I am a licensed electrical contractor and do electrical design for a engineering firm (just letting you know my background). The other day while talking to a friend (also an electrician), he told me about an add on kit he installed on his panel board which is nothing more than a mechanical interlock between the main breaker and the breaker used to connect the generator. A plate goes over the handle of the main breaker and while in the on (closed) position the generator breaker is blocked from being closed (turned on), eliminating the chance of back feeding to the utility and the chance of having both sources of electricity fault in the panel board. Personally I have not seen the set up, and obviously it would be brand specific (maybe model specific). and the panel board would need a main breaker (presumably a seperately mounted main, which means the main is not mounted directly to the bus bars with the branch breakers). I know lots of older houses do not have a main breaker so this may not be for everyone. But if a transfer switch is installed they can cost quite a bit.
I know GE makes a generator panel that serves its purpose, just not something I would want to use and the price is probably around $100. It is defintitely designed for the residential market.
Lots of the posts above are right on the money, you must know all of the loads that require generator back up before sizing one (remember motor loads have high end rush). My house is on well (water is a necessity) I have a propane furnace (not much load at all), central A/C, electric cooking, propane water heater, two refrigerators and one deep freeze. More than likely if you have electric heat or water heater you are not going to be able to operate it on a generator without paying quite a bit of money for larger generator. I have a Coleman 6250 running watts and 8500 peak watts bought from HD (it has the Honda engine which is great) when the generator is needed we exercise load management, use the well only when the fridges and freezer are not on we try to run them only at night while everyone is asleep. We can not run our Central A/C, but ceiling fans and lights are no problem. We can watch TV (just not the big screen, to protect it from the power fluctuations of a generator). Our cooking stove is electric, so cooking during an outage is done on a hot plate, microwave, and toaster oven (but with the new T6 this may change in the winter time). I have lost power for 5 days (thankfully it was in May), but the houses to the east and south of me lost power for seven days this past winter, needless to say I am ready (other than the $4 a gallon gas to run the generator).
I don’t know about the rest of you, But we usually lose power due to big wind storm event in the summer or else a winter ice/snow storm. Either way unless you have your gas already stored at home, you are SOL and wont be able to get gas for a while if at all with all the trees down blocking the road and snow drifts. And then who’s to say the gas station will have power or gas? I don’t know anyone that has enough gas on hand to run a generator for more than a couple hours in an emergency. I think the only really reliable way to run a Generator in an emergency is from your large 500gal propane tank or as I was reading on another thread.. A wood gassification modified engine.
We have lots of power outages and the urban towns either have power due to their underground lines or they get it back much sooner than the rural folks. The gas stations will have gas in all but the big emergencies and widespread disasters. When setting up your system you need to decide whether you are preparing for total isolation for a day, month, year, or what. The normal guy will prepare for the normal outage and that would be better than most folks who are not prepared for anything.
In the last few decades our local power outages have never lasted longer than two weeks and when they did last that long you knew it and could prepare for it both before and after the storm by stocking up on fuel and essentials.
When you really need gasoline for your genset you can siphon off of your trucks, lawnmower, etc. and have quite a bit. A typical standby genset can run for at least 10 hours on 5 gallons. There is a point during an extended outage when you need to turn the thing off to conserve fuel. You will decide what is truly important, for example, I would rather let the steaks thaw in the freezer and drink warm beer than not have enough fuel to run the genset to bring up well water to fill the toilets. Lots of BBQs going on when the power is out for a week around my area.
If you are truly trying to prepare for a long term disaster then you are the extreme minority and you need to be looking at off-grid setups with batteries and solar power, food stashes, guns and ammo, etc. The rest of the folks are just trying to stay comfortable and to prevent expensive damages to their property. Wood heat is a major energy independence strategy.
I agree with Highbeam, a generator with a 5 gal jug of fuel will get you up and running, if the town is dark and no way to get fuel for days and drifts to the top of house then you need something besides what will get most people by. As for running loads with high start up need you can use a hard start cap (soft start?) it will take care of the high power needed to get the motor going then the generator can keep it running just fine. Now a small generrator still won’t power your AC but if you bought a small generator you are not looking to power that. During the floods here in Iowa Lights, radio and hot plate get things back to some what normal. Everyone was cooking on the gas grills but it does rain and in the morning going outside to fry a egg gets old. It has been over a month sincethe floods and some people are still using a small generator for power, you just learn what is needed and keep it simple. Just my .02
My small generator 5.5KW will not power my CAC, but I can power a window a/c. I really only like A/C in the bedroom so that is fine. Again like highbeam said this is emergency power so some sacrifice will need to be made or a lot of money will need to be spent which is not practical for the majority of us.
