OT- Small - Automatic - Generators...?

If the sump pump is running almost continuously (cycling every 30 seconds), it's beginning to sound like his money might be better spent on a backhoe, gravel and drain pipe...

Reply to
Doug Winterburn
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He said that he had seen times when that happened, and also times when he had had an outage for 96 hours--that makes for an engineering spec--has to run the pump at 50% duty cycle for 96 hours plus whatever margin one wants.

Reply to
J. Clarke

I dont think Kenneth said his pump was recycling every 30 seconds..If it was, I would agree with the poster that said he needs to invest in a back hoe and some drain pipe.

He said his pump would last on backup batteries for 15-20 hours. My thinking is that would be increased three fold if the batteries were recharged using solar cells during the day.

IMOHO, I wouldnt trust a generator starting automtically and running while I was away if it was a critical application. Too many factors involved.

Skip

www.Sh>> Kenneth,

Reply to
Skip Williams

NBD

80W solar panels are less than $500.

T-105, 6VDC, golf cart batteries are less than $65.

A small inverter is less than $500.

Assume the sump pump requires 2A and operates on a 50% duty cycle which would require 240W/hour.

I use 50% efficiency of solar cells for estimating, thus (80W)50% =

40W.

240W/40W = 6 panels or about $3,000.

T-105 are rated about 235AH.

If you cycle them between 70%-90%, they provide about 47AH/pair at

12VDC.

240W/47AH = 5 sets of batteries minimum, I'd probably use 6 sets or 12 batteries, thus (12)$65)=$780

Panels....................$3000 Batteries..................$800 Inverter....................$500 Misc hardware.........$500

Total......................$4800

Use $5000 as an estimate to achieve total independance from an unreliable supplier.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Better than staying home all the time! A standby generator is often the best choice. Sure the genny could fail, shit happens sometimes. But then the sump pump could fail to. It gets to some point where you have to put some faith in something, or stay home 'cuz you are to paranoid up to leave! Greg

Reply to
Greg O

Lew,

Plus the added advantage of "no moving parts'

Less than he would spend on a auto start generator (yeah...right!), auto transfer switch, etc. that would all work flawlessly while he was away.

Me..I would gamble on the solar thing first

Skip

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Reply to
Skip Williams

DUH >>>>>>>>>>>>> I Screwed up.

(2A)(120V)(50%) = 120Watts, not 240Watts.

Reduce equipment as required.

Actually: 120W/40W = 3 panels or about $1,500.

Actually:

120W/47AH = 3 sets of batteries minimum., thus (6)$65)=$390

Actually:

Panels...................$1,500 Batteries..................$400 Inverter....................$500 Misc hardware.........$300

Total.....................$2,700

Use $3,000 as an estimate to achieve total independance from an unreliable supplier.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Quoting one of his posts:

"Hi Doug,

A battery backup and inverter is a possibility, but we have had outages as long as four days, and also have had situations in which our pump cycled on and off every thirty seconds or so for a week.

If those two situations were to coincide, I would need quite a pile of batteries to stay dry.

Sincere thanks, as before,

Reply to
J. Clarke

A 7 KW Guardian generator runs around $2,000.

Reply to
Nova

The generator doesn't, that's why they said to buy the optional control panel..

A neighbor here has one and the control panel is hard wired into his breaker panel.. power goes off, the generator fires up.. He also plugs an automotive trickle charger into the generator to charge the started battery whenever it's running..

mac

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Reply to
mac davis

I found it kind of interesting that our cheap ($500) 5.5 Coleman generator has a casting on it for an optional starter...

mac

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Reply to
mac davis

But what does it end up costing once you've gotten the starter?

Reply to
J. Clarke

Keep in mind that engine casting is built for may different applications, some require electric start. Greg

Reply to
Greg O

For that money, just to power a sump pump, I'd certainly go the route of a Guardian standby generator. You can buy one heck of a whole house generator for that kind of money. Keep a couple extra propane tanks around and switch tanks over every 50 hours of runtime. Enjoy life as usual. I feed my whole house on a simple 8,000 W gas generator, but it's not an automatic setup. The Guardians are really nice units. I've installed several of them and one of these days I'll put one in myself.

Reply to
Mike Marlow

Hi Mike,

I appreciate your comments about the Guardian stuff, and would welcome any further information you could offer based upon your experience with the units.

For example, what might you know about ease of installation, trustworthiness of the unattended starting, durability, etc.

Sincere thanks,

Reply to
Kenneth

The Guardian generators are probably the best buy for the money in the price bracket. You can buy them direct or you can find them at any Home Depot as well as a lot of independent stores. Very reliable. Fully self contained, and housed in a good cabinet that will withstand years (and years, and years...) of weather. I'm not sure if they have fully switched over by now, but many of the units (last year it was based on size - over 10K) used Honda motors, and you just can't beat a Honda motor for that application. They start reliably and that's what you want.

The generator hooks to propane or natural gas - depending on what you have at the house. If you're on natural gas, you quite likely could require the gas company to put in a larger meter since many older ones don't feed enough for a generator. This is not a big issue though. It hooks up with a transfer switch (provided in the price), that will either be a sub-set of your existing breakers, or with a whole house disconnect (optional). The transfer switch/disconnect panel ties into your main panel and becomes the breakers for the circuits you select to keep energized during a power failure. As such - it mounts near (typically within 2 feet) of your main panel.

