Slashdot Mirror
Home Generators (or How DTE Energy Ruined My Holidays)
We are among the thousands without power in the northeast. Day four actually, and we've decided to look into generators so that next year's New Year's doesn't involve fears of frozen pipes bursting and hypothermic babies and cats. At the very least we just need enough juice to run the furnace blower, but if we're going to lay down the cash I'd like to know what it would take to get a little more power ... like enough to run a fridge, router, laptop and lightbulb. I know nothing about this sort of thing, but figure there are more than a few experts out there so I call out to the wisdom of the mob. What am I looking for? How difficult is the wiring? What will it cost me? On the extreme edge, what would it take to get off the grid entirely? (And on a side note, thanks to DTE Energy for telling us we had power when we didn't, for losing the ticket for our neighborhood, for telling us it would be back every single day when it wasn't, and for the helpful DTE representative who warned us that our pipes might burst. Thanks.)
At a minimum, you need:
Even though a furnace doesn't pull a lot when running, at the time that the blower starts up, there can be a VERY large startup current. The fridge the same, to a lesser extent.
You can get a lot fancier than this, but this will function perfectly as long as you are there to do the switching soon enough after power fails that your building doesn't get too close to pipe-freeze (I wouldn't want to go below 40 degrees f, pipes are often in walls that are cooler than the rest of the house.)
If that won't do, you're looking at an auto-start system with an auto-generator switchover, and the only thing I can tell you about that is prepare your wallet for deep excavation.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'd like to know what it would take to get a little more power... like a fridge
This coming from the can't-feel-my-toes department? Put it outside!
router, laptop and a lightbulb.
Laptop first. It is marginally useful without the router. The router is useless without the laptop or some other computer. It also provides all the light you should need (though maybe not all your wife needs)
I suggest you go and get a small generator immediately. Murphy's Law (or something like it) demands that power be back on before you get home or immediately after you get it hooked up.
This is CmdrTaco -- he's saving electricity by turning off the spellchecker to conserve power, while running off of battery backup. Obviously.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Might be best to turn off the water entirely and drain the pipes rather than risk a burst.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
I have to ask, because it is beautifully spaced, with few or no spelling errors. I have to assume that since the power is out, that it's not a computer. Did you post in Plain Old Text or was your message HTML Formatted? I just have to know. Also how are you keeping it charged? Are the regular phones working in your area? If the battery dies on whatever device you are using, are you able to make emergency calls?
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
... I object to your derrogatory and inflamatory efforts to drive my net asset value down.
A lot of people in cold climates have backup (or even primary) wood stoves for heat. The main problem is that these have electric fans to blow super-hot air from around the stove's inner box into the room. Now, given that it's cold outside when you're building fires and very hot inside the stove itself, is there some way to directly convert the heat difference into enough electricity to drive the stove's fan?
Seriously, these things can potentially put out tremendous amounts of heat, probably enough to keep the pipes from freezing in a medium-sized house and certainly enough to cook simple foods. I'd think that a self-powered version would be extremely appreciated.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I just built a new house, and had a 20kW Generac air-cooled generator installed along with a 200A automatic transfer switch and buried 1,000 gallon propane tank. It can run on propane or natural gas, and is manly enough to run my whole house. I have heat pumps with backup propane furnaces. The outside units are small enough so that I do not have to sequence the startup of the compressors, but I could do that if necessary (and may anyway). It self-tests once a week. All told, minus the tank (since many/most of you will have NG service), about $8,000 installed and tested. Well worth it for totally automatic, no-worries switchover even if we're away.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Bottom line: Permanent home backup generators can be purchased for $3000 - $6000 + installation labor.
If you have natural gas available then I highly recommend using it for your backup generator, since outages are very rare and you won't ever need to worry about storing fuel.
If you house is like most, then your incoming service is 100 amp/220 split-phase. This means that a ~22 KW generator would give you 100% backup, but really most people don't use more than 80% of their service, so this setup should provide full capacity backup for almost anyone. If that's not enough, then move up to the 30 KW model. Kohler makes generators big enough to power your entire neighborhood if you are willing to buy it.
Wiring is not difficult, but depending on your experience level and your desire to obey the local electrical code, you should consider hiring a licensed electrician.
Home improvement stores, meijer, wal-mart, et-al are still open right now.
Go there, get one, get gas, bingo.
Why "next year"?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
To paraphrase Tank,
It's his blog, he can do what he wants with it.
My dad lives in rural Michigan. He's got a natural gas generator. It powers the important circuits. It has worked wonderfully (over several years) when the electricity has failed. Sorry, I don't know much about hookup mechanics.
hypothermic babies and cats
mmmmmm, frozen tacos - yum
/Homer
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=100645903&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=100645903&cm_mmc=1hd.com2froogle-_-product_feed-_-D25X-_-100645903
I'm going to start building a house in 2010. I've looked at many different ways I could have reliable power backup and this seems to be the best idea for a residential setup.
There's a dirty, and illegal way to do it.
First, if you follow these instructions, remember this KEY STEP
TURN OFF THE MAIN SWITCH. Also, NEVER turn that main switch on if the generator is running.
Finally, the main switch MUST be double throw.
Forget to follow these instructions, and you can very easily kill a lineman or blow up your generator.
Anyways, you just need a three pronged dryer plug, 2 of them, and sufficient length of heavy gauge wire. You create an illegal male - male 3 pronged plug, and connect your generator socket into the 3 pronged plug in your house used for the clothes dryer.
The reason it is illegal is because this form of installation does not prevent you from connecting your generator to the wiring outside your house. If you left the main switch on, you can energize the dead lines outside with 12,000 volts and kill a lineman.
The advantage? As long as the main switch is double throw, and you don't turn it on when the generator is connected, it is pretty safe. And cheap : a double throw switch and circuit box is $200-$500, while this method can be done for $10.
The first thing you want is a natural gas powered generator, not gasoline. Nothing like having to take a trip to the local gas station (presuming THEY have power) to fill up the generator every 8 hours or so. This, by definition, will make the generator a stationary unit (not on wheels, designed to be bolted down to a concrete pad).
Next, you want a generator with auto-start, auto-transfer with manual return. You want the thing to automatically kick in if the power dies, but YOU should be in control of when it decides to return to the grid. Nothing like finding out that the power died 10 minutes after you and the family left the house for a couple of days and coming back to a cold house with no power and potentially burst pipes.
Wattage - you will want at least a 5000 watt unit for whole-house use. Forget this idea of running power cords everywhere - unless you like the idea of tripping over power cords everywhere. With the transfer switch mentioned above, the generator takes the place of the grid so your internal house wiring will continue to serve it's duty.
There are several manufacturers of house generator systems. You can find low-end units at places like Home Depot or Lowes. Better units are best obtained from an electrical wholesale house.
Do yourself a huge favor here and hire a licensed electrician to do the work. It'll get done right the first time, the electrical inspector won't get excited (in a negative way) when he sees the work, and the odds of "something going wrong" go way down.
From another guy in Michigan (Westland)...
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
... but I'd look at surplus "permanent" diesel generators, and a dedicated genny shed. These will often be much, much cheaper than a new, smaller generator. Also, older kit tends to have been built well to begin with, and with repair and maintenance in mind - something that a lot of el-cheapo Chinese 80-quid-out-of-Lidl generators aren't.
If you buy a seriously large genny you may be able to split the costs with your neighbours - 30kW ought to do at least a couple of houses if you're careful. Ten years ago we used to have very frequent power cuts up north, and one enterprising chap bought a 10kW genny on a trailer which he towed round to people's houses every day to freeze their freezers for a small fee ;-)
I wouldn't bother with petrol-engined gennies - they're far more trouble than they're worth and will just plain not start when you need them. They also need constant servicing even when they're not used, and you need to keep fresh fuel in them - so that means either buying fuel and keeping the tank and carb dry (just what you need to sort out on a cold dark night), or running them pretty much every month enough to use a few gallons of petrol. Stick with diesels, they're simpler, easier to work on, and more reliable anyway.
It goes without saying that if you live in an area prone to power cuts, you should avoid electric heating and electric cookers. Don't run an electric cooker off the genny, it will guzzle fuel. If you have an electric cooker, get a petrol camping stove like one of the Coleman dual-burner ones, or a gas camping stove. A caravan/RV stove would be good, but will take up more space. I used to use a single-burner gas stove which took disposable gas bottles like large spray cans, but it was uneconomic to run. My petrol stove was quite expensive to buy, but much, *much* cheaper to run - plus if I run out of fuel I can just pump some from my car ;-)
You may be able to run your furnace blower from a large inverter, but they are typically not rated to run inductive loads for long. In the UK, we use small efficient blower motors in most boilers, which will run off a couple of hundred watts at most. The big old blowers with a squirrel-cage motor the size of a beer keg are long gone, something to be glad of ;-)
I asked the same question a couple of years ago and got enough information to write a book.
In the end, I bought a 3500W generator that I can pick up and carry, and made two extension cords with male ends on both sides.
When the power goes out, I turn off the main breaker, carry the generator to the porch, and fire it up. I hook up one extension cord to each side of the house, and voila, I have computers, Internet, TV, and microwave. Every few hours I look down the street and see if the other houses have their power back. I don't bother calling the electric company.
There are undoubtedly many union electricians gasping in horror after reading this, but it works great and cost me a total of about $500 to implement.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
If you get the chance to move out, consider getting a Passive House, where it has super-thick insulation and is hermetically sealed. You wouldn't have to worry about frozen pipes in that kind of setup.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27house.html
/.'s 10 Millionth
Pretty clever. The car's batteries power to the home, and the car's software takes care of the duty cycle.
If he got 17kWh out of 5 gallons of gasoline, he's running at about 10% efficiency (~35 MJ/L == 36 kWh/gal), which is about half as efficient as the 20% you're likely to get out of a dedicated diesel generator. The internal combustion engine of the car isn't running 24/7, it's cycling on and off every half hour or so, and there should be relatively little CO buildup within the house. (Still, if you're going to try this, you should have a CO alarm handy.)
What you lose in efficiency is made up for by the fact that if you own a hybrid, your "emergency backup generator" doubles as a source of transportation during the 99% of the time that it's not being used. As long as the roads remain passable, you can use your emergency generator to refuel itself.
1. Disconnect house from power grid. flip your main outside breakers before it gets to you junction box.
2. turn off as much stuff in the house
3. turn on generator.
4. make a male to male 220 plug that is long enough to go from your dryer's plugin to your generator. Plug said male to male 220 cord into output of genset and into dryer plugin.
5. start turning on stuff in your house until gen set gets weary.
This is the very quick and dirty way, non-UL approved, violates code but will power your house in an emergency.
This 220 plug trick I think is how many contractors put power to a house's electricity grid when the power has been shut off.
Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools recently had a write up at http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archive/003428.php regarding Generac Guardian Automatic Standby Generator. It is more detailed than I could be on the subject. The most import thing is making sure that the generator output (kW/hr) is greater than your probable consumption during a blackout. When determining which systems will run off the generator, consider other creature comforts, such as running the hot-water heater and some/all of the electrical outlets in the kitchen (for charging cell phones, making coffee, etc.); however, such additions will add to consumption calculation.
If your only issue is with warmth, then a fireplace may be alternative.
A wood burning unit obviously doesn't require electricity, but some gas ones can run without power as well. You just can't use the blower.
A 35,000+ BTU vent-free natural gas fireplace can be had for about $1000 + $300 installation + $200 mantle.
A vented gas fireplace will increase the cost of both the fireplace and installation.
This is just something else to consider. Sure it doesn't power the fridge, but when its 20 degrees out you can always put the perishables outside.
When you wire in your core devices that need continued power it is good to use a set of automatic transfer switches. When the grid power is up the electricity flows like normal, but when the generator us up the switches divert the inputs for those devices to the generator. When your power comes back up you simply turn off the generator and everything goes back to normal. If you buy the expensive whole house generator models they should come with this equipment, but you can buy them at your local hardware store, or eBay, for the low end generators. Having everything pre-wired saves a lot of fumbling around in the dark playing with kinked cords and potential high voltage, and a lot fewer headaches. No more pulling all refrigerators out just to plug them into the generator any more. Been there, done that. What I have that needs power has it as soon as I turn the key and pull the cord.
Every state and town has different rules about how it all needs to be set up.
In some places, like Massachusetts, you can't do any of the install yourself. You have to have a licensed electrician do it.
As a tip, get a generator that uses an inverter. They run quieter and are less likely to damage electronics if you run out of fuel with them.
You also, pretty much everywhere, have to have a proper transfer switch to disconnect the grid power any time there is any electricity being sent into your house by the generator -- otherwise you will energize the power lines around your house and could kill a line worker.
But generally, you really need to talk to someone who knows the answer locally for you.
Assuming you wanted to power your fridge, furnace circuits & blower, a small TV and a microwave (and never all at the same time), how do you calculate how big of a generator you need?
Just a comment - we've had a Kohler 15kW Natural Gas powered generator that automatically comes on if power is interrupted for more than 10 seconds for the past year. We've needed it a couple of times now for multi-hour interruptions and it's worked well with the following comments:
1. Get an electrician that knows what he's doing and has experience with automated generators. I spelled out how everything was supposed to be wired and the bozo our contractor hired didn't trust my work beforehand and refused to wire up things like our refrigerator because he thought it drew too much current and then didn't believe my calculations
2. When you look at different generators, you will see that going to a water cooled unit (which is generally what you get when you are in the 22kW range) doubles the price. The 15kW units don't power the whole house, but more than enough to be liveable - you should get your Furnace, Air Conditioning (power goes out in the summer too), kitchen, basic computers & internet service, a couple of bedrooms and a TV/etc. working comfortably
3. The generators need maintenance. Plan on $500 or more a year - you can't do this yourself unless you are licensed for working around natural gas.
4. The units will test themselves once a week. Make sure they come on when nobody's going to be bothered
5. Don't try to do it yourself, the installation is somewhat expensive ($1,500-$2,000) and then you have to do the interior wiring (hooking up the Automated Transfer Switch (ATS) and deciding which circuits should be used).
6. The pricing of the units change during the year and what's going on. Right now would probably be the worst possible time to buy one - I wouldn't be surprised that their prices haven't doubled in your area. You should be looking in the late spring before hurricane season is the best.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
If you have to ask, you shouldn't do this yourself. There are licensed professionals in the phone book who know what they're doing and can discuss options with you. Call a few up, ask them what their experience is with backup and standby generators for residential application, and pick the one who sounds most clueful.
There are a LOT of bad things that could happen if you mess this up. You could zap everything plugged into an outlet in your house. You could blow the generator when the power comes back on. You could black out the neighborhood. You could kill yourself. And, by the way, this is also likely something your insurance won't cover, so you're tinkering without a net
You're a Slashdot editor, so you might have some technical savvy, but this is not the place to start learning about home wiring. I don't care if you know Ohm's law, or if you can diagram microelectronic circuits. If you've never tied into a service panel before, don't start by doing it unsupervised on your own valuable equipment.
As with most things. Basically you can buy a generator of any capacity you like. For small things, like a few lights and a heater and such, pretty much any one will do. Turns out that engines generate a rather lot of power in comparison to what most household items use. As a reference 1 horsepower = 745 watts. Gives you a little perspective on the amazing amount of power in a 200hp car engine.
Now this kind of thing would cost you somewhere in the range of $200-700 probably depending on size. It'll be a portable unit, gas powered. You'd wheel it outside, fire it up, and run an extension cord to your devices. Something to note though is the power is rather dirty. These small ones aren't so stable with the output. I don't know that you'd want to hook anything like a computer to it. Do so, and you might burn it out. For that you'd probably have to get a high quality DC inverter and hook it to the DC output (most small generators have a DC output). You'll also need to deal with the fuel. Gas isn't stable, you can't just keep a tank around for years. You'll have to periodically use the fuel and get more. You'll also want to keep extra fuel, past what it's tank can hold, since they usually aren't that large (5-20 hours worth or so normally). Finally, they are really noisy, like 90dB close up. Might bother some people.
Another option is a full home backup generator. These are modified car engines hooked to generators. They produce enough power to do an entire home. You wire them in to your breaker box, usually with an automatic transfer switch (though you can do manual transfer if you like). When the power dies, the generator fires up and transfers over. You then use your outlets as normal.
These generally run off of propane or natural gas (really large ones use diesel but you won't need that). If you have gas to your house, that makes fueling real simple. You simply take it from that. You never worry about refueling. If not, you install a propane tank, which you likely already have, and use that. Run time is really only limited by available fuel, and they come in sizes as large as you like. They also produce power stable enough that it is fine to run electronics on it. Hell, they have better power than some parts of the grid.
Downsides are size and cost. They are big, immobile things. You are going to have to have it installed and it is the a permanent part of the house. The cost is also high. Probably $2000 minimum, more realistically around $5000 and as much as $10,000-12,000. However, if you spend some cash you can get one that is rather quiet (around what a 4 cylinder car would be at 3,000rpm or so) and will easily do your whole house.
If you live in an area with major power problems, the whole house solution is the thing to check out. Expensive, but works great. Generac, or their consumer brand Guardian would be a good choice. They also test themselves (once a week normally) so you'll know if there are problems.
If you go for a cheap solution, just be mindful of all the gotchas. Make sure to test it, make sure to keep fresh fuel around, and if you need to use sensitive devices, make sure there is something cleaning up the power for them unless you are ok if they get burnt up. It might not be a problem, the generator might produce nice clean power and/or the device might have a power supply that doesn't care at all, but then it might end up killing something.
For about $18,000 including install (more than a generator, but provides reduction in costs all year) I did the following:
1. About 1300 watts of passive solar panels
2. A rather nice Outback inverter/charge controller with enough spare capacity for another 1300 watts if panels drop in price
3. Enough deep cycle batteries to last a day or two without sun
This can (and does) power:
1. My furnace blower (we have gas heat)
2. A refrigerator
3. The kitchen, for whatever we want to plug in within reason (no microwaves!)
4. Lights in a bedroom.
It's been in operation about 18 months and has done very well through multiple outages.
I live in Scotland, you insensitive clod.
Generac (http://www.generac.com/Default.aspx) sells complete packages ready to install as well as discrete units and transfer switches. I have one of their 15KW air cooled LNG/Propane generators (only in my case it is for power outages caused by Hurricanes). Very easy to install, mount their transfer panel next to your main breaker panel and transfer some of the loads from the main panel to the generator panel. The unit WON'T run your entire house, but you can put the most important circuits under backup.
If you have piped in LNG this is the way to go. Otherwise you need to bury a 250 to 1000 gal propane tank in the backyard.
The choice of fuel for generator use would be LNG, Propane, Diesel, and Gasoline (in that order).
Gasoline has the shortest 'shelf life' and is the most difficult to store (ask your fire department!).
Diesel fuel can last for years with the right additives and can power your car (if you have a diesel car). Diesel engines will also run on JetA (live near an airport?), home heating oil (filter it first!), bio-diesel (rob your nearby McDonalds of their used french fri oil!), even Kerosene. If you buy diesel fuel for generator use make sure you fill out the required paperwork so you don't have to pay the road taxes on the fuel. You can store diesel in the same kind of tanks that home heating oil is stored in.
Car Generator
Eschew Obfuscation
We had the same problem a last year with an ice storm knocking power out for days. Fortunately we had the foresight to buy a generator. Ours is a 6000 watt portable gas model we found on sale at a local home improvement store ($600 I think) I did the wiring myself (not an expert but I can make sparks when I want) All I did was put a 220V breaker in the junction box in one of our outbuildings and ran a piece of four wire romex to a male twist lock plug. To power the entire farm I simply throw the main switch disconnecting us from the utility at the pole (MANDATORY you don't want to fry some poor utility worker when they are trying to repair what should be a dead line) start the generator, plug the wire into the 220v outlet and turn on the breaker. Viola 6k watts runs our furnace, lights, well pump and cattle waterer; that's all we really need. This is not up to "code" but works very well and costs less that $50
If I had to do it over again I would have just used an inverter plugged into the cigarette lighter of my car and left the car running. For one thing in my case, where we lived had hardly any trees to blow onto the lines so we never experienced an outage the entire time up there (yay Manitoba Hydro!!). My generator still sits in the box never used after 10 years. Another thing is the gas tank on my car is much larger than the small tank on the generator. Inverters for cars are also much cheaper.
Obviously this will not work on a large scale, or when you are not home, but it is probably the cheapest solution.
Cautious note - not been adequately tested yet...
The main thing I was always worried about was heat. Enough to keep from freezing, bursting pipes, etc. We have a finished basement, so my wife and I had a high-efficiency, sealed natural gas fireplace insert installed.
The pilot stays on, but we got a model that can ignite without power (it uses 4xAA batteries in its control unit). It also has a blower that doesn't seem to take much power - aka low enough that it can run off an inverter if I run an extension cord to the car outside.
We tested this briefly when the furnace went out briefly while I diagnosed what the issue was, albeit the power was still on (turned out the air intake was blocked by snow). It's adequate to keep the basement quite comfortable, and the rest of the house just above freezing (candles can help add a little extra heat too).
I know it seems quaint but my main worry is staying warm enough to survive in such an emergency, and keep the pipes from freezing. We have a barbeque that could serve as our cooking appliance in the meantime. I use it year-round regardless, so it's always in working condition and ready to go.
A generator would be nice in the future, but at the moment when money's a bit tight, seems like a bit of overkill.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
i was without power for 36 hours and we have a 5000 watt generator with 2x 120 volt plugs and 2 220volt. ur best option is get an external plug like in garage for 220 volt so you can hook the generator up and it will provide power to the whole house. NOW keep in mind you have to watch how much you run cause say you got a well and a water pump that can draw quite a bit, in our case its a 220volt so, then you got fridges and etc. when you do run the generator using a male to male plug you have to turn off the main on your power box so the power you get form the generator is not sent out on the lines to other house's.
There's two ways: the "emergency only" way and the fancy everything automatic way.
#1: Any gas generator with a 240/120v twist lock outlet plus one of those 6 to 10 circuit generator transfer switches. The transfer switch has rocker switches on it and you pick your favorite circuits that you want to run on the generator during an outage. It wires in next to your breaker box - no need to run new wire anywhere. They usually have watt meters on them, too. When the power goes out, plug the generator into the transfer switch, fire it up, and switch the circuits to emergency. Get a generator in the 5 to 10 kW range. Cheap and effective, but the downside is you have to start it manually, and most portable units you can find run on unleaded gas. Make sure you run the generator at least once a month or you'll be in a world of hurt when you need it the most and it doesn't want to start.
#2: The fancy automated way. Get one of those Generac whole-house units. They have automatic transfer switches that completely bypass the utility feed and run the whole panel. When the power goes out it auto-starts and auto-transfers. They automatically start to exercise every week, too. These will probably be special order and definitely more expensive, but well worth it if you frequently have extended power outages with crappy weather and you don't want to go outside to fire up the generator. They can run on natural gas or propane. Get at leat a 10kW unit.
Either way you go use a transfer switch that wires into your breaker panel. It's much easier than running new wire or extension cords everywhere, especially when the power is out and you just want to get the damn thing running.
this is my sig
breaks down about this way... a natural gas or LP or diesel generator with line-down starter (generac is the most widely known) starts about $2000. you will need a concrete pad poured and fuel supply cut in, as well as a conduit underground to the house, that's about another grand.
wire in a transfer switch so there can be no question of reverse energizing of the power line, the transfer box is vastly overpriced at $400 for a simple multi-breaker thing and a couple grand or more for a whole-house breaker for the main feed to the home.
electrician expenses will chew up a few hundred bucks. call it $500 to pull the lines you want to protect and run them to the transfer box.
tank and fuel if you went the diesel route or LP route takes it anywhere from $4000 to $5000.
if you can handle hands-on, avoid the "use two breaker panels" nonsense, it's not possible to do that and meet electrical and criminal code requirements that you be unable to back-feed the power line and kill the guys working to restore power. you will have to terminate the lines you need to transfer in junction boxes, have SO cable with twist-lok connectors coming out, and these plug into either color-coded twist-lok receptacles in a junction box either from the breaker panel, or the feed from a bulkhead conduit/box that brings in the power from the twist-lok on the standalone construction generator you buy for about a grand.
electrician costs and parts will kill the rest.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Use your car! What do you mean you're not driving a Prius?
A blog I frequently read had a recommendation of this automatic natural gas fired system. http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003428.php As for regular generators Honda is one of the most reliable in the business. I see more and more fire stations using their power equipment. My Mom's house lost power for two weeks during the Maine ice storm of 98. It was a pricey choice but in those situations you can not skimp on something that needs to be nearly 100% reliable.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
Don't buy a generator, just buy a ticket and fly somewhere warm.
You need at a minimum a 5000 kw generator to run fridge, freezer, lights, and blower. You may could even run an electric water heater by itself. Since you are not familiar with electrical wiring, find a licensed electrician to install a transfer switch with a receptical to hook up the generator.
First, don't completely rule out batteries. Rather than have the big generator running all the time, it can be better to run it every few hours to heat the house and recharge the batteries, and run the router/light/laptop off of the inverter. If you know which end of a soldering iron to use, you will do much better by buying batteries and an inverter than by buying a UPS, and you'll save money when it is time to replace the batteries.
Second, choose the right fuel. Gasoline is common and plentiful, but dangerous to store in quantity and a royal pain to extract from the gas tanks of modern cars, and that gas station down the street is often a lot harder to get to when you need your generator. Propane is common in rural areas, but essentially impossible to refill during a blizzard. If you heat with oil, it makes a lot of sense to get a generator that can run off of oil.
If you do store gas, buy an can of Stabil and use it.
Electric start is nice, but really increases the cost of the generator. And even if you test it weekly, it seems to fail when you need it.
Last time I checked, the Honda generators were much quieter than the cheaper ones. After days of operation, this does matter.
The dangerous, low-cost installation is to just get a male-male 'suicide' cord. Turn off the main, and all the circuits you don't want to power. Use the cord to connect the generator to a 240V socket (maybe the dryer, going out through a window), and turn on that breaker and the breaker for the circuit(s) you want to power. If the hazards aren't obvious, then this probably isn't for you.
The hazard of non-approved installations is that if you power the line to your house, it will may go the wrong-way through the transformer, and charge the line the repairman is working on to 13 kV. But only if there isn't so much load on the line that your generator gives up first, which is what usually happens when you forget to disconnect the main. (I've never accidentally tried to power my neighborhood, but my neighbors have.)
The problem with the cheap 'installation' is that you don't have an easy way to tell when the power has been restored. You can end up running your generator for hours before you look out the window and see that your neighbors house has the outside lights on...
2ndly if you do use a male-to-male to plug in to a wall outlet to get power in ur house, DO NOT use a plug with a GFI it don't allow power to go that way
Disclaimer: Electricity is dangerous, and can kill you. I am not an electrician. I am a slashdot poster.
The short answer for going-off grid: Buy lots of solar panels, which don't work as well here in SE Michigan (WTF is with you calling Michigan the "Northeast"?) in the winter time, but may be enough to get you by in conjunction with a good sized battery bank, and be prepared to significantly change the way you use electricity.
As for the short / halfass way most of us deal with generator usage: Backfeeding (which isn't always regarded as the safest / smartest thing to do, since there are always idiots out there that will screw it up)
-Go to your breaker box, shut off the main breaker or breakers (the ones at the top of your box that say "Main".)
Congratulations, your house is now just a giant circuit of wires, not connected to the grid.
-Shutoff any and all non-essential breakers, especially those connected to heavy draws (You're not going to run your electric stove unless you've got a beefy generator). You may just want to kill everything, then try individual breakers on over time.
-Fire up your generator. If your 401k is where mine is now, you may want to do this indoors, in a confined space....If breathing is a priority for you (pussy), do this outside, a reasonable distance from your house.
-Using a heavy gauge extension cord (Not a "move a lamp" cord, think "run a heavy appliance / machine" cord), plug in to a nearby outlet.
Congratulations, you are now "backfeeding" your house off the generator. Instead of coming from the power lines, your electricity is coming in through an outlet. *DO NOT TURN YOUR MAIN BREAKERS ON!!!* One, Your poor generator will now try to power the entire grid, something that no dinky little 2500watt Honda can do and two, you will send power down a line that the poor DTE linesmen will / may assume is dead. Improper backfeeds can kill (and usually do a few times a year).
Now you try and figure out what "side" of your box is being feed (if you have a typical, grey box with switch type fuses in two columns. If you have glass fuses in a quaint old house....call an electrician and move out. Oi). The breakers on the same side as the circuit your generator is plugged in to will now have power. If it's on the same side as your furnace, you can turn the furnace breaker on and, hopefully, the furnace should kick on and begin heating the house. If your furnace is on the other side as your power source, you can move the power line to an outlet that is on the same side, or plug in another extension cord from your generator to an outlet on the same side.
Once power returns to your area simply shut down your generator, unplug your cords, then turn your main breaker back on.
You have to prioritize what's important to you for power. Furnace and sump pump are your musts, and a sump pump can put out a very heavy load for a very short time, causing a brownout. Ditto a Refrigerator. After that, its your call based on what the generator will power. You can try to power your whole house on a 2000 watt generator, and the generator will run. You'll also kill the generator and probably damage your major appliances. Bigger the generator, the more you can power, and the greater the cost. Honda is the Sony of the Generator market. Generally quality stuff, but you'll pay for it.
You'd also do well to investigate your electrical box and spend a day labeling every breaker and determining what you have running on each circuit. (lest you find out that a cheap alarm clock shorted out while you were on vacation, causing a breaker to pop, and that breaker was the same circuit your sump pump is on, which explains why your basement is now a swimming pool.) When I moved it, my box had two labels "Furnace" and "stove", now all 22 circuits are labeled, and I've been putting together a diagram that covers every outlet in the house.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
it seems generators now have run-timers that turn them off to remind you to change the oil and filter. so you are going to have to go out every three to five days, shut the bugger down anyway, and change it.
our company had a tower full of engineers who never get dirty, so they didn't know it, so we turned up a bunch of remote stuff on generator while waiting for local power companies to run us underground service. yeah, you guessed it, every few days a wave of failure tickets.
engineered reliability... not.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Some utilities offer a device that goes between the meter and the house and has a plug for a portable generator (meter socket transfer switch). This is a nice way to get a generator plug and transfer switch, but is usually limited to 30A and most utilities rent them (which is expensive).
Some panel manufacturers (Square-D's QO line) offer an interlock kit. This permits one to install a backfeed breaker for the generator in a particular location (for QO it is top right in a 200A panel) and comes with a mechanical interlock so that both the mains and the backfeed breaker cannot be on at the same time (thereby protecting linemen).
Make sure your mains switch is double throw; some just open the live side. If this is the case, the guy who is trying to patch your power lines back together will die when you fire up your generator. Power companies get snarky about householders killing their staff.
[FUCK BETA]
... I object to your insistent and endless efforts to drive my home value down and to give hypothermia to my cat.
1 Wood stove will do you just fine for keeping things warm from a survivability stand point. Several exotic solutions are also radiant heat setups with the woodstove as part of the fluid line (in short rather then using electricity to heat the radiant heat the wood stove does.) I've seen that setup in several garages in the floors (some very nice crude ones too in the middle of nowhere for storage sheds.) Usually there is a sterling engine style pump that is integrated to help move the fluid.
In a long term emergency go into the garage and get your camping tent. Set up the tent in basement of the house (use soup cans or other weights instead of spikes. I use bungie cords to some unfinished studs.(most homes freeze top-down fyi) Place 3-4 blankets and towels down as a floor in the tent. Grab some scrap 2x4s and nail up a pair of V shaped legs with a beam connecting them and build a small mini-tent inside the tent. Place blankets on top of that so you have a mini-tent inside for sleeping. Place any pets inside the main tent. This should keep the air temperature comfortable (sometimes even hot) in weather up to -20 degrees (your house is a big wind barrier.) turn off the water to the house and drain pipes. Wait for help.
Pipes freezing you should shut em off and bleed em empty if possible. A single wood stove in most homes will keep the ambient temp above freezing with little problem.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
It won't solve your power problem, but opening up one or two taps enough to keep a steady drip will help decrease the likelihood of the pipes bursting. Here in the Pacific Northwest, local authorities were officially recommending this during the recent freeze.
As for the generator, go with natural gas or propane; don't bother screwing around with portable gasoline generators. If you do insist on gasoline, I've been told that the more recent "invertor generators" (i.e., the ones without a flywheel) are quieter and cleaner burning although somewhat more expensive. But you really want something permanent and transparent, and a portable isn't going to be powerful enough to run your fridge and your furnace anyway.
Any little portable one hand carry generator will power the furnace fan, a fridge and a light bulb. Some extension leads are needed and do leave the genny outside the house. You can get these at RV supply stores for a few hundred bucks. Considering how seldom you will use it, spending ten grand on a permanent setup is probably not justified and the genny may be nice for (noisy neighbour annoying) camping too.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
This is fairly unsafe...but it will work in a pinch.
This was suggested by an electrician to keep the house from freezing about 5 Christmases ago.
Turned off all of the breakers and the main...it would be bad to fry the lineman.
Picked up a 5500 watt generator, put it under the outside porch roof. Got heavy gauge wire, got the one end plugged into the 220v output of the generator. (Here is where it gets dangerous) got a male electric dryer plug and hooked it to the other end of the cable. Plugged that end into the dryer outlet. Tie-wrapped the heck out of this plug to the wall box.
Fired up the generator and turned on a few breakers to the furnace and water pump and a few outlets.
Yes, I know it would be bad if the main were turned on, yes I know it would be bad if it came unplugged and the male plug were exposed. This was only in a pinch and two weeks later got the same electrician back to hook up a break out box and do it the right way.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
The gas fireplace, gas range, and gas hot water heater keep us warm, comfortably fed and clean during extended power outages and are useful otherwise. The fireplace I installed has a convective loop heat exchanger/chamber surrounding the fire box and most of the heat flows into the room. When the power's on, it has an optional blower that improves its efficiency to over 80%. My wife really likes having a lit fireplace. Animals and humans alike gather around and bake them selves to their toasty delight, regardless of the presence of electricity.
Much better, safer and easier than running wire to dedicated outlets (under the house, thru/inside walls etc)
Check out the book Emergency Power for Radio Communications. It is really more about emergency power for your home, as it helps you determine what size electrical supply you'll need and then discusses different ways to generate power.
Because iPhones have such a long battery life, and because the AT&T network is so reliable in a power outage.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Do not be tempted to run to Home Depot and cobble together a "dead man's plug". You might think that you will perform all steps (open main breaker, plug in cord, start genny) in the right order, but Murphy, and the fact that you will most likely be performing these steps in the snow, in darkness, means you, your spouse, or your child could be killed.
You can choose to go manual transfer or automatic. The difference will add around $3K to the total. Pour a pad, and have a fixed installation generator installed. These will run on natural gas or propane.
If you must use propane, be aware that you will need a much larger than usual tank, because it must supply a sufficient quantity of vapor, not liquid, and at NE winter temperatures, that requires a lot of headspace in the tank.
Fixed-installation systems usually use an automatic transfer switch, and often include an "exerciser" function that will run the generator for 10-20 minutes every week or two.
There are a few "portable" generators that can also run on NG/Propane, but be aware that these are practically impossible to start with a pull cord, so require an electric starter and the battery to go with it. The logistics of supplying propane, and having adequate exhaust for a portable NG genny makes them fairly impractical.
Regardless of the generator:
Have a competent electrician install the transfer switch (auto or manual); At that time, make a survey of your electrical use, and have the electrician add a sub-panel. Move the circuits that are required for safety and comfort (furnace, refrigeration, well pump if applicable, some indoor and outdoor lighting, and a few outlets in convenient locations for things like recharging laptops/phones and watching TV) to the subpanel. These are all that should be fed by the genny. High-draw electric appliances (clothes dryers, electric stoves, water heaters) should be left out.
Size the generator based on the starting current of your fridge and your furnace combined (because Murphy will insist that they try to start at the same time, stalling the generator).
--Gene
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
After the 2007 to 2008 ice storms around St. Louis knocked out power for almost a week I opted for a temporary solution involving a portable gas generator.
I picked up a Kipor 3000 watt open frame inverter style generator relatively cheap from Amazon. The regulation is not quite good enough to support sensitive electronics during large load changes (like a furnace blower) but I have a couple of online UPSes for that. I am in the process of building a wheeled enclosure for it to provide weather protection and sound deadening. It also needs a charger for the starter battery.
I built a phase splitter (early picture here and it weighs more than 100 pounds) to covert the generator's 120 volt output to split phase 240 volts and added a temporary transfer switch in my basement next to the circuit breaker panel. Just for kicks, I picked up a pair of 20 amp AC current meters which look like they belong in a nuclear power station.
I already added a weather proof feedthrough to the basement so that the generator can be operated outside while feeding the phase splitter inside via a heavy duty 10 gauge extension cord.
Eventually I will hire an electrician to mount a real transfer switch outside next to the power meter so line crews have access and know the situation.
I live ~30 miles north of Houston, Texas, and we got pounded by Hurricane Ike. The worst part of the storm was the wind, with sustained speeds around 90-100 MPH and gusts around 110-120 MPH. The power was out in our neighborhood for at least 4 days. (I can't remember exactly how long, just that it felt like a long time) Fortunately, the outage didn't really affect us that much as we had a 2000 watt Honda EU2000iA generator. You might think that 2000 watts isn't enough power to be useful, but not so. It was enough to continuously run the refrigerator/freezer, enough to run the microwave, enough to continuously run several fans, and enough to continuously run all our computers. We didn't have to stock up on much gas as this line of generators has a great and indispensable feature which Honda calls "Eco-Throttle". Basically, the generator monitors the load put on it and and sets the engine speed accordingly. This means that most of the time the generator is running in a very low gas consumption state and is very quite -- we had it on our backyard patio and all you could hear was a low murmur. What's even better is that you can daisy-chain these generators for more power. They come in 1000-6500 watt versions, all with the Eco-Throttle feature. Other than having to string heavy-duty power cords throughout our house, we had no problems. I'd highly recommend one of these -- best bang for your buck.
jdb2
causes a power outage, keeping food cold is probably the least of your concerns, so remove the fridge from your list.
If you need a strictly regulated temperature for something like insulin. Buy a small emergency unit.
Get camping gear, set up in one room. Include a small tent. The smaller the better. Drape a blanket over it if you can.
Get battery lamps. Have some board game ready.
Right there, you can live, no generator.
Another tip: Get an incandescent bulb and solar panals and a battary. Use the bulb to generate heat in the tent. shouldn't need this except in the most extrene condition.
During the day, find something physical to do for about 20 minutes every couple of hours. You will stay warm.
You can rig your phone outlets and tap there power for some small bulbs for a little additional light. When you eyes adjust, it's enough light to move around.
If you want to live your current lifestyle when the power goes out, you will need an industry level desiel generator. These need to be maintained and aren't cheap.
Get a few RV solar panels, learn about them and you will at least have some comforts.
In fact, look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=173owKST-w4&feature=related
You can have heat during the day with some aluminum cans a box and a solar fan.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sorry to be Captain Safety, but I just want to point out the obvious: 1. Be very careful when using a generator - they produce lots of carbon monoxide and kill several people a year. Don't run them in an attached garage - even with the door open. 2. Only a qualified electrician should make the kind of wiring changes that are required to add a generator to a house electrical system. The building code requirements are complex, but more importantly, the potential for a fire that would burn down your house is very real. Personally, I'd rather go without electricity for a few days than either die from carbon monoxide poisoning or have my house burn down. Enough with the doom and gloom - adding a generator to a house electrical system is done frequently and generally isn't exceptionally complicated. It's worth it to hire an experienced, licensed, insured electrical contractor to do it right.
We have a fairly large camp in the adirondacks of northern new york where we lose power 2-3 times per month. We installed a 10,000 watt continuous propane generator that runs the whole place and switches on in 30 seconds (15 second make sure power is off, 15 second warm up). I looked at doing this myself and it was around $4000 for all the parts I would need. Installed it was $5000. It uses about 1.25 gallons of propane every hour under full load and is hooked right into our 1000 gallon propane tank. We did a 5 year service contract where the guy stops by once a month, changes the oil if needed, tests the system, etc. It has been worry free and worked flawlessly over the last 3 years. Power goes out, wait 30 seconds, power is back on. You can do this yourself, but for a little more money it can be a pretty painless procedure for a few thousand...our old 5,000 watt generator had to be started by hand and flip a few breakers, yea it was cheaper, but trust me, its worth every penny to have it auto start.
neorush
Of course this would be moderated down to dumb.
Why live in the hills of Cailifornia when you know there is a 50% chance you may loose your house to wild fires?
Why live in the desert where you can't grow any food?
Why live in a state where the winters are harsh?
I guess there are numerous reasons, plenty of good reasons and real reasons.
How about putting yourself and your familiy in the position to win?
I left the cold North 20 years ago and not one regret. No Wild fires to worry about. No extreme teperature changes to worry about.
Plenty of work because I have a resession proof job.
Now I just got to work on getting off the grid and start using propane and proane acessories. The government and those mis managed utility companies are not there to serve you. Customer service is just a slogan.
