Getting prepared.

[RalphVa]

Moved 20 gallons of diesel fuel from carriage house to garage. Carriage house doors don稚 work on the generator. Can open the one door manually, but the ramp to it could be slick.

Generator uses about 6 gallons/day.

Snow yesterday and trees all covered still. Rain has started.

Supposed to be freezing rain, as it will remain below freezing. Big chance for power outages.

Think one 5 gallon container of diesel would go into the 60 gallon Isuzu tank but I'll wait.

One of the best things we did was to install the whole house (12.5 kw) diesel generator. Can even run one hot water tank and the clothes drier on it, if there's room.

Ralph

 

[shooterdon]

Ours runs on propane, so it is super simple. It is always "prepared" and I have a spare 500 gal tank that costs me $54/year to rent.

It is good feeling knowing that you are ready.

 

[Wakey]

I have extra oil / filters in case of an extended power outage. 100 hours between changes, that comes quick.

 

[Wakey]

And Ralph, I hope you don't get an ice storm. The worst part is all the branches and sticks from dead ends you have to pick up for the next 3 years haha

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I have a wood shed full of dry wood, a 2500 gallon gravity feed cistern, and a dinky little camp generator that is whisper quiet and will run the fridge or freezer 4.5 hours on a gallon of gas. Bath water is a copper laundry tub on top of the wood stove. I don't bother with electricity until the second day of an outage. The world did fine without it for 100,000 years or so.

 

[ChuckT]

Here in Florida I consider a whole-house generator a necessity. We've had one installed at last two houses we lived in and should have had one before that.

 

[Diggin It]

Ours runs on propane, so it is super simple. It is always "prepared" and I have a spare 500 gal tank that costs me $54/year to rent.

It is good feeling knowing that you are ready.

That won't help a bit if the roads are closed and the trucks can't get through to deliver. Even two full 500 gallon tanks may only get you a week or so if you're also using LP for home heat, hot water, laundry and cooking. Our last two long term outages were longer than that. Hundreds, maybe thousands of miles of roads were blocked by fallen trees and it took weeks to get them all cleared. People ran out and couldn't get more, at any price. You can't personally transport any quantity of LP like you can diesel.

I'm in the process of installing a 16Kw LP generator, but I know that during a projected long outage I may have to ration use of it if the roads are blocked by snow, ice or fallen trees. I'll be keeping my smaller gasoline unit to help cover those gaps.

 

[japody]

We had a terrible ice storm here that knocked out our power for 36 hours. We're at the age where we don't abide not having our creature comforts - heat, water, refrig, TV and internet. So, this thread is right on time. We're discussing getting a whole house generator. Will probably need a 22 Kw unit. Looking at propane fuel. We would only use it for the necessities listed above. From what I've read, they use about 2 gals per hour at half load. Does that sound right? Any other insights, comments? Thanks.

 

[Diggin It]

There are a bunch of threads on that. The engine and the load (how much power you're using) will affect fuel consumption. They rate that at 50-60% load, so if you get a 22Kw and are only using 11K or so, that estimate should be 'good'. If you're using 18 to 20K, it will likely use more fuel. That's part of why they want people to get 'in home quotes' ... to better determine your average use and size the unit properly.

It's only partially about creature comforts for many. For others with mobility or health issues, they may not be able to move a portable to deal with a PTO unit. And if you have life dependent medical machines, you're not going to want to, or be able to deal with a portable if power goes out in the middle of the night or during a storm, or both. I don't have those issues now, but who knows what might happen in a few months or years. I want to get set up with a stand by while I can.

Again, the biggest issue with LP is delivery. Only the fuel trucks can do that and you're reliant on their ability to get to you when you need it. Road conditions and other customers can seriously affect timely deliveries. I'd love to have a diesel standby, but couldn't handle the additional cost.

 

[Billy Bee]

That won't help a bit if the roads are closed and the trucks can't get through to deliver. Even two full 500 gallon tanks may only get you a week or so if you're also using LP for home heat, hot water, laundry and cooking. Our last two long term outages were longer than that. Hundreds, maybe thousands of miles of roads were blocked by fallen trees and it took weeks to get them all cleared. People ran out and couldn't get more, at any price. You can't personally transport any quantity of LP like you can diesel.

I'm in the process of installing a 16Kw LP generator, but I know that during a projected long outage I may have to ration use of it if the roads are blocked by snow, ice or fallen trees. I'll be keeping my smaller gasoline unit to help cover those gaps.

2 full 500 gallon tanks only last a week? Seems excessive, what are you heating?

 

[Diggin It]

2 full 500 gallon tanks only last a week? Seems excessive, what are you heating?

A 16K stand by generator is rated at about 2 gallons per hour at half load. Running full time, that will use around 350 gallons in a week. A larger generator, or higher load will use more. During a normal Winter, I use about 5% with just minimal heat and cooking. That's about 25 gallons or so. Most people have bigger homes and want them warmer than I keep mine, so they'll be using more. Add in the other things mentioned like cooking or heating water for a family and 1,000 gallons won't last long.

