Buying Advice Diesel generator for home back up use

[Fi-Q]

I leave in a place with very very rare power outage, last one I remembet was a 24th december 4 years ago..... A lot of people might not think that over the cost of the generator, there the cost of operating it. I know it is somewhat easy to operate the minimum a few hour, and shut the gen down.... And on, and off. That s what I do in a ouage. But 130 gallons of fuel for 9 1/2 day, that is approx 700$ of fuel ( in canada anyway). If you have frequent outage, it can destroy a middle class household budget pretty quick. But true too that sometime, peace of mind is priveless. And there sure is some people who can easily spent thousands of dollar on a henerator and a hundreds os dollar in fuel per year qithout seeing a diffrence in te budget at the end.

It s like me who want to eventually build myself a lister generator. For the 2-3k$ it s goig to cost plus all the hour to build it, I could have a nice honda inverter. But I want something that can burn fuel for days, all kind of fuel, and possibly vegetable oil, something simple, reliable that I can work on and rebuild with basic tools.

And I think nobody is right or wrong. To each there own situation , budget and skills. And some education on what a person need is the key.

 

[Fi-Q]

Dang!! I just read my last post!! Sorry for all the typo mistake. That Iphone keyboard don't like my big finger !

 

[newbury]

Apologies to the OP but since this thread seems to be the latest "generator and everything else" I'd like to inject something I'm seriously thinking of which may be applicable to many of you in the OP's position. Except for the requirement it burns diesel.

If you got a good source of wood there's the GEK Gasifier

It takes 1940's technology to a refined workable solution of turning waste biomass into electricity at a moderate cost. A few years ago it was a just a research project. And it probably sucked up a lot tax dollars.

If you've got a good source of wood chips (I've a small sawmill and hundreds of acres of woods) you can turn it into electricity.

 

[dave1949]

Newbury,

That's neat, thanks. I've read about people running around in gasifier-powered pickups, but didn't see this yet.

 

[buickanddeere]

I leave in a place with very very rare power outage, last one I remembet was a 24th december 4 years ago..... A lot of people might not think that over the cost of the generator, there the cost of operating it. I know it is somewhat easy to operate the minimum a few hour, and shut the gen down.... And on, and off. That s what I do in a ouage. But 130 gallons of fuel for 9 1/2 day, that is approx 700$ of fuel ( in canada anyway). If you have frequent outage, it can destroy a middle class household budget pretty quick. But true too that sometime, peace of mind is priveless. And there sure is some people who can easily spent thousands of dollar on a henerator and a hundreds os dollar in fuel per year qithout seeing a diffrence in te budget at the end.

It s like me who want to eventually build myself a lister generator. For the 2-3k$ it s goig to cost plus all the hour to build it, I could have a nice honda inverter. But I want something that can burn fuel for days, all kind of fuel, and possibly vegetable oil, something simple, reliable that I can work on and rebuild with basic tools.

And I think nobody is right or wrong. To each there own situation , budget and skills. And some education on what a person need is the key.

I'm occasionally working on my Petteroid PH1W to run a generator. Would assume you are familiar with listerengine site?

 

[Express]

I made the mistake of purchasing a trifle generator (gas/propane/natural gas) power generator . The generator is power by a 24hp Honda engine. Purchased it from Central Main Diesel. When it arrived it didn't start! The fuel solenoid was stuck due to old gasoline. The rating is approx 14kw. I can run all my necessary electrical which includes my 2hp well pump that is 800ft . I could run one of my ac comp without running the well pump at the same time. I tried to measure current draw surge with my clamp on meter but the own I have with not record surge current which is in milli seconds. That is what you need to know. My house is wired for 200 amp service and even with both ac compressors coming on at the same time I wouldn't be drawing that much.
I like the Perkins,Kubota and Yanmar units. The Mecc Alte and I can't remember the other generator manufacture are the one you will most likely find. I don't know if any are made in the US. Kubota make the Lowboy units at 7 and 10 kw but spin at 3600rpm (2 pole generators) The other prefered units run at 1800 rpm . You can buy units without enclosures and fuel tanks and save money. If noise is an issue just understand how the decibel rating works- a few decibels can mean it produces a significant more noise

 

[atgreene]

I started out with a 18,000? pto gen. Quickly learned that if I was not home, my tractor was off in the hayfield, or I had implements on that it was a bear to get hooked up. Inevitably the tractor was hooked or set in the wrong spot when I needed it. The pto gen worked great, but in a bad storm I hated having the tractor tied up when I needed it to open the driveway, load gravel, move down tree's etc...

