Propane Whole House Generators, Warning.

[Travelover]

My solution is a 6000 watt portable generator that runs on gasoline or natural gas and a 1000 watt gasoline generator. The little generator provides power to the house to keep the lights and internet on and the bigger generator is run occasionally for the well, refrigerator and furnace. If I had to depend on propane, I'd surely not run it 24/7 after a hurricane.

 

[Industrial Toys]

It does seem foolish to live in Hurricane country and then select a system that you can't use in a long outage. Maybe he has money he doesn't know what to do with, but I would think he is set with his 7.5 Diesel in his RV. Heck, if his house is destroyed, he may even have a place to live on site!

 

[k0ua]

On the other hand, my lady friend is not the most incapable person with equipment, but a fire pump once went all squirrelly on it's side and she just stood there in a daze watching it! That kind of thing scares me.

My wife is just the opposite. She walked by the kitchen sink and noticed a puddle of water on the floor. She started digging out the many things stored under the sink and saw that one of the water feed lines had popped out of its compression fitting. She found the shut off valve and shut off the water and started to clean up. Now she did wait on me to get the parts to fix the problem, but she had done all of the clean up she could do and had things drying out, and she had brains enough to know that the water has to be shut off. Sad to say not everyone would do that.

 

[Industrial Toys]

It was as though she was afraid to touch it, like some crazed animal (the pump, not her)!

Reminds me of being in a friends place of employment. Someone was moving a large bottle of welding gas without the cap. He inadvertently turned on the valve, it startled him and he dropped the cylinder so it went spinning around the shop floor. Me and a manager took cover and my friend walks over, cool as a cucumber, stops the thing, shuts it off, stands it up and walks away, without a word. If I had thought about it, I would have realized the fitting was at a ninty, so it's not like it's gonna take off.

 

[oosik]

When we lived in Anchorage ( '65 to '82 ) - natural gas was king. They almost gave it away. Electricity was, even then, VERY costly. We choose to go electric on our clothes dryer. Too much lint, too close to a flame. Maybe just overly cautious.

 

[k0ua]

When we lived in Anchorage ( '65 to '82 ) - natural gas was king. They almost gave it away. Electricity was, even then, VERY costly. We choose to go electric on our clothes dryer. Too much lint, too close to a flame. Maybe just overly cautious.

I remember as a kid we had a gas dryer we used for decades. I don't remember any problems with it. We had propane gas refrigerators too. You don't see them much anymore. These were old even then, made by Servel. Nothing but a little flame running all the time. It didn't matter when the power went out, you still had refrigerator and freezer section. Very quiet too. I think modern propane fridges are made, but they are not all that common except the little ones in RV's.

 

[3Ts]

I think modern propane fridges are made, but they are not all that common except the little ones in RV's.

Unique Off Grid

22 cuft seems to be the biggest they make and are intended for off-grid applications. And they are very proud of their refigerators - $~3k proud.

 

[MossRoad]

It says it uses about 2.1 pounds of propane every 24 hours.
There's about 4.2 pounds of propane in 1 gallon of propane.
So that's 1/2 gallon of propane per day.
3.5 gallons of propane per week.
15ish gallons per month.
182.5 gallons per year. Let's just say 200 for easy math.
200 gallons of propane per year to run the fridge.
Propane in the U.S. has averaged around $2.50 per gallon over the last 10 years.
200 x $2.50 = $500 per year to run the refrigerator on propane.
$5000 to run that propane fridge for the last 10 years.
U.S. Propane Residential Price (Dollars per Gallon)

I just looked at my 9 year old fridge/freezer. $110 per year @ eleven cents per kwh.
$1100 to run that electric fridge for 10 years.

I guess if propane is your only choice, you have no choice, but man, that's about 5 times the cost to operate VS electric.

Our electric fridge was about $600, too, so 5 times less expensive to purchase and 5 times less to operate. YIKES!

 

[Industrial Toys]

But hey, even our Christmas liests are LED, we are a GREEN eco friendly domicile!

Always sad when reality meets best intentions/delusions.

I wonder what the real numbers say about my Dads 1950s GE fridge (converted by Ontario Hydro from 25 to 60 cycles). Has he been throwing money away, or is he ahead?

 

[MossRoad]

But hey, even our Christmas liests are LED, we are a GREEN eco friendly domicile!

Always sad when reality meets best intentions/delusions.

I wonder what the real numbers say about my Dads 1950s GE fridge (converted by Ontario Hydro from 25 to 60 cycles). Has he been throwing money away, or is he ahead?

Hard to say on the fridge. As for LED Christmas lights... I've been trying to justify getting them for our tree out front. However, it's about 42' tall and would take hundreds of dollars of strings VS the old conventional strings I get for about $5 on clearance. A tree that tall, I end up leaving half a dozen strings on each year bacause I can't pull them down. They get caught in the branches. I'd leave about $40-$50 worth of LEDs in that tree each year.

I've tried to convince the wife that I can justify a $5000 used bucket truck for twice-a-year Christmas light use.... not having much success on that issue yet. :laughing: