Running stove on generator?

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Used one in 2000 when business kept me from cutting a stick of wood. The heat pump had died from lack of use in the ninties. Heated the house great placed in the entryway where heat moved up the stairs and I could take it out on the porch to fuel it. But I just could not leave the house or go to bed with it burning.

Every morning when I would light it I would hear the Little Brown Haired Girl upstairs with her best Robert Duvall imitation say "God I love the smell of kero in the morning!".
 
The smell of kero really don't bother me, but it permeates everything in the house it seems. I'm in the transportation business heavy diesel trucks so the smell of an oil burner certainly isn't alien to me. Diesel fuel....Hillbilly incense... Especially in the winter time. firing up a cold diesel (pre tier 4), they smoke like pigs until the combustion chamber gets hot enough to really burn the fuel. Kerosene is really more refined No.1 diesel, in fact we add it in the winter as an ant-gel additive.
 
I've got one of those uber buck Yamaha 7 pole inverter generators, I believe it's 2300 running wats. Super quiet, automatic idle, 12 volt charge capability and runs all day and night on a couple gallons. I really like it but I use it for the truck camper, not around the house. According to my literature, it's pure sine wave power, electronically regulated 60hz, ideal for sensative electronics.

My whole farm 17KW genny runs everything including the stove, never been an issue in the last 12 years.
 
My Honda eu2000i generator has a pure sin wave and perfect for electronics. I have it wired into the house and it runs my entertainment center, refrigerator, office computers and 2 pellet stoves with no problem. Stoves on UPS that will go into shutdown mode and cycle the exhaust to keep smoke out of the house until I can get the genny going. I work from home and needed a pure sine wave generator for my computers. Honda sips gas. I have an external 6 gal. marine tank hooked up as well and get 36 hours total. I keep a couple additional 5 gal cans on hand and rotate to keep me going for easily 4-5 days. Never had to go that far yet. I figure if I need to go longer I have bigger issues to deal with.
 
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Tony...

I believe the Honda and the Yamaha share the same generator heads and electronics but different engines. Not sure if Honda or Yamaha makes the electrical ends however. I know they are both typical Japanese quality units. IOW, built like a watch.
 
Worth every penny and yes build quality is great. Inverters built in with eco throttles which is why I love it.
 
My Yamaha has 2 settings, 'economy' where it idles and grabs the load and speeds up accordingly or 'normal' which is balls out all the time....:)

I was amazed when I bought it years ago (it's at least 12 years old) that a small genny had auto idle. My big gas driven welder generator (Lincoln) has it but I had never seen auto idle on a small unit until the Yamaha.

Very tidy little unit, albeit expensive but you get what you pay for.
 
I keep thinking Bart or another staff member will turn some of these questions into stickies without the off the rails discussions included (and with correct info only), but that would likely drop site traffic about 70%.

A change to 62 Hz is not likely a worry and essentially within spec for a generator, as engine speed affects this. A very slight reduction in gen engine speed would likely drop it to 60, but under higher load you would likely be in high 50's. If you're really worried, here's a link to Champion's discussion of the situation: http://www.championpowerequipment.com/pdf/tech-bulletins/rpm_and_frequency_adjustment-8_10_2007.pdf

The fan sounds different because both wave form, voltage, and frequency are off a bit on a gen. Someone said wave form from a regular generator was same as that of your outlet. That's not really accurate, as utility power (and sine wave generators) do an excellent job of keeping the transition from pole to pole in an AC current very smooth (proportional to the sine of the angle of rotation at any given point), while modified sine wave inverters on most household backup generators allow this transition to occur in jumps, or steps. Some electronics do fine with that, while others operate less efficiently and perhaps erratically. Heat build up is a common problem. The problem is that one never knows just how much of this one's electronics can take before damage occurs. More modern geneators often correct the modified wave considerably, producing a reasonably smooth curve but not a true sine wave, which balances cost with power output and smoothness of the wave (transition from pole to pole that occurs about 60 times per second in AC power). Personally, I find that our electronics perform reasonably well on generator power, but we have a decent quality Generac unit that produces a stepped wave (just a modified sine wave with a bit of smoothing that helps somewhat).

Your UPS is likely not a problem at all, except that it is likely not doing much to correct the lack of a sine wave being produced, and may or may not perform well when running on a generator for extended periods. We had Cyberpower units that just wouldn't run on generator power, but they were inexpensive units. We recycled them. Our more expensive APC units do better for us, but cheap units from that company may have issues as well.
 
I keep thinking Bart or another staff member will turn some of these questions into stickies without the off the rails discussions included (and with correct info only), but that would likely drop site traffic about 70%.

No problem with site traffic. If somebody would write up a cogent article on the subject it would make a good sticky. Won't stop a dozen threads a year started when they don't see it, but we could point to it when they do.
 
My 17KW is a Generac as well. According to the service manual, you set it (compensating throttle) no load at 62hz and according the Generac full load should reduce engine rpm to produce approximately 60hz., but then modified sine wave or not, the power is distributed throughout my home/farm wiring so that may 'smooth' things out somewhat, unlike running a stove or computer directly from a generator output in the case of a small wattage genny. On an extended run, I notice no variation in time on the electric analog clock in the den so I have to assume it's darn close to 60hz.

