gasoline powered generator for home back up?
Hi All,
I’m at a cross roads about installing a backup generator for my home. I live in Westchester County just north of New York City. Snowfalls, high winds, hurricanes often bring down trees and power lines. Not uncommon to lose power for 24 hours or up to 3 to 4 days (once a year.)
Installing a 10K natural gas backup generator was an option. However my plumber and I calculated that my gas service is 250 cfm’s (250,000 btu’s.) Currently, between my two heating systems, cook top, gas dryer and gas-fired fireplace, I’m using a potential 300,000 btu’s. I’m technically past my gas service limit, but the house seems to be functioning fine.
The cost of installing a backup generator, transfer switch and gas connection was not cheap, but doable. However I now need to add the cost of installing a new meter and related plumbing. This has put it over the top and no longer within my budget.
My other option is to consider buying a Generac gasoline powered generator (up to 17,500K!). I can build a shed in the back with removable sides for storage and running the generator in snowy or wet conditions. This is a much less expensive alternative. A manual transfer switch is not a problem and I can regularly check the generator to make sure it’s functioning properly. The big pitfall is keeping enough gas on hand to keep the generator running.
Sorry for the long post, but does any one have experience using a gasoline powered generator for home back up?
Thank,
Jay
Replies
Keeping enough fuel to make the generator useful is a serious problem. They call it "feeding the monster" around here. Storing that much gas is an issue and the fuel will go bad faster than you would like. (ethanol makes that much worse). No matter what, you will still be trying to find gas in an extended outage. It also ends up being the most expensive power you ever bought.
There is another issue with natural gas. They might not even have the capacity at the street. You have to check that at the utility. I just heard that some New Jersey towns have cut off permitting for nat gas generators because the gas company can not get that much gas to the street. Propane is your other option.
Alternative
Look into LP as an alternative fuel scource. A 100 gal. tank should last you 3 t0 seven days is you keep your usage down durring the power outage. That might bring the project back in line with your budget.. Generac makes that unit for Ng or LP
Around here, south Florida, a 1000 gallon tank is considerd the minimum for a whole house system. My buddy ran through
his tank in 8 days.
I have a home built 12 kW gas driven generator (1200 cc old BMW/Datsun engine driving NH 12 kW generator).
Ran this 3 days straight after ice storm 2 years ago, no problems.
Even at a low point on the power curve, (run the engine at 1200 RPM, gear up to genset) automotive water cooled engines have much better fuel economy than big one or 2 lung engines on most home gensets. Not sure how a one or two lung air cooled engine would hold up over 3-4 days, maybe if it is a Honda engine?
If you have a LOT of outages, get a genset with a Lister diesel engine. Best story on Lister reliability is an Eskimo got stuck for a winter on an ice floe, being indigineous was allowed to kill a few walrus, etc. Kept that Lister running all winter on rendered blubber.
For emergencies, usually have 200-300 gal of gas on hand in 55 gal bbls in a shed out back, cycle it thru autos during the typical high to low gas price swings, here it has been going $3.20 to $4 and back every few months it seems. Have kept gasoline for 10 years in a 55 gal bbl sealed with no problems. Just in a car's gas tank, and you get a lot of smoke after even one year storage due to evaporation, even with fancy gas caps, etc. .
How much capacity do you need?
I live in CT, and face similar issues (11 days straight in 2011). While an LNG or LPG generator has a lot of advantages, do you really need that much power? I use my old Honda 3500 watt generator from when I was framing houses to run my fridge, freezer, boiler, and coffee pot. I don't run it all the time, just enough to keep the food cold and the house warm. All of these appliances get plugged directly into the generator, so there's no danger to utility crews out on the street. For light, I use a Coleman lantern (which also helps with the heat!). The Honda goes through about 5 gallons of gas a day, and I keep 15 gallons on hand, treated with fuel conditioner.
Why do you need to power the entire house?
It is an emergency, cut back on some things, like the second furnace.
To me the idea is to make it survivable, not to make it like nothing has happened.
generators
I live out in the country in Upstate New York. We have fairly frequent power outages due to our remote location. A natural gas generator was not fesible for me so I went the gasoline generator route. I installed 8500 watt Honda generator which is located in a outside lean-to. I than installed a 220 line from the generator to my house circuit breaker box with a Reliance Raintight power inlet box. I purchased a Reliance 10 circuit transfer switch kit and installed in right next to my breaker box.
