Generators

[Trials]

18kw only covers the essentials on my place, minus things like oven and garage door openers. The krohler motor is only the size of what you would find on an average 2 cylinder riding lawnmower. Water pump, that is 1.1 kw on its own and hopefully you don't have sump or sewage pumps as well.

 

[GreyGhost]

Guess Sunny missed the part about load shedding.

And I never suggested they go with 3500w. I’m saying it works great in a pinch and you can make do with less. My house hovers around 1000w on average and even right now with my Volt charging as well as rest of the house loads I’m sitting at only 5000w.

I suggested 18kw is insane even with AC which might have a 5000-6000w surge but only needs a few thousand once running. Even my ancient 80’s central air only uses ~3500w once it’s running.

If we’re talking an isolated place with outages that can last days or weeks I’m guessing going with a grossly oversized system like that could be worthwhile if you’re an absolutely massive energy hog and can’t or don’t want to sacrifice anything at all without exception, but most people are amazed to discover that even under heavy summer cooling loads and with other stuff running their house may only be hovering around 5000w, maybe surging to 8000w-10000w when they fire up the stove.

I did a load test one day here and struggled to get my house to hit 19kw. I literally had everything I could think of running including both EV’s charging, the oven, all 4 burners on the stove, hot tub, dishwasher, etc etc etc. To me spec’ing a genset to reach that once in a lifetime (and struggled to get there) possibility would seem highly unnecessary. If the power is out I can do without a few things for a few hours.

If we’re talking only occasional outages that might last a few hours and you’re willing to shed some loads for the duration but run the essentials, well, I’m sure they can save a ton buying something smaller and putting it on smaller transfer panel.

But If money is no object, have at it I guess….but to me it seems like installing buying a Peterbilt to haul a utility trailer. It’ll do it, but it’s overkill.

I get it. I suspect the hardware price of the generator is a small part of the bill. It should be about 6000 for the generator, cutting capacity substantially might save 1 to 2000. I doubt they will hit 18 kw but they do have an electric stove. Life is simpler if you dont need to think about load shedding and in general running any motor at full steam isnt ideal so being a bit big isnt too problematic. Running off a submarine tank so lpg capacity is not an issue.

Smaller transfer panel doesnt work well as they are trying to do it at the meter and no interior changes. I'm not sure if you can get away with a small switch in that application.

Power was out for four or five days before xmas. Well pump so no easy water during that time. They have a portable 8500 w champion that normally powers the garage that they turn on and use extension cords to keep fridges cold. Not ideal.

It sounds like it is reasonable. A bit higher than I expected but trenching is a pain in the ass and there is quite a big of copper (or aluminum) required.

 

[GreyGhost]

18kw only covers the essentials on my place, minus things like oven and garage door openers. The krohler motor is only the size of what you would find on an average 2 cylinder riding lawnmower. Water pump, that is 1.1 kw on its own and hopefully you don't have sump or sewage pumps as well.

Their well pump is much smaller than that. Maybe 0.5 hp. No sump pumps. One sewage pump but the basement bathroom rarely gets used.

 

[Mad Mike]

I have a couple of small gennies, only needed to use one for about 10 hours back in 03, we kept a fridge running.

My furnace has a 120v plug, if I lose power I can plug it into my 2kw gennie.

I can see running a big standby in a rural setting where power can be out for days. Where I live, the longest power outage in the last 100 years has been 13 hours, I’m not losing sleep over potential power failures.

 

[PrivatePilot]

18kw only covers the essentials on my place,

Is all of it on at the same time, constantly?

No, of course it's not.

If it was you'd be using just under 15,000kwh every month and your bills would be somewhere in the $2500-$3500+ monthly range with some simple math plus all the customary fees.

Put a whole home wattmeter on your house and I think you'll be surprised to find out what your average and peaks are. Most people are very surprised to find out that they only use a fraction of what they've been groomed to think they do...it's why I laugh at the obsession over people thinking they need more than 200A service at their new houses, with some people insisting on 400A or more, when in reality unless they own 2 Teslas or rely solely on electric heat they're only using maybe 50A most of the time.

 

[nobbie48]

I get it. I suspect the hardware price of the generator is a small part of the bill. It should be about 6000 for the generator, cutting capacity substantially might save 1 to 2000. I doubt they will hit 18 kw but they do have an electric stove. Life is simpler if you dont need to think about load shedding and in general running any motor at full steam isnt ideal so being a bit big isnt too problematic. Running off a submarine tank so lpg capacity is not an issue.