The generator will self test itself weekly, based on a date/time you program into it. It will fire up, run for 15-20 minutes, and then shut down. When a power failure occurs, it will sense the absence of outside power, then it will wait for about 30-45 seconds to see whether power is really gone away, or if this is just a joke played by the power company. Finally, it will shrug its shoulders and fire itself up, switching off the grid, and providing power directly to those circuits you've put on the disconnect. It will run merrily until power comes back on - which is it always watching for. Once it sees power back on the grid, it keeps an eye on it for another

30-45 seconds, to make sure that power is stable. Once it decides that the power is for real, it shuts itself off and switches back over to the grid. Then, it simply sits and waits for the next power failure.

For long term expected failures, you would probably want a 100 gallon propane tank (assuming you're not hook to natural gas) for the generator. I just can't recall the exact consumption rate right now, but if you look on the web for Guardian, you could easily find it. The thing is you want a nice big tank that will take you through the self tests all year, and still be able to run the generator for some time, before requiring refill.

We use them a lot in the northeast owing to winter power outages up here. They are as reliable and as trustworthy as it gets. No - I don't sell them, I just have some experience installing them. I've probably installed 10 since last winter, and I've had the great (dis)pleasure of installing them in just about every environment you can imagine. For the amount of effort you will go through to cob up some alternate design and hope to gain a predictable result, you'll probably spend at least as much money, and certainly way more time, than if you just bought one of these.

As for installation - they are not difficult to install. There is no need to pay the install prices that places like Home Depot charge if you are in any way capable with electrical work, or know someone who is. The hardest part of doing it yourself is getting the generator off of your truck or trailer and leveled on the ground. The simplest install method for this is to throw a half dozen bags of stone down, rake it level, grunt the generator in place on it, and smile. The included documentation from Guardian is plenty sufficient for any competent DIY electrical skills. Typical install time for one (after you've done one...) is about 3 hours. Double that for your first install. If you can do it yourself, you'll save approximately $1000 if you buy one from Home Depot, by not buying their install package.

That should answer some of your questions - but may generate more. As away if you have others.

Reply to
Mike Marlow

My neighbor has had one for about ten years now--every month it kicks off its test cycle, never failed to start during an outage, never had a problem with it. A friend of mine had one installed last year, had an initial problem with a gas leak that IIRC was traced to a manufacturing defect and fixed under warranty, but other than that it's been dead reliable as well.

Installation requires that you (or whoever is doing the installation) know wiring and gasfitting and it needs a place to sit, outdoors, which is usually a concrete slab on the ground. It has its own load panel that the circuits to be protected are wired into, the other end goes to the meter or to a large breaker on the main panel, the load panel contains the transfer switch. You really should have a licensed electrician wire the panel--it's there to protect power company employees from getting zapped by power fed back into the line, and if you install it yourself and screw it up you're at risk for huge liability. It's not that easy to screw up, but given some of the home wiring jobs I've seen . . .

This isn't a lightweight unit--it's a big box that weighs over 300 pounds for the smallest one and doesn't disassemble to any significant extent--you really should have the bed for it prepared before it arrives so that you only have to move it once.

If there's a Home Depot near you they'll sell you the unit and deliver and install it for you--they'll likely have at least one on display as well so you can get an idea of what it looks like. Their prices aren't bad either.

It needs regular maintenance--that means change the oil and the air filter and whatnot like anything else powered by an engine--that's typically once a year or after a prolonged outage. Whoever sells it to you should offer you a contract where they do that for you and do an annual inspection.

If you've got either natural gas piped in or a big LP tank for your stove and/or heat then they'll plumb right in--on natural gas it runs as long as the gas company keeps providing gas, on LP it runs until the cylinder is empty--that's a good long time on a stationary tank that gets filled from a truck--if it will run 50 hours on a portable tank then it should run a month on one of those.

Reply to
J. Clarke

We didn't do it, but the friend that went to the states for the generator was figuring about $100 for the starter, battery and battery holder.. Another $10 for 50' of speaker wire and a door bell button for the "remote start".. ;-]

mac

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Reply to
mac davis

Which works if you don't need _automatic_ start.

Reply to
J. Clarke

You better recheck your information, As far AS I know Generac has never used Honda engines, as lest I have never seen one with a Honda. I work for the only full service Generac dealer in the state of North Dakota. You need warranty service an a Generac in North Dakota, you call us!

Generac has been building their own engines for years At one time they were in bed with Briggs & Stratton and many of there air cooled unit were B&S powered.

The rest of your info is spot on. Generac builds a very dependable unit, much better than units they built ~5 years ago. I can't even count how many I have personally installed over the years, everything from 10KW to 85KW. The instructions that come with the Generac pre-packaged units is very clear and easy to understand. Anyone with some mechanical ability should be able to do the install themselves. We get an occasional problem, but nothing consistent. On the self installs I get called out sometimes, and it is usually a installation problem by someone that has no business doing it themselves! Greg

Reply to
Greg O

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