Comparison Home Stand By Generators

[MossRoad]

Did you once have a job refueling Air Canada jetliners?

From:
Gimli Glider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Gimli Glider is the nickname of an Air Canada aircraft that was involved in an unusual aviation incident. On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767-233 jet, ran out of fuel at an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,000 m) MSL, about halfway through its flight originating in Montreal to Edmonton. ...

... Fuel loading was miscalculated due to a misunderstanding of the recently adopted metric system which replaced the imperial system.




Bruce

Actually, yes...sort of... :laughing: I used to work at the airport refueling airplanes and we had some Canadian aircraft from time-to-time.

 

[MossRoad]

Did you once have a job refueling Air Canada jetliners?

From:
Gimli Glider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Gimli Glider is the nickname of an Air Canada aircraft that was involved in an unusual aviation incident. On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767-233 jet, ran out of fuel at an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,000 m) MSL, about halfway through its flight originating in Montreal to Edmonton. ...

... Fuel loading was miscalculated due to a misunderstanding of the recently adopted metric system which replaced the imperial system.




Bruce

Great story! Thanks!
Here's the part I like... the pilot got demoted and an award for outstanding airmanship!
"Following Air Canada's internal investigation, Captain Pearson was demoted for six months, and First Officer Quintal was suspended for two weeks. Three maintenance workers were also suspended.[9] In 1985 the pilots were awarded the first ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship.[10] Several attempts by other crews who were given the same circumstances in a simulator at Vancouver resulted in crashes.[11] Quintal was promoted to captain in 1989, and Pearson retired in 1993.[12]"

 

[farmer2009]

Thought I would finally chime in. Use a small gas gen set for the house power isn't out that often and can make do unless winter without it except for the fridge and freezer.

Now the farm has an 80kw diesel generator. 160 hp 1800rpm Cummins. 400 amp auto switch gear that senses off both legs. I haven't run mine during a long outage. But my BIL has the same gen set. He got to run his during the '09 ice storm. 24/7 for 3 weeks. ( I didn't own my farm during that time.) Said his averaged about 40 gal a day. Just estimating load at about 25-30%. Even during summer our loads don't go over about 60%. But need the extra for startup draw.

We keep block heater plugged in 24/7/52. And a battery maintainer. New battery every 2 years. And annual fluid and filters. New anti-freeze every 2 years also with hoses.

 

[ultrarunner]

They made a movie out of the Gimli story...

 

[Toyboy]

I'd venture to say that most, if not all, home stand by GenSets rarely ever run at full load. When they size them it's for worst case scenario. Now that's not saying they don't spike up close to full load at times, but I doubt if it's more than momentarily.

When you lose power (at least in this house) you kind of automatically go into conservation mode. Of course there are some things that you have no control over.... well, septic pump, fridge/freezer, etc., you get the picture. But a pretty much the rest of the house you do. The odds of all of the above starting at the same time are remote if any. So you'll most likely be running 1/2 load 90-95% of the time. I know around here when we're off the grid (not that often) and running stand-by, when an appliance kicks in, the GenSet don't even change pitch. When your taxing the smaller units you'll know it.

I think some of you are confusing cost per hour with peace of mind. I can deal with the cost per hour or I would not have installed the GenSet to start with.
You can't put a cost on Peace of Mind...... Priceless!

 

[Looking4new]

Great story! Thanks!
Here's the part I like... the pilot got demoted and an award for outstanding airmanship!
"Following Air Canada's internal investigation, Captain Pearson was demoted for six months, and First Officer Quintal was suspended for two weeks. Three maintenance workers were also suspended.[9] In 1985 the pilots were awarded the first ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship.[10] Several attempts by other crews who were given the same circumstances in a simulator at Vancouver resulted in crashes.[11] Quintal was promoted to captain in 1989, and Pearson retired in 1993.[12]"

Thanks for that. I wondered what happened to them.

 

[Garandman]

We were kind of stuck: the NH house has electric stove, baseboards, water heater, clothes dryer, and well pump. We wound up with a 14kw Kohler.

Thr cost to switch over the appliances was going to be much more than anything we would save from a smaller genset. Even the Rinnai needs electrical power and frozen and burst pipes can create immense damage.

Our house in Boston is natural gas and we can run the heat and fridge on an EU2000, and daisy chain a second one for more power. This allows us to run with minimal fuel consumption. We're probably the only house in the neighborhood set to run on generator power.

 

[check]

We were kind of stuck: the NH house has electric stove, baseboards, water heater, clothes dryer, and well pump. We wound up with a 14kw Kohler.

Thr cost to switch over the appliances was going to be much more than anything we would save from a smaller genset. Even the Rinnai needs electrical power and frozen and burst pipes can create immense damage.

Our house in Boston is natural gas and we can run the heat and fridge on an EU2000, and daisy chain a second one for more power. This allows us to run with minimal fuel consumption. We're probably the only house in the neighborhood set to run on generator power.

We have a Kohler RES17 (17 Kw) running on propane. The spec sheet indicates that it consumes 7.7 lbs./hr. at 50% load and 6.6 lbs./hr. at 25% load. This translates to 7.9 litres/hr. and 6 litres/hr., respectively, and at $.60 per litre translates to $4.75/hr. at 50% load and $3.60/hr. at 25% load, or $798 and $605 per week, respectively. I really doubt that the average homeowner would even run this generator at 50% load for long periods of time, however, as we got along nicely with a 5500 watt gasoline model before. In fact, the only reason we have a big one now is that we have a hot tub.

Hope this helps.

 

[K man]

check those are more realistic numbers. This means my 11 kw runs 1.2 gph on low load and 1.8 on full which is a little less than your 17 kw which sounds pretty darn right. Never had a gas generator. I do know quite a few and they agree that if they could afford it they would definitely buy a propane standby generator any day just for the convenience of the automatic transfer switch and peace of mind.

 

[ultrarunner]

Propane or Natural Gas does have advantages in the fuel department... nothing to get state and with Natural, it's a simple matter if it is already onsite.

The Hospital had Natural Gas unit back in the 80's to 1995.

We had to get rid of it unless we add very costly and large Natural Gas storage onsite due to supply concerns in the aftermath of an earthquake.

Diesel made the most sense because we could keep a supply on had and refueling if necessary could be done with 5 gallon containers...

Any fuel type can have auto transfer switch...