Smaller transfer panel doesnt work well as they are trying to do it at the meter and no interior changes. I'm not sure if you can get away with a small switch in that application.

Power was out for four or five days before xmas. Well pump so no easy water during that time. They have a portable 8500 w champion that normally powers the garage that they turn on and use extension cords to keep fridges cold. Not ideal.

It sounds like it is reasonable. A bit higher than I expected but trenching is a pain in the ass and there is quite a big of copper (or aluminum) required.

The company I was working for at the time had a product failure at a cottage and the argument was based on whether the owner let the thing freeze. They insisted not but Haliburton Hydro clarified that they get numerous outages every winter and the order of restoring power was in town emergency services, industry, houses in town, farms and at the end of the list, cottages, after numerous days.

I'm not sure where GGs parents live or their technical abilities but if they can afford it why go light and risk something going wrong.

I could survive on a 3500 watt but I've been doing load calculations for most of my life. A few patch circuits are simple but there's no way my wife or daughter could do the math or re-wirings.

For our place with a 3500 watt generator cooking would be BBQ, microwave, hotplate, toaster oven and tea kettle.

No A/C

Hot water is gas as is furnace but they both need 120 volts. The HWT is plug in so easy. The furnace is hard wired so disconnect and illegally use a cabtire cord. If an inspector comes the doorbell won't be working.

Generator fuel and oil need to be checked regularly and if the outage is wide spread, gasoline could be scarce.

Water damage resulting from a non functioning sump pump could exceed the cost of a topnotch generator.

I'm not sure how one legally connects a hard wired furnace to an extension cord, not that I'm worried. I just wouldn't want to give anyone else bad ideas.

 

[backmarkerducati]

18kW is roughly 75 amps assuming a LF of 1. Assuming 60 amps at 80% load....

The question I have, if the power goes out are they going to run everything like nothing is happening or are they going to shut things down? AC on, dryer running and stove running.... and/or any electric heat or hot water??

 

[Scuba Steve]

Right now we are using 7.7 kW heat pump is on well pump likely running as well I have a whole house display. Just dropped to 5.5 when the heat pump stopped. So hot tub must be heating. Our backup doesn't power everything just the heat pump microwave and a few rooms in the house plus the essentials like well and sewage pump. Biggest problem is a larger standby unit will gobble propane much faster even at part load. Like I said the 8500 has been sufficient for heat and AC plus essentials.my calculations show I have roughly a month worth of propane if needed provided my tank is full.

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[Wingboy]

In my lifetime i can only remember one big power outage. And that one was in the summer. How can spending all the money on a generator be justified? In the winter, put on a sweater, light a candle, and read a book.

 

[Scuba Steve]

In my lifetime i can only remember one big power outage. And that one was in the summer. How can spending all the money on a generator be justified? In the winter, put on a sweater, light a candle, and read a book.

Honestly I usually go outside and shut the Genny off when the power goes out no point in running it just for a few hours if the outage is longer I can turn it on for a bit the off a bit. It is nice having the peace of mind that it is there if needed and ready to go.

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[SVeezy]

In my lifetime i can only remember one big power outage. And that one was in the summer. How can spending all the money on a generator be justified? In the winter, put on a sweater, light a candle, and read a book.

Just to put some perspective, during the last ice storm in 2013? we had no power in Scarborough for 7 days.


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[PrivatePilot]

In my lifetime i can only remember one big power outage. And that one was in the summer. How can spending all the money on a generator be justified? In the winter, put on a sweater, light a candle, and read a book.

I get it for people out in the sticks who may indeed be out for days at a time, but personally, I'd be happy with one of the less expensive 6-10kw standby generators with a partial transfer panel and some load shedding. If I had a propane furnace (so really, the heat pump is optional at that point, hardly necessary anymore) as well as propane hot water (so little to no electricity is needed at all depending on if it's an old style or new high effeciency tank) I'd go that route and buy one of the $2500ish 7500w units from Home Depot that includes the transfer panel, pay someone to install it, and put the other $8-$10K into buying a toy.

Again, this is where installing a whole home wattage meter and observing your actual usage patterns for a month or two before going balls out on a massive generator setup is helpful. I've NEVER met a person who installed one and wasn't surprised at how *low* their actual typical usage was. People think their houses are always using gobs and gobs of amps when in reality most peoples average wattage is a few thousand.

Yeah, if you've got baseboard heaters, an electric dryer, a big hot tub, you need to cook thanksgiving dinner with the oven and all 4 burners of the electric stove on no matter what happens with the electricity grid, and you own an EV that absolutely positively must be charged via generator when the power is out, well, the equations change. But that's not reality for many/most people.