Rocky we’re also on a well and have to pump water. Now if you include the refer/freezer throw in a few extra circuits for TV or a computer a 6-7k generator will meet all those demands and have power in reserve. You just have to be careful with heating esp hair dryers. And be mindful that it’s an emergency and you’re generating the power...so easy on those switches. I had 3 different pros tell me this system would work… 2 electricians and the gas company rep btw we have one of those large gas storage tanks.
Exactly. When one is on a generator one can manage power. There is no need to run everything at once. Let the pump build up full pressure in the storage tank. Then turn off the pump and turn on the furnace or refrig. etc. We went for 7 days on a managed 4.8kw generator power and did fine. No food lost. And that included a long extension cord to my neighbor’s freezer. Ran it 2 hrs in the morning and 3 hrs at night.
I would love to get by on that 5kw generator, and I’m tempted to try it with the new setup which might have less impedence (if that’s the right word), but I’m paranoid about blowing out that well pump with the 37 amps surge. If my math is right, 37 amps * 240 volts = 8880 watts.
been researching and looking at a 17kw Kohler unit. With my well pump, sewage pump, and 2 sump pumps I need to make sure they all are functioning along with the garage door opener, the Jotul 550, the igniter for my oil furnace, electric water heater, and electric kitchen appliances. I have yet to call an electrician so he may recommend a different kw unit.
Holy smokes Rocky, you want to run all of that at the same time? So well pump at 9000 watts (surge), 3 small pumps at say (3000 watts total?) water heater at 6000 watts, electric kitchen appliances like fridge, range, oven, microwave, coffee pot, say 10,000 watts, means you’re looking at a 30 KW genset.
Do you really need to run all of these at once? Water, sewer, sumps, and fridge, are all needed but none of them really need to be run all at once so by managing your power needs you could get by with a 10KW genset and save loads of money on genset and fuel.
Does anyone own a tractor? You can buy a PTO generator at 14 KW for pretty small money. In fact, you could buy a tractor AND a PTO generator for less than many of the commercial 14-20 KW gensets. Hmmmmmm
I equipped my main house electrical panel with a whole house transfer panel made by Connecticut Electric that is a premade version of velevetfoots interlock kit. Works the same way. I MUST manage my power with breakers since the electric water heater and electric wall heaters are automatic.
We have a 12k generator with a 220 direct connect to 10 beaker box connects to gas furnace and water heater,well and septic pump, fridge, microwave, most room lights(all CF bulbs), tv (of course satellite), and to our 90gal and 150g fish tanks. . We have had power go out for a week at a time and only use a few gallons a day to run it. We leave the garage door lights on(separate meter than the house) so we know when to turn off generator and switch back to main power. Also, you can put in a claim with the electric company and usually get back around $200 without a hassle for power outages longer than one day.
Knowing when the power comes back on with the interlock setup could be a problem. I have a voltage detector (kinda shaped like a pen) that buzzes when near electricity, so my plan is to put it on the wires going to the main breaker, and maybe I’ll hear it if it goes off. I don’t know if this would actually work, but the detector seems to have a pretty good life on it when it’s turned on.
Yes Highbeam, I agree that for most people just having a gen and a can of gas would be enough to get them through, but here in Michigan I live out on a dirt road and my nearest neighbor is about 1/2 mile down the road. The road is all wooded and hilly. There have been a few instances when the road was impassable due to snow drifts or the straight line wind event where it knocked 30-40 trees across the road. County did not plow/chop us out for 2-4 days. If our power goes out for more than a day or two I would really have a hard time just running the wood/propane furnace blowers and a couple lights on the gas I could get out of the tanks of the car and truck.Even if I only ran it for a few hours to get the temp up and run the well to fill up a bunch of buckets for washing and flushing the toilet, I dont think I could hold out for more than 3-4 days till The wife and kids were very unhappy. I just think for only a few hundred bucks more it makes sense to get a propane conversion kit for your gen.and have the option of running on either. Hey you can run on gas for those short 6-24 hour events but for more than that I think it makes sense to have a larger supply of stable, storable fuel.And at the price of gas, I just dont keep that much extra these days (even with stabil added) so as not to chance it going bad. I for one would hate to be caught in a blizzard trying to get my family (3 kids under 13 and one on the way) heat, water, food, ect ect. and have a perfectly fine generator with no gasoline but a big 500gal propane tank 3/4 full sitting out there. If you heat with propane already and have a large propane tank or can figure out how to make a wood gassifier to power your generator with cheap wood chips, why not use them and be set for ANY event. (cept maybe huge terror attack).
