k0ua
Epic Contributor
It sounds like you used your fuel wisely. Not just fire her up and let it run.
Propane Whole House Generators, Warning.
- Thread starter Industrial Toys
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It sounds like you used your fuel wisely. Not just fire her up and let it run.
AVIVIII
Silver Member
We do love the low-mx, reliability, and power of the big diesel unit, especially when we might not be around, or the wife and kids are home and I am not. But until we bought it, I ran a 3200 sqft home in NH with a 5500w Generac portable. The rules are: No Electronics (inc. TV, Dishwasher, stereo, washer/dryer), Minimal heat loads (Coffee maker, toaster, dryer), don't open the chest freezer, and shut Genny off at night and when not home. We are set-up well for it, gas range, oil heat, 90 gallon super store, 60 gallon pressure tank, pellet stove works well if you start it w/o the igniter. The 2 biggest loads are the well pump and the fridge. Running it for roughly 10hrs a day in a winter outage, it would use ~7 gallons of gasoline. If it was warm out, less than half that just for well, fridge, and freezer.
That unit was set up with a back-feed/lock-out in the panel and has over 800hrs on it. Never let me down. I've still got it, but life is better with an automatic.
That unit was set up with a back-feed/lock-out in the panel and has over 800hrs on it. Never let me down. I've still got it, but life is better with an automatic.
LittleBill21
Elite Member
why in the world would you not use the tv or stereo? they are like non existent loads? sounds like your generator barely had a load on it most times, the dish washer uses the same as the coffee pot or toaster.
aczlan
Good Morning
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I think the "no electronics" was due to fear of them getting fried by bad power...
Aaron Z
check
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Wow, that is only about .4 gallons per hour! What brand is it? And are you sure about your figures?
OP
Industrial Toys
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- Kubota R510 Wheel Loader + Cab and backhoe, JD 6200 Open Station, Cushman 6150, 4x4, ten foot 56 hp Kubota diesel hydraulic wing mower, Steiner 430 Diesel Max, Kawasaki Diesel Mule, JD 4x2 Electric Gator
I was reading some funny stuff on Reddit, about how to mess with people. One guy had enough of a guy bragging about how good mileage his new truck got. The other guy would add fuel to the braggers truck daily, although I find that hard to believe. Then he started siphoning fuel out, and the guy went nuts, going to the dealer, trying to have it fixed. When revealed to him, what had been done, he never bragged again.
I have out of the way switches for my Dishwasher and Microwave. I try not to start and stop a generator with electronics (that are not on a high end UPS) connected. I'm guessing, when connected to the utility, you have a rather large buffer to soak up large spikes and surges that probably isn't there when running a generator.
I have out of the way switches for my Dishwasher and Microwave. I try not to start and stop a generator with electronics (that are not on a high end UPS) connected. I'm guessing, when connected to the utility, you have a rather large buffer to soak up large spikes and surges that probably isn't there when running a generator.
AVIVIII
Silver Member
The power wasn't "clean" enough; THD too high is my guess, but never put it on the scope, and according to my Kill-A-Watt, it never made 60Hz dead on. The dishwasher/washer/dryer/microwave would refuse to even power on, never mind run. Stereo/TV made nasty noises, so we just didn't use them. I banned all electric heat appliances because if someone wasn;t smart enough to wait to make toast until after the Keurig was done, I'm the one that had to go out and reset the generator, and there's plenty of other ways to make toast and coffee. Computers generally seemed okay, probably due to the power supplies, but I unplugged a lot of the network gear, so there wasn't much to do.
Since we're talking about it, I did find that if you run an inductive load on the same circuit, electronics worked "better", I'm not sure of the science behind it, but if you are having power problems with a TV, plug a fan into the same power strip.
With the diesel, we run everything without remorse; the neighbors love seeing 4,000+ Christmas lights on while the whole road is out of power!
OP
Industrial Toys
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- Ontario Canada
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- Kubota R510 Wheel Loader + Cab and backhoe, JD 6200 Open Station, Cushman 6150, 4x4, ten foot 56 hp Kubota diesel hydraulic wing mower, Steiner 430 Diesel Max, Kawasaki Diesel Mule, JD 4x2 Electric Gator
I only make 220 with my various sets and inverter, not even having a neutral connected, so they all run perfectly balanced, and have a nice big transformer that makes my neutral. I think it offers a nice big inductor in the circuit as well. Particularly when I run my little Yanmar 3.7, I don't have to worry what side of the line I might have such and such a load on. Like a toaster, kettle or whatever.
I finally got my light out at the entrance again, about a thousand feet from the house. That should throw people for a loop when they drive around, when their power is out, wondering where the problem lies.
I finally got my light out at the entrance again, about a thousand feet from the house. That should throw people for a loop when they drive around, when their power is out, wondering where the problem lies.
JasperFrank
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Yup. 
In our worst ice storm, that lasted 7 days of no power, my little cheap Homelite GASOLINE Generator, 4400 watt, 12 years old, still supplied enough lights and ran the refrigerator, charged phones, and computer laptops or would run the well pump. Why would any one buy something else? Its been able to go through at least three outages that lasted 4 days or more and ran continuously for 6 or more hours each day. We have many outages were I live. Still running strong. Starts on second pull. The neighbors all bought something like it after the big outage cause I had the lights on.
In our worst ice storm, that lasted 7 days of no power, my little cheap Homelite GASOLINE Generator, 4400 watt, 12 years old, still supplied enough lights and ran the refrigerator, charged phones, and computer laptops or would run the well pump. Why would any one buy something else? Its been able to go through at least three outages that lasted 4 days or more and ran continuously for 6 or more hours each day. We have many outages were I live. Still running strong. Starts on second pull. The neighbors all bought something like it after the big outage cause I had the lights on. If you need the clean power all you need to do is plug a UPS into the power supply and then plug your device into the UPS. A good UPS will clean the power right up and you can run a computers or anything else off a dirty generator using that technique.