We’ll be building with a hot water hydronic heating system, fired by LP, likely using a Weil-McLain Ultra series boiler.
My heating sub says the power requirements are pretty minimal for the juice required for the fan, controls, pumps, etc., that all are part of the heating system.
We want to have a connection in the unheated garage, adjacent one of the rollup doors, to which we can connect an appropriately sized Honda generator.
We want the generator to be able to keep the heating system going, plus one lighting circuit in the kitchen. All this, to be able to deal with a winter power outage.
What is involved?
Replies
I assume that you will want an automatic start system.
You will need bring LP to the garage and have a place to run the exhaust.
Near the main panel you will mount an automatic transfer switch. Those are oftne 6-8 circuits.
Run the critical circuits to the transfer switch and then to the main panel.
In addtion to the boiler you will also want ones for refigerator, freezer also enough lights to move around. Kitchen, bath, and hallway.
Also well and sump pump if needed.
Popular Mechanics has a pretty good article describing the steps for installing a small generator set at this address: http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_improvement/home_improvement/1275631.html
Also, this subject has come up a number of times at Breaktime, you may want to do a search to find the previous discussions.
Be sure the heating system is wired up so that it can easily be connected to a transfer switch panel. Figure out what other circuits you want on the panel. Get an appropriately sized transfer switch panel and have it driven on one side by a breaker from your main panel, and, on the other side, by an outlet (male) in your garage where you plug in the genset.
The transfer switch panel (or, perhaps, a transfer switch and separate panel) is the key to doing everything right. All the switchable circuits have breakers in there, and the transfer switch switches the entire panel from line power to generator power.
This is the sort of thing that it's good to have wired up right (by a competent electrican) from the start, because it's a PITA to try to retrofit.
(Note that one non-trivial requirement is for sufficient space for the panel, near the main panel.)
You may eventually want to get fancy and have an automatic cutover panel and the like, but that can be changed down the road, if the basic wiring is in there correctly.