How much Generator for a well pump??

[thingy]

well,theres a man who knows some electical stuff,kinda makes sense.
Anyways looked at my gen/welder book,and the specs do say kva,,,but, it really says,,,kva/kw,which to most appears to mean the same,I don't know myself,,,just know that them water pumps take a lot.
Got my watts on mine wrong too,,my book says,,6,000 kva/kw peak and 5,500 kva/kw continous,,,but still you would think it would run water pump plus maybe another 1,000 watts with out the lights diming a 1/2 second,,,[it does run all that and furnace at once,but like I say lights dim just for that split second the pump kicks on],,you wouldn't think that would damage pump??
Kinda makes you think the water pump draws well over 3,000 watts when starting?
And leads me to say,,if you got a well,with a pump in it,and want to power it and maybe 1-2,000 more watts,don't get anything less than about a 6,000 watt gen.,,and if you plan on using gen alot,,better think about 10,000 watts or more,you can always not use one while you are using other,but it makes it a whole lot more livable,if you can keep power on to the things you need all the time.
If I lived around hurricane areas or up north where the cold can kill at times,would want a bigger one for sure,,but we gotta get by with what we got I guess,,,thingy

 

[Highbeam]

Midlf: Thanks so much, I had never had that explained and it takes a lot of the mystery out of where the watts went.

With the big honking oversized generator you have to suffer a fuel consumption penalty. On a gas generator it can be a hugely inconvenient amount of fuel to keep on hand. If you live in a cold-that-kills climate then you would be better off finding a backup source of heat like a wood stove or even a furnace that can be run on minimal electrical input from a secured fuel source. If you live in a heat-that-kills climate then you need to have a generator to power cooling equipment and one could consider keeping a couple of the window mount AC units instead of the huge central AC which is a power hog.

I have been the "victim" of using a huge generator for a small electrical load. My 5500 watt genny burned lots of gas through the 11HP tecumseh to run the 800 watt refridgerator and another couple hundred watts of lights/TV. Luckily our outages are short since I would have needed fuel after a couple days.

 

[midlf]

,,,but still you would think it would run water pump plus maybe another 1,000 watts with out the lights diming a 1/2 second

I doubt that a 1/2 second dip will cause problems for the generator or the pump as long as the useage is occasional, like durining power outages.

 

[BobRip]

I doubt that a 1/2 second dip will cause problems for the generator or the pump as long as the useage is occasional, like durining power outages.

I agree, a short dip in voltage will not hurt most items. Unless you get a really big generator, you have to expect this. I have seem dips like this on old line fed houses when the air conditioner cut on.

 

[thingy]

Thanks,feel better now,,yeah,thats all I'll be doing,just [hopefully] every now and than.So,it looks like thats about min watts though,5500-6000,those well pumps evidently use a **** of alot when they kick on,,,and my wells just 100 feet deep. Its enough to run several light bulbs,,tv,,satallite box,oil furnace and that water pump,,and that will get you through a couple days anyways if you got gas,,,been a while since I stole,,I mean ciphered any gas out of a car or truck,,,guess you can still do that with out any special tools? I know by the time I was 18 had done swallowed several spoonfulls doing it,[thats got to be good for you right,never did have worms],,thingy

 

[Egon]

You would have trouble getting a syphon hose into the tank on my truck. There is a ball in the inlet filler to stop foaming. It will not allow a hose to pass.

The way to syphon is not to suck but to:
Get hose into the tank as far as possible, place thumb over hose end and pull up quickly, release thumb and push hose back in tank and repeat above till you have some flow.

 

[HomeBrew2]

My old 1992 Generac 5000W genny runs my 1 hp 20gpm 220v Grunfos pump set at 100' with some other stuff running, lights, beer frig. Everything "dims" momentarily. Hasen't been a prob for my stuff.
If you don't have an Amprobe, they're getting pretty cheap now. They make it easy to measure the actual amperage.

 

[thingy]

EGON,no,if you syphon you are supposed to get gas in your mouth,,been awhile since I done it,but I remember that part well,alot of times it will splash all over your nose and chin,,you must nota been much of a gas sypherer when you were younger,,that used to be what they called a w.va. credit card,,hose and a gas can...
Yeah,heard the fill necks had something in them,,,don't think my toyota does,,just got a flap,,ain't sure about ford,,,,just have to get me a hose and find out,,,thingy

 

[dmccarty]

We should have our electrician out at the house soon to fix some things on the house. So we are going to have to make a decision about the generator hook up.

I checked the circuit breaker last night and the well is on a 20 amp circuit and I guess its just 110. The breaker does not have a big "fat" breaker like the stove.

Does that mean it is a 20amp/110 circuit?

The generator we are looking at getting has 6000 surge watts with 5500 watts running. It has four 110 volt 20 amp circuits and one 25 amp 220 volt circuit. That looks to me like we might be 600 watts short on the pump startup surge.

Does my math look right?

I am assuming the circuit break is correct for the pump. Too much or too little would be a bad thing?

Later,
Dan

 

[Highbeam]

25 amps of 220 volt power is 2 seperate phases of 110 at 25 amps each. And since you will be patching the 220/25 amp plug into the house you will have 25 amps of 110 power available to any one circuit and 50 amps of 110 available total. Also, you will have 25 amps of 220 power available for any combination of 220 volt appliances.

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. If all of your essential circuits are on one side of the panel then you will use up the 25 amps available to that phase in a hurry while the other phase sets unused. Effectively turning your 5000 watt generator into a 2500 watter. You want the essential circuits to be balanced between the phases so that you can put similar loads on each phase.

It would be handy to have your 20 amp well breaker on one phase and 20 amps of other essential circuits on the other phase so that the genny is always ready to give your well the power it wants.

 

[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,,,