan 27, 2010

I am not sure where you guys live but here I do not know of a single house that would not lose 20 or more deg overnight in the winter with the temp at 17 deg like it was that night and wind blowing 30 mph. My home is 11 years old, good doors and windows by Pella and Andersen, 2x6 walls, 30" of attic insulation and still will lose temp quickly in those conditions. My issue was not hot water but the well pump. Why be miserable sleeping in 50 deg house if you spent the money to buy a genny?

That is like buying a Corvette and not driving it. I sure as he!! am not sleeping in a house that is 50 deg if I do not have to over 4 gallons of gas. $10 is a cheap price to pay to know that the heat, alarm, kids, wife, ect are all working or happy.

As for letting it run while I sleep I have greater things to worry over. I have a concrete pad with a rebarb loop for both grounding and chaining it too with a heavy cable lock. It is safe. I have let it run for 8 days strait during the ice storm with only shutting it down for 10 minutes every other day to change the oil. I even added fuel with it running. I know, call the safety police on me.

To each his own but I will let mine run when I sleep and fire it up for any power outage over 1 hour. Thats what I bought it for.

I can tell you for a fact that during our last major outage all my neighbors let them run 24/7. Heck I even left mine running when I left to go to the store or out to do chores. I am spoiled and wanted the house warm, the garage door opener working, and the alarm on.

Chris

mattman · Jan 27, 2010

I agree with Diamondpilot, I will run mine all the time if the electricity goes out. That is what I got it for. If I wanted to stay in the dark without water or lights I would not get a generator.

I still don't know which one to get. I was watching a 15kw on ebay that a fellow had. It was 30 years old, probably built better than what you can get today. I did not make him an offer cause of the drive to get it. I may try to message the feller and see what kind of cash price he would take. It would be a long day's drive to go pick it up and come back home. How much is my time worth, it allways seems I have more to do than I can find time to do it in.

BobRip · Jan 27, 2010

Diamondpilot said:
I am not sure where you guys live but here I do not know of a single house that would not lose 20 or more deg overnight in the winter with the temp at 17 deg like it was that night and wind blowing 30 mph. My home is 11 years old, good doors and windows by Pella and Andersen, 2x6 walls, 30" of attic insulation and still will lose temp quickly in those conditions. My issue was not hot water but the well pump. Why be miserable sleeping in 50 deg house if you spent the money to buy a genny? That is like buying a Corvette and not driving it. I sure as he!! am not sleeping in a house that is 50 deg if I do not have to over 4 gallons of gas. $10 is a cheap price to pay to know that the heat, alarm, kids, wife, ect are all working or happy.

As for letting it run while I sleep I have greater things to worry over. I have a concrete pad with a rebarb loop for both grounding and chaining it too with a heavy cable lock. It is safe. I have let it run for 8 days strait during the ice storm with only shutting it down for 10 minutes every other day to change the oil. I even added fuel with it running. I know, call the safety police on me.

To each his own but I will let mine run when I sleep and fire it up for any power outage over 1 hour. Thats what I bought it for.

I can tell you for a fact that during our last major outage all my neighbors let them run 24/7. Heck I even left mine running when I left to go to the store or out to do chores. I am spoiled and wanted the house warm, the garage door opener working, and the alarm on.

Chris

Chris, I have a neighbor who does that (24/7). Being in VA we have it a little easier. We have an ICF house, so that's R50 in the walls. I had the house get down to 58 in 3 days of subfreezing weather with only the fireplace for heat. The fireplace area was in the 70's and we stayed there mostly. Sleeping was OK at 60 or so. Best Christmas we every had. I do have a generator, but getting gas was a problem during Isabel and is always a concern during outages. My wife is a girl scout and likes to rough it occasionally, so she is actually happiest when the power is out.

dcyrilc · Jan 27, 2010

JB4310 said:
I would like to learn about and hear more discussion on alternative power sources, that would be part of the back up electrical plan. Like a simple bank of deep cell batteries and an inverter, so you wouldn't need to be burning fuel for just a few lights and a TV or computer.
Charge the batteries when you fire up the gen to do the heavier tasks. along the line of better power management.

JB

Do a search for threads started by 3rrl. He has a house and shop (200amp main panel) off grid whith solar and gen backup.

dcyrilc · Jan 27, 2010

Our farm is family owned and used by two generations. My wife and I raise cattle, but my mother raises parrots for the pet trade. When my father passed away 11 years ago, my mother was the second largest breeder in Washington at 1400 pairs. Our auto start generators were installed because if you loose power at 1:00am, by the time you find it at 6 or 7, you'll loose every baby in the brooders. $5-10K in losses doesn't have to happen very many times to justify the cost of the backup genny.

JB4310 · Jan 27, 2010

BobRip said:
JB,
My experience has not been good. The main learnings are oversize the inverter (the peak rating is meaningless) and be prepared to buy very large batteries and replace then fairly often. Get a really good charger to.
I do plan to use the inverter to run my solar hot water heater pump (40 watts) when needed. It needs power from 11 am to 4 PM. Normally I would not need the generator then. I will also power the small freezer and refrigator.

Soundguy said:
buying lots of large batteries and replacing them often? I think that's time to get a generator???.. even a cheaper standalone model...

soudnguy

I thought those batteries were designed for so many charges, why would you have to replace them often? I wouldn't think a 1KW inverter would run a refrigerator, but could it run a TV or computer and a few lights. I would expect it to take a few hours to charge batteries, but that could be done during the time the genny would be running the heavier loads during the day, leaving the inverter for the evening hours when, if planed right the only electrical needs would be a few lights and TV/computer.

I guess I'm more thinking apocalyptic power outage, like a an environmental disaster where the power could be out for a month or more. and you really needed to ration electrical consumption.
I do realize 99.999% of power failures are between a few hours and a few days.

JB.

JB4310 · Jan 27, 2010

Diamondpilot said:
I am not sure where you guys live but here I do not know of a single house that would not lose 20 or more deg overnight in the winter with the temp at 17 deg like it was that night and wind blowing 30 mph. My home is 11 years old, good doors and windows by Pella and Andersen, 2x6 walls, 30" of attic insulation and still will lose temp quickly in those conditions.

As for letting it run while I sleep I have greater things to worry over.

Chris

Chris, I didn't remember who posted about running the gen overnight, and was to lazy to look back. Anyway, I enjoy talking about back up generators and like you said to each his own.

But as far as losing 20 degrees overnight, that would never happen in my house, never even happen in 24 hours at 15-20 degrees out.
Maybe an anomaly but true, and the house was built in 1936.
My thermostat is programmable and at 10 pm it drops to 62 and at 6am it goes up to 68. Maybe twice in the last 5 years has the boiler kicked on at like 5am cause the temp dropped those 6 degrees to 62, but that was with low single digits outside.

For me listening to the generator running all night would be more of an inconvenience than not having electricity at night.
Except for medical equipment or 100 degrees and humid I would definitely not be running a generator in the overnight hours.