I have a 1.5mw 3 phase taylor sitting at my office right now that we use for substation outages to run the controls. Its been a good one but its a little bigger than we need at home- it has a huge 12cyl caterpillar and an 800gal diesel tank!
Having a Champion electric start commercial type contractor/home generator on wheels, if I had to do it over, I'd have gone much larger. I too lost power two days ago from a big storm. Still on generator power. This morning the wife was getting ready for work. Blow drying her hair after a shower where hot water use caused the 80 gallon(electric) hot water heater to cycle. Well pump also filling the tank caused the generator breaker to pop. Generator is around 8000/10,000. Well, hot water heater, well pump, blow dryer and if just one or two of the 5 fridge/ freezers we have decided to kick on, its already too much for my generator. After doing the math, I'd need around 16-20,000 watts to maintain the entire house without turning off certain breakers while running other items. My next purchase WILL be a stand alone generator hooked to my 500 lb propane pig. I can do most of the work so cost won't be too bad.Storm here the other day and my power at house has been off 2 days. Happens often enough Im thinking of getting a backup generator. Im wondering if anyone here has experience with them and mabie some advice wat to get. Im thinking of the ones that are basically permanent and run off nat gas. May endup going with a portable though. Thanks
women use so much electric that a small nuclear powered generating plant should be built alongside the houseHaving a Champion electric start commercial type contractor/home generator on wheels, if I had to do it over, I'd have gone much larger. I too lost power two days ago from a big storm. Still on generator power. This morning the wife was getting ready for work. Blow drying her hair after a shower where hot water use caused the 80 gallon(electric) hot water heater to cycle. Well pump also filling the tank caused the generator breaker to pop. Generator is around 8000/10,000. Well, hot water heater, well pump, blow dryer and if just one or two of the 5 fridge/ freezers we have decided to kick on, its already too much for my generator. After doing the math, I'd need around 16-20,000 watts to maintain the entire house without turning off certain breakers while running other items. My next purchase WILL be a stand alone generator hooked to my 500 lb propane pig. I can do most of the work so cost won't be too bad.
women use so much electric that a small nuclear powered generating plant should be built alongside the house![]()
I know Perkins makes a great diesel engine but if I were to install a back up generator of that size and that much money it would have to be natural gas I would worry about trying to preserve diesel and keep it from gelling much the same as the problems with gasoline storageGet a Perkins if you need one to run for ever.....
https://www.hardydiesel.com/product-category/brands/perkins/
Like I said I can run my entire house water pump washer dryer anything with no trouble but if I turn on the air it will trip the breaker on the generatori think 5500 would be enough at this house. ive gotta make my load list to find out. I have one of those clampon ammeters so i can check everything and get the true draw. Mite be some surprises. once inawhile we get someone crashing into a pole and have a power autage because of it. Thanks
My house went through Hurricane Katrina. I wasn't there but when I got back, the pilot light on my gas water heater was still burning. I had no lights and my phone could only call local numbers on the BellSouth switch but I had hot and cold running water. I came back with my brother-in-law's generator. I quickly realized that it was one thing to have a generator and quite another thing to be able to get fuel for it. I ended up running the generator one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening, mostly to keep the fridge cold. Family members had to bring me gasoline from 100 miles away. Fortunately, Mississippi Power was able to restore electric service in a week. My brother, who went through Hurricane Ivan the year before, had predicted that it would take a month.If you have access to natural gas and the budget, that's the best way to go in most circumstances. I guess is the NG system goes down you're screwed.....
I lived there once and went to OITYou're welcome. 75 miles from Klamath falls. Live near the Klamath River and fish for steelhead so that's how the name happened![]()
I lived there once and went to OIT
I have been thinking about that and in my job may be helping build a solar farm soon. ill be looking into it for myself. I know a local lumber yard put a bunch of solar panels on their warehouses. I think they said it would pay for itself in 5 years and then they would have no electric utility cost. Have you put a solar system in? Thanks for the info.Not sure of your area but I looked into solar awhile back(for meter sharing purposes) it was going to be around $25k for panels and 2 batteries. If your someplace that’s sunny a lot it’d be worth looking into
yeah I guess so.So did I, from 1974 to 1978. Small world.
thanks for that info-- that 500 gallon LP tank sounds like a good source for fuel.Good info here and something I've considered. A shooting buddy is an electrician for the largest co. in the area and I once mentioned Generac to him. He was very negative about Generac and I didn't pursue why. That's probably the reason I've not followed thru to get something. We have a 500 gal underground LP tank that rarely gets used so I'd think that would be a good fuel source for a whole house unit.
Any experts know why he was so negative about Generac?
Found it. This is from 2015 when the original owners installed this generator. Not near as bad as I expected. We get some nasty ice storms so it might come in handy.I have a whole house Kohler, with automatic transfer switch and runs off the house propane. It came with the house so I don't know exactly how much it cost the original owner but I'll see if I can dig out the paper work.
We were working outside a week ago and it came on. It was Saturday but the test day is Friday.. hmm.. check the power company website... yep. We were in a reported outage. Only lasted a few hours but it was nice not having to worry about it or to drag out a portable and get it fired up just in time for the power to come back on.
I worked on the construction of a microsoft data center once. They had 10 Big Cat generators for backup and they ran them on diesel. I dont know how available Nat Gas was there at the time though. Im sure they had a good reason(s) to run diesal. Im not gonna spend even 10k on this project and I dont want to store diesel or gas either. Im not really trying to prep for a catastrophe just outages. Im by myself and if things really break down ill just get outta here. ThanksI know Perkins makes a great diesel engine but if I were to install a back up generator of that size and that much money it would have to be natural gas I would worry about trying to preserve diesel and keep it from gelling much the same as the problems with gasoline storage
Thanks for putting the effort in to find that. i appreciate it. Info like that is very helpful.Found it. This is from 2015 when the original owners installed this generator. Not near as bad as I expected. We get some nasty ice storms so it might come in handy.
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No, but I can tell you that some years ago they completely abandoned their small generator line. I had a Generac 3 kW portable that they refused to support in any way.....Any experts know why he was so negative about Generac?