Backup power

[deleriumtremor]

I tried a search and came up empty, which is par for the course for me and forum search in general.

I got the green light to start tapering my meds, I actually got the green light to drive, just as soon as I am off the Tramadol, which actually might end up being the sleeves off the doc vest as the PT gal wants me to stay on Tramadol for a few weeks of the early PT. Anyway, I think I will be getting to a place pretty soon where I will trust myself to make sound decisions again, so it is time to restart the backup power evaluation process.

In March, I got a bid from an outfit that does a wide range of power systems, generator using home NG, ones that use Propane from an in-ground tank, generator/power wall combo’s, solar, geothermal, you name it.

The bid I requested at the time was for an automatic Generac system that would use home supplied natural gas and a battery start. It was not a bad price and the only thing that stopped me was I had some in ground well irrigation pipes, controllers and valves I needed to relocate to make room for the genset and transfer switches and my hip was going to make that problematic.

Since we put that bid on hold, we have been discussing optimal solutions. In our previous house we originally moved to Idaho and bought, the guy was a bit of a prepper himself and the house came with a 40KW Generac generator that was propane powered. It was a really great system and introduced us to the luxury of home backup power. it worked flawlessly and one of the selling points the previous owner claimed of his setup was with the propane tank fuel source, we wouldn’t be dependent on natural gas supplied to the house, the propane was independent of that source, hence a little more “off grid”, than the simpler and less costly install of just using Intermountain Natiral Gas for fuel.

I just made contact with the guy we had winnowed the competition down to last time and told him we might want to update our needs list, before we move ahead. The genset and transfer switches we are contemplating are actually quite small and efficient, so unless we decide on propane or some other hybrid system, the install will be very straight forward.

Any thoughts from any of you who have been down this road recently would be greatly appreciated.

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[SigOris]

We installed a 14KW Koehler with the auto transfer switch. We have a 500 gallon buried propane tank as we heat and hot water off of propane.

Size your generator to your emergency needs: refrigerator, freezer, heat, a/c, heat pumps / mini-splits, think about what you really need if a storm knocks out power.

Theres a term used in US Naval warships, load shedding, like don’t worry about your tv as likely your internet will go down too.

Also, research which generac you plan to buy. They’ve had some issues. Not dissing generac. My electrical friend advised us against them. Also, make sure it’s clean power, another term used is inverter, as some generators put out distorted power which the newer electronics doesn’t like

feel free to ask anything else

 

[deleriumtremor]

We installed a 14KW Koehler with the auto transfer switch. We have a 500 gallon buried propane tank as we heat and hot water off of propane.

Size your generator to your emergency needs: refrigerator, freezer, heat, a/c, heat pumps / mini-splits, think about what you really need if a storm knocks out power.

Theres a term used in US Naval warships, load shedding, like don’t worry about your tv as likely your internet will go down too.

Also, research which generac you plan to buy. They’ve had some issues. Not dissing generac. My electrical friend advised us against them. Also, make sure it’s clean power, another term used is inverter, as some generators put out distorted power which the newer electronics doesn’t like

feel free to ask anything else

It is funny you mentioned Koehler because that is what I originally asked for quotes on as I have had great luck with Koehler engines down through the years. My ride on mower I bought, got in ahead of some other brand names because they employ Koehler.

The guy I got down to sells both, but he said he had, had some issues with Koehler (internal to the engines, I can’t remember now what he said back in March) and recommended I go with Generac in the size we were looking at.

My original idea was to do exactly what you did, which was spec the size based on reasonable expectation of not using non-critical things during the genset source times. i got our usage history going back since we finished the house and moved in and then went around and counted noses on critical versus non-critical appliances and came up with a number about where you were at.

Unfortunately, Mary was pretty set on having something that will run everything we have at peak on the hottest day on record…. . And then according to all three of the guys I initially talked to, I guess the local inspectors wants to see our power bill history and verifies the capacity spec’s exceeds our historical peak by some magic number. Mary wins!

In the end, I am OK with overspecing, the last house we had was a 40KW unit and we likely could get to 17 I if we turned everything on full blast, so I think I will do better than that. . Talk about load shedding, we only lived in half that house year round, the other half was like one of those Moth Ball Fleet ships the Navy has anchored in Suisun Bay in CA for so long.

Sounds like I better get that quote and do some online searches to see how that unit holds up reliability wise. Pretty sure having an unreliable backup genset is about the worst of all possible worlds.

The guy did call me back, after I called him this morning and we set a time to meet. I did talk to him about nat gas and propane (we had planned on Nat’s gas the last the last time we looked at it) and at least with the unit he proposed originally, he said it supported both, so switching from say a default NG would only entail two small valves being switched and of course us hav the propane tank in the ground and plumbed to the unit.

I do have a really good place to install the tank with easy access from the road, so getting it filled won’t cause a lot of hullabaloo.

If the unit I end up with supports both fuels, I will likely go ahead with installing the underground propane tank and plumbing as that really, the NG side is quite simple and all of it will make Mary very happy.

Anyway, thanks John for all the good advice and heads up on Generac possible reliability issues.

 

[SigOris]

Bill, we don’t have NG in our area so propane was my only option. The gensets do come with the parts to work on either fuel. Much like kitchen stoves. Our dryer and stove are my biggest loads. So the real question to ask yourself is will you realistically run all those appliances at the same time? The other thing to keep in mind is the larger the load the more fuel you’ll burn. So on NG not an issue.

good luck on your search, I’m sure both brands have their pros and cons.

just don’t buy more kw than what you need although I see your in ID so you’re likely like me, I live in ME, that snow and ice take out your power

 

[deleriumtremor]

Bill, we don’t have NG in our area so propane was my only option. The gensets do come with the parts to work on either fuel. Much like kitchen stoves. Our dryer and stove are my biggest loads. So the real question to ask yourself is will you realistically run all those appliances at the same time? The other thing to keep in mind is the larger the load the more fuel you’ll burn. So on NG not an issue.

good luck on your search, I’m sure both brands have their pros and cons.

just don’t buy more kw than what you need although I see your in ID so you’re likely like me, I live in ME, that snow and ice take out your power

Mary has wanted a genset since we had it at the last house. It was so seamless in operation, since we moved in to our current house and I didn’t install one here, it has been a bone of contention.

Electric power has been pretty spotty since we moved in, for a few disparate reasons, not the least of which is weather. We have had a lot of outages, which only fuels her fire when it happens.

Another factor for Mary is her growing distrust for anything that might be controlled by the government (she sees the utility companies as an extension of the government), hence will at the stroke of a pen, be shutting our electricity off as a means of controlling the masses. Did I mention her tin foil hat collection, quite stylish actually.

I love her dearly and wouldn’t change a thing about her for fear she wouldn’t be her after I made the change. But her whole family is a bit of whacko.

 

[Trigganometry]

I have a Honda generator. Now it won’t power the whole house but does the job during failures to keep the heat and fridge running as well as the well pump and other electrical needs. My setup it tri fuel. Can run propane, nat gas or gasoline. Pick your flavor. It works from a Venturi module fitted to the carburetor. Then just regulate the amount of fuel provided to reach the optimal RPM. Been working great for the last 8 years. Granted, it’s a manual system and requires me to get it going. Once on though if using natural gas can run for days on end. Just low oil will shut it down to protect the Honda motor.

I guess it’s one of those, how much power are you going to need and for how long. Non of the systems mentioned are really meant for an endless supply of power. Just emergency use

 

[SigOris]

Mary has wanted a genset since we had it at the last house. It was so seamless in operation, since we moved in to our current house and I didn’t install one here, it has been a bone of contention.

Electric power has been pretty spotty since we moved in, for a few disparate reasons, not the least of which is weather. We have had a lot of outages, which only fuels her fire when it happens.

Another factor for Mary is her growing distrust for anything that might be controlled by the government (she sees the utility companies as an extension of the government), hence will at the stroke of a pen, be shutting our electricity off as a means of controlling the masses. Did I mention her tin foil hat collection, quite stylish actually.

I love her dearly and wouldn’t change a thing about her for fear she wouldn’t be her after I made the change. But her whole family is a bit of whacko.

Can’t fault her in a way. The recent events showed us easily the USG, state, and local govts can shut down businesses all in the name of “ it’s for the greater good “

have you looked into solar with a battery backup? Pricey but eliminates the dependency on fuels

 

[Trigganometry]

Can’t fault her in a way. The recent events showed us easily the USG, state, and local govts can shut down businesses all in the name of “ it’s for the greater good “

have you looked into solar with a battery backup? Pricey but eliminates the dependency on fuels

Another option if you have enough stream water is to rig up a hydroelectric generator. Free power with them. They’re not that expensive ether. Just need to get a decent head height and feed the unit. My next home when I retire I’ll be looking to set something like this up and screw the grid

 

[SigOris]

Another option if you have enough stream water is to rig up a hydroelectric generator. Free power with them. They’re not that expensive ether. Just need to get a decent head height and feed the unit. My next home when I retire I’ll be looking to set something like this up and screw the grid

I’d be really envious

 

[MountainGoat]

Can’t fault her in a way. The recent events showed us easily the USG, state, and local govts can shut down businesses all in the name of “ it’s for the greater good “

have you looked into solar with a battery backup? Pricey but eliminates the dependency on fuels

It doesn't have to be pricey or difficult if you do it yourself, power your essentials only, do T105 or similar batteries and do ground mount panels. Stuff is harder to get now then years ago but this guy will put together a system for you. It's pretty plug and play but you would have to get your own batteries and depending on the type shipping is crazy expensive due to haz-mat. I had to do quite a bit of driving to pick mine up myself from a distro center. The warehouse manager told me "don't get pulled over with these" lol.

 

[deleriumtremor]

I have a Honda generator. Now it won’t power the whole house but does the job during failures to keep the heat and fridge running as well as the well pump and other electrical needs. My setup it tri fuel. Can run propane, nat gas or gasoline. Pick your flavor. It works from a Venturi module fitted to the carburetor. Then just regulate the amount of fuel provided to reach the optimal RPM. Been working great for the last 8 years. Granted, it’s a manual system and requires me to get it going. Once on though if using natural gas can run for days on end. Just low oil will shut it down to protect the Honda motor.

I guess it’s one of those, how much power are you going to need and for how long. Non of the systems mentioned are really meant for an endless supply of power. Just emergency use

Mary definitely would like to be off grid completely,but for now, her big deal is not to be subject to rolling blackouts and any other government mandated “power shortages”, as well as the normal stuff we have gotten with Idaho Power.

Ultimately Solar and a battery back up would be a better solution, but Mary has been reading all about the panel life and how they pollute the groundwater when deinstalled and trashed.

I told her once, I was going to have to take a hiatus from my normal duties around the house, so I could put the finishing touches on my mini-fusion reactor design, but she just didn’t think she could spare me that long.

I do think this system will keep her happy for quite a while. We do have a lot of power disruption, some relatively repeatable like weather (mostly wind and snow). In addition, since we have been here, we have had a string that could only be labeled “one off”, things like the lot we sold on the back of our property, the people building there were excavating and they hit a buried line that was unmarked by the guys that you call out to do that stuff. We were down for a day over that one.

All the expected and unexpected have really added up to get her pretty fired up. When the power dies, I just sit back waiting for the lecture.

This genset should address that phenomenon.

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