Diesel Generator

[s219]

Here is where I have decided to place the generator. Its the far side of the house and there is a 200amp sub panel. The house is made from ICF's so there is 3 inches of foam with 8 inches on concrete sandwiched between. I am hoping that is enough to muffle most noise.

I am going to have a slab placed where the ferns are.
View attachment 458057View attachment 458058

This is the inside panel. I am assuming the ATS will be wired in next to this panel.

View attachment 458059

I would not put a diesel generator that close to the house unless you love the smell of diesel exhaust and want to feel and hear the engine running. Mine is about 25' away and it still sounds like a german panzer division coming out of the woods. The ground around my generator shed vibrates. I wouldn't want that noise or vibration right next to the house.

In addition, make sure you have a way to get the exhaust up and away. I have my exhaust going straight up, extended 2' above the roof of my generator shed inside a chimney. For extended runs I take the cap off the chimney so the exhaust can shoot straight up and rise with no obstruction. If leave the cap on -- which is like a horizontal exhaust, albeit one 7' above ground -- the exhaust is a lot more noticeable on the ground.

I am all in favor of diesel generators, but keep in mind they are not as clean burning as propane or gas, and they have a fair amount of vibration. Best to treat it like parking a medium size tractor running at 1800rpm non-stop. Would you want that parked right next to your house?

 

[Garandman]

FWIW we have a Kohler 14KW propane fueled genset. I put it on the far side of the 24' garage, which is 20' from the house. It is rated at 67dB at full load: the Kubota 10KW is rated at 68dB.

I would not want anything louder, or closer.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I would not put a diesel generator that close to the house unless you love the smell of diesel exhaust and want to feel and hear the engine running. Mine is about 25' away and it still sounds like a german panzer division coming out of the woods. The ground around my generator shed vibrates. I wouldn't want that noise or vibration right next to the house.

In addition, make sure you have a way to get the exhaust up and away. I have my exhaust going straight up, extended 2' above the roof of my generator shed inside a chimney. For extended runs I take the cap off the chimney so the exhaust can shoot straight up and rise with no obstruction. If leave the cap on -- which is like a horizontal exhaust, albeit one 7' above ground -- the exhaust is a lot more noticeable on the ground.

I am all in favor of diesel generators, but keep in mind they are not as clean burning as propane or gas, and they have a fair amount of vibration. Best to treat it like parking a medium size tractor running at 1800rpm non-stop. Would you want that parked right next to your house?

Very good thought on vibration and exhaust. I would move it out a bit from under the house roof. Every foot distance from the house will reduce the dB rating a bit. Sometimes 5 dB drop means a lot when sleeping.

 

[s219]

Yep, and dB is a tricky scale. Every 3dB increase means noise has doubled!

 

[Garycw]

Here is where I have decided to place the generator. Its the far side of the house and there is a 200amp sub panel. The house is made from ICF's so there is 3 inches of foam with 8 inches on concrete sandwiched between. I am hoping that is enough to muffle most noise. I am going to have a slab placed where the ferns are. <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=458057"/><img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=458058"/> This is the inside panel. I am assuming the ATS will be wired in next to this panel. <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=458059"/>

That looks like a great spot. The code will require it be I believe 5' from any Windows, doors or vents.

 

[buickanddeere]

How can the fuel get away from the combustion without getting ignited? The fuel is injected strait in to the combustion chamber in the top of the piston.

Then I suppose all those wet stacks in truck stop parking lots and rail locomotives from overnight idling are just an old wive's tale .

 

[bigdeano]

The 250 gal of diesel fuel for my 10kw generator is 15 years old. Still starts and runs just fine. Guess I didn't need a 550 gal tank, but it's nice to know it's there. Paid .99 a gallon back then.

 

[Garycw]

The 250 gal of diesel fuel for my 10kw generator is 15 years old. Still starts and runs just fine. Guess I didn't need a 550 gal tank, but it's nice to know it's there. Paid .99 a gallon back then.

My diesel tank has a vented lockable cap on it. It doesn't vent until there's quite a bit of pressure. It still keeps a good amount of pressure in the tank that helps keep moisture out. I still put stabilizer in it though.

 

[kevinwak]

Wow. So many people just flinging around all this nonsense that is so not necessary for the post. The poster has a significant need for a generator and for his needs he feels diesel works best. Why bother trying to convince him that propane or gas are better, when he already decided what was best for himself?