I connected to the transfer switch box the most essential house circuits. For me this included, furnace, well pump, refrigerator, freezer, sump pumps,microwave oven, TV :) and some lights for each floor of the house. I've had the system for over 5 years and it has worked well for me. If the power goes out, I wait a short while to see if it's just a short outage. If the power stays out, I step outside and fire up the generator. I than go to the transfer switch box and switch on all 10 generator circuits. I've never exceeded the capacity of my generator since only a few circuits are drawing power at any one time. Installation was quick, inexpensive and easy.
The generater fuel tank holds 8 gallons which gives me more than 8 hours of run time. I always have about 15 gallons of additional fuel on hand in my barn to run other equipment. All gasoline is treated with Stabile. Once a year I replace the gasoline in my generator with fresh gasoline, usually late fall.
PS: As a added protection from power surges and brown outs, I've purchased two Uninterupted Power Supplies (UPS). One for my computers and one for my TV/stereo system. This has been essiential for me, giving clean power for my expensive electronics and letting me shut systems down in a controlled manner.
He's a big, fat guy who can afford to spend whatever he likes to stay comfortable. Since he was the only house with power in a fairly affluent neighborhood his house became the comfort center for all his neighbors. He had his pool filters running, sauna cranked up, A/C set to 60 and 3 showers running around the clock. Who could do less?
Sooooo ... He could well afford to haul in more fuel.
And so he did. What's your point? If his genset had been gasoline powered he would have been SOL from the gitgo.
My pool is a critical load, along with the fridges and the well pump.
If your pool is blue, you can live without the A/C all day.
At night I would run the mini-split in the bedroom.
back-up generator
LP is the cleanest and easiest to maintain. Gas goes bad in a couple of weeks. Just ask old car guys (like me). Deisel is another option. Motors last for ever, and stink-up the neighborhood! Remember that a back-up is not to replace your whole load, but to get you by.
FWIW...I had a simmilar problem with requent power outages in Louisville. Things came to a head during the winds generated by Hurricane Ike, followed by the Ice Storm 4 months later. At the begining of the ice storm I was fortunate to land a 7k gas powered generator. I did the job and warmed the house for the week that we lost power.
Talked to my electrician and we ended up with a 30 amp twist lock outside the house that ran to a 30 amp breaker inside my box. That now becomes the "main" for the whole house. I can turn on a light in every room, run my blower motor and heat the entire house. I can watch television, make coffee, and survive almost normal. Yes, gasoline is pricey... but, it isn't forever. I looked into the ng back up and I felt it was not worth the expense, not would I ever get my $$$$ back out of it. Good luck
Sounds a bit like a suicide plug arrangement. Generally illegal.
OFTEN lose power for 3-4 days? One word: Move.
Otherwise ... how about adjusting your expectations for 'emergencies?' Just what do you really NEED to do? Run the fridge in summer and the furnace fan in winter? You can do that with extension cords and little hand-held fuel-sipping generators.
Gasoline doesn't store very well at all, and even "stale" gasoline presents serious storage and fire issues. For all practical purposes, gasoline has a 'shelf life' of well under a month.
Your choices are: pipe the fuel in or store it.
"Piped in" is natural gas. Well discussed earlier.
"Stored" can be gasoline - discussed already-, diesel, and propane.
There's more to coping with power outages than just throwing money at the problem. You have no right to expect your life to go on unaltered. Power out? Overcome, adapt, improvise. Time to start looking at fireplaces, Coleman lanterns, and living without air conditioning.
Another generator fact: they only work if you use them regularly. You NEED to run them, under full load, regularly. This will help keep the fuel 'fresh,' as well. It also means that you'll regularly be buying fuel.
For all practical purposes, gasoline has a 'shelf life' of well under a month.
Urban myth - many years if in sealed container (but only fill that bbl 80% full if it gets hot where you are)
I wouldn't say years, but certainly well over a month. One needs to keep it reasonably well sealed (but with the ability to expand) to exclude air and moisture, and to prevent evaporation of the most volatile components. And a dash of Stabil doesn't hurt.
And the generator should have a good, easily cleaned/replaced fuel filter. If fuel "goes bad" it's mainly going to collect a little "gunk" that can clog jets or undersized filters.
(Actually, probably the way to do it is to get a farm-style fuel tank with pump installed, and use it to fuel your vehicles. Then run a tap off that tank to the genset. This helps keep the fuel fresh.)
(And, in a pinch, one can always burn wood or corn in a gas engine.)
Maybe not just years, but decades works OK.
<G> Real time testing.
In 1994, filled 3ea 55 gal bbls to halfway up from the last rib with hi-test leaded gas for my '63 GMC with 4 bolt 350 with 4 bbl carb.