If you don't feel like spending $8K or $10K for a house sized unit to handle the once every 5 or 10 year multi-day outage, a 2KW generator will power your fridge, all your computer gear (unless you have a rack full of stuff), and a bunch of lights via extension cords. Modern fridges are well enough insulated that you only need to power them up for about 30 min every 3 or 4 hours, even less frequently when it's cool inside.
I can run our fridge off a 1KW Honda Eu1000 generator. It's quite portable, so I can use it for occasions other than the very infrequent outages at the house.
You will also want your generator to be quiet so it doesn't annoy you and your neighbors (and attract troublemakers.) The cheap generators you buy at auto stores are loud and poorly regulated, OK to run tools or lights but bad for your computers, and will not make you any friends if you take them camping.
You'll need something truly large and expensive (10+KW) to run heating or air conditioning for a whole house.
And you will, of course, test the generator monthly to make sure it works when you need it, right?
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
The proposed solutions are nice but you can do something workable for much less money. My solution, which I've implemented, involves more work when the power fails but saves a lot of money.
All you really need to power are the furnace blower and fridge, and they need power only part of the time. You can use LED flashlights for light and a battery powered or 12V DC TV and radio.
For perhaps $100 you can get a 700W inverter that clips into your car battery and provides about 5 amps. That will run a small TV and your computer. You can get smaller inverters for less money. These inverters will not power serious motors, such as probably, your furnace blower. Indeed, they may damage a motor that uses them.
Details: These inverters produce a seriously non-sine wave with about 30% harmonics. The harmonics turn into heat in the motor. Also the inverter may not be able to supply the startup current, which might be over 3x the running current.
Another problem with inverters is that their non-sine wave is said to be bad for small AC-DC power supplies for battery chargers etc. I have not explored the meaning of "bad" since I have no spare power supplies to destroy.
To power my furnace blower, I got a 2000W Honda generator for about $900. Note that the 2000W is a shorttime load, the continuous load is a lot smaller. The Honda, unlike cheaper generators produces a true sine wave. It can also supply a large starting current.
I paid an electrician to change my furnace from hardwired to plug in. So, if there's a power failure, I unplug the furnace from the wall and plug it into my generator, which I would run outside the house.
Advantage of my solution: It costs $1200 and I have a portable generator and inverters I could take other places.
Disadvantages: It's not automatic; I have to refill the generator, etc. etc.
2ndly if you do use a male-to-male to plug in to a wall outlet to get power in ur house, DO NOT use a plug with a GFI it don't allow power to go that way
DON'T FUCKING USE A MALE TO MALE PLUG TO POWER YOUR HOUSE YOU FUCKING IDIOT! Everyone one in this thread is discussing just why it's such a bad idea to power your house without cutting your mains power. You sir are a giant fucking idiot! /rant
A certified electrician is who you need to hook this up. If you are going to doing this work yourself then you should be prepared to show the insurance company your electricians papers when you launch into a live system effectively creating a electrical storm and an arc of electricity that can kill you, your loved ones, and burn your home down in a flash.
I live in the North East, and I realize that these things happen. Don't blame the power utility for your misfortune. You are living in one of the more harshest climates in the world (and it does have its advantages -- though most of those are when you live in the sticks and can do whatever the hell you want).
If you have access to a wood stove and some dry hardwood then that would be enough to keep your home warm. Another thing is letting your taps drip which should keep enough water moving in the mainline that your pipes don't freeze. If you have a hot water based furnace then you have other issues since that is a closed system but can also be bled if you know what you are doing.
And on a side note, thanks to DTE Energy for telling us we had power when we didn't, for losing the ticket for our neighborhood, for telling us it would be back every single day when it wasn't, and for the helpful DTE representative who warned us that our pipes might burst. Thanks
Many folks here are wary of anything government, saying that the private sector can always do the job better and cheaper than government, but Springfield IL's city government puts the lie to that. Our power plant, CWLP (third picture down is General Manager Mr. Burns... er, sorry, Todd Renfrow. He just looks like Mr. Burns) is owned by the city.
When two F-2 tornados destroyed most of the city's south end infrastructure in 2006 we didn't have any of the problems the submitter experienced with his private utility. Power was out for a week at the longest in the hardest hit areas; poles and lines and transformers and everything else had to be replaced. It was three weeks before the privately owned telcos got landlines working, and a month before Insight (since bought out) got my cable and internet back online.
A few months later and a hundred miles south a single F1 went through the St. Louis area, doing far less damage. The private company Ameren took over a month to get power restored to all its customers.
See, it's not government, but government's bureaucracy. The bureaucracy doesn't come from the fact that it's government, it comes from the fact that the bigger an organization, any orginazation, the more bureaucracy, the less customer service, the more the cost, and the shoddier the workmanship.
If I'm unhappy with my electric service I can vote for the Mayor's opponent the next election. If you're unhappy with your private electric company you're shit out of luck. You can't just go down the street and use a different power company, they have you by the balls and there's nothing whatever you can do about it (save getting a humungous generator).
Free Martian Whores!
kerosene heaters and kerosene are not that expensive.
Not entirely on-topic, but I read that the Northeast has a lot of potential to use ground-source heat pumps to reduce energy costs for heating (and probably cooling to a lesser extent). They have higher initial cost, but within 5 or 10 years (IIRC) they pay for themselves. Not to mention probably more environment-friendly.
If you don't want to schlep the generator in the rain or snow (that's when the power goes out!), spend the money and get an automatic transfer switch and a pad-mounted generator in a weatherproof box.
Understand the difference between prime power and backup power. You want backup power unless you're made of money. Air cooled means less maintenance and more reliability. Propane or natural gas fuel means you don't worry about feeding it (as long as the gas co. keeps your tank filled!).
Every time that thing kicks on, especially when I'm out of town, I'm glad I bought it. 'Cause if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
It's not rated to run a central A/C, (not enough starting inertia) but it runs ours just fine.
The hardware cost us $3000, and comes with clear instructions for installation. I'd suggest hiring a licensed electrician to install it, but if you know the code, knock yourself out.
You can download the installation drawings and review them before you buy.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Power went out around here about 3 hours ago due to high winds. The generac guardian propane generator kicked in automatically within 45 seconds and the entire house, including furnace, coffee maker, the server racks, both T1's, etc is operational. On 2 100 gallon propane tanks I've run the entire operation for up to 4 days. I cannot tell you how much this rocks.
I think I'll pour myself another cup of coffee. :)
All told the installed cost was about $5K including all the wiring, gas hookups, breaker panel and moving 12 of the house circuits over to the generator backed panel. The entire installation took only about 5 hours. I did, however, have existing propane tanks.
The generator, on propane, can put out 15Kw which is plenty to run a house even in the middle of a Washington DC summer with the AC running.
It senses commercial power and automatically starts the generator, which takes about 45 seconds all told to come online, and then switches the house over to generator power. Once commercial power comes back, the system switches to it and shuts down the generator after a cooldown period.
The generator runs a selftest for 12 minutes once a week.
More info:
http://yml.com/homepage.html?article_id=71
He can't. He's a boy in a man's body, and knows only how to sensationalize. Look at the tone of the Summary.
Your furnace blower is probably wired to a 15-amp, 120V dedicated circuit. The amperage depends upon the size of the system. When my parents' house was being constructed, the electrician "hotwired" the furnace blower to a heavy-duty extension cord and connected it to the temporary electrical service so that the house would be heated during construction. So, you could probably modify the furnace so that it plugs into a wall outlet (or generator), but this may violate some sort of code. Also, if you have a condensing furnace, you'll need power to the condensate drain pump.
Sent from my iPhone
We're talking CmdrTaco here. Fridge, MacBook, and vibrator.
I took a similar approach.
1. Wired a L14-30R into the main panel on a 30 amp breaker.
2. Made a male-male 10AWG extension cord.
The process in a power failure is:
1. Kill the main breaker to isolate the house from utility power.
2. Connect the generator to the main panel with the extension cord.
3. Fire up the generator.
When power comes back on:
1. Kill the generator.
2. Disconnect the extension cord.
3. Flip the main breaker on.
Obviously, there are some risks about having a male to male extension cord and potentially over-volting the panel if you fail to isolate from utility power, so a great deal of caution should be used. This was a "1-hour-to-implement solution", but if you have the time and money, a transfer switch (even just a manual one) is the way to go.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
I suggest a Briggs and Stratton standby generator. They are a higher quality unit than Generac. http://www.homegeneratorsystems.com/
The generator will cost about $3000, I installed one for an additional $500 in materials. Labor would probably be about $1000. You could do a gas furnace with a portable generator but the fuel and periodic testing would be difficult.
See posts about my experiences at http://installationexperiences.blogspot.com/2008/09/home-standby-generator-installation.html
Common thing along the gulf after the last few hurricanes and weeks without power is for people to install propane generators (which you can even order from lowes) if you live within an area that has it piped to you. Most expensive thing is usally the labor to have it installed with cutoffs, etc. I've seen total packages up to 15K that can run an entire house, A/C (we don't even have furnaces down here), washer, dryer, you name it. But I'm sure if you could get a smaller one and only connect it to certain circuits in your house, again labor would be the big cost if you want it professionally done, which I reommend if you want it to automatticaly start vs just dealing with extension cords. I've always had pretty big commercial grade UPSs that I put any computer equipment on, most generators just don't run clean enough for a pc power supply
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
Get a generator with a 220 3 or 4 prong outlet.
TURN OFF YOUR MAIN SERVICE BREAKER!
Buy or make a male to male cable to go from the generator 220 outlet into your dryer 220 outlet. Or add a 220 outlet near the panel or wherever is convient to run the cable outside.
You will backfeed the entire house thru the 220 outlet thru the breaker panel and out into the rest of your home.
Its a simple setup that works great for occasional use. Your max power is limited by the dryer circut breaker, often 40-60amp. You can have heat, tv, fridge and the other 24 hour items running. Along with enough for a few lights, water pump ect...
DO NOT store your extra gasoline near the generator.
DO NOT run the generator inside.
DO NOT fill the generator tank while its hot.
The other simple solution is to have a natural gas/propane/diesel generator added to your system with a transfer switch. This will cost alot more tho.
OK, I need someone smarter than me to tell me why the link doesn't work, but if I cut'n'paste the same URL into a new tab it works fine. Maybe they don't allow deep linking...
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
You want a cheap genny that will power your whole house? Check out the local hospital and nursing home surplus yards. Also check out goberment surplus too. My aunt and uncle located a surplus genny at a nursing home that had closed. I think they paid about 2500 bucks for it. It runs off a 250 gallon propane tank.
The thing won't just run a few appliances, it will run the whole fucking house and the one next door. I think they said it would run for 2 or 3 weeks on one load of gas.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
The bigger the generator the higher the fuel consumption. I have a 1700 and a 5000 (both cheap generators) the 1700 uses 4gallons a day with 1/2 load (or less) on it, that generator will spin up my furnace and basic lights, and a small refrig. The larger generator needs about 12gallons of fuel a day at 1/2 load or less, so obtaining fuel in these outages can be a real issue for the larger generators. I have a big lawn so typically have 20 or so gallons, but with the bigger generators that is only a 1-2 days.
If you want cheap, make sure everything you need to power is plugged in (convert the furnace blower to be a plug in), and make sure you have enough heavy and long enough extension cords to run outside to were the generator is to power what you need to power.
Some of the really expensive generators have better fuel consumption, but they cost a lot more.
I ran on the little 1700 w generator for almost a week during a ice storm outage, and I was able to keep the furnace/electric blankets and some basic lights (cfl's) running for the entire time. Also check to see how often the generator needs to be filled with fuel.
Get a diesel generator - since you have home heating oil, you can run the generator from fuel in your tank (same stuff) and thus pretty much outlast anything other than the apocalypse.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I have a 6500 watt portable generator that runs diesel. An electrician charged about $1000 to put in a transfer switch - legally - to the power box. (I know that's expensive, but I also know it's done correctly to code as it was permitted inspected by the State.) The generator runs hot water, plus all lights, microwave, electronics, etc. It will NOT run the heat pump or the oven/range or the drier, but everything else works, literally. The generator burns about half a gallon an hour. I have a 240 gallon tank full (usually) of biodiesel along with a Duramax truck which holds another 34 gallons. Of course, you take your chances with either of those being 100% full during an outage, but I figure with frugal use I can get by about six weeks at the minimum and twice that at the maximum.
1) Better have surge suppressors -- good ones -- on all electronics. Only the more expensive generators have compensators on them which regulate the voltage within tolerances expected by stuff like computers.
2) I would NOT put an auto start on a generator, myself, for fear it would start up when I was not at home. In my opinion, home generators need personalized attendance to regulate what is on and off. You don't want to waste fuel.
3) depending on how you're set up, the furnace fan idea might work if the furnace heat source is not electric, but I've chosen a wood stove which is capable of heating most of the downstairs rather than waste heat upstairs where it isn't really needed. I keep a cord of wood back and I can always steal wood from my neighbors. :-)
Just my opinion FYI. My system works pretty well for me. No real complaints.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Ok, first off I work for Kentucky Utilities, the electric provider for a good part of (wait for it).... Kentucky. ROUTERS, LAPTOPS AND LIGHTBULBS ARE NOT NECESSITIES. If they are, I can't imagine how you and others in this country would function in life if an EMP went off. Anyways, yes, generators are good to have and I would suggest getting one for instances like this. But DO NOT go blaming the electric company every time your power goes out. Trust me, I've been through my share of storms and outages and power companies do EVERYTHING in their power to restore YOUR power ASAP.
Answered my own post - the link is here.
There was a typo in the original.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Since you say: "I know nothing about this sort of thing" the first thing you need to do is ignore the all talk, no action, know-it-all crew here and instead hire a licensed electrician. Much of what has been suggested by others is unsafe and/or illegal.
If you bothered to read the grandparent, he specifically noted that you'd need to cut the main breaker in your panel to avoid backfeeding the grid.
Let's see here... 1000 gallons of compressed liquefied propane at about $2.55/gallon delivered (local Texas prices, some parts of the US it costs nearly $4/gallon delivered) equals $2550! Ouch.
How long does a tankful last in your house?
A buddy of mine who built a new house on Lake Travis near Austin, TX runs his house's water heaters, furnace, cooking stove and clothes dryer on a buried 250 gallon propane tank and he has to fill it about every 6-8 weeks in the coldest winter months. That seems more expensive than natural gas or a total electric house.
I guess Hank Hill must be enjoying that brand new red Ford Super Duty pickup truck, eh?
if you can handle hands-on, avoid the "use two breaker panels" nonsense, it's not possible to do that and meet electrical and criminal code requirements that you be unable to back-feed the power line and kill the guys working to restore power.
Actually the "use two breakers" method can be completely safe, legal, and up to code if you use a generator interlock kit according to http://www.interlockkit.com/. I've done a little research and so far it seems legitimate.
Essentially it's a piece of metal that creates a mechanical interlock so that your main breaker and generator breaker can physically never both be on at the same time. You have the main and generator breaker in the same panel and now can safely backfeed into your panel. To keep it legal, you hook the generator breaker up to a 240/120V locking outlet (i.e., no male-male suicide cords).
It seems kind of silly that they charge $150 for a piece of metal, but this solution allows you to hook up your entire panel (instead of choosing 6 circuits available on a typical manual transfer switch) and seems much cheaper than a full transfer-switch panel/setup.
I work for a company that installs whole home generators. They range in size, but get up there pretty high. The cost obviously varies with the size. We install Guardian Generac generators. Check out this site: http://www.generac.com/Products/Residential/AirCooled/AirCooled.aspx. The advantage to a whole home generator is that it does not require you to refuel it. It ties right into your natural gas line and creates power from that. It also does not require you to do anything. Power goes out, generator starts up, transfer switch moves to generator power, lights come back on. It's that easy. I would recommend this option over any portable method becuase of the reliability and easibility it provides.
John DeArmond has a good article on his site about the $100 1KW Chinese-made generators sold at Northern Tool.
http://www.johndearmond.com/2008/12/24/the-generator-that-could/
Enjoy,
OZ
enough is too much
There are 2 ways to do this that won't get you slapped by your code enforcement officer.
1. Portable generator with a manual transfer switch
2. Standby Generator with a manual or automatic transfer switch.
You ALWAYS want to use a transfer switch, because it's both required by code, and it is a much safer and efficient system. The transfer switch lives between your main load center and your fixtures. It ensures that only 1 source of electricity can be used at any time, and eliminates the possibility to backfeed electricity from your house to the grid. Manual vs. Automatic is determined by if you want to turn the generator on and transfer power yourself, or if you want it to happen automatically, along with financial concerns. An automatic system will cost 2-3 times as much as a manual system.
A standard portable generator can be purchased at a local home supply store or hardware store, along with the transfer switch. To figure out a size, look at the energy ratings on your appliances, looking at the watts, and add them. A 5500 watt generator can run the furnace, well, and lighting in an average size house with little difficulty. These units typically run off gas, but you can get units that run on LP or diesel.
If you want a more trouble free solution, you could go with a standby generator with an automatic transfer switch. These units will, upon sensing a power failure, automatically start the generator and transfer your load to the generator. This way, in a minute or two after the power outage, you have emergency power to your house. You would size these units in the same way as the portables, but they will be more readily available in larger capacities (10-30Kw). These units typically run off LP, Natural Gas or Diesel.
Some things to consider:
1. Fuel consumption. These generators, especially the perminant mount standby kind use a large quantity of fuel, even if your not powering much of anything. This is a big point for extended outages that may last a number of days. If you connect it to use natural gas, don't be shocked when you get that months bill and it's much larger than your used to. Another point for Diesel and LP is to make sure you have a large enough fuel tank to handle outages. You want to make sure you have enough fuel to hold you over until more can be delivered or purchased.
2. Noise. These things do not run quietly, but the portables are much louder than the perminant units. This is mostly due to the enhanced exhaust system and sound-insulated enclosure on the fixed units. Another point to consider is the RPM of the unit, which is also a large factor in noise. Many units run at 3600RPM using a 2-pole stator. Other units run at 1800RPM using a 4-pole stator. It's the difference of having a lawn mower or a car outside your window.
3. Local Zoning Laws. Some areas have air quality and noise pollution laws that may prohibit the use of generators which burn a certain type of fuel or may require additional exhaust fume processing. A call to the local zoning board would help in determining if anything additional is necessary.
4. Placement of the unit at your residence. You want to place the unit in an area that is well ventilated, and as close to your electrical panel as possible. If possible, do not place it outside of a room you wish to sleep in, because of the noise talked about above.
5. Maintenance of the unit is also important. Just like your lawn mower or car, the unit will require routine maintenance (oil changes, tune-ups, etc). So, you'll want to keep the unit accessible.
Your best bet is to talk to an electrician from your area, or check at a local electrical wholesaler to see what is available. In some areas, there are companies that specialize in installing emergency generation systems at hospitals and businesses, many also do residential installations, or will at least sell you the unit and an electrician can handle the rest.
I hope you find this information useful.
5500 watt at the minimum 7500 watt is better
You don't want to run your laptop off of the gennie, you want to get 4 6 volt golf cart batteries run 2 in series then run the 2 pairs in parallel.
Then get an inverter to convert the 12 volt to 110.
Charge the batts with the gennie using a trickle charger
On a 7500 watt (7.5 Kw) you get...
7500 watts / 115 volts = 65 Amperes of juice
Most homes have a 200 Amp main breaker
Then you get an external weather proof box
Wire it into a 60 Amp 220 breaker in the main (if its outside)
with an appliance plug.
You then get a #8 wire extension cord about 30-50 foot long and plug it into the gennie
You have enough to power almost everything.
Just make sure you turn off the Main breaker prior to starting the gennie and turning on the 60 amp breaker or you will kill some poor lineman.
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
You can use a Toyota Prius to generate power enough to keep essentials operable.
I think that the first thing I would do is figure out what circuit breakers go to essential services (that you need in a cold weather power outage) and carefully label those fuses. Then run the power to your box with only those circuits hot.
This is not something you can just throw together, this is something you should get a licensed electrician to put together for you. The link to the article should tell any electrician what kind of power is coming off the Prius and that should give him ideas about how to set things up.
I highly recommend that your Prius have plenty of gasoline before you set it up as your generator. But this article suggests one person was able to supply his home with three days worth of power on five gallons of gasoline.
Of course you'll have to take the other car to work.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Go there. Ask for a generator and installation. Hand them your credit card or a check for $10-12k.
If you don't have natural gas, go to the local LP supplier and buy a 250 or 500 gallon tank and have them install it.
Done.
