Emergency Generator ponderings

Yes, of course; it even has a name. The Widow Maker cable.

When the charged particles hit the upper atmosphere the induce rather large ground currents not only in the ground (as in physical earth) but also in any conductors, like those forming a power grid. Wasn't a great chunk of NE Canada/US blacked out due to a mismanaged(*) solar event a few years back.

Define "portable". I have a 2kVA or there abouts diesel set. Weighs about 50kg I can just about pick it up and stagger with it a few paces or heave it up into the back of the Land Rover. It lives on a cheap flat bed trolley to normal moving about.

The advantage of a diesel is that you can run it on red at 90p/l (or less) rather than road diesel at 140p/l... The disadvantage of my cheap chinese thing is that it's fing noisy, really noisy. If I had the cash I'd get a Honda EU20i 2kVA with propane gas kit invertor jobbie, nice and quiet and nice clean power but my diesel set only cost =A3200 rather than the =A31200 odd for a gas Honda.

Hopefully for an hour or two and under load. Many a standby generator has failed when actually needed in anger 'cause the "testing" was simply start up, run for a few minutes without a load, switch off. Barely time for the engine oil etc to get warm let alone hot, and it doesn't test the alternator at all.

I've run it for an hour today, under load for part of that time.

I must remember to run it up more often!

Usually I hook it up to the house and run from it for a while, to ensure everything works, and the UPS protected computers keep running during the downtime.

I always run the carb dry, then remove the spark plug and put a drop of oil in the cylinder when I lay mine up. I do the same with garden machinery.

Mike

It's a dangerous way to go about it no doubt and definitely not to be recommended. However if an area unexpectedly lost power for some time and someone had a generator lying in the garage for other purposes, then switching off the main switch on the consumer unit and plugging in a double ended lead at the house end first and making sure something heavy was in front to stop it being pulled out would not be too dangerous.

It's certainly not the way to plan for an emergency, but in an unexpected situation where being without any heating and light for an unknown time is weighed up against a complete bodge, the bodge probably wins.

You would also however have to consider earthing, as you couldn't guarantee that the earth provided with your supply would remain connected during repairs. There again, the most likely houses to lose power are probably provided by overhead lines right to the house and will presumably have a TT system anyway?

Indeed much better if you are planning ahead rather than reacting to a situation that has already occurred.

Agreed.

SteveW

I've seen Hollywood movies. Effin' years. ;-)

We had our Dorman genny (I think it was 25KVA) at the fortress in NZ hooked up to an automatic transfer switch - it was always rather good fun simulating a power cut, then hearing the genny rumble its way into life and the lighting gradually come up to normal brightness (God knows what the line voltage looked like while it was all happening - I suspect it was pretty messy; thankfully we had no IT equipment :-)

In message , js.b1 writes

Ensuring that earth and neutral are connected else the boiler won't flame sense (unless you're Harry)

In the scenario depicted by the OP weapons would be required. Once the starving hordes from the cities start to leave to find food.

In that scenario any light/smoke would result in the death of the OP. A shotgun would be of little use as us townies would outnumber him a lot and would be better armed (mach 10s, Ak47s, etc.)

Is you last name Nilsen?

Not here, I doubt there is much, if any, underground distribution from the national grid to our meters. We have a TNCS supply, ie only phase and combined neutral/earth come from the pole mounted substation. There is a hefty cable running down the pole into the ground, the other end of which is connected to one output of the transformer to form the combined neutral/earth.

As for rural v urban I know of several people in urban areas who have pretty iffy power. Normally down to new developments and the DNO not really keeping up with the locally increased demand.

Testing backup systems can be a real minefield - if a test on a system supporting something that needs continuous power fails you've ended up causing the problem the backup system was supposed to protect against... Even running for half an hour may not always be enough - I came across a report where the backup power system to a major facility failed during a real mains power failure - initially it ran as intended, but then the generator suddenly cut out. It was found later that the pump which moved fuel from the main storage tank to the generator wasn't connected to the protected power supply - tests of the system had always stopped before the generator's local tank ran out.

better armed? not if turn up at my place with? anything that just takes a

In article , docholliday scribeth thus

We know of a company like that all of their PC's etc are backed up by UPS and a self start gennie.

However all their links to the outside world and in another building not so backed up;(...

It would be a different case if there were two or three of them or a few squadies to watch over it.

Because you know what will happen. It'll be put on the back burner and when the world ends it'll boil down to sticking a double-ended plugged extension into the wall/genset. So he may as well resign himself to killing every electrical worker in the country and blowing up his neighbours' tellies, because that's just what will happen, innit.

OIl is optical, a photo cell.A common problem causing lockouts is soot on the photocell stopping it "seeing" the flame.

Our oil boiler doesn't donno about gas jobbies. Last gas boiler I had experience with was a cast iron back boiler with pilot light.