How much Generator for a well pump??

[schmism]

You'll need to manage the power. Most noteworthy is that when you look at your breaker panel, the two columns of breakers represent the two phases of 110 input power.

thats mostly incorrect. (i say that because some OLD pannels are diffrent)

if you look at the power distbution behind the breakers (look at an empty pannel at the hardware store) you notice the 2 buss bars that feed power to the breaker spots have "fingers" that come out of each buss bar and over lap.

so one "side" of the row of breakers is NOT one phase. every other breaker is on the "other" "phase".

 

[dmccarty]

I figured for us to use this generator, we would have to manage the panel. Just to be safe turn on the well when we need it then off. The Water heater would suck up every watt the generator would have so it would be Navy showers. Run the heater. Turn it off. Turn on well. Take shower. Finish. Turn off well to do other things.

The well is on a completely different panel. We have so many panels the outside of the house looks like a power station. We ran out of room on the inside panel. We have three more panels outside. One for the meter and two other lightly filled panels. This was for future garages/barns.

I'll have to ask the electrician what to do load wise. He knew we needed the generator hook up and planned for it. We just could not tell him what our connection AMPS will be so we did not get one.

This generator is barely meets our requirements.

Later,
Dan

 

[Highbeam]

Schmism caught me, sorry about that. Indeed he is right as evidenced by a typical 220 breaker being all located on the one side of the panel. I was mistaken in the column theory.

But... the point of balancing your essential loads between the phases is still valid. You don't want to fill up one phase and leave the other one empty.

 

[thingy]

Dan,that gen sounds about the same as mine,,,mine will power water pump,oil furnace several light bulbs,tv,sat,phone,,,all at same time,,,only thing is lights dim 1/2 second when pump kicks on,,,,,,my pump is on a 220 breaker ,,its 100 ft deep,,seems like it was 5 amp so 5 times 220,,,times 3 or more,,for start up,,,,if yours is hooked up to a 110 breaker,you wouldn't think it would be using as much as mine???
Not even close to being an electrican,,,,,these phases are above me now,,although I'm sure its not that complicated,,just never done any of it.
But it sounds like your gen and mine have same out put so you should be fine,,,just gotta use the min...motors take more juice than anything else,I think,,,surge,[startup],,,freezers refridgerators,than you got those big heating things like electic stove,hot water heater,toaster,coffee pot,,,bet they suck it up to,,,but you can alternate like you said,,but you don't want to push it to far,,or you'll burn up motors,,maybe generator too,,,thats a good question,,will it hurt gen to overload it,,,or will it just pop a breaker??? thingy

 

[midlf]

you don't want to push it to far,,or you'll burn up motors,,maybe generator too,,,thats a good question,,will it hurt gen to overload it,,,or will it just pop a breaker??? thingy

I would not push a consumer grade generator too hard. I don't have faith in the construction or the overload protection. The one I have will stall out the engine before it trips the breaker. I don't trust the windings to take continuous max output. Not sure I trust the engine either. 80% is about the max continous load I would put on it. Short term at max, no problem. By short term I mean a minute or two.

 

[BobRip]

I would not push a consumer grade generator too hard. I don't have faith in the construction or the overload protection. The one I have will stall out the engine before it trips the breaker. I don't trust the windings to take continuous max output. Not sure I trust the engine either. 80% is about the max continous load I would put on it. Short term at max, no problem. By short term I mean a minute or two.

I agree with the not pushing too hard. However, what I found was that loads like wells run for 1 to 3 minutes and may be off for hours, depending on water usage. During outages we don't use as much water. The hot water heater needs to run for an hour to fully heat maybe once a day. Once those loads are off, the other loads will be lighting (go with compact florescent), refrigerator (2 amps), TV, radio. During this the toal loads may be 3 or 4 amps per leg. If you are going off the grid, yeah buy a quality generator, for short outages a Northern is good enough and a Honda is outstanding. Sound like 6000 continous is good enough. You could put a switch on the hot water heater to run it off of 120 and reduce its power to 1/4 of normal. I am considering this. If you don't know what you are doing don't try this.

 

[Highbeam]

"refrigerator (2 amps)"

Whoa there, my fridge is pretty small and has a sticker inside the unit that lists amps as 7. This, would likely be running amps so a startup surge on the compressor motor would push it up much higher.

Do you have a super energy star low amp fridge to only need 2 amps? I've had the pleasure of using a propane fridge/freezer which needs no electricity and other than frost buildup I can't say it was all bad.

 

[BobRip]

The compressor pulls about 2 amps (if memory serves me right) and the defrost heater is the 7 amps. If would be nice to disable this during power outages. The last thing you want is to defrost during a pwoer outage. The ice is actually very good to have in this situation as long as its not too much. It is not an energy star although the next one will be.

 

[Dusty]

I agree with the not pushing too hard. However, what I found was that loads like wells run for 1 to 3 minutes and may be off for hours, depending on water usage. During outages we don't use as much water. The hot water heater needs to run for an hour to fully heat maybe once a day. Once those loads are off, the other loads will be lighting (go with compact florescent), refrigerator (2 amps), TV, radio. During this the toal loads may be 3 or 4 amps per leg. If you are going off the grid, yeah buy a quality generator, for short outages a Northern is good enough and a Honda is outstanding. Sound like 6000 continous is good enough. You could put a switch on the hot water heater to run it off of 120 and reduce its power to 1/4 of normal. I am considering this. If you don't know what you are doing don't try this.

Why do you have to heat water that is already hot?

 

[thingy]

Well egon was right about a ball or somthing being in trucks gas tank fill neck,[wonder when they started that?,course last time I tried it was probably25 years ago],both my toyota and ford pickups have something in there that stops a cyphering hose,,,probably somthing to keep gas from leaking out if you upset truck,,,got a hose and tried it in both,,,hit something,,,didn't try and force it,,but did push on it pretty good,,,oh well,,,so much for that idea,,,guess I'll just keep 20 gal of gas,,thats about all I want to keep,4,5 gal jugs,,that might last me a day and a half,,,this generator runs at high idle if even a light bulb is on,,,,generally around here,if electic is off,,alls you got to do is drive for an hour or less and its on there,,,course that wouldn't help you in a blizzard,,,