Portable Generators

[buickanddeere]

Burning out motors or generators does not save money. Operating a generator at 90-100% of rated does not save money either as the consumer grade products are not up to the stress.
For the little bit of difference in price of the generator and fuel. Go a size over instead of a size under of what the requirements are. It's not like you are running the system 24/7 as prime power. Invariably people under estimate the electrical demands on a generator. Starting capacity is not given the consideration it requires. Calculating power factor leaves 99.9% of folks with blank looks.

 

[buickanddeere]

Such arrogance- have you done anything to earn it?

....... My 5500 watt generator does one side my house panel. It covers the pump, fridge, freezer, lights, one room elec heat. The power goes out. I flip the main breaker off, go out to my wood working shop that is supplied through a 100 amp sub panel from the house. In the shop, one line goes to a breaker box that is dedicated to the generator, and another line heads for my forge building where my welder is. I start the generator, flip on the generator breaker, check the circuit breaker on the generator. In the house I have backfed electricity.
If I want to check if the power is back on, I flip off breaker to the woodworking shop, flip on the main breaker and look to see if the lights are on. If not, the main breaker goes off, the wood shop breaker comes on and I am running off the generator.

I did it on the cheap. I have never hired an electrician, never had one in my house. I wired my house, shop, forge, barn. I have been poor and have cost nothing to anyone. I take care of my own problems. I did the wood stove, chimney, as well as building everything on my property. Except for the well drilling and the septic, I have done it all without hiring anyone.

If you want to hire an electrician, or a contractor- go for it. I never will, don't need to.
Being frugal teaches you to do things for yourself, and not be at the mercy of others to bail you out in your times of need. I recommend it to everyone.

The power was out for 5 days earlier this month. I used the generator.

Have you studied up on law to be your lawyer regarding liability and manslaughter ?

 

[tcreeley]

Such arrogance- have you done anything to earn it?

....... My 5500 watt generator does one side my house panel. It covers the pump, fridge, freezer, lights, one room elec heat. The power goes out. I flip the main breaker off, go out to my wood working shop that is supplied through a 100 amp sub panel from the house. In the shop, one line goes to a breaker box that is dedicated to the generator, and another line heads for my forge building where my welder is. I start the generator, flip on the generator breaker, check the circuit breaker on the generator. In the house I have backfed electricity.
If I want to check if the power is back on, I flip off breaker to the woodworking shop, flip on the main breaker and look to see if the lights are on. If not, the main breaker goes off, the wood shop breaker comes on and I am running off the generator.

I did it on the cheap. I have never hired an electrician, never had one in my house. I wired my house, shop, forge, barn. I have been poor and have cost nothing to anyone. I take care of my own problems. I did the wood stove, chimney, as well as building everything on my property. Except for the well drilling and the septic, I have done it all without hiring anyone.

If you want to hire an electrician, or a contractor- go for it. I never will, don't need to.
Being frugal teaches you to do things for yourself, and not be at the mercy of others to bail you out in your times of need. I recommend it to everyone.

The power was out for 5 days earlier this month. I used the generator.

Have you studied up on law to be your lawyer regarding liability and manslaughter ?

If I am careful, I have no problem do I. You are always worrying about liability, and approaching life as a lawyer or an insurance broker. You don't build your own place unless you think it out carefully. I am self-taught - from trade books and I have a good eye for spatial relationships. It is not rocket science, and when you get started -commonsense kicks in.
You do realize that every time you operate a vehicle, you have increased your odds of being severely injured or severely injuring someone else- loved ones included. The safest route is to stay inside, keep away from that mechanized vehicle that greatly multiplies the force that you can bring to bear on an object. A lapse in your attention will surely create the possibility of grievous harm.
Toss the keys, stay inside, be safe.
Leave the choices to me.

 

[buickanddeere]

Your choices affect the life and death lines persons or civilians that maybe involved with downed power lines due to storms or motor Vehicle crashes.i am utility worker and it is routine to come across people who "know what they are doing" with an energized back feed into the primary's . More than once we have been also approached by "people who know what they are doing" with a damaged generator that was not synchronized to utility frequency.
Worse yet you promote the illegal dangerous non interlocked backfeed to others around you .which increases the odds of backfeed out onto the primarys.

