Your last generator Maintenance Run

[nikdfish]

Re: YouTube video of my 10hp Yanmar driving a 450amp DC alternator

Yesterday was the 1st of the month, so I let the 22kw whole house unit run the house for 45 minutes. I changed the thermostat a couple of degrees to get the heat pump (5 ton) to come on-line to give it some load. The service person suggested a monthly extended exercise period so we are going to do them the first of the month from now on.

On a related note, southern states came out today & delivered the new 500 gallon tank we ordered, filled it & topped off the old tank. The mechanic will be back out later to join the two. I believe he intends to "T" the high pressure lines from both to feed the existing regulator. I cut a new slot in the old tank cap to accommodate a line coming in from the new tank.

Nick

 

[check]

Yesterday was the 1st of the month, so I let the 22kw whole house unit run the house for 45 minutes. I changed the thermostat a couple of degrees to get the heat pump (5 ton) to come on-line to give it some load. The service person suggested a monthly extended exercise period so we are going to do them the first of the month from now on. On a related note, southern states came out today & delivered the new 500 gallon tank we ordered, filled it & topped off the old tank. The mechanic will be back out later to join the two. I believe he intends to "T" the high pressure lines from both to feed the existing regulator. I cut a new slot in the old tank cap to accommodate a line coming in from the new tank. Nick

Did the same thing yesterday, but put the stove oven on "self-clean".

 

[3930dave]

Well played guys.

Nice addition Nick :thumbsup: - topping off your system with bbq tanks would get old in a hurry !

Rgds, D.

 

[daugen]

am wondering about stories coming out of Texas and Florida, must be some interesting gen experiences.
Running a small gen for a week sure let's you know what is built to last and what isn't. Though I think the smaller the gen
the more you have to be careful with it. Would be interesting to see how well my tiny Champion inverter gen would do running for a week...
and very happy and hopeful I never find out.

 

[90cummins]

You are definitely being pro-active in case SHTF.
Preparing is not cheap nor easy.
Do you have any idea how long you could run in an emergency??
A 22kw unit will use a considerable amount of fuel.
I would guess that your unit would consume 1~2 gallons per hour with no load.
Do you have a smaller gen you could use to for essentials such as refrigeration, light and heat.
I've done fuel consumption tests on my Generator's and have various sizes so I can conserve fuel when the max capacity is not needed.
Nice job preparing.
90cummins
I just purchased a 110 lb postal scale so I can get precise numbers on my fuel consumption rates which will eliminate any guessing as to how much reserves I have.

 

[daugen]

I did some rough calculation that I think I could get about six days of running with my 22kw and a 500 gal tank. So doubling that should be good for close to two weeks.
I think anyone would start shutting down nonessential items during a major outage if they did in fact have reserve power.
I run a 400amp service off my 22kw and it takes a number of expensive load management boxes to do that.

Not to mention that at $1.88 a gallon here, running constantly is expensive!

 

[nikdfish]

In this area, one of the big outage producers is winter ice storms. I wanted to up our reserves enough to cover an extended outage when refueling would be unlikely due to road conditions & propane would also be in use with the propane furnace (our backup heat source after heat pump).

My guess-timated average fuel use during that scenerio is in the 1.5 gallon/hour range for normal household activity without any conservation (based on ballpark extrapolation from 1/2 load & full load numbers). With the second tank, we should be good for a week+ even if the tanks are down to 50% at the start of the event. Other than the heat pump, the only big power usage would be items like stove/range or clothes dryer - our water heater is a heat pump with 500 watt draw. A summer outage, where A/C via heat pump was a necessity, would probably be the highest consumption scenerio & average use would likely still be well under the 1/2 load point (which is 2.16 GPH for 11Kw output).

Nick

 

[3930dave]

am wondering about stories coming out of Texas and Florida, must be some interesting gen experiences.
Running a small gen for a week sure let's you know what is built to last and what isn't. Though I think the smaller the gen
the more you have to be careful with it. Would be interesting to see how well my tiny Champion inverter gen would do running for a week...
and very happy and hopeful I never find out.

Long runs with tiny gens may sound daunting, but IMO it's mostly down to maintenance, and access to clean fuel (some gas stations were forced to close recently, after re-opening post flooding with contaminated gasoline tanks). 50hr oil changes come up fast, in a 1week+ outage. Probably also worth have one or more spare spark plugs for the little gens on the shelf too.... it's not like they expire/get stale.

grs has posted at least a few times about big residential systems he has serviced that were severely neglected. Preaching to the choir :soapbox: , I know, but big or small, they all need some TLC.....

Rgds, D.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Few yrs ago i took my pilot in to safelite for a windshield replacement. Their power was out, and they had a small generator running out back to run their computers. The manager thought to check the oil, while it was running......duh

 

[3930dave]

Few yrs ago i took my pilot in to safelite for a windshield replacement. Their power was out, and they had a small generator running out back to run their computers. The manager thought to check the oil, while it was running......duh

Because he thought it had an automatic transmission ?

Those who can, do....

Rgds, D.