I'll have to put my Fluke on the output sometime and check the frequency. The installer did that initially some years ago and it works fine so I've had no reason to check the frequency.
 
Just what my house that never exceeds 6.5 KWH continuous needs, a fuel trashing 17 KWH genny. :oops:
 
Just what my house that never exceeds 6.5 KWH continuous needs, a fuel trashing 17 KWH genny. :oops:


Obviously you aren't heating stock tanks and/or maintaining power in barns....and with 1000 gallons of LP on hand all the time it makes a small dent in the level gage..... and it's a business expense.;lol
 
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Obviously. Heck everybody here is doing that. With pellets.
 
I can say for certain, from experience that True Sine Wave is needed for most appliances. I bought a regular UPS when I first got the Quad 1200 the first time I tested it the motors hummed so bad I immediately shut it off. Purchased the SMARTUPS which is true sine wave and it works flawless. I actually contact APC directly to find out what the problem was and they said that electric motors can burn out using a non "smartups" (or true sinewave). So I can attest there is a difference. Also generators can vary voltage with loads. So having the UPS in between the stoves and generator gives you a margin for error. Also how many times can the generator surge when something shuts off? I think it is cheap protection.
 
Run my Harman directly off an older 17.6 KW Onan with auto-start. Never had any problems, period. Genny starts after 20 seconds of power outage. Everything works with no further fussing needed.
 
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Obviously. Heck everybody here is doing that. With pellets.

I'd sure like you (or anyone else foir that matter)explain to me how to maintain cattle water tanks from freezing in sub zero weather or how to power a machine and fabrication shoip or how to provide light vith a pellet stove.... obviously, you can't. I heat my home with pellets and/or corn and have for years but that has little to do with the rest of the operation, in fact, 17KW in a power outage, in the winter is marginal at best, especially when the shop is powered up. Been considering a 25KW Diesel powered standby with 3 phase 440 output..

We don't live in a house on a lot, this is a working cattle farm and enterprise with all the things (electrical powered that go with it). My typical utility bill is around 350-400 bucks monthly in the winter, depending on how cold it gets and electrical load....

If you have a viable alternative, I'd like to know, if not, don't deride me.

Back to regular programming....
 
I keep thinking Bart or another staff member will turn some of these questions into stickies without the off the rails discussions included (and with correct info only), but that would likely drop site traffic about 70%.

A change to 62 Hz is not likely a worry and essentially within spec for a generator, as engine speed affects this. A very slight reduction in gen engine speed would likely drop it to 60, but under higher load you would likely be in high 50's. If you're really worried, here's a link to Champion's discussion of the situation: http://www.championpowerequipment.com/pdf/tech-bulletins/rpm_and_frequency_adjustment-8_10_2007.pdf

The fan sounds different because both wave form, voltage, and frequency are off a bit on a gen. Someone said wave form from a regular generator was same as that of your outlet. That's not really accurate, as utility power (and sine wave generators) do an excellent job of keeping the transition from pole to pole in an AC current very smooth (proportional to the sine of the angle of rotation at any given point), while modified sine wave inverters on most household backup generators allow this transition to occur in jumps, or steps. Generac unit that produces a stepped wave (just a modified sine wave with a bit of smoothing that helps somewhat).

I had said they were similar to ac power from the outlet. The wave form is created in a similar fashion, not as clean or true as utility or "pure" sine wave inverters. What I was trying to point out is that the wave form from a regular generator is NOT a modified sine wave since there is no inverter to create a wave form electronically from dc power. Maybe I/we are splitting hairs as the result in perforance may be the same.
 
My genny is a little bit fast; clocks run a minute or two fast per hour. Does nothing bad other than this. As I said, stove runs fine. Really don't see the problem.
 
Here is a pic that describes the different wave forms. A normal generator will look much more like a true sine wave than the modified sine wave. Modified sine waves have electronics that produce that shape and it should look the same all the time.
 

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For those of you with pellet stoves, what kind of wattage does it take when igniting on startup? My boiler takes about 1500 watts, I believe (have to check the energy meter when it starts up next). Just for a few minutes though.
 
For those of you with pellet stoves, what kind of wattage does it take when igniting on startup? My boiler takes about 1500 watts, I believe (have to check the energy meter when it starts up next). Just for a few minutes though.
I show between 300 and 500 watts for the Harman 15 fin.
 
I've done it on a few occasions, has always made me uncomfortable doing it. But ya need heat!
 
For those of you with pellet stoves, what kind of wattage does it take when igniting on startup? My boiler takes about 1500 watts, I believe (have to check the energy meter when it starts up next). Just for a few minutes though.

My ESW pulls about 300 watts with the ignitor running and about 100 watts after that according to the Kill-a-watt.
 
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Biggest stove electrical consumer in our house is the Bixby on startup. Two 500 watt igniters for a total of just a hair over 1100 watts needed for startup. But it's full power-heat output in less than five minutes. Probably could rival a gas central furnace.
 
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