Backup Heating Plan Goes Backwards

You know, I'm very disappointed we don't have power outages more often here. In the three years we've been in this house, we haven't had an outage longer than a couple hours. I'm looking for a week without power!!

What kind of generator do you have?

cmonSTART said:

You know, I'm very disappointed we don't have power outages more often here. In the three years we've been in this house, we haven't had an outage longer than a couple hours. I'm looking for a week without power!!

What kind of generator do you have?

Click to expand...

Boy, I feel bad for you. ;-)

Pook said:

BrotherBart said:

Last year at the year end sale I bought oil filled heaters for every room in this place since we have no other heat source except the wood stoves. Yesterday I decided I just had to test out the backup setup and at sundown the stoves died down and we went to the heaters. Worked well all night and power consumption was reasonable. I decided to just keep it going one more night for the heck of it.

An hour ago the power went out at 698 houses around here. Lights and computers are up on the UPS rig and the battery lash-up. I'll fire the generator in a few hours.

And the stoves are both just crossing three hundred degrees on startup. Backing up the backup heat source. Go figure.

Click to expand...

ITS CALLED murphy's law............

Click to expand...

if i ever get my hands on that Murphy guy ,im gonna kick his *&^(*%*!

What do you do when your backup to the backup fails? We heat with wood, have electric "backup" (dual heat, interruptible, but really cheap) when we take off for a few days, and an LP space heater on a millivolt thermostat to backup the electric. A few winters ago while we were gone, the temps hit -55F (not windchill) three nights in a row, LP was solidifying in the tanks, and if the electric also had gone out we would have been SOL. Since then also got an 8000w generator, which can power a 5000w backup electric heater to keep the house above freezing, but we gotta be home to use it (can't rely on LP or diesel and autostart at our low temps). And then with our great National Energy Policy (LOL) of the Bush years, gasoline supplies will dry up in about 3 days if everything hits the fan. What's a guy to do? Move to Venezuela?

You know, I’m very disappointed we don’t have power outages more often here.

Click to expand...

We have a few power outages per year. Longest was one week with no power or phone, and two weeks with no Internet.

I enjoy the coziness, and try to think of it as camping, but I have to admit it can get a little old.

It's a little less cozy due to the neighbor's droning generators. I use an inverter in the car, and run a power cord in for the fan on the Regency warmhearth.

BrotherBart said:

Tonight we just keep going on the bank of deep cycles with inverter and the UPS units.

Click to expand...

Hey BB, where can I find out more about a UPS that hooks up to a bunch of batteries . .I'd like to know how to maintain at least power for a couple essentials
like the fridge. If a cheap generator is the way to go then that is simple enough. Thanks

IMO, a UPS is appropriate generally for unattended, short-term, back-up operation of a critical device, which if not maintained in service likely will result in immediate consequences which cannot be easily repaired or are dangerous. Computers fit the first, a gassifier boiler at high burn with power out fits the second.

It entirely is possible to have a battery bank, inverter, and auto-switching to run almost anything, witness a solar voltaic home, but the power requirements of the average home along with the cost of the batteries plus equipment for high power, extended use would be prohibitive for most. Auto-starting generators with a transfer switch would be the way to go in this situation, I think. These start and provide power within a minute or so. And if time is not critical, then a regular generator with a manual transfer switch is great.

An auto-starting generator with a transfer switch would be great to cover the gassifier boiler also, but if this is the only device which needs power in the event of a power failure, then economics shift to the UPS rather than the generator, mainly because most gassifiers with pump(s) are relatively low power. However, a burn can extend for hours, so a UPS needs quite a bit of capacity.

In my case, I have a manual start generator and manual transfer switch for the house because the refrig and freezer and other home devices (except computer) can go for a long time without power with no serious consequences or threat. The computer also has a UPS to give me time to shut it down. Then it too will run on the generator. The boiler is different. If loaded for a full burn and I am gone, power goes out, high probability of overheat. So a UPS to carry it through a burn. If I'm home, then the UPS covers the short term until I put the generator on line to take over.

BTW, just to mess around, a gasoline generator can be powered by a wood gas generator, which I hope to build soon. Then gasoline availability will not be an issue.

I pulled out the Oil heat last year and installed electric baseboard heaters in every room in the house. Each room has it's own thermostat that is programable to set the temp back when we go to bed. It heats up before we get up in the morning. I think of it as a backup system to my pellet stove, wood stove, and heatilator fireplace. Everyone I told at work 3 years ago I was planing to do this said I was nuts. Electricty would cost to much. Now they are all saying I did the right thing with oil prices going up. LOL.

It used to cost me $200 just for the service contract for the oil furnace. Now I can use that money to make heat and not for insurance that something will not go wrong. Next thing I'd like to do is look into solar water heating.

Good move on the electric heaters. It gives you a lot more control over where you want heat.

Speaking of which, just had a one-day power outage. It's now 1.5 hours to the super bowl, and the power just came back on. Yay!

Sure makes one appreciate electricity.

I've often talked about how the fans don't do such a good job of distributing the heat, but I have to admit with no fans, our upstairs gets real cold.

Bret4 and all: I have electric wall heaters and the line voltage thermostats. At the home depot I can find replacement Tstats and even new ones that have an ON/OFF switch but no programmable ones. Where did you find them? My completely manual mercury switch type are ugly and I want to be able to turn them on and off on a schedule for things like keeping the kids' bedrooms reasonably warm at night.

Highbeam said:

Bret4 and all: I have electric wall heaters and the line voltage thermostats. At the home depot I can find replacement Tstats and even new ones that have an ON/OFF switch but no programmable ones. Where did you find them? My completely manual mercury switch type are ugly and I want to be able to turn them on and off on a schedule for things like keeping the kids' bedrooms reasonably warm at night.

Click to expand...

I got my programable thermostats from Home Depot. They are line voltage 120 and 240 volt. They are made by Honeywell. The model number is RLV430.

Here is a link to a page at Honeywell that will let you fine a place that sells them near you. Just enter your zip code at the bottom of the page.

http://yourhome.honeywell.com/Consu...mmable/Do-It-Yourself/LineVoltage/Default.htm

Ah hah, that explains it. My local HD doesn't carry them but oddly walmart does. That's perfect, so long as they aren't 100$ I'll pick up several.