I bought the package from Central Maine Diesel with the 6500 watt Yanmar. Powers my whole house on auto. We run the a/c's, do laundry etc. I set my indoor wood boiler up so I could shut down the oil, keep the circulators running and just burn wood if I wanted to to heat water and the house. The auto transfer switch is the same one that is used on all their other gen sets, so when I do upgrade to the Isuzu or 'bota I just need the genset, the rest will match-up.

The yanmar has over 200 hours on it in 3 years, I removed the small fuel tank and set a saddle tank in my basement with the gen just outside. Plumbed it through the wall (daylight basement), added filters and now can go for days with warm fuel that won't gell. Two years ago during Irene we lost power for 96 hours. It ran non-stop, used just under 1 qt of fuel per hour.

The local fire department went with propane gens on auto start. Nice rigs until:
A. You have to run them for 3 days burning 1-2 gallons per hour at $3+ per gallon
B. The tank runs down and you can't get a delivery of propane due to roads being closed. During the ice storm of '98 no one could get deliveries of propane, thier tanks got low and froze.

With what I saved in not buying 100 gallons of propane and the set-up, I bought the diesel. No brainer.

 

[Fi-Q]

I'm occasionally working on my Petteroid PH1W to run a generator. Would assume you are familiar with listerengine site?

Yes , i have been lurking on many forums (lister, smokestack, ect... ) and I did bought George CD on lister at Utterpower. Lot of learning, but still at the project stage ( nothing been physically bought except the cd).

 

[coobie]

I started out with a 18,000? pto gen. Quickly learned that if I was not home, my tractor was off in the hayfield, or I had implements on that it was a bear to get hooked up. Inevitably the tractor was hooked or set in the wrong spot when I needed it. The pto gen worked great, but in a bad storm I hated having the tractor tied up when I needed it to open the driveway, load gravel, move down tree's etc...

I bought the package from Central Maine Diesel with the 6500 watt Yanmar. Powers my whole house on auto. We run the a/c's, do laundry etc. I set my indoor wood boiler up so I could shut down the oil, keep the circulators running and just burn wood if I wanted to to heat water and the house. The auto transfer switch is the same one that is used on all their other gen sets, so when I do upgrade to the Isuzu or 'bota I just need the genset, the rest will match-up.

The yanmar has over 200 hours on it in 3 years, I removed the small fuel tank and set a saddle tank in my basement with the gen just outside. Plumbed it through the wall (daylight basement), added filters and now can go for days with warm fuel that won't gell. Two years ago during Irene we lost power for 96 hours. It ran non-stop, used just under 1 qt of fuel per hour.

The local fire department went with propane gens on auto start. Nice rigs until:
A. You have to run them for 3 days burning 1-2 gallons per hour at $3+ per gallon
B. The tank runs down and you can't get a delivery of propane due to roads being closed. During the ice storm of '98 no one could get deliveries of propane, thier tanks got low and froze.

With what I saved in not buying 100 gallons of propane and the set-up, I bought the diesel. No brainer.

WOW !! How big were the fire dept propane generators?I have a generac 17kw propane gen.that runs are whole house.We had a Ice storm two years ago and ran ours 24 hours per day going on 4 days.We only used 7 percent usage from our 500 gal. propane tank.coobie

 

[grsthegreat]

Ive run my propane generator for 8 hours on a 7 Gallon tank of propane while building my house. Its permanently hooked into a 500 gallon tank nowdays. I dont think id run out of propane from an ice storm or ???

Then again, the last ice storm we had knocked out all power in town for 4 days...no service stations were working to pump diesel.. so go figure.