Whole House Generator

[GH85Carrera]

Every time I see these threads I get the wants for a Generator. The natural gas powered version is perfect for my needs. Then I get to thinking how reliable our power is. In 16 years at our house we have had just a couple power failures of more than a few minutes. It would be a neat toy but I just can't justify having one.

We had to eat some very soft ice cream for breakfast one year when the power was off over night in the summer. That is the only problem we have ever had from no power.

[red-beard]

We lost power for something like 5 days during the last hurricane. I expect to put something on the house in the next month.

[RWebb]

Scott R posted something yesterday that might be useful

[cairns]

5 to 10 days per year. In suburban Washington DC. It's laughable. Our politicians all do the self serving grandstanding when the power goes out and promise to rein in the utility (Pepco). Then Pepco lines their pockets and gets their rate hikes approved. I love a lot of things about living here but Maryland is a very corrupt state- esp. when it comes to developers and the power company. My power was out this morning and is probably still out as we're having thunderstorms today.

[Rickysa]

Folks, another idea is to take an old Detroit Diesel 2-71 24kw pulled from a refrigerated boxcar and do a simple top-end rebuild...that's what I did.

Burns less than 1 gal/hr and at a lower RPM...last forever. We had an old fuel furnace that we replaced a few years ago, so we already had a 500 gal. tank in the ground...just get an electrician to wire it up to the house, and good to go.

Me and my fat arse w/ the generator: Detroit Diesel 2-71 Generator - YouTube

[stealthn]

Interesting thread, quick question, if the whole area loses power, wouldn't the natural gas stop "flowing" as well?

[red-beard]

Bob - no. Generally, the Nat gas lines are under ground and not affected by natural disasters. It is also one of the reasons many areas are beginning to bury all new utilities.

Also, the compressor stations usually run on natural gas and are as such, self supporting.

[Aragorn]

Originally Posted by red-beard

We lost power for something like 5 days during the last hurricane. I expect to put something on the house in the next month.

The derecho in June of 2012 took out power around us for around three or four weeks. Our whole house generator turned on automatically and kept running for the duration. Neighbors had a hard time finding gas for their generators because the pumps at the local stations didn't work.

They come in handy during winter storms also.

Since installed around five years ago our generator has come on around once or twice a month for sometimes hours or days. Add up the cost of spoiled food in the refrigerator and sourcing gas in times of panic and a whole house generator is not only cost effective but good piece of mind.

If you have the money, I say go ahead and do it...

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by cairns

5 to 10 days per year. In suburban Washington DC. It's laughable. Our politicians all do the self serving grandstanding when the power goes out and promise to rein in the utility (Pepco). Then Pepco lines their pockets and gets their rate hikes approved. I love a lot of things about living here but Maryland is a very corrupt state- esp. when it comes to developers and the power company. My power was out this morning and is probably still out as we're having thunderstorms today.

Our Electric company (OG&E) recently won another award for customer service. Very low rates, and reliable service. I like it.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by red-beard

We lost power for something like 5 days during the last hurricane. I expect to put something on the house in the next month.

That is why I live in an area safe from natural disasters.

[john70t]

Another idea would be to have an exterior plug installed in parallel to the breaker to hook up a small portable.
It doesn't take too much juice to run a refrig and electric heaters/fans for the short time.

On a tangent: There is a quiet fuel cell gererator Bloom Energy Server - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia but these are pricey at the moment (>$7K I think). Few details I was able to find so far. I think these are now used mostly for larger buildings.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Since installed around five years ago our generator has come on around once or twice a month for sometimes hours or days. Add up the cost of spoiled food in the refrigerator and sourcing gas in times of panic and a whole house generator is not only cost effective but good piece of mind.

That is precisely right.

I have both gas and diesel (powered by my tractors PTO) generators that will run everything in the house except the heat and cooling. The key for me was peace of mind on sump pumps, refrigerators, water, cooking and being able to communicate (the sat antenna and internet are powered) is worth it a thousand times over.

I had a plug installed in the house grid that allows me to plug the gens in and switch over manually. Very easy and there is a light that comes on when the power grid is back up.

Last night was a perfect example: Big storm, power knocked out for 9 hours. About twenty minutes into the outage, I went to the garage, started the gas gen (Honda powered), plugged it in, went to the electrical panel and switched the circuits I needed over. Nine hours later I did the reverse.

Since I am on a farm I keep over 150 gallons of each in tanks so running out isn't too much of a probability.

In the almost twenty years I have owned this place we have been without power for days at a time (longest was 6 days) so not having a gen back-up is out of the question.

The auto systems are really nice and I looked at getting one but I also use the generators remotely on the farm so it made sense to stay manual. If I didn't need the gens remotely, I'd be all over the auto systems.

[Instrument 41]

Very timely topic, I'm about to have a generac installed. 7K for generator and installation. My biggest fear...during Katrina neighbor had one and his natural gas bill for 7 days was about 5 grand. I found that propane was much more expensive, even adding in the cost of installing a meter and running a line to the house for natural gas.

[Cajundaddy]

Originally Posted by Instrument 41

Very timely topic, I'm about to have a generac installed. 7K for generator and installation. My biggest fear...during Katrina neighbor had one and his natural gas bill for 7 days was about 5 grand. I found that propane was much more expensive, even adding in the cost of installing a meter and running a line to the house for natural gas.

I can't imagine burning $800/day in Nat gas. He must have had a leak somewhere. I considered a backup gen but power here is very reliable. It is rare to be down more than 4 hrs/yr. I also wouldn't need a big one. Without running HVAC I could get along for weeks on only 3000w.

We had a Propane genset that was forest service surplus. I had no use for it so I sold it.

[widgeon13]

I usually shut mine down unless it a bitter cold winter night. No need for it to run at night when most appliances are down and lights are out. Just wasting fuel when it runs at night.

[GH85Carrera]

I can't imagine a residential gas meter can even run a grand a day worth of gas. That is just a guess, I have no numbers to quote.

I do know that a gallon of compressed natural gas is pretty much the same amount of energy as gasoline. A gallon of gasoline is $3.50 and a gallon of natural gas is about $1.20 per gallon. I would have to guess natural gas is cheaper than gasoline for a generator. With no road taxes it would be way cheaper. The gasoline for the generator will have road taxes.

[red-beard]

We pay $0.81547 per 100 cubic feet. Let's say the generator runs at an average of 50% load. The 13KW generator uses 177 cu ft/hr or about $1.44/hr. $34.56/day. A month would be about 1036.8.

The electricity generated would be 4680 kW. Cost per kW would be around $0.22. Mind you, that is more than double our regular rate. But it wouldn't be $800/day.

Typically, I use around 100 kW/day. If I used a battery storage system for surge and for night time use, I should be able to get away with a 10kW unit and run full load during daylight hours.

My actual plan is to have a 50-70 panel solar energy system with 20 x 12V x 250 Ah batteries for night use. The generator would operate during the day and we'd work off batteries at night.

If instead I went with an 8kW unit, ran it 16 hours per day, with batteries for storage and surge, It would cost about $16/day and produce 3360 kW. My typical max summer usage is around 100 kWh/day. And I bet we'd trim our usage during an emergency (no AC upstairs, no use of the electric oven, etc.). Fuel cost would be $0.14/kWh.

[red-beard]

The 8 kW unit above would be running about 21% thermally efficient all the way to electricity.

[RWebb]

fuel cell?

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by fintstone

I have accomplished zombie prep already.

Why does this not surprise me one bit?