All electric house and a generator

[ultrarunner]

Thanks for the soft start tip...

I've been replacing a lot of relays lately... some stick closed and the pump runs until someone notices which isn't good...

Some of the really old stuff has mercury switches and after 30 to 40 years still perfect... the ones with contact points seem to last a few years and just about all new, same part number relays are now made in China...

 

[Garandman]

22kw at 240v is roughly 100 amps. For 150 feet you derate by one awg size. You are looking at 1/0 aluminum or 1awg copper conductors.

Ours is 70 feet and 14KW but they used 1/0 aluminum.

 

[robstaples]

NEC national electric code says feed wire should be 150 % of gen cap. Back to an early question about duct heaters , you put a generator powered relay in the control circuit so when the gen is on , it opens the circuit and the heater won't run. You can add monitor lights and bypass switch if you want. If someone has a current NEC, could you look up gen feed. I know I did it wrong and read NEC after installation .

 

[dickfoster]

That is a good idea, I maybe able to get a return over closer to the stove, I will look into that!

My wood stove is in the great room that has a lofted ceiling. One of the central units had it's cold air return located in the top of one wall so I just moved the cold air return of the other unit from a hallway to the opposite wall in the great room. Since heat rises, the heat from the stove rises to the cold air returns which pick it up then distribute it throughout the house via the ductwork. When heating with wood I only run the circulation fans, not the gas fired heaters. I also have two ceiling fans turning in opposite directions in the great room to keep that room from developing hot and cold spots. It's amazing how much heat that little wood stove puts out. If I didn't do something to circulate it, the heat from it would run us out of the great room altogether, then we'd freeze in other areas of the house. It's a bit of a chore keeping the wood stove fed but other than my labor the wood is free so it beats the high cost of LP. I can't imagine what electric heat would cost me in this state.

 

[Garandman]

Our little house was designed to be passive solar. It has a central atrium so the warm air can rise, then the displaced cold air runs down the back stairwell. The side rooms have through vents at each end as well. The chimney is to one side of the atrium and is internal.

We have the smallest Hearthstone soapstone stove and the rooms will all be within 3-4 degrees of each other. The coldest spot is the kitchen by the front door, as that's where the cold air enters from the stair case and front door.

Spoke to the architect that designed it, who explained the system. Really very clever. His answer was, "Well, people been designing houses this way for over 300 years...."

 

[TractorGuy]

This thread has sparked my interest in a Military surplus Gen set. It looks like they only go to 10KW in single phase units. All the 15KW and up only list 3 phase current.

My only experience with solar panels is of the small battery charger variety. I have 10w and a 30w Instapark panels. Both will put out 18v in the shade. They do not require direct sunlight to charge.

I would give anything to go solar but it just flat isn't cost effective yet. Some of the folks that got in on the subsidy systems made out okay but I missed that train.

 

[Egon]

House designs incorporating air flow and even water have been in use for thousands of years.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Thanks Larry but I think I am a little confused. It looks like the table does not go up nearly high enough of the AMP rating. I am think 22000 KW an running 150' of wire, so maybe something closer to service line? Am I reading it wrong or just overdoing things?
THANKS

You are thinking 22 kw, or 22,000 watts. That's about 90 amps. #2 copper would carry it with some line loss at maximum load. Take a look at an online voltage drop calculator like the one at Voltage Drop Calculator

2.06% voltage drop is not bad at all.

Realize that you will rarely be using the capacity of the system. Your typical load will be about 20 amps at 240v. Heat pumps have a high starting current, but then drop back to a pretty low level. My heat pump pulls a whopping 17 amps when it's running.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Our little house was designed to be passive solar. It has a central atrium so the warm air can rise, then the displaced cold air runs down the back stairwell. The side rooms have through vents at each end as well. The chimney is to one side of the atrium and is internal.

We have the smallest Hearthstone soapstone stove and the rooms will all be within 3-4 degrees of each other. The coldest spot is the kitchen by the front door, as that's where the cold air enters from the stair case and front door.

Spoke to the architect that designed it, who explained the system. Really very clever. His answer was, "Well, people been designing houses this way for over 300 years...."

All-electric homes are rarely designed to take advantage of environmental heat sources. My house has about 260 sf. of U.36 window on the south side of the house, with honeycomb blinds for night insulation. The sunlight shines on a well insulated brown tile and cement board floor that heats the house nicely all day long and a couple hours after sunset. A wood fireplace insert and a ceiling fan keeps the house comfortable in the evening. If the heat pump kicks on, the main return air duct is in the ceiling near the fireplace, so return air is pre-heated. We leave the heat pump set at 60 degrees, and the only time it runs is when we are gone overnight.

I had to do some serious energy upgrades to the house to get it into this shape. When I bought it, the windows were single glazed, the subfloor and attic were not insulated, the patio doors were single glazed sliders, etc. I added insulation everywhere, more south windows, swapped the sliders for triple glazed Pella French doors, and discovered the virtues of double cell honeycomb blinds that add about an R-7 to the window spaces. For what I spent on energy upgrades I could have bought a huge power plant, but the passive upgrades work 24/7 in both summer and winter. You can walk barefoot on the tile floors in the winter. Last night it was 42 degrees and we didn't need heat. My wife thought I was nuts to spend thousands of dollars on upgrades nobody would ever see, but now that she has lived in it she figures I was pretty smart. The comfort level of our home doesn't change when the power goes out, and a 6 kw propane generator provides far more power than we need. When I used a gasoline generator I didn't even bother to haul it out of the barn until the second day of an outage.

That's why I was encouraging the OP to consider moving away from all-electric. In a real extended outage, fuel storage can be a problem. Being able to shut down the generator except for a few hours a day can be a big plus. If you only run a genset 4 hours a day, you have 6x as much fuel on hand.

 

[4570Man]

There are lots of things to consider. Maintaining a Diesel engine, keeping fuel on property, weekly testing. Just what do you want to operate during outages, how involved do YOU want to be in managing power usage for either type of system. Where would you put a diesel generator, noise, weather. Even your physical ability to keep up maintenance in future. It's a big decision, and solar with batteries should be considered. This technology is changing fast right now too. Tesla wall power units and batteries are getting powerful, system management devices are hitting the market now too. It's complicated. The old days of just buy a generator are gone. If the OP is really set on a generator, I'd buy a PTO driven generator, the tractor is there and maintained and ready to go. HS

Weekly testing for a homeowner standby generator? My standby generator is natural gas powered and I never test it. My diesel tractors sit for months and always start. These things aren't running life support.