Generators | Page 8 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Generators

nobbie48 said:
The Big O has to be installed by the electrician. Is Big O approved as an electrical conduit?

A buddy went through it with ESA. The pipe has to be kicked into the trench by an electrician's boot.
Click to expand...
You are not using the Big-O as an electrical conduit, if it's buried 24" deep you don't even require conduit for the sub terrain part of an underground hydro service entrance, it's direct burial underground cable.

Electrical hookup has to be done by an electrician and inspected, everything else is just grunt work, any grunt can do it as long as the work and materials pass inspection.
 
You can, or at least could, use Big-O for electrical when I built my house. It had to be 30 inches deep if I recall and have the pull cord installed. If the hydro installers had any issues pulling the cable, they were going to pull it back out and charge me for the call-out and wouldn't come back until I installed smooth PVC conduit. I would imagine it is cheaper than say, TECK cable which is rated for direct burial.
 
GreyGhost said:
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.
Click to expand...
So generator location is being dictated by 10' from openable window. The plan is for it to live in the vicinity of the submarine with a long electrical feed which drives the price up. The only other practical location would have ~125' of LPG run and then 50' of electrical, That would be less accessible for installation and service (slightly better for noise as that is at the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms). Cost likely a wash as the LPG feed is cheaper than electric feed.
 
The generator needs ~60psi on propane and low pressure appliances require closer to ~10psi, so if you are using propane for more then just back-up power generation you are looking at 2 copper feed lines and 2 regulators coming off the tank.

All buried electric power cable is copper, aluminum cable is what they bring over-head power into your house with from the transformer to your stack. (the stack is the steel pipe thing that sticks out of the roof of your house, if so equipped)
 
Trials said:
All buried electric power cable is copper, aluminum cable is what they bring over-head power into your house with from the transformer to your stack. (the stack is the steel pipe thing that sticks out of the roof of your house, if so equipped)
Click to expand...
Nope. You can use Aluminum over a certain size (8 maybe?).
 
Trials said:
The generator needs ~60psi on propane and low pressure appliances require closer to ~10psi, so if you are using propane for more then just back-up power generation you are looking at 2 copper feed lines and 2 regulators coming off the tank.

All buried electric power cable is copper, aluminum cable is what they bring over-head power into your house with from the transformer to your stack. (the stack is the steel pipe thing that sticks out of the roof of your house, if so equipped)
Click to expand...
Why does the genny need 60psi ? That genny only requires 11” w/c inlet pressure. Why not install 10psi reg at tank and step down ( second stage ) reg close too appliance ?

Also why not size the gas line from the tank to the genny and anything else in house and branch off to one reg to genny and other reg to house equipment so only 1 line required not 2 lines ( run 1” or 1 1/4” or whatever code booking sizing requires like Poly underground or underground CSST) Just curious for my own understanding.
 
Kawyman said:
Why does the genny need 60psi ? That genny only requires 11” w/c inlet pressure. Why not install 10psi reg at tank and step down ( second stage ) reg close too appliance ?

Also why not size the gas line from the tank to the genny and anything else in house and branch off to one reg to genny and other reg to house equipment so only 1 line required not 2 lines ( run 1” or 1 1/4” or whatever code booking sizing requires like Poly underground or underground CSST) Just curious for my own understanding.
Click to expand...
The engine you are running is for all intent purpose the same engine you would use in a riding lawn tractor. It runs on gas(vapour) instead of liquid fuel, because of this it starts easier :/ you don't need to vaporize the fuel. The flow is determined by consumption of the fuel. Have you ever seen a fuel efficient lawn tractor engine, they don't exist, they eat fuel like it was free.

You can save a few bucks by using steel pipe fastened along the outside of the house, I did that with the high pressure feed lines from the buried copper to the regulator to the Genny. It's a cheaper then copper. I can take a picture if you want, but it's going to look like a snow storm right now :(
 
Kawyman said:
Why does the genny need 60psi ? That genny only requires 11” w/c inlet pressure. Why not install 10psi reg at tank and step down ( second stage ) reg close too appliance ?

Also why not size the gas line from the tank to the genny and anything else in house and branch off to one reg to genny and other reg to house equipment so only 1 line required not 2 lines ( run 1” or 1 1/4” or whatever code booking sizing requires like Poly underground or underground CSST) Just curious for my own understanding.
Click to expand...
Genny wants 10-12" wc. If you wanted liquid in the line, iirc the line needs to be around 60 psi. I havent done any propane installs so I have no idea what the pressures typically are at various points in the system.
 
GreyGhost said:
Genny wants 10-12" wc. If you wanted liquid in the line, iirc the line needs to be around 60 psi. I havent done any propane installs so I have no idea what the pressures typically are at various points in the system.
Click to expand...
I asked for the pressures relative to psi but that is not how the calculations are actually performed, it's a rough estimate at best.
... so is the panel a 100 amp service?
 
Trials said:
I asked for the pressures relative to psi but that is not how the calculations are actually performed, it's a rough estimate at best.
... so is the panel a 100 amp service?
Click to expand...
200. Prior to propane install in the fall, house had heat pump with electric resistor bank backup.
 
RHW-2/USE-2 600v & 2KV For Power Wiring & Industrial Lighting

200 same as mine, your house has half the area and power requirements, I have a 100 amp generator panel service. You're going to end up installing almost the same thing I did except in retrofit, half your main panel is going to be supported. It's not cheap but it is necessary.

If you go with a 60 amp service you are not going to save much. The contractors cost the same. .... there would be a potential fuel and noise saving.

My electrician said copper in the ground. ymmv
 
Genny wants 10-12" wc. If you wanted liquid in the line, iirc the line needs to be around 60 psi. I havent done any propane installs so I have no idea what the pressures typically are at various points in the system.

Someone’s gonna need too add a few million BTUs and some bigger equipment if you wanna talk liquid propane systems with vaporizers. :)

Im a natural gas guy and haven’t worked on propane for a long time, but based on the genny size and my conversion math of btu rating for that genny (I got 276,000btu) 10psi tank reg and second stage reg would run that genny just fine. Just have too size the underground line for the 125’ distance from tank to genny.
 
It's not liquid to the engine, the reason you have a tank that lays down is to give you more surface area between the liquid petroleum fuel and the air space in the tank. Tanks are never full, they are never filled beyond 80% volume capacity. As pressure inside the chamber drops, the propane boils and becomes a gas, that's what you are burning. Low pressure or low fuel supply is going to flame out your engine, just like a restricted fuel line. Unless you have a very tiny engine and that won't power your house.
 
Snow stopped :cool:
Genny.jpg buried copper to the regulator, steel pipe was a cost saving measure.
 
There will be a 2 stage reg at the tank if there’s only have 1 reg. Don’t think anything residential will take more then w/c for inlet pressure.

I chuckled at .39psi. I’ve heard 7” w/c, 4oz,
1.75 kpa, or 1/4 pound(psi) all (NG pressures) in the field.. never heard someone say it’s
.39psi inlet pressure. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom