Standby Generator

[BAP]

I upgraded from a 330 gallon to a 500 gallon at the recommendation of my installer/dealer.

Thanks. Is it above ground or buried?

 

[jaydee325]

Above ground. The only LP loads besides the generator is a heater in my shop and the range top (dual fuel range). Everything else is electric.

Thanks. Is it above ground or buried?

 

[shooterdon]

These things cost a lot of money to run. At least when I ran the numbers 6 or so years ago.

When I have an outage, I run my portable for an hour and shut off for 6 Hours.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Friend says he read of Diesel shortages. Maybe time to top up the tanks?

Fuel dealer says he knows of nothing like that. Prices are stable.

I ordered clear and dyed. I asked him why quoted price on clear is higher than at the pumps. Next thing I know, he adjusted it! I should have asked that years ago!

 

[cdaigle430]

These things cost a lot of money to run. At least when I ran the numbers 6 or so years ago.

When I have an outage, I run my portable for an hour and shut off for 6 Hours.

I have a Generac Guardian 16kw home generator with a 200amp auto switch, no problems, on my 3rd year. Only costs is a yearly oil change and the natural gas used to exercise the generator twice a month. very happy with it-came with a 10 year warranty.

 

[newbury]

Interesting - - been out here in the pucker weeds 36+ years. I will get 1 or 2 announced outages a year. Local Co-Op utility upgrading their equipment - usually two hour outage. Otherwise its normal to go 6 to 8 even ten years with no outages. In all the years out here - one major outage and it lasted 27 hours.

Our Co-Op electric utility is recognized in the industry as one of the very best in the business and, also, with one of the lowest electric rates.

I spent my "allocated standby generator funds" on a new and bigger rear blade - thank you.

Where does one go to sign up for "allocated standby generator funds"? Does your Co-Op provide them?

/edit - forgot the smiley

 

[nikdfish]

What size propane tanks are you using for your standby generators in colder climates. Trying to figure what I would need.

We currently have 2 500 gallon tanks.

We already had a self-owned 500 gallon above ground tank when we installed the 22kw (LP furnace as backup for heat pump). Our practice had been to call for a tank fill prior to the heating season if we were down by 100+ gallons. After spending the first winter thinking about vapor generation at lower temps & the potential demands from both generator & furnace, the following spring I ended up buying a second 500 gallon tank that was paralleled to the original tank .

The additional tank offers more than double the volume - the additional surface area means the tanks can be drawn down lower before vapor generation becomes an issue, so where previously I could count on drawing down to the 20% point on the one, now both could maybe be drawn down to 10% which would increase the usable amount by about 50 gallons per tank (a guesstimate, but not unreasonable...).

I want to be sure to have enough to run the furnace + the generator even if we have a protracted ice event that not only knocks out power, but also would make getting a refill problematic.

BTW, we are also in the group who finds that outages suddenly become less frequent after installing an autostart system. We typically had two or more 6+ hour outages per year prior to the install, virtually none since ...

 

[WVBill]

Interesting - - been out here in the pucker weeds 36+ years. I will get 1 or 2 announced outages a year. Local Co-Op utility upgrading their equipment - usually two hour outage. Otherwise its normal to go 6 to 8 even ten years with no outages. In all the years out here - one major outage and it lasted 27 hours.
.

You guys out there on the East side of the state don't have any trees to fall onto power lines and cause outages!!! :laughing:

 

[coobie]

These things cost a lot of money to run. At least when I ran the numbers 6 or so years ago.

When I have an outage, I run my portable for an hour and shut off for 6 Hours.

Disagree,our 17kw ran for 4 days straight 24-7 figured we used 7%-10% LP during that time frame according to the gauge on my propane tank.Change the oil once a year(full synthetic)and top off the battery water,good to go..

 

[newbury]

Disagree,our 17kw ran for 4 days straight 24-7 figured we used 7%-10% LP during that time frame according to the gauge on my propane tank.Change the oil once a year(full synthetic)and top off the battery water,good to go..

C'mon - give us figures we can deal with - what's the size of your tank or tanks? Big difference between 1 250 gallon tank or twin 1,000's.

 

[grsthegreat]

Even though mine is autostart 22 kw, i still manually turn it off during day during long outage, and at night when i go to sleep. Refer and freezer can stay cold long enuf, and i dont need it running while i sleep. Last outage the wife turned it off during day as she was out working horses and didnt need it on. When she got done, power was still off so she placed it back into auto and fired up the power. Dont care what anyone says...its nice to have power during outages. Here in north idaho they happen alot, and can last for days.

 

[TheMan419]

Even though mine is autostart 22 kw, i still manually turn it off during day during long outage, and at night when i go to sleep. Refer and freezer can stay cold long enuf, and i dont need it running while i sleep. Last outage the wife turned it off during day as she was out working horses and didnt need it on. When she got done, power was still off so she placed it back into auto and fired up the power. Dont care what anyone says...its nice to have power during outages. Here in north idaho they happen alot, and can last for days.

Amen especially with horses. You need 10+ gallons of water per day per horse. Got to run the well pump. Thankfully we do not have the length or frequency of outages so a portable unit is sufficient for us. I would love the luxury of a whole house standby......

 

[MossRoad]

So far in this thread I've only seen two people report on fuel usage.

One says a 12.5kw unit uses only .2gph of diesel.
Two says a 22kw unit uses between 2.5 and 3.9gph of propane.

While unit #2 is about twice the size of unit #1, and the fuels are different, that's a HUGE difference in consumption and fuel cost.

One's using about 5 gallons per day of diesel, the other is using between 55 and 90+ gallons per day of propane. YIKES! :confused2:

Something's not right in the calculations or reporting of something somewhere.

Can someone please clear this up for the rest of us?

 

[stuckmotor]

During the last power outage my tiny Harbor Freight 700 watt two stroker was able to run enough personal fans to make it comfortable inside the house. I had a cord running into the upstairs window.

 

[coobie]

C'mon - give us figures we can deal with - what's the size of your tank or tanks? Big difference between 1 250 gallon tank or twin 1,000's.

500 LP gallon tank.Is that enough info ??

 

[Diggin It]

It isn't always about your power company. Two major ice storms in two years took power down for everyone over thousands of square miles. The second one was for over 10 days for some people. Not long after, the remnants of Ike blew through and took power down to an even wider area, for longer. Since then, we've had a number of other extended outages, including three in two weeks earlier this year, all storm related.

I use a gasoline 8200K portable with extension cords to what I need powered. I get around 8 hours or a little more on 6 gallons of gas. During the 10 day events, I ran it for about 2 hours at a time, then off for 4-6 hours. That kept the freezer and fridge cool and the house warms during the winter outages. Flashlights and hurricane/oil lamps came in handy too.

 

[nikdfish]

....<snip>
Something's not right in the calculations or reporting of something somewhere.

Can someone please clear this up for the rest of us?

Maybe can't clear it all up, but I'll make a mention of 22kw LP use in our situtation. They only publish 1/2 & full load consumption rates. In reality, you typically run a way smaller load, which translates to a much lower rate. Our 22kw was sized to start a 5 ton heat pump, but our average hour to hour load is only about 2 - 2.5 kw (based on metered use on bill). This is going to be a whole lot less LP/hr use than the 11 kw load & 22 kw load rates published. It isn't a perfect, straight line relationship, but you can do an interpolation of the data from 1/2-> full & apply it to the lower usage end. I took that approach to come up with my own guesstimates for consumption on our unit & at our rate of normal use and am guessing at an average of about 1 - 1.2 gal/hr of LP use and used that in planning our fuel storage / refill approach. One of these days we will have another of the protracted outage events & I'll have some empirical data to work with.

 

[LouNY]

So far in this thread I've only seen two people report on fuel usage.