And remember, we're not talking about 1,000 gallons. They only load to about 80% or so, or 400 gallons. They don't like them down below about 10%, so we're really talking about 6-700 gallons.

 

[coobie]

A 16K stand by generator is rated at about 2 gallons per hour at half load. Running full time, that will use around 350 gallons in a week. A larger generator, or higher load will use more. During a normal Winter, I use about 5% with just minimal heat and cooking. That's about 25 gallons or so. Most people have bigger homes and want them warmer than I keep mine, so they'll be using more. Add in the other things mentioned like cooking or heating water for a family and 1,000 gallons won't last long.

And remember, we're not talking about 1,000 gallons. They only load to about 80% or so, or 400 gallons. They don't like them down below about 10%, so we're really talking about 6-700 gallons.

Really?I have a 17kw generac LP installed for the last 10 years,NEVER seem that kind of usage from my 500 gallon LP tanks.Gen. has run 7 days a week 24 hours a day.

 

[MoKelly]

Ours runs on propane, so it is super simple. It is always "prepared" and I have a spare 500 gal tank that costs me $54/year to rent.

It is good feeling knowing that you are ready.

Is the reason you (and others) use propane due to not having natural gas already available —- or are there other reasons?

Our heat is already provided by natural gas, so wouldn’t it be best to have the generator also use natural gas?

MoKelly

 

[Diggin It]

If you have NatGas and the utility is 100% reliable, you may be better to go that way. Most of the country (at least the rural parts) does NOT have NatGas. At least part of the problem in Texas is that some of the NatGas pumping and supply facilities are shut down due to bad management and lack of readiness.

 

[kcflhrc]

Is the reason you (and others) use propane due to not having natural gas already available —- or are there other reasons?

Our heat is already provided by natural gas, so wouldn’t it be best to have the generator also use natural gas?

MoKelly

I would definitely say yes Natural gas would be a better alternative but at least here, Eastern Kansas, most gas companies don't run to rural homes. And even some Subdivisions I work in are all Electric. I live rural about 30 minutes Southwest of KC. I have a Heat Pump with propane back up. Would love to have Natural Gas but it is not offered around here to rural customer's.

 

[MoKelly]

I would definitely say yes Natural gas would be a better alternative but at least here, Eastern Kansas, most gas companies don't run to rural homes. And even some Subdivisions I work in are all Electric. I live rural about 30 minutes Southwest of KC. I have a Heat Pump with propane back up. Would love to have Natural Gas but it is not offered around here to rural customer's.

Thank you. This helps.

MoKelly

 

[nikdfish]

The thing to remember about LP consumption & whole house generators is that they are rarely running at a quarter load, let alone half load. Most get sized to accommodate the largest load demand that might show up. Those max loads are way higher than normal background use. Take a look at your power bill & divide the KWHr. total by the number of days on the bill. Take that number & divide by 24. The result is your average hourly background use. Compare that against the generator max capacity. For us, that is at about a 10% load for our 22kw which was sized to handle a 5 ton heat pump. At a 10% load, consumption is just a hair above 0% load. You can ballpark the 0% load fuel consumption rate by looking at the 1/2 & full load fuel consumption rates. Subtract 1/2 load consumption from full load consumption. Subtract the result from the 1/2 load consumption rate. That will approximate the no-load consumption rate. (This is pretty much the same as taking a chart & drawing a straight line through the published consumption rates (usually 1/2 & full load) to see where it crosses the 0 kw point). For us it is less than 1.5 gph (if memory serves)

 

[Diggin It]

And 1.5 GPH is 36 gallons per day which is 252 gallons for 7 days.

 

[grsthegreat]

My 22 kw never runs at 100%. Ive had a actual fuel monitor on it during a summer outage and it sucked about 1.5 GPH. Over a 14 hour outage. Mind you, the biggest load was my 4 ton ac unit cycling. When that went off output dropped significantly. I feel the biggest problem with whole house systems is undersized generators. A lot of people purchased the 17kw honeywell units sold thru Costco to hook to their houses without any thought to load. You would think a smaller whole house unit would save gas...just the opposite. They continually run at near peak output and suck fuel.

My 22 will run a long time on my 1000 gal tank. And I shut mine off at bed time, and usually part of the daytime if not needed. Unless the wife insists on wanting to quilt in the basement. Must keep wife happy.

 

[deezler]

That won't help a bit if the roads are closed and the trucks can't get through to deliver. Even two full 500 gallon tanks may only get you a week or so if you're also using LP for home heat, hot water, laundry and cooking.

If you've seen any of Don's posts, you should know he heats with firewood. Like, 53 cords a year or so, lol.

500 gals of propane should last many weeks to just heat your water and cooking, even on top of the generator keeping the fridge and lights on.