Seriously, unless you happen to have a very large electric demand, such as electric heat/heat pump (and it sounds like you don't), you can probably get by with a 17-20kW Generac automatic standby generator. That'll push close to 80A@240V, so as long as you're not running everything at once you can squeak by. The easy ones will even auto-cycle every week or two to keep them in running condition, and will automatically start and transfer power without you're ever needing to lift a finger. 500 gallons of LP will run this baby for 10 days... http://www.generac.com/Products/Residential/AirCooled/20KW.aspx
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
That's still relying on a human to do so. If you have the proper equipment, it's impossible to have both connected at once. That's how it should be done.
Creating a male-male power cable is an invitation to death. Darwin awards here we come.
Every year, people accidentally kill themselves with home generators. If you're going to use one, do not bring it indoors. Do not run it in the garage, even with the garage door open. I had mine outside and was still getting CO inside from it - turns out the generator must be a minimum of 10 feet away from the house, with the exhaust port pointed away. The next thing is, don't plug the generator wiring into your home electrical wiring. This will put juice back into the electric company's wires, and can electrocute the poor guy trying to repair the wires to your house. So, to use a generator, use extension cords with it. Make sure they are heavy duty ones, a lamp cord will fry. Let me emphasize heavy duty. At least 12 guage. Pay attention to how much amperage you're trying to draw through the cord and make sure it is heavy enough. You can hook it up to your home wiring system using a device called a "gentrans", which will isolate the generator from the power grid. You'll need a decent electrician to install one, but if your power goes out a lot, it's worth it.
They do call those things a suicide plug.
But, like anything else dangerous (surgical scalpels, firearms, industrial equipment, dynamite) it CAN be handled safely.
Just know what you are doing, and make sure not to screw up :P
you don't need to power a fridge during a power outage caused by a snowstorm, just put your groceries in you garage and they'll stay plenty cold, for frozen goods pack them in a ice chest filled with snow. Don't waste money on something that you don't need, get a geny that will provide power to heat and run lights in a winter storm.
These guys have a combination generator and furnace system. The water cooled engine provides heat for the house and the engine also drives a generator. It is pretty expensive but the system is really clever. http://www.freewatt.com/
That still allows a lot of room for mistakes.
;).
Doing it properly with a transfer switch makes it less likely for you to kill someone.
It's like if you're working on the propeller of a boat:
0) Make sure you have all the keys to start the boat in your pocket.
1) Put a big sticker over the keyhole explaining why the boat should not be started.
2) Try to make sure that other people know (and aren't drunk or something).
Because if stuff goes wrong, the water will be a bit redder than normal
A 5kw generator is fine for most purposes like this. Just be sure you flip off circuits to very heavy drain apps like an electric oven, airconditioner compressors etc. With 5kw, the power is sufficient to run a water pump, heater blower, lights, even one or two TV or computers. We have done this several times. You just must be sure to turn off main breaker before connecting dryer circuit to generator (any very high amp circuit will do; obviously you plug the patch cord from generator into the dryer socket unplugging dryer.) I recommend getting some #10 or heavier wire (#6 is ok too), putting appropriate sockets on each end and just keep it around. Be sure to run the generator every few months and drain gas line when not in use so it will start when you need it, and be sure the generator is never NEVER connected when the main breaker is on.
Disadvantage of this is you need to watch other houses or some such to tell when power is back on, else you can run for some time with your generator power when you could have reconnected to mains. Disconnect it in reverse order: power off generator, unplug the patch, replug the dryer if you like, THEN turn main breaker on.
As long as you understand what you are doing, and turn off the super drain items, this method works fine. Some neighbors with outdoor lights that you can glance at can be handy - when their lights come on, time to undo the generator. A tank of gas in generator runs ~8 hours for a Honda generator, so there is not a lot of urgency in switching back. Having enough power to run pumps if you are on well/septic is pretty important since toilets don't flush without it. This kind of setup is far more convenient than filling a bathtub with every storm coming and using buckets to bail water into toilets for flushing. Any recent technology generator will regulate well enough that computers and the like will be fine. Do NOT try this with an old mechanically regulated generator (where a mechanical speed governor is all that controls power) since that can surge to ~200 volts, enough to blow primaries of power transformers and possibly start fires in electronics. There are good reasons these things were not built like that.
If you can afford the prewired switches to avoid hand disconnecting main breaker, these are better. If of course you build a generator feed that would be on a switch where the house gets power either from generator OR the mains, but not both (a DPDT switch for both sides of the line) that would be safe also, just would again not tell you when mains power is back on. If you lose power only once or twice a year on average, and are careful and knowledgeable, the manual method is not too bad, even though the patch cable can be kind of a PITA to keep around (#6 wire does not bend or fold nicely).
...in a case of total power loss? (and even that after some time, with the rate of loss at 1F per day)
Granted, it's not really in line with gas-guzzling culture, but...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
One that hath name thou can not otter
Get over yourself you pampered suck.
Lots of us live with hurricanes and tropical storms EVERY SINGLE FUCKING YEAR and don't whine about it half as much as you.
WAH WAH WAH my lights are off WAH WAH my baby is going to die because I'm too stupid to have any sort of emergency heat available. Kerosene heater at home depot, 50 bucks.
Small portable generator to keep the well pump and fridge running, a couple hundred. Don't try to power your furnace with a generator you fucking fool.
And call an electrician to answer your questions. You should know better than anyone how useless slashdot members are when it comes to any sort of self sufficiency.
We were knocked out by two storms in the DC area and I investigated various solutions. A whole house generator running on natural gas came in around $10K.
A small portable generator with extension cords, etc. didn't cost that much but also seemed to not offer much convenience.
We ended up with a compromise. We had an electrician wire up a bypass panel and connect it to about 10 circuits which includes our sump pumps (3), refrigerator, heat unit fan, and receptacles around the house to power all our computer stuff, the TV, microwave, etc.
I bought a 6.5 KW generator from Home Depot for about $4K.
Total expenditure was around 5.5K and as we have used it several times since it was well worth the effort and cost.
The only downside is the generator uses gasoline for fuel so I have to periodically run it or drain it to use up the gas (which I put in the car) and replace the five gallon jug. I use a gasoline extender which seems to work well as gas even a year old has run fine.
Good luck. I wish I could use solar or wind or nuclear, but none of these are options where I live.
I better stock up too because after The One is anointed, the seas will recede and the temperatures will descend, as the Holy New York Times has foretold.
... The things get pretty darned LOUD tho....but, I've heard that the Honda ones...at a premium price, and very, very quiet....
If you put the generator in a hole in the yard, you'll have a night-and-day difference in noise levels. Just make sure that it is well-drained and set up so that no one will fall into it. Under the deck or patio is often good.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Get a diesel genset if you use fuel oil.
Natural gas or propane if you use those fuels.
Propane if you have a heat pump w/o a furnace.
Don't consider gasoline under any circumstances as it doesn't store well and is dangerous.
It will cost $2-5k depending on what you get and how much of the work you do yourself.
Everyone seems to have their own method of doing this. It seems to me it's a rather simple process:
1) Go to Home Depot store or website.
2) Plunk down cash (or credit/debit card) for THIS plus installation costs.
3) Enjoy whole house LP or NG powered emergency backup power.
See? That wasn't so hard now, was it? And nobody got electrocuted in the process either.
(yeah, yeah, I skipped the stupid ??? -> Profit! meme. So sue me.)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Get a generator with 3x the rating of your load (furnace-look at the tags on the box, etc.-fridge, and so on that you will be using). Probably 3500 Watts minimum, and with 4500 Watts you usually get a higher quality rig. (Honda is the standard).
Get 10-20 feet of the heaviest 3 strand wire you can buy-at least 10 gauge-and a couple of 3 pole end pieces (plugs). Make yourself a double male plug extension cord to plug into the house from the generator. Pull the master circuit breaker, plug into the house with the extension and go. Note, you may have to make a 220V cord, etc. for the furnace if it uses 220 V, so that is also a consideration in which gen set to buy $$$$. With a big enough generator and some ingenuity at the circuit panel, you can run the whole house, or at least have power in every room. You will be using the houses ground too.
However, any self-respecting wood stove is not going to need any electricity at all. Convection should take care of the heat transfer unless the stove's design is a failure. I've even seen old fashioned radiators with wood-heated liquid. Often the only improvements that can be made to an old-fashion design of kakelungn is to use modern ceramics.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I just had Lowes (Home Depot does this too) hook up a 12KW GenSet on a concrete pad outside the house (it has it's own enclosure). Their installer/electrician put in an automatic transfer switch and connected it up to our propane (in the country, no natural gas here). Voila! Done, Didn't even cost as much as a good used car and when the power goes out, the heat/AC/computers, TVs fridge, freezers, etc. all just keep running. The only thing that's NOT on the backup system is the clothes dryer and oven.
Your minimum is a bit more of a maximum actually--if you are merely looking for electricity you can get a little portable generator and use it to run small appliances (up to the size of a microwave).
However, some posters here seem to neglect the needs of cold-climate dwellers during blackouts. In extended outages you need to keep the house above freezing to prevent plumbing damage, and it is less-than-trivial to hook a furnace blower up to a portable generator as they aren't "plug-in" devices. Besides that, if you want to preserve all that expensive food in the chest freezer and refrigerator you need a pretty large "portable" unit anyways--one that won't trip or stall out when the pumps kick in and have fuel tanks to provide more than a couple hours of continuous service.
What is suggested in the parent post is along the lines of what is needed to provide a "standby" power service. However there are some details I'd quibble with--mostly because they are undersized.
A fair amount of 14- or 12-gauge wire (wire is expensive... go measure)
Wire IS expensive, so make sure you get what works. 14-and 12-gauge wire is meant for 15 or 20 amp branch circuits and is undersized for the requirements outlined in this article (to run a furnace, fridge, lights--at least when they start up). If you have an electric range or dryer you need to step up to 10 gauge (that is what feeds those circuits. If you follow Mike Holmes' philosophy I'd go one further and get a length of 8 gauge.
Also, you shouldn't use standard NMD90 wiring for outdoor applications--you should select something rated for outdoors/burial. Typically such wire has a grey outer insulation covering it instead f white or other colours.
With that heavy-gauge wire you can then run one "feed" to the house where you have installed a manual transfer swtch rated for at least 30A (typically the largest breaker in your panel already). Again, I'd go up to the next size--40A--just to make sure is all robust. The transfer switch would have to be connected on the other side "after" your main service breaker in the "bottom" portion of your panel (the power company doesn't generally permit people to do work in the top part of your panel for safety reasons--you cannot switch off that power yourself and you shouldn't work on a hot panel).
If you only got the small 14-gauge wire you'd have to have 2 or 3 runs into the house, each being its own circuit.
A generator. I suggest MINIMUM 3500 watts
This is undersized to provide reliable standby service in a blackout. If you were warming up dinner in a 1000W microwave while the furnace is running and the fridge starts up, your unit would trip. If you wanted to use an electric dryer you would not be able to do so reliably. In a cold climate, a family with small children will HAVE to do laundry after a few days.
To provide adequate standby service you need to be able to provide 5 kVA or more. 7500W generators could do that (don't assume unity power factor--power is NOT just the siple product of volts and amps when you have inductive loads like furnace motors and refrigerators starting up). My parent's farm has a standby unit rated for 15 kW. When it is in use you can do whatever you can do when the utility is working. Half of that should let you live comfortably and give you reliable service in extended blackouts.
A shed -- you can't put a gas generator indoors, generally speaking - very dangerous
In your garage is sufficient so long as exhaust is vented outside, though I think if you had an attached garage you should be extra careful.
I strongly suggest a strong table to mount the generator on for maintenance
More like footings secured to the floor with large bolts, with "engine mount" vibration-absorbing brackets to secure the unit. The unit must be quiet enough from the outside of the shed or garage to comply with noise bylaws. Such
A basic rule of thumb to calculate the minimum size of the generator you need is to add up the wattage of everything you desire to run off the generator AND DOUBLE IT. This is the minimum size you will want to have.
This gives you a cushion for start-up surges (anything with electric motors like the refrigerator), also most generator fuel capacities (such as 8 hours per gallon) are usually figured at 50% load.
Plus this give an extra reserve for things not originally calculated in, like an electric shaver or battery charger for the car.
Thinking more on this, I wonder how well that would even work with to begin with? Lets say the line that cut power to my area was up the block, and my isolated segment is say.... one block. If I backfeed into that grid, it will attempt to power the entire block.
Now I realize any worker on my block up on the pole is going to get nailed, but is it going to work that way? My little genny is going to attempt to start maybe 25 refridgerators, a dozen or more heat pumps, and maybe 500 more miscillaneous appliances up and down my block.
My betting is that doesn't work very well and my genny's breaker almost instantly trips.
Now still, I wouldn't want to be a worker up on the pole trying to reconnect the downed feed at that time, but the window of opportunity to hurt a worker is not nearly as big as you might initially imagine. It's not like I'm going to light up that line for hours at a time, just waiting for some hapless worker to grab a live wire up there. In any case it'd be a very short-lived experiment.
And this is assuming I'm on an isolated feed, isolated to ONE block. If a primary feed is down several blocks from here, my genny is going to be starting 900 compressors all at once. NOT.
And this is all assuming I don't trip some other breaker up on a pole somewhere that is set to go if my local segment draws too much power. (since fuses work both ways) Even if my feed and genny could handle the load, it'd trip the first breaker it hit up on the poles.
This issue is a lot more complicated when you look closer. Not only would there be a time-zero window to hurt someone (since the genny would shut down immediately and you would hopefully not be stupid enough to try to restart it) but given the draw vs the supply anyone caught with a wire in their hand would be subject to a lot smaller hit than they would otherwise with a properly supplied line.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I see everybody recommending natural gas, which makes great sense. However, in Utah they keep saying we'll eventually have a large earthquake. I believe the first thing they do with an earthquake is to turn off the natural gas because of possible broken lines. Anybody have any experience with generators in earthquakes?
- 3.5KW Generator is the practical minimum. Most homes can run at full demand with a 12KW set. Let your budget be your guide.
- Provision for extra fuel. Propane stores well. Diesel, especially if the generator actually will run on #2, is handy if you heat with oil. Extra tanks are cool, and having 1200 gallons in the tank when the price is cheaper is nice also. Consider using fuel that you also heat with, it will allow you to purchase bulk and save. This may be your chance to convert your furnace, if you're serious about the generator. Plan on a 10-day supply for the generator, and of course normal heating usage unless you're really serious and turn the thermostat down to 60 and close off the porch...
- A professionally installed transfer switch. Do not monkey around with this. Auto-transfers are cool, but I recommend a manual transfer, and keep a flashlight handy. You can get home quick enough to get it on and save the pipes, or have a neighbor do it. And you can choose to turn off the generator as you wish to save fuel.
- Have the electrician wire the transfer to your key circuits only. Probably the kitchen, furnace, and one room. You should be able to keep the fridge going, a furnace is crucial, and you can decide how to budget in the TV if necessary. Me, I managed with a radio and kerosene heaters one winter. You can cook on a hot plate. The sink should still work. Give up on the dishwasher. The hot water heater might require some creativity, but there are ways. Or forego showers for a few days. Camping!
- Wrapping pipes, etc., is good winterization, and always in fashion. Insulate! Prepare for the worst, with basic food for a week, water if you rely on a well or pump, secondary heating, and a plan.
- Buy your generator this summer or fall, when the prices drop below gouge-level. Everyone else has forgotten the pain. Buy now and pay too much. A second outage this winter? Less likely.
- Expect your neighbors to come over for hot meals and warm-ups. Have them bring over the stuff that will spoil, might as well cook it up. You will meet some very nice people this way, and eat a lot of new foods.
ps- Michigan is not in the Northeast. Call me on your 10th day without power. We'll talk about utilities.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Hello cold critter
I live in the midwest and it's 30 here now my roof blew off the other day I'm disabled and it's gonna be spring before I can fix it laid some shingles with bricks for now but on to your delema I have a design for a generator that runs all the time and uses no outside resources like gas it just runs and runs you would think someone would be interested in this idea but I haven't found a one it's cheap to make and has endless possiblities from powering a entire home to running your car without a batt. I will add sure a small one could be used as a storage device to get the thing going but don't we do that already in our cars seeing how you people are freezing up there and I have been without power already twice in the last month but not as long as you just a few hours but I have many heat sources fireplace 2 one wood one gas and baseboard ele. the gas works in power outages another thing i use is those big candles with three winks they put out alot heat but i need this power source to keep my meds cool constant temp mind you it can't freeze or i would just throw it outside I am looking for engineers to help design this thing i thought up and yes it will work everything i do works blast if i could get my hands on a good lab tech i could cure diabeties and get off this dam meds course that was probally designed that way to keep making money off me money has no place being in medicine it invites greed well you all knock this around and if you want to reinvent the way we all use power contact me thru obama he knows what i am about doing here
Holy $#!+, you guys here on /. need to get enlightened......
Find out how much power your appliances draw when running, and then add 25% for START-UP DRAW (motors, pumps, and such). Typically, a 15-18 cu. ft Fridge is 450 Watts @115VAC after start-up. Light bulbs tend to add up if you turn on many of them around the house (avg 60 Watts / bulb).
Your furnace blower portion should draw about 500-700 Watts. THE HEATING ELEMENT IS A HUGE DRAW!!! They typically draw between 15 and 25 Amps at 220VAC. Combined, the average electrical furnace is about 4500 Watts, not including start-up draw.
The thing many people forget is the electric water heater. These typically draw the same (sometimes more) than the furnace does, and this is also 220VAC, 4500 Watts. So far, we are up to about 10KW. Don't forget a margin of safety (15%-25% Minimum)
Electric Ranges/Ovens draw about the same as the furnace and water heater, so plan accordingly.
Unless you have a Cell Wireless card for the Laptop, Cable/DSL are going to be out in your area as well. If you don't have juice, neither does the area router/Central office/Neighborhood repeater/amplifier out on the pole alongside the street.
You can get a clue as to how much power is being used by looking at the circuit breakers in your breaker box. You should try to use this as a guide for how large your generator shoud be, as this give you a margin of safety. Add up the amperage for each of the circuits you feel you need, then use Ohm's Law formulae variants to plan how much wattage your generator must put into those circuits...e.g.- watts=amps X volts (450W Fridge = ~3.9 amps X 115VAC). Watts/Volts=Amps. Safe is max value of breaker X 115VAC (remember that most furnaces, water heaters, range/ovens, and clothes dryers are 220VAC)
If you "Shock Load" the generator (apply maximum load all at once), the generator can actually flip on the rotating axis (seen it with aircraft ground power generators, I used to fix 'em) before the built-in circuit protection disengages the generator from the load.
Planning what you ABSOLUTLY need to survive an extended power outage is not difficult, but going out and learning things the hard way, destroying equipment, appliances, or killing/injuring yourself or someone else may not be worth the outlay in greenbacks for the generator that isn't up to the task.
All I'm saying is don't go off half-assed. Plan it out, and do it right, and for $Deiety's Sake, go get information from a professional electrician.
http://www.globalmicroturbine.com/Site/Microturbine/Microturbine.html
I have a 1500/3k inverter in my truck and have a similar solution that I've tested twice during brief power failures. Takes me about 10 minutes to swap over, half of which is spent turning off things that would draw too much. (heat pump, fridge, UPS's, server, etc) Freaks out the neighbors to see your porch light come back on when the rest of the block is dark.
FYI, UPS's don't often like inverter/genny power and will usually refuse to cut back due to the poor line noise / regulation they are getting. Also a charging UPS can be as big a draw as a compressor.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
They make generators that are both designed to run on propane and also come with an exterior housing for permanent mounting outside. That and figure out which circuits you want to run, etc, other folks here have covered the electronics for you. The good thing about propane is...you get a big tank, and it doesn't go bad, you can store it for years and years. You can easily have a 500 gallon propane tank sitting in the back yard, but try that in the burbs with gasoline...much hoop jumping, probably illegal. Propane, no probs, pretty darn normal. And no freaking out trying to go "get more gas" in an emergency when everyone else is if you already have a big tank sitting there. You can also at the same time install a few wall/room propane heaters that don't need electricity, they just have a piezo electric clicker like on propane BBQs to start them easy. We have two of those, work great when I don't feel like firing up the woodstove, which is our primary heat now. They even make propane refrigerators or dual electric/propane but they are spendy. In the winter I wouldn't think keeping your food cool would be much of a problem in Michigan...stick the stuff outside in a cooler or just bring frozen bricks in and drop them in the freezer and on the top shelf in the fridge, replace once a day or twice a day, whatever.
Just remember to run any generator you have once in awhile regardless of needing it (they actually call this "exercising" it, more of a test and relube the cylinders walls a little I guess) and also keep the starting battery charged up. Farms are about equally split on emergency power from what I have seen, half use propane, half use diesel. The propane gennies tend to be cheaper, that's about it. Home despot even carries a few propane small models I believe, or check like at Tractor Supply. The smaller cheap gasoline ones are just that, and they won't last long, people I know who used them for offgrid living never got that many hours out of them. I have a couple of those, but my next one will be propane with an industrial engine for sure.
