NG, Propane, gas or diesel generator??

[tomd999]

Dargo,

Be very wary of low price gensets, one of the ways that save on costs is the windings and such. You will find that low price gets you high total harmonic distortion and high telephone interference. You also find lesser quality insulation and bearings.

If your looking for a couple portables, look at this deal from the government: 10 KW GENERATORS

Or if you have a shed you can put one of these examples in, these make excellent light industrial/commercial gensets.

Most of these were removed from refer railroad cars in the 70's. The ones I have seen are powered by a GMC/Detroit 2-53 turning a Delco cast iron frame generator. Generator Detroit Diesel 30 Kw Unit New Controls - eBay (item 160283608621 end time Sep-22-08 18:37:20 PDT)

Or another excellent choice is: 52 KW DIESEL GENERATOR WITH JOHN DEERE ENGINE - eBay (item 170263008449 end time Sep-23-08 16:51:40 PDT)

Both of these are in the price range of your example however they are a bit more work that just buying an economy genset and dropping it on the ground remember, long after the lower price equipment has stopped working, these will most likely be just fine.

Again, my 2.3 cents

Tom

 

[Dargo]

Thanks Tom. As I mentioned, I don't know squat about generators. I've sort of poked around looking at them for a while, but not really seriously. Now I need to find out the things to look for. I don't want to buy some cheap Chinese junk just because it is cheap. Still, I understand that not everything made in China is junk; which makes it more confusing.

 

[RobJ]

Sounds like money isn't an issue so go with the best, Cat make gensets so the price should give you piece of mind. Running 2 4 ton ac units during a crisis is, uhh, impressive. During Ike our 3400sqft home usage was down to 3 rooms. A $114 Lowes window unit, which ran for a very short time because the power came back on) would have kept the 3 room "comfortable". The unit was in the bedroom of course. It ran nicely on my 3500w Robyn genset with 2 fridges, tv, dish, dsl and a few lights. With the cool front moving away I was prepared to run it all night. Usually we ran the thing about 7-8 hours a day. Off at night.

Bigger the genset the more the fuel it'll use. Googling around I found this set to be perfect for my needs if I wanted to go this route. NG is not a proble around here and since the pipeline is in a grid, if there is a leak they can isolate it shut it off, and keep the gas flowing. With this unit I could run 2 window units if I needed and run them all the time. No worry about filling with gasoline.

With Ike most people overbought for a generator (mostly because that's all they had left). If people ask me, 2500-3000w tops. It won't run the whole house, just the basics and an AC at night. Remember the fridge doesn't to be run all the time. A couple frozen water jugs in the freezer and fridge will help out a lot.

Rob

Briggs & Stratton 7,000 Watt (Liquid Propane or Natural Gas) Home Standby Generator - 040298 at The Home Depot

This one might be a little better for a few bucks more. I sort of hear mixed things about the genracs.

Guardian Guardian 8,000 Watt (LP) / 7,000 Watt (NG) Automatic Home Standby Generator - 005501 at The Home Depot

 

[Dargo]

Rob, part of the reason I will go big with my stationary generator is because not only do I have a large family, but I will have quite a few relatives and close friends who have children and will not have any ability to obtain a generator. I don't think it will be like Thanksgiving or Christmas when we literally have a hundred or more people over, but since I am able to do so, I plan to do what I can to help those close to me. I won't have room in my freezers and refrigerators for all their food, but in a prolonged outage I'm certain some would want to bring their units over and be able to plug them in. And in the summer I want to stay cool and obviously warm in the winter.

 

[LMTC]

Dargo,
I bought an LP genset Thursday because it is what I could find, and my family was running on frantic--I needed to do something. I've always wanted diesel for this reason...in "normal" disasters most fuels will be equally available...for the most part. In a serious "TEOTWAKI" situation I ask myself which fuel will be easiest to find....and I answer myself "diesel" from many abandoned vehicle tanks. I'd also want at least a couple good cast iron hand pumps capable of pumping it from underground storage tanks if I should find any. As far as storage, read about PRI-D. We've used it for years, and PRI-G. I've used gas more than a year old treated with PRI-G with no problems. Many years ago a rep from the company (a serious rep whose info I trust, not a sales guy) told me they believed the diesel formula was probably good for ten years and more. He explained details of their test with the 32 year old duel dump found at a Wyoming mine.

We use PRI-D in all our diesel, and the G in our cars. Besides the storage function it seems to be an excellent injector cleaner.

 

[daBear]

Dargo that is more than a good price for a 30kw diesel on eBay. Maybe too good but it looks like they anticipated most questions and addressed the Chinese engine issue head on. Got to be some catch to that because it just looks too good for that price.

 

[RobJ]

Rob, part of the reason I will go big with my stationary generator is because not only do I have a large family, but I will have quite a few relatives and close friends who have children and will not have any ability to obtain a generator. I don't think it will be like Thanksgiving or Christmas when we literally have a hundred or more people over, but since I am able to do so, I plan to do what I can to help those close to me. I won't have room in my freezers and refrigerators for all their food, but in a prolonged outage I'm certain some would want to bring their units over and be able to plug them in. And in the summer I want to stay cool and obviously warm in the winter.

I understand, hmmm, some in-laws you know it might be better to buy THEM a genset. j/k.

But if you are going to spend that much, and its a big concern to you, this is one cases I would buy local expecting and demanding quality support.

Again my big concern is how much fuel can I store and how long will it get me. If everything goes to **** in a hand basket, and you are living fine with the genset on for 10 days, but everything is down for 20 days, IMO it's better to live low onthe hog for 20 days(which might mean less AC...and we know about AC down here!! ), than live high on the hog for 10 and nothing for the next 10.

Also look for a local company or regional company that can build a genset for you. when I worked on diesels we also built custom gensets. Deutz or other engines connected to Lima generators. We built about anything, size, on a skid, fuel tank in skid, enclosures, electric start, air starters, etc.

I'm interested in what you end up with.

 

[dmccarty]

Again my big concern is how much fuel can I store and how long will it get me. If everything goes to **** in a hand basket, and you are living fine with the genset on for 10 days, but everything is down for 20 days, IMO it's better to live low onthe hog for 20 days(which might mean less AC...and we know about AC down here!! ), than live high on the hog for 10 and nothing for the next 10.

We only have enough genset to run the well, fridge, freezer, lights, DSL, PC's, etc. Not AC or hot water. The generator hooks up the DR mower power head so I'll need gas. Figure I can get fuel in advance of the storm, get it out of a car if needed, and worst comes to worse I can drive a couple hours away from the impacted area to get supplies.

Course this may not work for supply the DPS, Dargo's Power Station, since he would be limited in how much diesel he can haul back home unless he has a CDL.

And he will need a 5,000 gallon tanker to go with CDL.

I think I have genset envy.

Later,
Dan

 

[JoeL4330]

Depending on a single genset is not my idea of serious continuity-of-operations planning. I didn't see much interest in my suggested cascade of gensets, one smaller, one larger, (earlier in the thread) which, if both diesel would allow easy fuel management as the mains outage stretched on ...

I'm guessing your current AC units don't run continuously so you could manage with fewer AC units running simultaneously to allow a smaller but more continuous load, which you could accomplish manually or using the priority switching discussed elsewhere in this thread. For operating efficiency as well as capital cost it is important to manage peak demand so you don't have to size for worst-case demand.

If seriously planning for continuity, I would prefer two units to a single point of failure and as I saw my diesel supply dwindle, I would want the ability to scale down.

 

[firedog]

Course this may not work for supply the DPS, Dargo's Power Station, since he would be limited in how much diesel he can haul back home unless he has a CDL.

And he will need a 5,000 gallon tanker to go with CDL.

I think I have genset envy.

Later,
Dan

Either all that, or his own nuclear power plant. Doh!!!!