To the original poster:
Get the diesel gen, you will love it! Just maybe get a second opinion on the size needed, don't buy to small based on the keyboard experts here, you may very well need the size you were recommended, but might not. None of us have been to your house, you have. If it were me I would spend the extra money and place it as far from your bedrooms as possible, either across the yard or opposite side of the house. If you use it that often, then in ten years from now you will be very happy if you spend $1000 extra on wire to place it further away. Oh and put it in a convenient spot for refueling. There is nothing on my house that I wish I didn't spend money upgrading, but there are a handful of things that I wish I wouldn't have saved $500 five years ago when we build because I am now wanting to redo them at a greater cost then doing it right the first time would have cost.

 

[BigCountry1689]

I appreciate all points of view on this as I have limited experience in this area, I can understand the propane people and there view with what they bought and the diesel views but knowing where I live and talking to my 2 neighbors I just don't have confidence in the 1 propane company within 65 miles making an earnest attempt at helping me in a storm. I know all of you come from all over, and each area has its own natural occurrences and I don't claim that Florida is the worst but where I live with the Gulf on one side the Atlantic on the other and Lake Okeechobee 17 miles south my weather is great when its great and when it goes bad its really bad. So I cant risk having a $7000 yard ornament after the gas runs out and according to the neighbor that happened to him for 15 days in 2011.

PMSMechanis: Thank you for your suggestion but I think I might end up killing someone/thing with that as I do not have the knowledge to do something like that safely.

Garandman, S219, GaryFowler: I agree with you on the vibration and exhaust, though I am not as concerned with sound (read below) I will see what I can do to mitigate that problem, possibly the stack idea or some other type of exhaust. all units I am looking at are a tier 4 (NO DPS,EGR,DEF) just CRDI so exhaust will not be as bad as say an older diesel. I have a brand new Kioti that is tier 4 and my exhaust is minimal. But sitting stationary I can see were it could drift in the house.

KevinWak: Thank you for you suggestions, after reading here and talking to the wife I have decided that I am going with either a 18k or 20k unit (Depending if the dealer can work a deal on price) I think this should suit our needs and cover my usage of the engine to about 50 - 60% to prevent wet stacking.

I don't plan on attaching the slab to the house I figure something a kin to the A/C compressor with an independent pad, without engineering I'm guessing a 12-15inch footer with a 6 inch pad reinforced that is approximately 3-4 feet from the foundation of the house.

I am not overly fond of Chinese things but Yang-Dong has a large footprint in the USA with engines in things you wouldn't even think, I can source parts from many places, I have not confirmed this yet but was told that a lot of the parts and maintenance items cross reference to Perkins.

I think some might have miss-understood my house construction, when I built I made the decision to built a small fort instead of a large box for a house. With that all my exterior walls are solid poured 8 inch concrete with a total of 6 inches of polystyrene (3 on each side) the wall I showed in the picture actually has the mud room on the opposing side which was supposed to be a garage that we downsized with the design we wanted to an 10x9 room. That mud room is also 8 inches of concrete. As I live in sunny South Florida we decided to build the house to a 210 MPH wind code so doors are solid core and open outwards. In addition the roof is corrugated 26 GA. with blown insulation. I say all that to explain my experiment today, I decided to have my neighbor bring his 55hp New Holland over and park it right next to the house and turn it to 22oo RPM's, from the closest room I could barely hear anything but the vibration and that sounded like you washer doing spin cycle in the laundry room, and from the bedrooms I heard nothing at all. Now I do agree about the vibrations and that is something I would have to look into because I don't want to get into a scenario where I might damage something. I will have to get with and engineer and see what type of slab and how far from the house would be safe. Because of the orientation of the house it would be costly to place too far from the house as our home sits on 1 acre surrounded by 19 Acers of pasture. My new shop is going in the pasture ( Again property tax is lower if its in the pasture as opposed to 30 feet closer in the "residential use space ) so I would have about a 200 ft. in a L-shape to run it from the shop, next would be a free standing structure which is an option but not preferred. I think #1 I will see if there is an engineered slab that could handle the seismic loads presented by the generator and what would be the cost difference between pouring the slab as opposed to just running it from the shop.

My questions going outside my realm are as follows;

#1 - I looked at load shedding ATS last night I like the Generac Nexus - $1499 which handles 16 circuits on the primary and 16 secondary and is 200amp rated. Is this a suitable unit to handle my needs.

#2 - If running the generator from the shop becomes the option will I be back into a situation where I need to go up again to compensate for the run. I have read that the farther the run the more drop in power.

#3 - If I put it in the shop can I just save the money on the enclosure, meaning is it safe to run it in the shop if I vent it outside, hardydiesel.com had a setup you can purchase that allows the generator to be inside but exhausted and vented out. It was cheap and provided the ability to keep it inside and out of the weather. I think this would be better for the fuel tank too.