Warning: I am not a licensed electrician. I did go to trade school to be an electrician so have some education in the field and I keep up with the codes but I never ended up going into the field.
The biggest mistake people make is going out and buying a 6kW+ construction grade generator for $800+. The voltage regulation on these things is slim to none. The quality of the generator head is MUCH more important than the quality of the attached engine. Plenty of crappy generators have good quality Honda engines bolted to the side of them but they produce very poor power. Those construction quality generators can have problems running battery chargers, plasma's TVs etc. The voltage that they produce varies very wildly. This is fine for running most motor driven equipment such as a circular saw, drills, air compressors etc but can cause big problems for equipment that has built in power supplies with their own linear (or other type) voltage regulator...Very easy to fry power supplies in a lot of equipment running off of a construction generator.
Start one up and stick a multimeter in one of the 120V outlets. They often put out 140V+ without a load. Start putting a big load on them and it can drop down well below 100V. As the RPM of the motor drops due to it being under load the speed of the generator head drops and this causes the output voltage to drop. Some of them have circuitry that can diminish this a little, but not much. Many of these generators also have peak to peak voltages that are not standard as well as incorrect wavelengths.
Good regulation is generally only found in very big expensive commercial generators (or residential ones made for perm installation). The exceptions are with Honda branded generators (not just a generator with a honda engine, but a Honda generator) and some others that produce inverter based generators. These put out very very clean better-than-utility grade power. They are expensive but worth the money.
I would rather see someone buy a 1kW or 2kW quality generator and power the essentials than risk blowing up your $5,000 furnace or LCD television. Wattage is not everything. Most houses can get buy with a 2kW generator w/o problem provided they have a gas cooktop and city water. If you need to run a well pump then you may need a little bigger but I often just start the well pump to fill the pressure tank and then I am good for a couple of hours.
I would also HIGHLY recommend a transfer switch be put in. They can be purchased for well under $100. 2-Pole Square-D breakers can be outfitted with a small see-saw clamp that can be used as the main-breaker transfer-switch. When you turn one on it turns the other off. Very manual but very tried-and-true. Running extension cords everywhere can get messy and dangerous ESPECIALLY if the cord is not properly sized for both the length of the run as well as the current. Longer cords have a greater resistance which means more voltage drop and greater heat generation from the cord itself. Running extension cords everywhere also often does not assist with running the furnace, well pump etc which are often not plug attached but hard-wired.
Do not rush into this.
If you have the money, go natural gas. If not you should consider the following: Start up watts - WAY more important than running watts. Most appliances use most energy when starting up. A gas camping stove (ovens and stoves use tons of energy. If you can cook on gas you save your generator for things like the furnace. In fact, you may be better off with space heaters - they are cheaper than trying to get a generator big enough to run the whole house. Remember that bigger isn't better with gas - those high wattage generators use lots more gas which means needing to refill it more often and having more gas on hand - can you get more gas if you need it in an emergency? Do it right - have an electrician wire it up or just run electrical extension cords to appliances as needed. Doing otherwise could kill the guys trying to get your power back on due to backfeeding if you screw up. Keep the generator in a temperature controlled location (above freezing or you won't be able to start it) away from you, your family, pets, and anything combustible. This sounds obvious, but many people die each year by forgetting to do just this. Run the generator at least every 2 weeks for at least 10 minutes. This will keep everything lubricated and prevents buildup of contaminants and failure. Use fuel stabilizer! Use it in all the gas you use and store or you will have a real problem when you go to start it in an emergency... Remember to run the generator for the specified time before hooking it up to your appliances (usually 5 to 10 minutes) if you don't wait for the power to stabilize you will fry everything in your house. Things to consider when purchasing a generator: -Get an electric start generator. You will thank me later. -Engine makes more of a difference than generator brand. Look for an engine made by Honda, Briggs&Stratton, Cummins, or CAT (diesel for the 2 latter). -Look for an engine with Over head valves (OHV) they are more reliable and last longer. -Make sure you check whether it comes with oil or not - many are shipped with no or inadequate oil (just enough to keep the valve seals lubricated). -Make sure it is a size that you can handle (weight wise). If it is going to be moved from storage for use, can you actually lift or roll it there? Other considerations: -Get some lamps with compact florescent bulbs so you don't waste all your wattage on lights - start large appliances one at a time and keep them running constantly to prevent surges (for example, turn on the fridge, then after a minute or two turn on the deep freeze, then turn on the heaters, etc). This allows you to get a unit with a lower starting wattage.
Get a web developer
I 100% agree! That's how most everyone along the coast does it durning hurricane season when they hit and take power out here.
The question wasn't how to meet the energy needs of a hurricane-triggered blackout in the gulf coast--the requirement was to be able to live with some degree of comfort through a blackout triggered by an ICE STORM in NEW YORK...you know, up there by CANADA?
This guy doesn't need to keep a room 10C cooler so he doesn't sweat--he needs to keep a WHOLE HOUSE 20C cooler so his pipes don't freeze and he can still have running water and flushing toilets! He cannot cook outside because his barbecue is FROZEN SHUT and under a pile of snow! He might have a microwave or electric oven and need more power than those little portable units can supply.
Your solution would not work in his situation. He also has a family with a small child and pets. That makes it harder to "rought it" as well. I'd say the real answer is probably closer to the more involved case than just getting a little unit meant for camping.
We lost power in 2005 for 11 days in November. The temp dropped to -25 on occasions. It was a very tough week. My generator of 4500 watts would run the freezer, the furnace fan and, when I was feeling desperate, the water heater along with some lights. The problem was my generator had only a one gallon tank and required frequent refueling. I was running the generator in my machine shed but getting up and dressed every hour really wasn't worth the effort. My 54000 btu fireplace required a fan so I couldn't run it while I was at work. The house never dropped below 54 deg and while it didn't seem to threaten any of the pipes it was very uncomfortable. After the crises my neighbor installed a standby generator for about $3000. For $1500 I installed an unvented wall propane heater (28,000 btu) in my basement that can run 24x7 and bought a new generator with a five gallon tank. This generator would run all night with one fill so I could keep my freezer running day and night and keep my gas fireplace running overnight. I'm ready for the next big freeze and I did use the basement unvented heater during the last blizzard.
Let's see here... 1000 gallons of compressed liquefied propane at about $2.55/gallon delivered (local Texas prices, some parts of the US it costs nearly $4/gallon delivered) equals $2550! Ouch.
How long does a tankful last in your house?
A buddy of mine who built a new house on Lake Travis near Austin, TX runs his house's water heaters, furnace, cooking stove and clothes dryer on a buried 250 gallon propane tank and he has to fill it about every 6-8 weeks in the coldest winter months. That seems more expensive than natural gas or a total electric house.
I guess Hank Hill must be enjoying that brand new red Ford Super Duty pickup truck, eh?
Holy crap, 250 gallons every two months at $4/gallon - that's $500 a month. In Texas? How cold does it get there? I'm living 50 miles northwest of Chicago in a good sized house that dates back in part to the 1920s and my natural gas bill has yet to be higher than $210 in the worst winter month (like in February, when we consider 20 F to be a heatwave).
Today's forecasted high here is 18F. In Austin, TX, the national weather service says a high of 63F. Either propane costs 10 times what natural gas does, your friend's house has no roof, or my house is being heated by radioactive decay from the rocks in the foundation (yes, I actually have rocks in the 1800s part of my foundation).
I have friends nearby who heat their house (which is about 1/2 the size of my house) with all electric baseboard heaters, and they say they've never paid over $200 a month. I suspect they are lying though, to save face in our gas vs. electric debates.
Putting moderation advice in your
NOW Who's the crazy survivalist??? And you all laughed at me!
While I don't disagree with ANY of your post, this statement is by far the absolute most important/best comment that will be posted to this thread.
Really, if you're asking slashdot about what you need, thats fine, get input so you can avoid the possiblity of being screwed by the electrician, but for the love of god DO NOT ATTEMPT to do it yourself, you don't know all the rules for your area for sure which can result in hefty fines if your lucky, or potentially the death of your baby and cat ... and the rest of your family. Some of those local rules are probably for the benifit of the electrical union, but the majority of them are for your protection.
There is a lot of misinformation out there about electricity. Its really not nearly as dangerous as its made out to be, however, there are FAR too many things that are not obvious that can really make things unsafe if you don't have the knowledge/wisdom to know about them or understand them. Theres a reason electricians have to be certified, and its a good that they are. The safety of your family is FAR more valuable than any money you are going to save doing it yourself rather than letting someone who knows the deal do it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Some time in 2009 my electricity provider is supposed to launch a programme to allow its customers to lease from them a 20kW fuel cell generator. This generator would connect to your gas line and could meed all your needs for electricity and perhaps even heat. It is more efficient than your furnace and has cleaner emissions too.
Since most of the time you would not need ALL the electrical capacity of such a fuel cell system the next logical step would be to put a syncing transfer switch at the meter so each house could feed excess power back into the grid...then you could keep your house warm enough to keep the pipes thawed whe you are away during the day and the electricity could go back into the grid to power the offices, shopping malls, "electric car charging stations" etc ;-)
I know internet blackouts have happened but they are short and very very rare, compared to electricity blackouts. That is because the internet is more distributed than power generation. Maybe if everyone generated a bit of power in their basements instead of relying on big central generating stations in the future the grid would be more robust and outages more self contained and less frequent.
Alas, I'm sure politics will continue to interfere with logical progression of technology.
then, as most any idiot knows, build a pebble bed fusion reactor.
I'm guessing you live in Michigan. call sierra electric in waterford or clarkston (i'm not sure which town) if you live in SE michigan. If you have natural gas or propane they install automatic systems. My parents have one that will power the whole house including the air conditioning unit. I think they run about 2500 bucks installed. It takes about 2 to 5 seconds for the system to realize an outage and start up. My parents stereo system doesn't even turn off half the time. The guys at sierra can recommend the right size for your house, I recommend talking to daryl.
CAUTION: YOU MAY KILL SOMEONE IF YOU DO NOT TURN YOUR HOUSE'S MAIN BREAKERS TO OFF!
* If you leave the Main Breakers ON you will backfeed power to the entire neighborhood, and the power workers think the lines are dead. Very bad.
* Technically, you need an electrician to wire a breaker/cut-off switch to the generator. In this manner when you switch the generator connection to ON you also switch the Main Breakers to OFF. Expensive, but safe and complies with NEC.
* Most people just use a male to male plug, plug one end into the generator, and the other into some house outlet. If you turn the Main Breakers OFF ~BEFORE~ you do this, it is possible to get power to everything in your house, limited by the breaker capacity and the power generation capacity, and not feed the neighborhood. The relative safety of this is up to others to argue.
* IF THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO YOU, SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP. Or at least a neighbor with a subscription to Popular Electronics. Your local linemen will thank you!
Why would you even mention this? Fuses cost $5, and a penny costs $0.01, and the cheap bastard that owned my house before me went with the latter when he blew fuses... in a room that was filled with dryer lint. The pennies actually had severe scorch marks and one was almost burned through when I caught it, and had the box replaced with a breaker.
Despite good intentions, and the warning, it's best to not give out the illegal way and just have people do things properly, because invariably somebody will miss a step, hurting themselves or even others.
Depends upon what you want to do... Keep you fridge and toaster and hairdryer going, best get a 5000W beast for several thousand.
But the 1500W Chinese ones you can get for $100 at Wal-Mart work surprisingly well for the basics. (1500W approximately equals a single typical home outlet. So no plugging in the microwave and hairdryer at the same time, but for several lights, a PC, a TV, etc., no problem at all.)
I opted for a bit smoother 1500 unit, from Honda, which adapts its motor speed to the power need, and has amazing soundproofing qualities. You can stand next to it and have a conversation (well, make sure you're in a ventilated area, if you're by the generator). It comes with a price, though, about $1000 (Cdn). Well worth it for the size, smoothness, and quiet.
Previously, had a $100-$200 unit, that was noisy as hell, but got me through Hurricane Juan just fine. (Living in a Cottage with Satellite Internet and Propane heated water, people were coming to visit *me* for Internet, TV, showers, when the power was out for a week.)
Anyhow, I'd at least recommend getting a very basic $100 beast from Wal-Mart. Get a better one if you can afford it, or have higher current demands (keeping your deep freeze or well pump going). You might want to run your PC through a surge suppressor when using the generator, as the power can be "dirtier." (Although PC's use switching power supplies which really should handle most crud quite nicely.)
A generator is great peace of mind. The same thing happened last Christmas when my mom came to visit; power went out. So we switched the roast to the BBQ, fire up the generator, and continued our festivities as if nothing happened...
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Never. Ever. _EVER_ do this. You never want any midpoint link in an electrical system rated lower then your source. This means for a 20a generator you want a 20a transfer switch, not a 15a. If your insurance company finds you did it anyway they WILL void your policy.
"Oh but all I'll ever plug into this outlet is a smoke detector, so I can just use this 22gauge speaker wire but I'll leave it hooked up to a 20a breaker because it's too much effort to change it out."
See how ridiculous that sounds? Don't be that guy. Remember that whenever doing amateur home improvement, if you don't know what you're doing GET SOMEONE WHO DOES TO HELP YOU.
Ok, it depends what you're going for, if you live in an area where free wood by the side of the street is commonplace Steam-Powered Generators are pretty awesome, I've been wanting to build one for ages because I'm drowning in free wood, plus the awesome, one example here; http://www.otherpower.com/steamengine.shtml These people got 2Kilowatts out of theirs, which could power probably a fridge OR a wall unit AC + minor appliances and lighting without a battery bank. This can also come in handy if the power is out AND the gasoline supply has been cut off for a long period of time, or if gasoline is just way too expensive. If that's just too damn exotic and awesome for you, and if money is a limiting factor and you want to DIY; Car Alternator + Mower Engine + 110VAC Inverter works wonders. Or you can just buy a portable consumer-grade generator like normal people, and take it out with extension cord when needed. How often do you plan to have your power out? Do you really need a robust whole-house system?
There was an excellent previous post for permanently installing back up power for your home.
Of course, could just buy a portable generator and use extension cords to the 2 vital items: fridge and furnace blower.
BUT! If you are somewhere cold, what are you doing running a fridge? Just put the food in a critter safe box outside and let the cold weather keep the stuff frozen, hm?
For doing things like solar or wind, I would like to recommend a web site, and a magazine. Please try "homepower dot com" and Homepower magazine, I read them, and recommend them.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
I did a little reserach today, and here's what I think is THE right way to do it.
You might as well buy a generator powerful enough to run your entire house. That means you don't have to compromise : you can have AC, heat, your electronics, the works.
Second, since power outages are rare, you want a generator that is on wheels. That way, you can buy a new generator, don't even put oil into it, and leave it in a dry garage until it is needed. That way you do no maintainence, and the unit is basically brand new. Or, you could test it, but be sure to put preservatives in the lubrication oil, and to leave the gas tank dry.
Outdoor generators tend to rust.
While natural gas and propane generators have the advantage of not depending on fuel, if you own a truck then gas is fine. Just keep a siphon kit so that you can safely transfer fuel to the generator. Or, get a tri fuel generator, so that you can run on natural gas if it is still available, and go get gasoline if it is not.
Don't pay an electrician to install the circuitry. Do it yourself, and have an electrician check the job afterwards for $100-$200 instead of $500-$1000.
Cost? Here's everything you need on ebay for $3230, shipping included. Not that I am not affiliate with the seller, I just noticed that this is a pretty good price considering you can run your entire house and you don't have to buy anything else.
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Generac-Guardian-Generator-26-250-Watt-Trans-Sw_W0QQitemZ380088266146QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item380088266146&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A16%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318
This is only a low power, short term solution, but with minimal effort and money, it will keep you warm. I assume that: (1)You have central heat/air for your temperature control and (2) That you have enough basic knowledge to run a few wires. If you buy a power inverter for a vehicle (2000-3000 watt), you can easily power your blower motor for your heater, your laptop, and a few lights. Just hook up to your vehicle and run extension cords to the places you need power the most. Always hook the inverter directly to your battery, and keep you vehicle running at all times since this will be a heavy drain on your battery. Setup in this fashion you should be able to power what you need for a full day on a tank of gas. This is a somewhat expensive solution if you are planning on being without power for a long time, but if you'll be up in a day or 2, all you will need is enough gas to keep your vehicle running. SL
To misquote My Chemical Romance, some of you people scare the living shit out of me. Poor, or non-existent grounding, generators in basements and the exhaust into a chimney, backfeeding the house from a dryer plug... It's like reading a script from the Red Green Show; the episode titled, "How many ways can you find to kill yourself, or others, with a generator?"
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
I live in SW Louisiana and would strongly recommend a whole house natural gas generator. I bought a Generac 25 kw and had it installed by a reputable local firm that also does periodic maintenance. It was about $15,000 installed with parts and labor and two years of maintenance. The contract after that is about $250 a year. It kept me and my neighbors going strong after the last hurricane wiped out Galveston and part of SW Louisiana. I am so glad I changed over from the portable generator. It can be VERY hard to find enough gasoline during a prolonged power outage (it uses more than 5 gallons a day), plus the risk of storing multiple 5 gallon containers around the house.
Electric Generators Direct: http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/
'Nuff Said.
---------- Financial Crypto is the Only Crypto That Matters
After you turn off the main breaker, put a padlock on it. This prevents anyone who "wants to be helpful" or "knows what they're doing" from turning your main breaker back on.
Also note that your house probably has two phases. With this approach, you probably need to wire them together. If you do this in the house breaker box, do it before you connect your alternate power. Note well: Anything that depends on 220 V power is unusable with this approach. That may well include the high settings on an electric range.
We did this for three days in a winter storm when I was a kid (neighbors were on the corner and had power up a different street; they ran us an extension cord). These tips I learned from watching what my dad did.
Howdy. If you are interested in going off-grid, check out Home Power magazine (homepower.com).
Everyone seems to be assuming that a fossil-fuel-powered generator is *the* answer and the only questions are "how big?" and "is the widow-maker male plug fine?"...
Goodness.
Try (say) solar and or wind and several days worth of lead-acid batteries with a suitable inverter such as Sunny Island or Sunny Backup or the Outback or Xantrex equivalents, which won't kill you with carbon monoxide and bad wiring, you don't have to refuel, and which doesn't destroy the planet in passing...
Oh, and you might get a subsidy or a tax-break for installing such a renewable-energy system too.
And you can export excess to the grid and get paid for it when the grid isn't out...
http://solarjohn.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieldlines.com/section/homebrew
Those widow-maker setups have that name for a reason, BTW.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
i might recommend going Diesel - whatever you do. in the case that gasoline supply becomes an issue, biodiesel will be more and more available, and if there is gas, there is regular diesel as well - also generally better engine economy.
Take a look at this write up:
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003428.php
That's the updated version of mine. They sell them now for $3500 installed with the transfer switch.
12KW will pretty much run your house.
It turns on and runs automatically. Even if you're not home.
It turns off when power comes back.
I've had mine nearly 10 years, and its been great.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I have an eu2000i as well. Great little generator though a tad pricey.
Why I like it...
One: Excellent surge-current capacity - I tried it on everything in the house including furnace, dishwasher, microwave, fridge, table-saw, etc. (one at a time, of course) and while it bogged a bit on table-saw startup and the microwave startup it did handle everything.
Two: Quiet and clean (power). Actual output is delivered by inverter which means that the engine can throttle back while still delivering clean 60Hz power - and the power is plenty good for electronics for powering computers, ham radios, etc. in the field.
Three: Light/small - can carry with one hand, drop in trunk, store easily...
I have an (illegal) homemade cheater. One end is a male 240V plug with the two hot-sides shorted together and connected to the hot-side on the male 120 plug and the neutral side of the 240 connected to the neutral 120.
If plugged into the socket while the house was powered the result would be sparks and blown breaker. But one must, must, must turn off the main breaker anyway before backfeeding most importantly to protect utility and emergency service workers. The generator only supplies 120 so running 240v appliances is moot, anyway, and shorting the who hots means I can feed both sides of the 120 to the house.
I usually shut off the main first then all breakers. Hook up the back feed and fire up the generator next, then turn on the circuits I need.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
There is a problem with the blower starting current, and most fridges have a starting surge too. You need a generator that can handle that momentarily high load, and slow blow fuses/breakers.
These are often considerably more expensive.
Consider a wood stove for heat, and a fruit cellar for cold and save your generator for your computing.