 

[GreyGhost]

I get it for people out in the sticks who may indeed be out for days at a time, but personally, I'd be happy with one of the less expensive 6-10kw standby generators with a partial transfer panel and some load shedding. If I had a propane furnace (so really, the heat pump is optional at that point, hardly necessary anymore) as well as propane hot water (so little to no electricity is needed at all depending on if it's an old style or new high effeciency tank) I'd go that route and buy one of the $2500ish 7500w units from Home Depot that includes the transfer panel, pay someone to install it, and put the other $8-$10K into buying a toy.

Again, this is where installing a whole home wattage meter and observing your actual usage patterns for a month or two before going balls out on a massive generator setup is helpful. I've NEVER met a person who installed one and wasn't surprised at how *low* their actual typical usage was. People think their houses are always using gobs and gobs of amps when in reality most peoples average wattage is a few thousand.

Yeah, if you've got baseboard heaters, an electric dryer, a big hot tub, you need to cook thanksgiving dinner with the oven and all 4 burners of the electric stove on no matter what happens with the electricity grid, and you own an EV that absolutely positively must be charged via generator when the power is out, well, the equations change. But that's not reality for many/most people.

The pay someone to install it bit is a substantial amount of money. In my parents case, you have ~125' of trench (with lpg or wire) and if you are doing a gen sub-panel inside, now you are reconfiguring circuits (most of which do not have enough wire to reach sub-panel so you need to add extensions). An added complication is the original electrician was brain dead and did things like living room/washing machine/outdoor plug on the same circuit. Picking which circuits the generator picks up isn't trivial with circuit planning like that. In a normal install, without calling in favours, I'd be shocked if the install didn't exceed the cost of the generator (Sunny's 10-12 is what I expected and my parents being a little higher given the length of feed required didn't surprise me). If I was allowed to do it myself, it would be different. I obviously am not allowed to do the install at their house without running afoul of the law. No inspector would believe my parents had done the work themselves (and tie in to the existing meter just adds another level of safety and regulatory complication).

Not sure if LPG is different than NG, but when I try to get people to inspect and ticket my NG work, they want the same amount of money as if they did all the work themselves (even if my job is much better and I actually checked pressures instead of just looking for bubbles). I normally go through after the "professional" install is ticketed and fix pressures and clock the burner. I haven't met an installer yet that bothers. I would do combustion analysis, but it's not cheap and would be rarely used so I haven't invested in it. Proper techs should do all of the above. It's embarrassing what they think is acceptable.

Buried conductor to code is no joke, there is a lot of work and material involved. I strongly doubt that the vast majority of contractors will do it properly but at least you have an invoice saying the install was to code so if it goes wrong, you have a good chance at getting someone else to pay the lawsuit.

 

[SunnY S]

owning a home standby is kind of like owning a 4x4. few people need it, but damn, its nice to have when you do

another thing I'm seeing here, is just because its not right for you, and you can get by with 2000w power, thats not the case for others.

here are 3 typical scenarios I come across

1) the rich, they just want the peace of mind that their power stays on. they can't be bothered hauling a portable out. They arent going to settle for a piddly 12k genny. we are doing a 48kw (200amps) for one customer in missisauga

2) the elderly, many of them rely on AC, and their chair lifts, and elevators and lift equipment. They can't be bothered lugging out a 3500w genny and firing it up. They want instant power and no hassle, knowing their equipment and TV will function. They will pay for a quality genny and install.

3a) the rural guy with septic equipment, well pumps, pressure pumps, sump pumps, sewer ejectors, sometimes electric heat, or electric furnaces, etc. sometimes they aren't home when the power goes out, they can't gamble with power failure, let alone even operate a household without standby power

3b) a lot of rural areas have power outages on a weekly basis, sometimes for hours at a time.


so yes, we know PP can frankenstein his magical Volt to power his house and all his neighbours while hes at it (insert eye roll here), but for the rest, a home standby will do.

 

[PrivatePilot]

In my parents case, you have ~125' of trench (with lpg or wire)

Has the calculation been done on just buying a few 100lb tanks (or a smaller pig tank) and providing propane local to the generator (and the generator local to the panel location) vs all the trenching for either getting power from the submarine tank generator location to the panel, or vice versa?

