Generator Price Heads Up

[Ralph Mowery]

Good thing about the diesel is the fuel last a very long time in storage. I hear it is good for years. May need some alge treatment ?

Where I am at the power seldom goes out and if it does it has not been out very long. Maybe 2 days at the most.

If I lived in some areas where it goes out frequently I would look into the diesel. There is no natural gas line near here. I don't have any equipment that uses diesel fuel, but if I lived on a farm that did where the fuel could be rotated out it would be good too. Using gas for the gen , the stored gas gets rotated out very often as I use it in the mower to mow about an acre and a half. It does sit from about this time of the year to around March, but it is the ethanol free. I could always use it in the car if it stayed around too long.

[trader_4]

It doesn't disappear if you manage the loads, which I think is an acceptable tradeoff. Want to run the dryer, make sure the water heater is turned off, etc. Do you really need to run a regular oven, can't get by for a few days with just the microwave? I'd rather have a 5KW that doesn't use as much fuel, can be quieter, weighs less, etc and do some managing, instead of a 10KW and planning on worst case. The larger one will use more fuel even when only putting out 5KW.

[trader_4]

Electric water heater? If you powered it on 2.5KW either it's gas or one of the 5 gallon under sink ones. And IDK how you get an oven by itself, let alone plus a microwave on 2.5KW either.

[Scott Lurndal]

I'd look at solar + a powerwall or LG battery pack. Suitably sized installation basically negates the loss of grid completely. And a non-zero return on investment; it doesn't sit idle most of the time like a generator will.

[Clare Snyder]

better to just connect upper and lower elements in series - achieves the same result and balances the load

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I had just bought this house when we had a 2-day power outage when it was cold (ice storm). Having gas logs in the fireplace helped.

[Terry Coombs]

  I think we actually get fewer and shorter power outages out here in the woods than we did when we lived in Memphis . But we and nearly everybody that lives near us heat with wood and have a generator for backup - usually just enough for lights and refrigerators , but a couple have whole-house auto-start units . And 500 gallon propane tanks out in their yards , natgas service ain't happenin' out here . We get by on a 5kw B&S gas unit , it'll power everything but AC and the water heater . It lives in my shop , and I have a setup to feed the main panel from the shop sub-panel . I keep a supply of stabilized non-ethanol gas on hand for yard equipment , so fuel usually isn't a problem . And if it comes right down to it I can drain another 10 gallons from the Harleys (usually kept full) plus whatever ethanol-laced fuel is in the car and truck if I get that desperate .

[gfretwell]

The problem is the water heater and the dryer tripped out the generator, with nothing else on. I know why the water heater did it, it is 100% of the generator rating and I didn't want to screw with the dryer too much since it is a new one with a chip in it. I didn't want to be buying a $300 control board so my wife didn't have to hang some stuff on the line.

[gfretwell]

The problem is that without hacking the inverter a conventional grid tie system won't do anything if the grid is down.

You still need a pretty big system if you want 5kw 24/7. (something on the order of a 20kw system with enough storage to run all night) and more than that if you want a reliable 5kw. If you want to be Amish, burn something else for your BTUs and live without A/C, I suppose a smaller system would work for you.

[gfretwell]

Half the same result but yes, if I get in that situation and they tell me the power will be out for an indefinite time, I thought about that. Putting them in series cuts the watts in half, running them at half voltage cuts it to 25%.

[Rod Speed]

Yep, but storage, so its fine to heat the water at night etc when nothing else is being powered. It now uses the off peak electricity for the cheaper electricity so does fine with just an overnight charge size of tank wise.

Wrong on both counts.

Trivial, that’s the element power.

Again, trivial, they arent usually on together because of the thermostat in the oven and when they are both on, the fuse doesn’t blow because the long extension cord limits the current.

[Rod Speed]

Hopeless economic with the powerwall or LG battery pack.

But when we lose the grid ad most every few years, still hopeless economics.

Much better returns available in the stock market or mutual funds if you don’t have the knowledge.

Mine cost me peanuts at a garage/yard sale. Never actually used it. The last time the grid was supposed to be out for about

6 hours in the middle of the day as they replaced a couple of old wooden power poles with the 11KV distribution on top, I took my usual knap when the grid went off, woke up at mid day, noticed that the grid was back, walked out and asked the traffic directing monkey if they had finished. He said that they probably had if the grid was back, carried on regardless.

[Scott Lurndal]

Actually such systems are designed specifically to handle the inverters without any hacking necessary (the battery pack takes place of the grid tie from the perspective of the microinverters).

That really depends on what you're looking for and what you expect your loads to be during such outages. One would need to understand the system capabilities and tailor usage to match when the power is out.

Not everyone needs A/C; I don't have it and generally (absent a day or two a year) don't need it. I haven't had A/C for the last 30 years. Summer high temperatures often reach 100 F (generally with 15-18% RH).

No solution fits every need, but there are millions of households that would benefit from a battery backup system during power outages.

[trader_4]

As usual, just more BS, no facts added. IDK WTF you use down there in kangaroo land, but in the US, a typical 40 gal storage water heater doesn't run on 2.5KW, it's closer to twice that. A 5 gal one would. So, WTF do you actually have or are you just full of shit, as usual?

Another dish "And IDK how you get an oven by itself, let alone plus a microwave on 2.5KW either. "

BS.

[gfretwell]

That is not most of them.

Like I said, great if you want to me Amish.

So then your problem will be heat. You are either burning that evil fossil fuel or you are freezing. You are not seriously going to say most people can afford a battery system that will run a heat pump all night and resistive heat would be out of the question. Yeah I know about Trombe walls and water storage but there are not many places in the country where those systems are effective. One of my engineer friends built a water storage space heating system in Md back when Jimmy Carter was saving the world and he says he will never do it again.

[gfretwell]

My 40 gal has 5.5 KW Elements. The other option is 4.3KW in a standard water heater. My generator would run it with no other significant load connected if I switched out the elements.

[hubops]

The B&S Q6500 is now on sale at Canadian Tire -

$ 1700. < reg. $ 2000. > Canadian dollars.

Tempting - but unfortunate that a couple reviews on Amazon said - when running on "quite mode" - it hunts up & down constantly and delivers voltage accordingly. Maybe that's a red herring though - I never run my Honda on "idle down" maybe "quiet mode" is something I'd never need or use anyway <?> ... John T.