Look at the warranties for 'Whole House' backup power generators before buying. I got a Kohler 17KW natural gas/propane and automatic transfer switch with a 5 year full guarantee (Mine is natural gas, but an orifice change is all that's needed to run it on propane). And it's really quiet. It sits outside my bedroom wall and it's little more than a bit of a hum (easy to sleep through). But it was expensive to buy and install, and it's expensive to run, but when you need it, it's very appreciated. 17KW will handle most gas homes, but if you have all electric you better be looking at 25KW+. Those have small car engines in them (liquid cooled) and they REALLY suck up the gas. NOTE: Assume 150 hours to an oil change and 300 hours for plugs, so if you are expecting to be out for a week or more you'll need extra oil, oil filters and possibly a couple of extra spark plugs.
I have a generator and it is hardwired into the house circuits. I can operate the furnace, refrigerator and most of the lights as well some small appliances. It's properly installed with a transfer switch. I could operate my computer but it's not worth the risk. Home generators often can provide relatively "dirty" power. Their voltage is nowhere as steady as the line voltage. Every time the refrigerator turns on, there is a time lag of a 1 to 2 seconds before the generator adjusts to the added load. Yes, battery backup for your computer can clean up the power but if the power is out is an emergency condition. Certainly you can do without the electronic devices for the duration of the emergency. Another point, the more electricity you use the sooner you have to refill the generators gas tank. (Of course, this point doesn't apply to natural gas powered generators.)
Just go for the complete solution and skip all the small scale portable stuff. Eliminates running cords, filling gasoline tanks outside in the cold, or putting in a second set of wiring just for emergency power.
Get a proper transfer switch installed inline with your main panel. This guarantees you don't back-feed the local grid. It also allows you to power anything and everything in the house, using the existing wiring.
If you have natural gas, or LP for heating, use that fuel for the generator. If you use fuel oil to heat your house, get a small diesel generator.
Sizing the generator isn't difficult. The distributor will help you or you can go to the manufacturer's websites (Briggs and Stratton, Honda, Kohler, Generac, etc). Generally you're looking at between 10-20kW for a typical house.
Everything should run under $10k if you have it professionally installed. You might be able to do it yourself, depending on what local codes require and how handy you are.
BTW, going completely off-grid isn't economical using a small gas or diesel generator. Not when there's a grid tie possible. You'll have to buy a much more complex, and larger generator in order to run 100% duty cycle 24/7/365. Then fuel costs will kill you. If you really want to go off-grid or become self sufficient then look into solar or wind power combined with a generator for backup.
I have a friend that lives in an area where power outages are common. His sub-divide looses power several times a year.
He eventually got really sick of it, and spent a LOT of money (over $35k) to get a natural gas fired generator that will run full-time. Thats on top of the mega bucks he spent on solar panels. He puts out enough power to run his entire neighborhood.
So, he sells back the solar power to the grid all the time, but he also has a computer set up to figure out when the amount of money the power company will pay for his juice is worth it to run the generator as well. This year, he has been running the generator for several weeks straight, as his neighborhoods power was cut by a downed tree, and since they have power, they are a low priority.
His neighbors are starting to wonder if it would be worthwhile to fire the power company, and buy juice locally instead.
Assuming you wanted to power your fridge, furnace circuits & blower, a small TV and a microwave (and never all at the same time), how do you calculate how big of a generator you need?
This is a good place to start:
https://www.ch.cutler-hammer.com/generatorCalc/wattshow.jsp
Chris
200 Amp Automatic Transfer Switch - To me it's a business expense.
As long as his transfer switch has a 15A circuit breaker (most of the ones at DIY stores seem to) and the wire between the generator and transfer switch is sized to carry 20 amps, then I don't see the problem?
My Kohler is exercised once a week for 20 minutes. The transfer switch holds the electronics that act as the timer and control for the generator. You can set it to run with a load (disconnects the house from the mains and powers the house) or just exercise the engine. 17KW Kohler and 200 Amp Automatic Transfer Switch
Rob, I am a contractor. Most posts I have read here, if you follow their advise, will burn your house down or get you or someone else killed. Seek a reputable electrician and talk w/ them for advise. Most will not charge for consultation or a bid.
That said: DIY Generator power 101.
1. Size a generator for your survival needs.
If your furnace is gas or oil, you need to convert it's amp draw to watts. Watts = Volts * amps. Your furnace will draw ~ 9 amps on start, and run @ ~ 4 amps or less. 9 * 120v = 1080 watts. The furnace is probably the highest energy demanding appliance you need. The fridge is easy, put your frozen stuff outside where critters won't get them. You can store perishable items in a cooler inside and make ice outside for the cooler, or use snow.
2. When shopping for a generator keep in mind that most generators are labeled by peak watts. Average run watts are usually lower. So size your new generator by run watts. 3500 run watts will do most of what you need. Shop wisely and compare models, but if your whole area is without power, I bet all the stores are already sold out.
If this project is a DIY, then do not attempt to power your house wiring with the generator. You will just end up burning your house down or electrocuting someone. Just run extension cords to the furnace and other locations. If your furnace is hard wired to the house, get an electrician to change it to a cord and plug type disconnect. Then you can run it off a 14 gauge extension cord. Run your lights and laptop off another extension cord.
If you wish to power your whole house via the breaker panel, hire a licensed electrical contractor to do the installation.
good luck
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
You're comparing apples and oranges here. In your example you have a low rated wire with a higher rated circuit interrupt. A load that exceeds the capability of the wire will cause it to melt rather than tripping the breaker.
The generator in the parent is a power source, not a power draw, and the circuit interrupt is rated lower. If the power draw from the house is higher than 15 amps, the the circuit will trip disconnecting the draw from the source. Any reasonable generator will throttle back based on load. I don't see how this is different than your primary source, the transmission lines, being capable of considerably higher current than your house mains.
While I personally would want the wiring and transfer switch rated higher than the generator, I doubt it's the invitation to calamity that you imply.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
I've read about people using a Toyota Prius as a back-up generator. It takes a bit of engineering to make it work. Here's a link to one site with a how-to (http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Toyota-Prius-As-a-Backup-Generator). Note: DO NOT use an inverter in the cigarette lighter to power appliances - high current draw will cause a FIRE!
[Insert pithy quote here]
Having faced the same problem in the past I've developed a strategy. Since my servers don't have to be running at home. I take my biggest UPS, 1000VA with 12 volt batteries and power it with jumper cables from my truck. It runs the gas furnace, fish tank pumps, tankless gas hot water heater and few lights and the TV. All of which runs under eight amps running total. We turn the truck off at night, back on in the morning.
I have a ten amp breaker in my fuse box, I shut off the master breaker, remove the ten amp breaker, attach the pertinent wires to it and power up. When the power comes back on I reattach the wires to the proper breakers, pop the breakers back in the box and set the master breaker back to on.
Another tip, turn everything off and start them one at a time to keep the starting load low.
You could always move somewhere that doesn't get covered in snow, ice, rain, mud, etc. every year. This would probably involve a southerly location. I live in the mountains in So. Cal. and I haven't had a power outage lasting more than a couple of hours in the past 6 years.
Do not do any of this yourself, unless you are an electrician. Really....Please get an electrician to do it.
Tastes like iridium as usual.
A good review of the Generac Guardian Automatic Standby Generator
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003428.php
I have a 5500 watt Homelite you can use. Seriously, I'm about 3 miles from Hackney Hardware.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/prius-its-not-just-a-car-its-an-emergency-generator/
The "GenerLink" is a unit that plugs in behind your electric meter, and incorporates an automatic transfer switch and a twistlock power inlet for the generator to feed into. This allows you to power any and all circuits in your home, up to the capacity of your generator. No separate panels or manual transfer switches to install. You will still need a licensed electrician or utility rep to install it, however, because it involves removing the security seal on the meter. Installation shouldn't take more than 30 minutes, INCLUDING making the extension cord to connect the generator to the unit.
http://www.generlink.com/about_generlink.cfm
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
After a hurricane knocked out power to our home in Asheville for four days, I:
- bought a ten-circuit transfer switch on the internet and a 30-amp rated generator from Lowes
- built a plywood cover box for the generator and lined it with automotive sound insulation to keep the noise down (it was still very loud)
- mounted a 30-amp outside twist jack near the main circuit panel for the house
- picked the ten circuits I thought I'd want most (some lighting on every level of the house, the fridge, the furnace, the garbage disposal since the sink is no good if backed up, the network gear and one desktop computer, yadayada)
- wired the transfer switch to the twist jack and the main breaker panel (I had 8 gauge wire left over from a hot tub installation, but didn't need much)
- bought and maintained a half-dozen five-gallon gas cans with fuel stabilizer, plus figured out how to siphon gas out of my truck without drinking any
- tested the generator every couple of months, changed the oil once a year, etc.
and never saw another significant power outage. Four years later, we left Asheville, and I left the generator with the house.
I don't miss it. I like the woodstove idea that somebody else already suggested. I like the idea of just letting water drip from the faucet and leaving town for a couple of weeks even more. For the three thousand bucks or so you'll spend putting something in right, even if you do most of the work yourself, you can buy a very nice, spontaneous vacation somewhere warm.
Generators don't last forever. The Tecumseh-engined beast I bought had electric start, and needed a new battery every two years. The engine was rated for 1500 hours total. Corroded electrodes in the generator section will require cleaning or replacement every few years, or the thing won't make power when you need it.
If you spent the same amount of money right now boarding the cats and getting down to Florida until the power comes back on, you'd have a whole lot more fun!
You can buy a portable 15kw generator for about $5000. They can only really be run for about 5 hours at a time, but its easy to modify the fuel tank for them to run 12 hours at a time. The simple way to connect them is to plug them into an outdoor outlet and switch the breaker to that outlet off (that way, the generator and its circuit breaker are outside and you don't have to do any wiring). Since your house breaker is off, when the power comes back on, you just unplug it and then flip your breaker. The fuel may be a bit expensive ($40 per day), but it sure beats burst pipes and freezing in the dark.
Warning: IANAE, I am not an electrician!
cayenne8 has got it right. We were smack in the middle of the great ice storm of '06 in Missouri, and went a week and a half without grid power. We managed to grab a 5KW Onan generator after 5 days ($800). It provided heat (funace blower), water (electric 400 foot well pump) and entertainment (sat TV on big flatscreen) for TWO houses. Yes it was loud, yes you better know what you're doing (My AA is in electronics), and the gas usage was 5 gal/12 hours.
BUT...We weren't in dire straits. The power was needed more for the water pump and my furnace blower than anything else, but we had neighbors bring us several 5 gal containers of fresh water for cooking and drinking. We collected ice to melt on the gas stove (humidity in the air helps keep the house feeling warm), water our pets, clean dishes, take sponge bathes, and run the toilettes(9 kids between the two houses!).
Different forms of indoor lighting (candles, LED camp lanterns, oil lamps) are needed, and some way of generating heat (camp stove, gas stove). The food in the fridge went into coolers with blocks of ice and scooped-up snow, some wrapped in trash bags to protect the food from water. When we started using the generator, the biggest load was the well-pump. We ran it for an hour a day, with nothing else connected to it, and collected as much clean water as we could for bathing, drinking, etc... The next largest load was the refrigerator, and I wish we had used a chest freezer with this gadget (http://kegman.net/9025.html) to make it a "super fridge". It would have made our generator go a lot farther!
We hung blankets over the windows and doors, and closed off as much of the house as possible to concentrate people and heat into as small an area as possible. We drained the waterlines as much as possible, and ran a filament bulb in the well-house on the coldest night from an inverter running off the car to keep the pump equipment from freezing. A 1KW inverter (truck-sized) just wasn't enough to power the furnace blower enough to start up, we had to wait until the generator got to us.
To keep morale up, we played a lot of card and board games with the kids (AD&D anyone?), read books and magazines, talked, worked on chores and small indoor projects. Basically, we started to live like the people of my grandparents day did. Only not quite as well prepared at first.
You can make it with just a little prep, and remembering how the farmers lived before the rural electrification men came around blowing up their wind generators (it happened quite a bit around here).
When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
Just quoting the manufacturer's maintenance schedule. I haven't hit 150 hours so I haven't even changed the oil on mine yet. I'd have to pull the plugs at 300 hours and see if the plugs 'need' to be replaced. Then again, as long as it's in warranty I will follow manufacturer's schedule. No way I want to void the warranty. I'll 'go cheap' after the warranty runs out.
Interlock kits are a lot cheaper than transfer switches, and as far as I can tell are legal and safe. They are also more flexible, because you can turn on/off any circuit. Custom kits are sold here, and Square-D makes some for their load centers (Cat. No. QOCRBGK1, QOCGK2, QORBGK2.)
I understand the author of the article knows his/her limits; this is not directed at him/her.
It never ceases to amaze me the advice given on slashdot. How to make network cables, what 2 way radio I should buy, what widget is good, what version of *nix should I run to do abc (insert favourite version of *nix here).
The above advices is often very helpful and gives many including myself a point in the right direction for learning. However as an apprentice electrician with a background in IT and telecommunications, I have learnt there are just some things you don't fuck with unless you have the necessary experience. Electricity is one of them. I work on the industrial distribution side of things where the smallest is 230V (Australia) and the more usual is 11/33 kV. I have done some contracting also.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. With a electricity, even a moderate amount of knowledge is a dangerous thing. If a plumber stuffs up his pipes, the shit goes in the sewer and the storm water goes down the shit. An environmental issue, but not immediately life threatening. I'm not having a go at plumbers, just that water doesn't kill in the same sense. We mix active and neutral wires around and we kill someone. This is called polarity because the neutral is bonded to the earth by a multiple earth neutral (MEN) link. So now that you weren't sure which socket to put that wire into, congratulations, you just livened up every tap in your house. There have been many cases of this happening with workers and people dying.
The other thing to consider is how many KVA that you are going to need. This is related to power factor; in short how much extra overhead is needed to run the system, let alone you basic current draw. Examples of power factor (overhead) include starting currents for running fridges (up to 8 times it's operational current to kick over the compressor). Too much voltage drop on the circuit (a fair amount here, not just 1 or 2%) because of too high a load and congratulations you've just burnt out your fridge. What happens is the compressor does not have enough initial voltage to kick it over and continues to attempt to do so. If the voltage has dropped by half for example, the fridge is going to pull twice as much current to try and start. At 8 times *initial* starting current, we've just doubled that. We are now pulling current outside of what the fridge is designed to carry. Increased load = increased heat = increased resistance = increased load and so the cycle continues. Magic Black Smoke ensues.
Safety: I will keep this brief
It takes 0.4 A to induce an heart attack.
Our cells operate at very close the frequency of electricity (50hz in euro/aus, 60Hz in North America)
It can be said that low voltage (240 to 1000V) is more dangerous than high voltage (1000V to 33kv). I'm sure many here have mucked around with power supplies or power outlets and gotten a tingle. Some people get thrown across the room, if you unlucky enough to touch it with the palm of your hand, your muscles will contract and lock down. And will stay that way until you are a puddle on the floor.
The general resistance of a human is approimately 1000 ohms, thus doing the math (i = v/r) 110/1000 = 0.11 A. Those figures are starting to push into the major danger area. If you are slightly wet, sweaty or not wearing the right gear, your resistance goes down and your likelihood to die just went up a whole lot.
To put into perspective the testing tolerance on a working electrical glove for LV is 8mA at the very most before fail.
The calculations that go into design are not hard, and in the Aussie standards there are load recommendations as well. The point is a good electrician is also an engineer at heart, designing the system so you are not paying too much for something and not killing your system either. You pay for an electrician's skill, experience and insurance that he won't make it go bang or *kill* someone when he walks away. For those giving advice on slashdot
The Tao that can be named is not the Tao
Electricians have to be licensed, yes. For two reasons. One is that they're required to learn the safety regulations. The other is for consumer protection from fraud.
However, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with doing it yourself. Your licensed electrician may not even have graduated high school. It's not rocket science. Your local town government will give/sell you a book with all the regulations in it. In many areas you can get a "homeowner" permit to do almost any electrical work you want yourself. You still have to get an inspection to make sure you did it right, but anybody with half a brain can learn the same regulations and requirements that your electrician did. You can pay somebody who "knows the deal" to do it, or you can be the person who "knows the deal".
There's nothing wrong with being self reliant. As a bonus it also saves you money, and comes in handy when there's a sudden surge in demand for a particular service that you happen to need too... (Like when the power goes out and everybody is trying to hire the only electrician in town).
* Most people just use a male to male plug, ...
Those of us with for-real electrical backgrounds call such a contrivance a death trap.
I've been a victim of lost DTE outage tickets too ( http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rsc/Stories/36hours.html ), but I'd caution you to think about the real risk (probability of an outage * probable duration * cost of an outage) vs. the cost of implementing a permanent generator solution. Don't forget that in order to be effective, the generator (and fuel supply) will have to be maintained too.
Getting off the grid might appeal to a certain survivalist sense of independence, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in SE Michigan which is relatively well covered by the grid (as compared to the UP.) Think about alternatives to a generator too. Draining the pipes and packing off to a motel might make a lot more sense. Around the time of the DTE outage I endured, DTE customers had been suffering a large number of outages due to a lack of line maintenance (tree trimming, etc.) DTE suffered a lot with the PSC (Public Service Commission) and the State Legislature for that. The PSC has been neutered by the Republicans, but I suspect that the State Legislature will be looking into DTE over the next few months.
http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/
We just went through anther ice storm here in NewHampshire.
I finally got around to buying a 1.5kW inverter for our car. That will run our Rennai (small propane wall mounted heater and our gas hot-water tank). It should also run the front load washer machine though I haven't tested that yet. This is the reason I bought such a large inverter the cloth diapers *must* be washed ever 3 days or so!
The 130 Amp alternator in our Honda Odyssey puts out 1.56 kW (At ~ 3000 RPM....more like 500 watts when the motor is at idle)
All the appliances in question have a wall plug, so I just run an extension cord in the house.
The inverter was a Cobra...you can get one from sears.com (I bought mine from Amazon).
Sometimes the best solution is the simplest.
Good luck!
I'm surprised no one else seems to have mentioned them.
http://www.whispergen.com/
Burn diesel, kerosene, natural gas, or propane, and generate your own electricity while providing heat and hot water. It'll get you off the grid.
When I was in Russia, all the hot water for the city was heated
in one big plant and then pumped through giant hot water pipes
everywhere. This produced all the hot water for heating buildings,
bathing, etc..
That is an extreme example of how stupid and wasteful
centralized utilities are.
In this day and age why are we still distributing power
via overhead wires. We should no more be using gridded
power via wires than we do telegraphy as our main means
of communication.
This needs to be fixed.
And you're a moron. The generator that the OP refers to does have an automatic switch from main to generator. If it's wired like like it's suppose to then it does this automatically and won't feed the neighborhood. By the way, the most likely result of that would be your generator overloading (possibly shorting out completely) and shutting down... and the power line guys test the lines before working on them.
include scraped content
Similar story covered by Slashdot in 2004 (Georgia Tech)
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
You can easily perish or burn down your home playing with electrical generation.. Get a qualified electrician to install or inspect before you take any chances at all. Wiring a generator into your mains and having the power company come alive suddenly can kill you. This requires knowledge and equipment.
Providing you get help and do it right many people can live quite well without using power from the grid and you can actually earn money if you generate enough power back to the grid. But this is not a casual thing to play with at all.
Wind and living in a rural area are big aids in power generation. Solar cells and solar hot water heaters are also great aids. In my area solar hot water heaters will give you so much hot water you won't even believe it until you experience it. Today, in south Florida it was 80 degrees F. and at least 30 degrees greater on a roof top. Hot water is the least of our problems here.
Title says all ...
When I was installing an emergency generator for my home, I decided on a small commercial generator instead of a residential generator. I ended up with an 8 kva unit on a concrete slab in back of the house. It is connected through a transfer switch, and starts automatically 30 seconds after power is lost. The switch also shuts down the generator and switches the house back when power is restored.
The generator runs off the same propane tanks that supply fuel for home heating, hot water, the stove/oven, and a fake fireplace that can keep us from freezing if the heating system suffers a mechanical problem. I have two 400-gallon propane tanks, so I was able to ride out the 6-day power outage early in December.
Once a week the generator runs for a few minutes, just to prove it is still working. When it doesn't start we call the service guy, who tells us that our model is widely used by doctors and dentists, but generally not by private residences. Nevertheless, it is a good system if you want something that “just works”.
An advantage of a fully automatic system is if we are on vacation during the winter and power fails, the pipes won't burst.
8kW is a reasonable amount of power. I have a hard time seeing normal minimal-conditions usage beat that without the involvement of an electric dryer or electric heating-- if you've got gas appliances, your peak consumption is probably a LOT lower. YMMV
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
* Most people just use a male to male plug, ...
Those of us with for-real electrical backgrounds call such a contrivance a death trap.
