Your last generator Maintenance Run

[nikdfish]

We added meter based surge protection at the house last year & it has a red LED that shows "working" status that is visible from several locations inside - goes out during outage, back on when service restored...
(not the reason we added the service!)

Our power provider has an outage map that gets updated every few hours showing current problem areas outlined on a map, number of customers affected in each area, time of outage & projected restoration time (when known). Handy resource as long as our DSL service stays up & I have power for network & computer.

Nick

 

[jgayman]

If you have a modern digital display meter on your house and not the older mechanical type, you can go look at it to see if the kwh display has come back on.

I have the old style meter but even so it seems like just randomly going out to the meter to see if the electric has been restored would get old fast. We've had plenty of power outages when the weather is calm and the sky is blue. The outages have been anywhere from 10-mins to 10-hours. With the whole house generator life continues normally until power is restored. At least with night time outages you can look out a window and see that the neighbors porch light or DTD light has come back on. Not having an alarm would be similar to not having a ringer on your phone - whereby you could just go pick up the handset every 30-mins to see if you have a call.

 

[DarkBlack]

Neighbors lights? What neighbors?

 

[jgayman]

Neighbors lights? What neighbors?

Darn... I knew I forgot to include "if you have neighbors". :mur:

 

[3930dave]

We added meter based surge protection at the house last year & it has a red LED that shows "working" status that is visible from several locations inside - goes out during outage, back on when service restored...
(not the reason we added the service!)

Our power provider has an outage map that gets updated every few hours showing current problem areas outlined on a map, number of customers affected in each area, time of outage & projected restoration time (when known). Handy resource as long as our DSL service stays up & I have power for network & computer.

Nick

I haven't really researched them yet, but I recall a thread on whole house protection modules (might have been yours ?), and some discussion on a Siemens unit - I don't remember the pricing exactly, but it didn't strike me as crazy expensive. Gonna add one of these to my House - Wish List.... we think of protecting our "toys" in terms of electronics, but it's been how many years since you could buy appliances that are NOT run by micro-controllers ?

Rgds, D.

 

[grsthegreat]

here you go...this is an alert to tell you when power has been restored. It uses a current transformer so doesnt actually plug into anything. very safe to use.... and cheap
Reliance Controls PowerBack Utility Power Return Alert-THP108 at The Home Depot

 

[jgayman]

here you go...this is an alert to tell you when power has been restored. It uses a current transformer so doesnt actually plug into anything. very safe to use.... and cheap
Reliance Controls PowerBack Utility Power Return Alert-THP108 at The Home Depot

Wow! You found one! Yep, that's the one I have. It works like a champ. I'm tempted to buy a spare in case these things dry up again. It's odd that they disappeared for a while. Believe me, I looked everywhere. I even contacted Reliance Controls directly.

 

[3930dave]

Let's all keep CO safety in mind.

Generators and CO

Rgds, D.

 

[90cummins]

I just purchased a NEW 7HP Yanmar L70 to replace the original 9HP L90 Yanmar on a generator I purchased in 2009.
It’s an emission exempt military spec. diesel with a grid heater, spin-on oil filter and 3qt oil sump for extended operation of up to 500 hours nonstop.
I performed a load test at 3000 watts for 32 minutes which is the time it took to consume 1 quart of fuel. This was done to warm up and start the initial break-in and also give me an idea of how much fuel it will consume.
When I get it properly mounted I will continue the run to get more a more accurate fuel consumption details and verify that the generator is up to long term operation.
After I’m satisfied with the performance I want to do the same test on my Generac 4000XL generators to see how they compare fuel consumption wise.
Would anyone like to guess how long the Generac will operate on 1 quart of fuel at the same load??
I’m going to say 24 minutes.
What’s your guess?

90cummins

 

[3930dave]

I just purchased a NEW 7HP Yanmar L70 to replace the original 9HP L90 Yanmar on a generator I purchased in 2009.
It痴 an emission exempt military spec. diesel with a grid heater, spin-on oil filter and 3qt oil sump for extended operation of up to 500 hours nonstop.
I performed a load test at 3000 watts for 32 minutes which is the time it took to consume 1 quart of fuel. This was done to warm up and start the initial break-in and also give me an idea of how much fuel it will consume.
When I get it properly mounted I will continue the run to get more a more accurate fuel consumption details and verify that the generator is up to long term operation.
After I知 satisfied with the performance I want to do the same test on my Generac 4000XL generators to see how they compare fuel consumption wise.
Would anyone like to guess how long the Generac will operate on 1 quart of fuel at the same load??
I知 going to say 24 minutes.
What痴 your guess?

90cummins

Interesting project and test that you are doing. Sign me up for 23 minutes please.

Rgds, D.