 

[tcreeley]

Your choices affect the life and death lines persons or civilians that maybe involved with downed power lines due to storms or motor Vehicle crashes.i am utility worker and it is routine to come across people who "know what they are doing" with an energized back feed into the primary's . More than once we have been also approached by "people who know what they are doing" with a damaged generator that was not synchronized to utility frequency.
Worse yet you promote the illegal dangerous non interlocked backfeed to others around you .which increases the odds of backfeed out onto the primarys.

I guess it would behoove utilities to cut trees + limbs more frequently. The majority of the outages were caused by those. After the last 5 day ice storm in the 90's we went a number of years without outages due to good limbing practices. Around here- seeing limbs rubbing the wires is a common sight. Add ice and snow- you have an outage and portable generator use. Seems like it would be easy to develop a back feed circuit breaker to be attached to meters. That would up safety. They are installing smart meters in this state. They could engineer those to include backfeed breakers.

 

[BuilderML]

I think the OP request got off track. I purchased this Toro 7000 watt generator and it starts and runs great. It also has great reviews, consumer reports recommendation and a very good price. I purchased at Lowes.

Shop Troy-Bilt XP 7,000-Running Watts Portable Generator with Briggs & Stratton Engine at Lowes.com

I also have the Troy-Built XP 7000. Very good unit i have over 200 hours on it without an issue.
I back feed my whole house , which includes 2 fridges, 1 freezer, well pump, air handler, no issues what so ever with capacity. You can run just about anything in the house as long as you are smart about it. No need to go put every light on in the house for no reason.
When it comes to generators unless your paying big bucks for a honda or subaru , they are all about the same units chinese generator heads with different engines powering them. For under $1000 bucks with tax you can't go wrong with the troy built xp.

 

[buickanddeere]

I guess it would behoove utilities to cut trees + limbs more frequently. The majority of the outages were caused by those. After the last 5 day ice storm in the 90's we went a number of years without outages due to good limbing practices. Around here- seeing limbs rubbing the wires is a common sight. Add ice and snow- you have an outage and portable generator use. Seems like it would be easy to develop a back feed circuit breaker to be attached to meters. That would up safety. They are installing smart meters in this state. They could engineer those to include backfeed breakers.

What do you mean by backfeed breakers?
If you are referring to a proper generator transfer switch that breaks before makes which provides inherently safe, foolproof isolation? You maybe thinking of this unit ? It's actually an excellent product for some customers. GenerLink.com - About GenerLink - The easy way to connect a home generator

 

[buickanddeere]

..........darn ? another double post?

 

[David_Kb7uns]

I guess it would behoove utilities to cut trees + limbs more frequently. The majority of the outages were caused by those. After the last 5 day ice storm in the 90's we went a number of years without outages due to good limbing practices. Around here- seeing limbs rubbing the wires is a common sight. Add ice and snow- you have an outage and portable generator use. Seems like it would be easy to develop a back feed circuit breaker to be attached to meters. That would up safety. They are installing smart meters in this state. They could engineer those to include backfeed breakers.

So what is wrong with putting a proper transfer device and do it right?

David Kb7uns

 

[kevinwak]

I jumped from Stage 1 to Stage 3, skipping Stage 2, when I began traveling more for work. While I could have written out instructions for my wife, the thought of her trying to get a pull start generator running, in the middle of a storm, particularly in winter, then running extension cords, particularly to the sump pump and furnace (hot air oil) was a situation I could not put her in. Bought a Honda generator, an APC auto transfer switch, had an electrician install it. Other than the slight delay I've set in the transfer switch so it doesn't trigger the generator for power blips, the fact the generator is running is almost, almost, transparent. The TVs and internet connections are on UPSs and the transfer switch even has a little UPS connected to it to carry certain circuits through the generator delay. The peace of mind this provides, whether I'm away or we're both away is, as the MasterCard commercial used to say, priceless.

What model Honda generator do you have? Up until reading this it never occurred to me that I could rig one for auto start. Any pictures?