What, you mean running two 12ga male-male cords to two outlets (to feed both phases) is a hazard? What's wrong with feeding a 100amp panel over 100 feet of 14ga 40's-era rag wire? (snort)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Thankfully, I don't have any "main" breaker whatsoever, so there's no risk, yep.
An approved transfer switch or interlock is the ONLY legal way to connect a generator, if you also have utility power service.
If you ever think you have to turn off the main breaker to prevent a backfeed, you are making an illegal connection.
Also, there is no guarantee that a breaker prevents a flow of current from OUTPUT terminal to INPUT terminal. Most breakers can without damage to the breaker, in practice.
But plug-in breakers are popular, these are not sufficiently secured.
There are really only a few things to power. Most of the time a generator that supplies 20-30 amps at 120V should be enough.
Growing up in the rural midwest that's exactly what my father had setup. He had a 20 amp Honda that had a special breaker panel that would plug into it. It had 3 circuits on it, the furnace, the well pump (we didn't have city water) and the refrigerator. When the power went out he would go and throw those breakers in the main panel, and connect the generator in the garage, and plumb it's exhaust out the special port he had built there, so that he could keep it inside out of the whether. For all cooking/lighting we turned to fossil fuels of some sort, whether oil lamps (of which we had many antiques that we would put to use) or a propane camp stove for cooking.
If you have FiOS or something like that, make sure you power your ONT, otherwise powering the router may be a crap shoot, as if it depends on the cable system it may or may not stay up, and the same thing with the phone company, if the DSL will work, then your regular old POTS would still work, so no point in powering up a router and VOIP just to emulate the already powered POTS.
If you are looking into a full house system you definitely want to go with something diesel, probably Kohler, where for small 20-30 amp generators, Honda gasoline models are hard to beat.
and the power line guys test the lines before working on them.
Which works great, as long as the generator isn't powered up in the accidental misconfiguration AFTER they performed their tests and are already working (i.e. in contact with the wire at the moment the generator cuts on).
~$2000 for a sweet Honda 5500 watt generator off of E-bay (but I had to go pick it up).
Smooth power, heat, hot water and HD TV during power outages....priceless.
And it can be used for Combined Heat and Power which would be exceptionally useful here in Michigan. But that's a 65Kw model which would be a wee bit excessive for your average residence. Efficiency and power output goes way down at ambient temps above 70F, which isn't a problem most of the year in Michigan (11F outside now, and this is southern Michigan). A Combined Cooling Heat and Power setup might be neat further south. They look to be louder and way heavier than the Guardian standby gennies too and I probably don't want to know what they cost. They're all poor substitutes for nuclear batteries of course...
They are often already working with live power on the side side of the line (ie. main power). They know what they are doing. They know power can come back through the other way. This is why they use tons of grounding equipment and insulate themselves very well. They're pretty safe.
Maybe it is worth looking at your energy requirements overall. Not sure what your local political/energy company situation is but here in Australia you get a rebate for putting in Wind generation/Solar Panels with a grid interactive inverter. This allows you to sell power back to the electricity provider when your usage is low and buy from them when your usage is high. During an outage you could have local storage to run your house.
you are an imbecile - the parent linked to a generator set more than powerful enough to power an entire 'normal' house (2-3 people, all devices and heat), that includes an automatic transfer switch.
Thank you AC! I don't care what the rest of you have GOTTEN AWAY with. You _need_ everything that fyngyrz (762201)has indicated. Otherwise just stay away from you own electrical system and definitely out of MY neighbourhood! ... and I don't even want to think about the voltage drop in your "long extension cord" and the damage it will do to any electrical motors it is trying to feed.
The costs in danger to humans and damage to equipment much higher than your discomfort at not having power.
Just do it RIGHT!
Old fashioned Lister style diesel engines
starts here:
http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister.html
mostly finished here:
http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister6.html
Boy imports old style engine from india
boy constantly tinkers with engine
Boy has engine making power to keep life comfortable during hurricanes
engines now available directly from US importers. less hassle, more $$$$
(google for 'em)
Starts
http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister.html
Ends
http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister6.html
Now available from importers, less hassle, more $$
You are already +5 and I have no mod points, but here's my +1 anyway.
I don't know if it is most states, but Oregon *requires* a back feed prevention mechanism (Double Pole Double Throw (DPDT) transfer switch and sub panel) for any system that can provide power and connects to the grid ( e.g. does not use an extension cord ). I think it is part of the Uniform Building Code, and thus required nearly everywhere. Or the National Electric Code, as you pointed out.
Isn't cheap. But most of us would feel a mite bad at being responsible for killing the lineman who comes out and finds a live wire that wasn't thought to be. Nor is it cheap to replace your house, when it burns down because your generator exploded when the power to the house came back on.
Mostly just reiterating your points. But they are bloody good ones!
"1) Gasoline is just as explosive as DYNOMITE, its SUPER SUPER dangerous to store. Diesel can be stored very safely for a long time, its not even really flammable hardly, and zero explosive dangers. Also its very dangerous to refill a hot generator with gasoline, diesel is safe enough to pretty much keep it running and refill it on the fly."
You're talking about little piddly 5K watt generators. Mostly true. However, Honda brand generators will run in the thousands of hours without an engine overhaul. For example the 2000i typically runs 5000 hours. That's an $800 generator. The Colemans and other Chinese made brands will last a few hundred hours. You are correct.
And of course, whole house gas generators running on LPG have a lifespans in the 10's of thousands of hours if maintained properly.
"2) Gasoline generators usually run at about 6000RPM and are LOUD, Diesel generators run at about ONLY 1500-2000 RPM and are much much more quiet because of it."
Gasoline generators usually run at 3600 RPM and are loud. More powerful (>35K watts) can run at 1800 RPM. Diesel generators run at 1800 RPM and are much quieter for a variety of reasons. Moreover, diesel engines run at 1800 RPM. Again, whole house generators have large mufflers and sound like a car idling. Well, a little louder.
"4) When all the gas stations are closed and you can't get anymore (because you were at lease not stupid enough to try and store gasoline on site), you can always steal some diesel from the national guard trucks when they are not looking. :)"
Or get a 1000 or 500 gallon propane tank (common in many communities for houses or pools heated with propane), you'll get 2-4 weeks of run time, probably enough fuel for common outages, without danger.
You have the right idea overall, but I've been doing the generator thing for many years. Mine was off today, my 25K generator kept the whole house running for 6 hours, no sweat. Earlier this year, my power was off for 4 days due to storm damage. Change the oil twice a year, plugs every 2 and you're good. LPG is a nice fuel. Diesel is problematic to store 100's of gallons in a residential setting.
In many areas you can get a "homeowner" permit to do almost any electrical work you want yourself. You still have to get an inspection to make sure you did it right
Because its the government's job to protect you from yourself?
If you are lucky enough to live by a decent rate of flow stream with decent elevation drop you can completely go off the grid all the time (as long as stream has flow). Water impeller + dc generator + decent sized battery bank(80 or so 6volt golf cart batteries) + 4400 inverter and you can run lots of essentials + some more or just scale it up however big you need. Inverters can peak start much higher loads than generators for short periods of time ie startup surge needed for fridge, A/C. 48volt based systems are more efficient and you can also get DC powered fridges that are pretty sweet and very efficient.
With the above setup you could also supplement any form of DC input to keep batteries charged up ie, wind, solar or diesel generator.
Here are a few safety points that I leaned from using a generator during a hurricane and ice storm in Maryland. I did an emergency family power solution using a 3500 watt Craftsman generator.
First, buy and test your generator before you need it. The generator I got had a missing needle valve in the carburetor. Lucky I realized it was gasoline and not rain before I pulled the starter rope.
Second, the generator is a fire hazard, a poisonous gas generator and quite noisy. Find a place to position it in the yard away from burnable structures. For physical security, get a 6 foot long security chain with 5/16" thick links.
Third, I think we used 3 gallons of gasoline in 24 hours. I prefer to buy the gas just ahead of the storm and I pour it into the car if I don't use it. I keep the empty gas can in a galvanized trash can in the back of the yard.
Fourth, as pointed out earlier, oil burners are directly wired to a branch circuit in your house. The junction box I had was on the ceiling and in the dark of the basement. There are some wiring and safety problems you should figure out before you have an emergency. You need a hands free flashlight, a labeled circuit breaker, and a substitute power cord.
The wiring solution I used was as follows: A 100 foot 14 gage extension cord went from the generator to the house. Then I had a heavy duty "outlet tripler". One extension cord went down to the oil burner, one cord went to the kitchen, and one cord went to the TV and VCR. We had to unplug the refrigerator to run the oil burner.
The solution was noisy and I eventually put the generator in the basement stairwell with an 18" fan blowing fumes up the stairs. So while I had a minimal solution good enough for 2 winters, the system still presented risks.
I think by the third winter or third hurricane season I would have moved to a generator cut over switch and a safer and quieter generator.
There are some real sickos here that very well might provide you with good sounding advice that may result in your death in this situation. You should really talk to someone offline that you trust.
What is your tin foil hat out of power too?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Who in the heck has their furnace directly connected to the grid? Furnaces fail just like any other appliance. Any up-to-standard house has the main breaker between the furnace and the grid.
dim Witt, out power was out for 37 hours a few days ago and we ran our generator like that and it works perfectly fine. AND No you won't be running everything in your house you have to take it easy not to kill the generator.
You people suggesting off-grid solar panel setups??? Get a clue. He's in the US north-east . Solar setups are most-popular in the sunniest parts of the US, which is the desert-southwest--I.E., the opposite end of the country. How's about he just throw bundles of $20 bills into the fireplace to keep warm? It's more convenient than off-grid solar, and probably about the same price.
,,,,,,,,,
The stand-by generator units are by far the best, though they cost the most. You run them off propane or natural gas, and then you convert your furnace & stove to the same fuel, and you can run them off the same big tank too. Spending $10K+ on a setup (installed) isn't unusual.
I live further south (mid-US lattitudes) and just make do with a $800 5500W Sears portable and extension cords. Being portable is nice because there may be reasons other than "no power" that you can't stay at your home, and a portable generator can go wherever you go.
I have gas service, but haven't altered the furnace wiring. I maintain a portable propane heater with a few 20-lb tanks as well. The portable generators tend to be noisy, where the propane heater is basically silent (that is--you can sleep with it left on).
{Now that I think of it, it would be really nice to have a portable heater that I could hook into the furnace gas line when needed...?}
I would advise the OP to have another source of heat than the natural gas utility or the generator. You can just run a space heater off the generator (as long as the space heater's wattage is safely inside the generator's capacity) but that's not going to be as efficient as a propane or kerosene heater because the generator is outside, and some of the heat produced by the generator fuel will be immediately lost outdoors from the generator's engine itself.
You can get portable indoor-rated heaters fueled by propane or kerosene; both have advantages over the other.
Propane doesn't smell, and doesn't require a wick. Use 20-lb or larger refillable tanks, forget the disposables. They are uneconomical to throw away and even if you refill them yourself from a larger tank, they tend to suffer evaporative cooling/frosting issues during use.
Kerosene's advantages are that a portable kerosene heater can put out greater amounts of total heat than a comparably-sized propane heater can, and the kerosene fuel is often cheaper per-unit-of-heat than propane--but then, kerosene heaters need wicks and tend to smell during the first few minutes of startup and after shut-down (a lot of people move them outside to start them up and shut them down).
~
Move to Australia ... anywhere north of about Sydney, and you'll never have to worry about a power outage that could freeze you again.
(Except the New England Tablelands)
On the other hand ... I hate it when my air-conditioning stops ... we had 40 degrees Centigrade yesterday.
That's an honest to God 100+ degrees Fahrenheit.
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
So because the days are cold you like to be able create power for a fridge.. ... there are also other fridge solution runing on 12V or so, like in camping fridges, that could lower the wattage you need.
Ehm well depending on where you live, you might be able to actualy use that outside cold, and dont use a fridge.
Simply store it inside a covered deep hole or something like that.
Thats how it was done in the past, then perhaps the remaining energy demand of low power devices
You could maybe solve with solar power, or a dual windpower solution.. since labtops have a batery, they dont require continous power (only your router does.), low power (9V) could also be used for Leds if you get the voltage down a bit more.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
If you ever think you have to turn off the main breaker to prevent a backfeed, you are making an illegal connection.
Are you certain that your statement applies to every single area in every single state of the U.S.?
(I ask because it doesn't.)
1) Get a generator, some extension cords, etc. Stash gas. Do this is a secure location, preferably inside so the gear is not frozen when you need it.
2) Put stuff which does not burst when frozen outside; get ice, put it into a bucket and place that into the fridge to cool the rest.
3) Get one Fenix PD30 or any other small flashlight with a Cree Q5 or forgotthename P4/P7 per person in the household. Get ones that eat CR123A as those last long and store longer. The PD30 will burn for 65 hours at 12 Lumen (that is too bright to read by comfortably). The batteries have a shelf lie of 10 years, after which they still retain 70%-90% of their power.
4) Drain your pipes after filling your bathtubs etc for flushing the toilet, washing, whatnot. You will have food and water stashed for consumption, anyway.
Optionally, move to a country with proper regulation as those tend to have working power networks. And yes, I know the US are large and have scaling problems. The point remains the same, though.
After the Quebec ice storm 10 years ago, when much of the provence was left without power for weeks, some engineering students at McGill developed a small generator that runs off the waste heat that goes up the chimney. The generator was enough to power the furnace blower, and one radio. Last I heard, they had hoped to increase the efficiency to the point where they could run a fridge off it as well. Given 10 years, I'm sure it's in production somewhere.
If you are willing to give up browsing the internet, you can make things really easy on yourself. Power doesn't always mean electricity.
You can install a vented propane or kerosene stove to use for backup heat. This is going to be much more cost effective, around $200 for the unit (and efficient) than trying to run an electric heater off of a gas generator.
You can also by a really nice backup kerosene cook stove for between 50 and 80 dollars depending on your needs. Kerosene cook stoves are do not emit noxious gas like propane, so they are safe for indoor use.
As for the refrigerator. Take all your perishables and transfer them to the freezer until the power comes back on.
As for lighting, you can use candles, battery operated lamps, or if you really like the kerosene route you can buy and Aladdin Mantle Lamp that burns as bright as a 60 Watt light bulb.
So your out around 300 bucks, and you can heat your home, cook, and see five feet in front of you.
"You will electrocute an unsuspecting lineman".
Bull Hockey. Linemen treat every wire as if it is hot. Inner and outer gloves and rubber overshoes over non-conductive shoes. And wearing a hard hat. That's their rules and they live by them. If you ever see one working without his safety gear, report him. He knows better. That's why the monthly safety classes.
Even without your puny generator backfeeding, there are far bigger things to worry about. Transformers and other "loads" are generally above ground on both (or all three) legs. One leg out may take your power but leave the wire hot through the transformer all the way back to Three-mile Island.
I am not saying to ignore code. Just be honest. It is one more safety feature. It may keep your house from burning down when the power is restored. Bucking phases will make heat and lots-o-sparks, kill appliances, or maybe merely keep your electricity out by blowing a pole fuse or transformer. It may be that the downed line grounds out your generator keeping it from doing its job. There are a lot of reasons for the code, but protecting the lineman, while valid, is more scare than reality.
Didn't read more than the first comment from someone who was trying to make something far more complicated than it should be.
What we did, was in our shop (separate building, but electricity runs from the house to it). Is we wired a 220 plug (well pump is 220) on the outside of the shop that fed into the breaker box.
So when the generator was plugged in and on, it would feed the shop, which would in turn feed to the house. So you just have to make sure you don't turn on more stuff than your generator can handle. Or turn off some/many of the breakers in the house to make sure other peeps don't turn to much on.
Only thing with this set-up is you have to have a shutoff for the main feed to the house, otherwise you will be back feeding. Which isn't exactly what you want to do. =p
Of course this exact setup would not work for everyone, but the idea is the same regardless.
We have a 5k watt generator and it powers a fair amount of the house without a problem. We do have a propane furnace (tank in the yard). So don't have to worry about the heat part to much.
Well there is my 2 cents...
If brute force isn't working, you are not using enough.
I have always wondered. Is it better to have enough solar panels to cover most/all of the household usage or have a generator? I guess that the solar is more expensive up-front, but at least it has a long-term payoff.
I did this 18 months ago. Since I purchased my generator we've not had one outage here in Toledo, Ohio. Generator: Honda 5K (Expensive but well worth the money.) Electrical interface: Reliance Controls (easy-to-follow installation video at their site; purchased from Northern Tools) 100ft #12 wire (Lowes) Two days of puttering to install. Total cost: +/- $2,500.00 Prophylactic effect not guaranteed. Subject to the whims of Mother Nature.
Heating, water heater, clothes dryer and stove could be gas or electric.
Or you could just hang your clothes on clothe line to dry. You know, like in the good old days...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
No, because it's the governments job to protect my neighbors and the power company's repair crews from me. If I burnt my house down, it would at the very least damage my neighbor's house, if not catch it on fire as well. If I wire the generator into the mains, I could electrocute a linesman.
It's also a service provided to me to demonstrate to my insurance company that the job was done correctly. That way I can actually buy insurance.
Also the part where you're feeding up to 100 amps through not just one, but *two* sockets which are rated for a maximum of 15amp. It doesn't even matter how heavy duty your extension cord is.
Random and weird software I've written.
Just because someone is driving defensively doesn't mean it's okay for you to cut them off.
Yes the linesmen are reasonably safe and always act as if all lines are live. But that's a *failsafe*, it is not nor is it intended to be their first line of defense, it is their *last* line of defense. There's a reason the laws and codes tell you you cannot connect a generator that way.
Random and weird software I've written.
Don't be stupid. Don't do as the parent suggests.
I'm not seeing this response anywhere, so...
Call a freaking electrician! You are not just risking bricking your system or releasing a malicious script into the wild, you are risking death for yourself, your family, and the employees of a public utility. These are legally actionable offenses, to say the least. There are people who know how to deal with this crap. Call them up and pay them, for crissake. or should we expect to see a post from you sometime in the future about DIY coronary bypass surgery?
I've got quite a bit of generator-building experience at this point for home duty. I think plenty has been said on how NOT to wire up your house, so I'll leave that alone.
Since this is /., I assume that the typical sissy-pants off-the-shelf generator is not nearly interesting enough, so I'll make a few suggestions that are less (or more) practical, depending on your viewpoint below.
There are few home generators which are built for long-term use. That may be fine - maybe you don't need long-term use. Even the Generac or Onan units are typically not "primary" systems, though they may be very good for a few days or even a few weeks. The portable units are good for a day or two at the most - they have a very different engineering mindset that went into their construction, and should be used only for temporary emergencies. If you get more than a few days on one of those, consider yourself lucky and figure out what you're going to do for real next time.
I've got a few diesel-powered generators at home (and a few gas-powered ones, and a steam engine that eventually will be producing electrons) and these oil engines are the best solution for long-term power. Slow, but robust and low-maintenance, with few parts and easily understood by anyone with basic mechanical capabilities. Changfa is a good name for the higher speed engines (3600rpm) and Lister CS engines are still being made in India for import, though Canadians can find them while US residents are restricted by EPA import laws now.
If I lived somewhere that had oil or gas underneath the property, I'd probably get an Arrow engine, which runs on "waste gas". These are slow engines, but put out a respectable 15 or so horsepower for the smaller ones, and they'll run for decades with minor maintenance and care. They're not that expensive at auction or surplus from oilfield companies.
For any of these, you'll need to build your own base, get a generator head, and wire everything up. But it's a fun project.
More links:
http://www.listerengines.com/
http://www.loligo.com/projects/changfa/
http://www.loligo.com/projects/lister/
http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister.html
Keep it simple.
.
And DO NOT use 14 or 12 guage!
Use a HEAVY gauge (10 or even 8) wire with 220v plugs- Male at BOTH ends
1. You shut yourself off COMPLETELY from the outside grid. This means switching off the big main circuit breaker- usually 200-400 amp switch on panel.
2. Shut off ALL circuit breakers for individual circuits throughout the house.
3.You feed the generator power into a "large-amperage" plug in the house - preferably the electric stove, or hotwater heater, provided it is attached to a female 220V receptacle.
- Note: Of course you will not then be able to use this device, but you really don't wanna power an electric oven with your generator! And if it's the hot-water heater and you're American, resist taking showers for a day or two..
4. Start the generator. Note- Both ends of that 220V male-male should be plugged in!
5. Start throwing on the 15 amp circuit breakers you absolutely need: At first, a few lights, your home computer network (we assume your UPS is now discharged and the PCs are shut off- you DO have a big UPS for your PC(s) and routers, don't you?)
6. Then turn on your refrigerators and freezer circuits (I have two of each). The lights will dim a bit for a second or two as compressor motors come on, but should resume normally.