Still have 1 bbl left of the leaded, last used a bbl (the truck has 60 gal of tank) last year when gas was getting near $5 gal, worked just fine, no carb problems and no smoke. Seems like the old 100 octane leaded gives 20% more HP (with timing advanced)
Conversely, left (did not specifically cap all the air breather ports) a '92 voyager with a 1/2 full tank sit about 6 years before it got licensed again, had to drain the tank and run a tankfull thru to get the smoke level down to where it would pass state pollution tests - started and ran fine though (as it had every 3 months in the interim), but gas was a little 'oily' - used it up in my '86 2.8l truck which ran fine cut 50%.
generators
I got a 6000 diesel & a 4000 onan gas job
Theb diesel is in my garage & if i need it in the middle of the winter & it souns a litte cold trying to start i warm it up using a propane radiant heater
I have 5 of these heaters from princess auto canada
They were sold for $50 each (reg $200) due to a mfg defect which i overcome in 2 minutes
For fuel i use 20 lb lp tanks which i get at the dump for free , sometimes partly full of gas
They are in the dump because a lot of refill stations whont refill them if they are over 10 years old
I exchange them at the gas station as long as they have the correct valve
The radiant heaters have lots of uses if the power goes out or you want to chage the trasmission on your tandam dump truck in the middle of the winter outside
As for the diesel gen set i have spare fuel for my 4500 hoe
being double covered in case of trouble is just good planing especially if the price is right
Seriously Dan? Ask the people up in New York how that gasoline thing worked out for them after the storm.
They just didn't have enough money.
Fascinating to watch the U.S. becoming a "third world nation", as the the well off wall themselves off from the inconveniences of the reality of our infrastructure falling apart or our not being able to muster the collabrative effort to improve what we have to in order to meet the needs of the future.
Particularly fascinating to listen to all the back and forth on the whole generator thing, learned some new stuff, but no one really seems bothered by the fact that we operate in a purely reactive mode.
My parents live just outside of Washington D.C., and they are always experiencing power outages. Happens during hot summers and snow storms in the winter. They broke down and purchased a back-up generator directly tied into their gas line.
I remember visiting my aunt in Lebanon in the 70's as a child and on their property seeing an enormous underground cistern for water, and 2 or 3 electrical generators.
I so appalled that this is the legacy we are leaving our children.
that this is the legacy we are leaving our children
just to 'stir the pot'
a. no more coal fired plants, more frequent outages, but to hear the enviros talk we will all live longer but in the cold and dark ?
b. heard algore's elec power bill ran something like $25k PER MONTH. But he contributes to wind power ? Think his house is in TVA area, lotta hydro (maybe not for long with the tear down the dams folks) and coal plants.
c. PSE out here gets to write the cost of rebates for LED bulbs into the rate structure, which is why in WA we can buy an 8W led bulb for just $2.50, that does work, eh?
d. Germany power rates are north of 20 cents kW-hr due to wind and solar mandates and subsidies, how high can it go? Dont matter to the 'well off though?
e. etc, as said, stir the pot....<G>
d. Germany power rates are north of 20 cents kW-hr due to wind and solar mandates and subsidies, how high can it go? Dont matter to the 'well off though?
Make that more like 55 Euro cents a KWH when you add in the tax subsidy that everyone pays
Generator that big will need a lot of gas. If you want that much power, you should go with natural gas.
Worst case may be like the sandy last year. During the power out, I had to refill four 5 gl tanks 3 times. Each fill took an average of 2 1/2 hours standing in line. I am in a suburb of NE new jersey. In cities, wait times were longer. This is also filling my truck and siphoning some off to refill the gas tanks.
This was for Honda 5000 watt generator which ran 24/7, most important reason being heat which my parents can't do without for health reasons.
To make the gas transfer easier, I built a wood cart that they can roll from storage to the generator housing on a level asphalt. The cart is high enough so that the shelf part is about level with the generator gas tank cap. 2 5 gl tanks on each cart.
I found a battery operated transfer pump called terapump from Amazon. I had to remove a finicky fill sensor to make the pump reliable (read the reviews). Have two in case.
5 gl gas tanks from Lowes with 2 handles work better with this pump. HD tanks were little too deep for the pump to reach the bottom.
Honda also has inverter generator that uses less gas depending on your needs.
My parents did fine during sandy with refilling (I wrote a picture book), but in retrospect, I wish I thought harder about natural gas generator with automatic transfer switch which would make it easier for the elderly growing more frail.