One says a 12.5kw unit uses only .2gph of diesel.
Two says a 22kw unit uses between 2.5 and 3.9gph of propane.

While unit #2 is about twice the size of unit #1, and the fuels are different, that's a HUGE difference in consumption and fuel cost.

One's using about 5 gallons per day of diesel, the other is using between 55 and 90+ gallons per day of propane. YIKES! :confused2:

Something's not right in the calculations or reporting of something somewhere.

Can someone please clear this up for the rest of us?

My 25 KW PTO powered unit will vary from 3/4 to about a 1 1/4 gallon per hour with an 80 HP tractor powering it, fuel usage is using the economy PTO and a varying load.
When I use the 55 HP tractor with the standard 540PTO it will run just under a gallon per hour.

I did find a chart for larger gensets,
Approximate Fuel Consumption Chart
This chart approximates the fuel consumption of a diesel generator based on the size of the generator and the load at which the generator is operating at. Please note that this table is intended to be used as an estimate of how much fuel a generator uses during operation and is not an exact representation due to various factors that can increase or decrease the amount of fuel consumed.
Generator Size (kW) 1/4 Load (gal/hr) 1/2 Load (gal/hr) 3/4 Load (gal/hr) Full Load (gal/hr)
20 0.6 0.9 1.3 1.6
30 1.3 1.8 2.4 2.9

And this for a Generac Propane unit;
Generac home generator fuel consumption rates will vary depending on the size and model of the generator and the load it is under. For example, according to Generac a 22 kilowatt generator would burn approximately 2.1 gallons per hour at ｽ load and 3.6 gph at full load, while a larger 38 kilowatt unit would burn 3 gallons per hour at ｽ load and 5.4 gph at full load

Diesel fuel has a lot more BTU's per gallon then propane.

 

[J.Wal]

I opted for a standby to plug into the house, backfeed the breaker box with a interlock on the main/ generator breakers. I found this to be the most cost effective generator setup for most all items covered. I have about $3,000- $3,300 total cost of generator, interlocks, cords, electrical work.

This allows me to backfeed using my Champion power equipment model 100110. ( 9,200 watts / 11,500 max) generator cost me $980 at Lowe’s.

I can run everything I need but my 5 ton AC unit. I can run multiple window units that I have for outages though. We cool one or two rooms and let the rest get warm if needed. Heat, and hot water is natural gas. I had to do the 5 hour break in on the generator and ran the house, lights ( all LEDs) garage door, gate opener, one stove eye, all ceiling fans, and all 110 electronics and never used more than 4 of the 7 load bars. Very happy with the generator.

I store the generator full of fuel, and 2 14 gallon tanks of gasoline in wood storage barn. The generator is rated to run 10 hours at 50% load on 7.7 gallons of fuel. With a full tank and 28 gallons on standby I have just under 5 full tanks or 50 hours of run time.

I find this to be the most economic for my current abilities and avoided the LP/ Natural gas fuels due to how much it consumes per hour and the lowered wattage output. I would need 1 gallon per hour of LP so I would need a massive tank just for the generator and it would produce 10% less wattage on LP.

Generator, plug and extension cord


Generator interlock switch. Great way to safely backfeed the home.


Had enough power to also run a 100’ cord to my shop/ rented out studio apartment over it to run basic items.

 

[jfh28]

first winter after we moved here we got hit by a horrendous ice storm that knocked the power grid down.......we were out of power for a week.....thats when I discovered it takes forever to melt snow into water.....lol.......generator was the next purchase in the spring.......we went for an auto start propane unit .....that was 15 years ago and is the best improvement we made here.....lose power a couple times a year so generator more then pays for itself.......wish it had a manual shutoff switch by the transfer panel instead of having to take the covers off the unit itself......oh.....and it does suck up the propane.......I try to always make sure I have a full tank when storms approach.......never measured the usage but I do know I can put a big dent in our 250 gal tank on a multiple day outage......Jack