What kind of outage lengths do they typically experience? Could be wrong but I'm pretty sure with an average of 2-5kw load on a ~8-10KW generator (with excursions up and down wattage wise) you're still taking a few days on even a 100lb tank. Manifold 2 together and you're probably good for days. $200 each at Costco...and get them refilled in-situ if needed when they come to fill the submarine tank.

 

[GreyGhost]

Has the calculation been done on just buying a few 100lb tanks (or a smaller pig tank) and providing propane local to the generator (and the generator local to the panel location) vs all the trenching for either getting power from the submarine tank generator location to the panel, or vice versa?

What kind of outage lengths do they typically experience? Could be wrong but I'm pretty sure with an average of 2-5kw load on a ~8-10KW generator (with excursions up and down wattage wise) you're still taking a few days on even a 100lb tank. Manifold 2 together and you're probably good for days. $200 each at Costco...and get them refilled in-situ if needed when they come to fill the submarine tank.

Generator is ~30' from submarine, not a big deal. Main power feed is the issue as it is on the front side of their house so no good spot for generator. Power feed will be ~100' from generator to beside meter base as they are at opposite corners of the house. Generator will be right outside of guest bedrooms which is not ideal but not horrendous. I will talk to them and see if they will consider putting generator on rear wall at meter base end of house (long LPG, shorter wire) but that causes some other issues.

Realistically, power outages <12 hours once every few months and a few days once every few years.

As Sunny said, they are a combination of 2, 3a and 3b. Sure they can do a lot of things but they are not young and not getting younger. They have done the wrestling with a heavy generator thing for a while and now are willing to spend some money to make their lives simpler. Paying all the money to install a standby system and then needing to get 100lb bottles out of the backyard (or a truck to fill 100 lb bottles in the backyard) doesn't make sense.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Yeah, I get it...if they're not nickle and diming when it's all said and done, it does sound like there's a case to be made for just going full YOLO and getting the system they've been quoted on installed.

 

[nobbie48]

So, in hindsight, what should Texans have done?

Griddy customers face $5,000 electric bills for 5 freezing days in Texas

Some Texans are facing yet another crisis: how to pay enormous electric bills. The Texas power supplier Griddy, which sells unusual plans with prices tied to...

www.dallasnews.com

FWIW 35 years go I was flying to Houston Texas for a heating cable sales conference. A Texan seated next to me commented that when it got really cold they sometimes put a small towel around an outside tap. That was all that was needed.

Well the frost has hit the fan.

Power outages and Texas had decided to be independent of any grid so when their wind turbines failed due to cold they lost power. Water treatment and pumping stations lost power. Melt snow to flush toilets. Boil water alerts. No water for fire fighting.

Burst pipes and houses flooding as things thaw.

Independence has its price.

Generators won't be getting cheaper.

Two weeks to pay off an instal. Then sell to the neighbours

 

[PrivatePilot]

The whole root reasons the grid fell apart in Texas is actually pretty interesting when you read the nuts and bolts full story.

The right wing "green energy failed, the windmills froze and the solar panels were covered in snow!" song and dance really isn't the true story.

 

[GreyGhost]

So, in hindsight, what should Texans have done?

Griddy customers face $5,000 electric bills for 5 freezing days in Texas

Some Texans are facing yet another crisis: how to pay enormous electric bills. The Texas power supplier Griddy, which sells unusual plans with prices tied to...

www.dallasnews.com

FWIW 35 years go I was flying to Houston Texas for a heating cable sales conference. A Texan seated next to me commented that when it got really cold they sometimes put a small towel around an outside tap. That was all that was needed.

Well the frost has hit the fan.

Power outages and Texas had decided to be independent of any grid so when their wind turbines failed due to cold they lost power. Water treatment and pumping stations lost power. Melt snow to flush toilets. Boil water alerts. No water for fire fighting.

Burst pipes and houses flooding as things thaw.

Independence has its price.

Generators won't be getting cheaper.

Two weeks to pay off an instal. Then sell to the neighbours

I'm kind of surprised that so few managed to get their motorhomes in front of their houses prior to the mess. Don't they all own at least one? They come come with batteries and inverters and generators and lots of fuel. Live in the motorhome in your driveway and use the generator to keep the house from freezing. The whole situation just seems like a colossal screwup where very very few people had any ability to look after themselves yet alone help out a neighbour.

I've got a 2000w generator in the garage and normally ~5-15 gallons of fuel plus what's in the cars. My parents have a 4000W and 8500W sitting in the garage and ~15 gallons of fuel. Will we be able to keep functioning normally for a week? Hell no. Will we be ok if the power is out for a week or two, yup.