7. Power up higher amperage devices (TV, etc) as needed, by throwing their 15amp circuit breakers. Try to add up how many amps (that's the actual devices, not the 15amp switches!) that you are turning on- keep the total to no more than 75-85 % of your generator's rated power.
8. Do NOT attempt to refill your generator while it is running! Turn it off, let it cool down for 2 or 3 minutes before adding gasoline. Use hi-octane gas only - it "keeps longer" in storage.
And if the kids whine that their TV has gone off, ignore 'em! Tell them to go outside and shovel snow!
- Note that with this solution, you will not know when your grid power has come back on! You will have to look at neighbours' houses or phone them, assuming that they are freezing in the dark.
But then they might be employing the same methods as you, in which case you are SOL.
Once you have ascertained the power is back on, REVERSE the steps above.
Make sure the generator is OFF and only then unplug male-male feed wire. Then throw the big circuit breaker back on.
Resume operations normally.
And pay your damn electricity bill.
.
- aqk
F U
When I installed my sub panel, code specifically PROHIBITED a ground rod at that location. All grounds are supposed to be tied to the one at the main panel. I read up on the theory (22 years ago) and it made sense, but I can't recite it now.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
Why should one worry so much? Line workmen are trained and equip to treat lines as being dangerous and they take precautions. As more people do things like this the more likely the lines are still live. The necessity to work around the problem will become greater; especially as the grid becomes more distributed and upgraded for green power.
Seems to me that they need to adapt and stop making people have to spend extra for line workman protection; when all it'll take is one homemade or defective device on the line to create a problem. The soon to be upgraded grid could include the safety switches at the local transformers where they are more trustworthy...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Check your sarcasm detector...
Personally, I'd go for what I saw in the military - a sliding lockout panel for manual transfers. It blocks the breaker for the power generator being turned on while the utility breaker is on. To go to backup, you flip the utility breaker off, allowing the metal panel to slide such that the backup generator is no longer blocked - but blocking the main breaker in the process. Reverse to go back to utility.
If you want, wire in a small status light to tell you which power sources are actually providing power.
I don't read AC A human right
I have a fair amount of experience with home generators & heating. See my observations http://www.kyber.biz/rants/Electric%20generators%20AM-FM%20Dec%202004%20-%20Jan%202005.htm
In particular, pay attention to the duty cycle and operating life of the generator.
If your furnace is hot-air, you need 220 V. and probably 2,400 watts, which means the generator must deliver 3,600 or better 4,800 watts on a single outlet. The motor sucks a lot of juice at start-up.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
I've used BX cable with an underground rating, so I don't know about "UF" cable, the type of BX I used had a tar like inner wrapper and was used to bring power out to barbecue areas, etc. This was in the 60's so things may have changed.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
8kW is a reasonable amount of power." "
Only if you think nobody needs more than 640K.
My well pump suges to 3500 watts. If you're running the microwave and vacuum cleaner and got forbid a space heater is running in a room then that 8k just went away or tried to do it's best, either way it was epic failure. Granted I have a large house.
They sell $7K whole home generators up here that run on gasoline. They have a Sabre engine that you can get out of a lawn tractor and a $500 generator head. You can diy this bit.
But if it were me I'd not use gas (natutal or propane) or gasoline, I'd use a diesel generator. You have more fuel options then.
Need Mercedes parts ?
i think somebody needs to get over his electrical homophobia
After reading the posts here and speaking as a tradesman, DO NOT TAKE ANY ADVICE FROM HERE. OPEN THE YELLOW PAGES AND LOOK UNDER GENERATORS. You're going to do something very stupid otherwise. The vast majority are computer techs who absolutely no clue about electrical and safety codes or the fact they do not know better than the trades.
Have on order a transfer switch from here - a reputable brand with an installation scheme that's doable by anyone comfortable working in a breaker box - doesn't need the main power turned off to do it, just the circuits you want to transfer to.
If you're running sensitive electronics (I have a couple of servers running here that are vital to business) you want something with an inverter - not the sort of Chinese-made generators that your local hardware store is likely to carry. If your needs are modest, Honda and Yamaha make quiet, efficient, very portable models (that can be run in tandem, too, if your needs grow). The best deal I found for something that has an inverter, is light enough to lift, and can fill very modest demands (since I can heat with wood when required, and refrigerate by putting stuff in a cold room if it's winter) is this.
Still awaiting delivery, though.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I usually cruise /. for useful information, but this subject I know frontwards and backwards and there's a LOT OF BAD ADVICE BEING GIVEN.
Talking about 200 amp transfer switches is a dead giveaway that you're talking to someone who has seen it done once somewhere, but has not theory.
Talking about building a shed outdoors means they're not familiar with cooling requirements.
The Honda eu3000i has a remote start option. It's about 80$ for a reasonable size transfer switch, with instructions, from Home Depot or similar.
You can have a male plug dangling from one side of the transfer switch. By definition, it will not be hot, ever, unless it's plugged into the generator.
The purpose of the transfer switch is to isolate the power lines from the generator, and to allow the house to look like a single appliance.
It is a felony that will be prosecuted to connect your generator to the power lines, not to mention that: if the power comes on, the surge between your out of phase generator and the powerlines will likely hurt your generator, which is trivial compared to getting arrested for manslaughter for killing a power line worker.
There is a natural gas carburetor kit available for the eu3000i, so if you have natural gas, you have house heat and electricity, perhaps three times as cheap as gasoline. I've worked out the figures, and at the current natgas costs, the generator is almost as cheap as grid electrics.
You can do it yourself, using $/Btu for gasoline and natgas as the apples to apples comparison. The Honda is extremely quiet and cleanrunning and cools the muffler with the motor/generator airflow. It does produce carbon monoxide, so be sure to completely isolate the generator exhaust airflow from any possible air input to the house, like doors, windows, or leakage from the basement.
Put it outside, use a big chain through the handle. It only weighs 70#. It's really a gas engine with a huge alternator built into the flywheel, that puts out rectified AC to an ultracapacitor that's tapped by a 3Kw inverter as needed. The charge level of the capacitor determines engine speed, so it doesn't waste gas running fast when load is low.
A laptop is 50-100 watts.
for the rest, do the math. Look on the back of any unit you're intending to run during the blackout for a power usage plate (usually near where the power plug goes in). This is usually rated in amps. Multiply by 120 to get watts.
Add all of those numbers up. .. this is how many watts your generator needs to be... (but see caveat below). A generator that's way more than that isn't a problem, but you'll often pay more in fuel and noise, and generator costs.
Caveat: Advertised generator ratings are often peak. what you want to buy by is continuous output. Somewhere on the box it should have some small 'truth in adertising' print which admits that the big number is peak, and tell you what the continuous output is. If that number is higher than your calculated usage, then you should be fine. Going a bit over is fine -- good even, to have the reserve. Going a lot over is just likely to be a waste of money.
If, most of the time, you just need to power a light and your laptop, then you might want to add a battery (deep discharge / marine is best), an inverter (converts 12V to mains), and a good battery charger. This will allow you to work for long periods in relative silence. You can get 2-300 watt inverters for well under a hundred dollars these days... You only need to run the generator when you're running the heater/fridge. In all honesty you only need to run them intermittantly.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I bought a Honda EU2000 for about $900. I wired my furnace with a double pole double throw switch and attached a grounded plug to the furnace. I switch both power and neutral. I run the generator chained up in my detached garage (door up for air circulation). The generator ran the furnace, fidge and a small light and TV - router wouldn't be a problem. It ran on economy for 9+ hours on a gallon of gas. I have used it a couple of times this way and it has worked great.
CAUTION: YOU MAY KILL SOMEONE IF YOU DO NOT TURN YOUR HOUSE'S MAIN BREAKERS TO OFF! * If you leave the Main Breakers ON you will backfeed power to the entire neighborhood, and the power workers think the lines are dead. Very bad. * Technically, you need an electrician to wire a breaker/cut-off switch to the generator. In this manner when you switch the generator connection to ON you also switch the Main Breakers to OFF. Expensive, but safe and complies with NEC. * Most people just use a male to male plug, plug one end into the generator, and the other into some house outlet. If you turn the Main Breakers OFF ~BEFORE~ you do this, it is possible to get power to everything in your house, limited by the breaker capacity and the power generation capacity, and not feed the neighborhood. The relative safety of this is up to others to argue. * IF THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO YOU, SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP. Or at least a neighbor with a subscription to Popular Electronics. Your local linemen will thank you!
This is perhaps the most important post in the thread. In addition to electrocuting someone, if you don't open the utility main breaker, you will try to pick up a lot of other loads and your generator breaker will probably open, perhaps repeatedly, making you curse and mebbe do something stupid.
Another warning: if you wire an extension cord to plug into a 220 or 110 outlet in the house, be careful - do not close the generator output breaker until you plug it into the house. A friend's g.daughter tried to "help" and picked the plug up by the shiny part. She's had many operations, but has fair use of her hand after several years.
Be careful - electricity is especially dangerous if you are either doing stuff you rarely do, or doing unsafe stuff you do often and get sloppy. That's how linemen get fried, btw.
Take the previous post seriously - if this is not your forte, get professional help.
in 25 years with a standby generator learned a few things. run the gen every month for an hour change the oil twice a year (regardless of use) change the gas (drain and refill) every 6 months A small metal garden shed with ventilation (box fan & turbine) keeps the weather out, and insulation will cut down on the noise. Changeover can be low tech with a breaker in the same location as the main shutoff will work ok (you will only experiance a mistake here only once with either a line man kicking the crap out of you or the sight of a full 5 gallon plastic gas tank melting)
Proudly Butchering code for 20 years
The circuit breaker in the camper is 15 amps. Thanks for your concern though.
G'day there,
I've a 3.5KVa UPS on deditcated wiring throughout my house - it touches the computers (2 Mac pro's, wifes iMac and the two Mythbuntu TV backend/frontends) and the home networking hardware to keep our ADSL up. There are a few "emergency" outlets around also - so you can get a hot drink, make toast and such.
The mains switchboard is split between "normal" and "emergency" power. These both connect to the mains breaker (controlled by our utility provider), with the "emergency" side connecting through a Double-throw switch, allowing you to switch the emergency circuits from the internal mains to an external power input socket.
The "emergency" circuit provides for lighting (we use CFL and LED lighting here, so it's not a huge drain), fridges, evaporative air-conditioner and the UPS.
In the event of a power failure, I wheel the generator out of the shed and down to its location at the side of the house. I plug in the 60A single phase connector, switch the transfer switch over and start the generator. The generator is an ex. Army diesel unit that can provide 20A@ 240V, so it produces about 4800watts - more than ample to keep the house going.
The gen is water cooled and I have two hoses can connect to a heating jacket behind the fire, this allows the hot water from the generators heat exchanger to heat the hot water heaters water (through another heat exchanger).
We've used this system about 20 times so far - typically in hot summers they switch the power off around here due to the bushfire risks - Last summer we went without grid power for 5 days straight - so being able to keep cool and have a cold beer is nice!
Generator cost me $6700 AUD, cabling cost me $2000 (I'm a sparky by qualification) and the installation took approximately 2 weeks of my time to a pre-existing (modern) house.
If you live in the city, I wouldn't bother about power backup systems save a nice chunky UPS...
I read enough of the comments here to see a disturbing number of "make up a male-male cord set" and "TURN OFF YOUR MAIN BREAKER" postings regarding the connection of generator sets to house wiring.
#1 Never connect a generator to your house wiring via any method that does not physically provide for an OPEN path of sufficient resistance for ALL connections to the utility service INCLUDING ALL load side neutral bonding and grounding paths. A malfunction of equipment as cheap as an standard outlet, a bad neutral or ground connection can cause the death of someone trying to restore your power EVEN IF your main breaker is turned off.
#2 If you really need the ability to use your house circuitry with a generator set, hire a licensed and bonded electrician to install a Manual or Automatic Transfer Switch designed for such a purpose. Be sure the work is inspected and approved by the appropriate regulatory/utility agency and your homeowners insurance carrier - it would be a good idea to check with them first for their requirements.
#3 If you insist on designing and/or fabricating such hardware and/or preforming this type of work yourself, be DAMN sure you understand and address all the electrical issues and accept the liability issues of such efforts. The idea of design and fabrication is a choice I do not recommend even for an electrical engineer, the liability is just too great. If you have the knowledge and skill set to install approved equipment, be DAMN sure it is inspected and approved by the appropriate regulatory/utility agency. Have a chat with you homeowners insurance agent if you don't believe me.
And yes I am a licensed Master Electrician with over 30 years experience.
wabi-sabi
Matthew
Wow. Overloading a generator by 40% until the breaker trips, resetting, and repeating ad nauseum. With cheap Chinese crap. Sure, it worked for his test... but that's just begging for catastrophic results.
I especially like how he said it has "the ability to adapt to the load". In reality, the thing was "adapting" simply by being completely overloaded, it simply *could not* put out any more power no matter what. He must have no sense of smell, because I can't imagine that the smell of overheated motor windings would otherwise escape his mention...
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
When the power goes off and you're out firing up the generator, is your mind really on cooking some popcorn while giving the living room a quick run over with the vacuum?!? :P
I know it doesn't. It probably doesn't even apply in his area. It's probably something someone told him and he thinks it is law.
I used to have a 4 pin 220 connector and a single 110 that ran to the natural gas furnace. When the power would go out and it seemed like it would last longer then a couple of hours (some storm or something), I would flip the mains off, plug the 6000 watt portable generators in and fire it up. Then I would throw the main on the generator and I had electricity to every room in the house plus the heater. Of course you couldn't run things like the microwave and fridge at the same time or it would pop a circuit on the generators panel, but once you know what you could and couldn't do, it was nice to have around.
This won't work so well in summer hurricanes, but in winter we Canadians have a good solution to overfull fridges/freezers or power-loss situations that keeps the essentials at a nice frosty temperature.
OK, so the wife and I did this last year. Here are the actual costs and what we did. Had a new panel put in, 200 amps, to replace the original 100 amp panel, in the garage. Service line from the roof to the panel had to be replaced also, by the electrician. Wires from street were OK. Secondary panel installed next to primary. about 100 amps in it, but we can put more into it if need be. Everything but the Central AC runs out of here. Dual throw 100 amp breakers installed in secondary, such that turning one of them on turns the other one off. Not sure if this is a "manual transfer switch" or if it's called something else. It's basically a housing that holds a metal bar. The metal bar prevents both breakers in the switch from being on at the same time. Pretty darned cheap IIRC. Male generator plug installed near a window near the secondary panel, that feeds into it. I roll the gen outside the garage, after manually opening the garage door, plug everything in, start it, turn off all secondary breakers, turn on the juice from the generator, then turn on each breaker. Sears 5500 watt generator. Standalone ranch, I forget how many Sq Ft. House is not big, not tiny either. $1200 for the entire job. Everything in the house but the central air is hooked up. Microwave, fridge, deep freezer, furnace and water pump all run fine. Expect to go through 10 gallons of gas a day, and to have power for 16 hours. 15 gallons per day if you want 24 hours of power. I keep 2 5 gal cans with the special tips that only allow gas to flow out if you hook the special tip onto the rim of the gas tank and press down. Keeping gas off the hot muffler is paramount when re-filling. Get a $25 gasoline hand pump at sears or a 50 or 100 gallon lockable gas tank for your pickup from a farm supply catalog if you don't want to go on a gas run every day. Our power goes out twice a year for a day or 4. If you bother doing this, do it right. Don't dick with death cords or bother plugging / unplugging. The generator runs at full throttle whether you have it loaded or not. I doubt that the runtime would be significantly extended to make it worth unplugging large appliances. Oh, BTW, we tried the generator and extension cords BS. When it's cold, you really do NOT want a window open, which has to be kinda near the generator, letting in cold carbon monoxide as the hot air in your house goes up into the attic. Just go for the electrician and get the secondary panel solution, or go bigger / fully automated.
This similar to how I wired my house, I put in a 240v breaker just after the main breaker that feeds into the house. I installed a 240v plug in the wall.
Now all I have to do is shut off all of the house breakers, flip off the main breaker(coming into the house) flip on the generator breaker and plug the generator into the 240v plug start the genset and select the house breakers I want to run. My genset is around 6500 watts and pretty much runs everything I need.
Down the road I will install a gas generator.
Well if it worked once for you and your generator and your house it must work safely every time for everyone in their house with every kind of generator, right? It can work of course, if you know not to overload the sockets, how your GFCIs will react, and never ever forget to cut the mains power. But there's just too much to go wrong for it to be a sensible option for most people, which is why it's dangerous advice and in many places illegal to do.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
If you only have a few things you MUST run you can build your own for $100 or less, i did. Works great, not the best efficiency but it beats the hell out of no power. Take one lawn mower engine, bolt it to a plywood stand. Go down to your local lawn&garden store and get a 3-4" pulley that fits the output shaft of the motor. Take one cheap alternator from the wrecking yard, ideally an older honda flavor as they're set up to rotate in the correct direction and use V belts rather then multi-groove belts. Get a belt that fits both pulleys. Bolt alternator to stand in such a way that you can adjust the belt tension. Get a car (or motorcycle) battery of the 12 volt type. Get an ebay power inverter, i got a 500/1000 watt one for $30. Wire the inverter to the battery with a switch, and then the battery to the alternator, with a switch on the field line to the alternator (otherwise you'll never get it started, and the alt will drain the battery in short order. Presto, two outlets and 500w of power.
This year I was able to join the ranks of Yet Another Generator User in my neighborhood. We live in a fairly rural area of Southern Maine so we were black for 8 days this season. As a telecommuter this was particularly painful. While the furnace is 120V the well is 240V and the furnace will not run if there is no water service.
When we were dark last season I found myself whining to my father about no power, heat, water. He informed me that he had an old Chicago Power 40411 portable generator he no longer used because it made so much noise all the other campers kept giving him dirty looks and rude comments whenever he fired it up. A couple weeks later I found box with generator parts in my driveway. It took some fussing but I finally got it running. Cost: three weekends of small engine repair and my pride.
On the first day of darkness this season my wife asked why I had not actually hooked up that generator so we could have heat and water. Um, so a few hours later and a trip to HD I added a HEMA L14-30 outlet near the cellar window and 20ft of 30A extension cord. Cost: $130 in parts, 5 hours, my manhood.
The key here is that the generator has a 4 connector outlet and is rated at 5.5kW @ 240V. This allows me to run both sides of the circuit breaker panel. So long as I remember to open the main breaker switch. Fortunately my main switch as 3 contact (red, white, black) so when it's open I'm isolated from the grid. I'm told this is not always the case so if you're going to back feed your circuit breaker panel like I did you need to check this or have an electrician install a cross over switch. Cost: ~$300 installed. While I don't need this I'm having my electrician friend come over and help me put it in so I'm code compliant.
I can't stress the safety of this enough. Back feeding a circuit panel is handy but can be dangerous. I put the plug I use on a separate thermal magnetic breaker with ground fault. The generator runs outside, under an awning behind the shed so we don't get exhaust gas back in the cellar. I'm installing a separate cross over switch so I can't get electricity from it unless I'm isolated from the utility grid.
That said, this little puppy has enough umph to run the well and furnace and a few lights. I get about 3 hours per gallon of gas which is less than ideal but this is a backup system that might see 2% usage. Unfortunately the power is not clean enough to run my home office. I have 4 systems on a 2kVA UPS to do Enterprise Software Development. Unfortunately, the UPS didn't like the generator's power and kept shutting off when the well kicked in. I ended up using a little Honda generator to drive my office that week.
Every time I see one of those 22kW propane generators with auto start outside HD my heart skips a beat and my trousers get a little tight but then I look at the price tag and think; Yea, for a few days a year I need this I can live with my hand me down generator a little longer.
My advice. keep an eye on craig's list this summer and pick up a cheap used generator. Get your electrician friend to help you install a cross over switch and the big extension cord. Shove the thing in the back of the garden shed and sleep easier knowing it's there.
Also note that your house probably has two phases. With this approach, you probably need to wire them together.
Danger Will Robinson. In a 240 volt 3 wire circuit, all 3 conductors are the same size. That way a 20 A load won't exceed the 12 AWG wire. If you use a 120 volt generator and feed 120 volts in, it is possible for 2 20A legs to share a single common neutral exceeding it's capacity. Don't do this for any 120 volt generator able to deliver over 15 amps. Many older houses have some 14 AWG lighting circuits on 15 Amp breakers. Most generators able to provide over 20A also are able to provide 240 volt. Use a proper transfer switch and the 240 volt outlet on the generator.
The truth shall set you free!
Article: ACE Hardware Is Tired Of People Asking For Double Ended Male Adapters http://consumerist.com/5123592/ace-hardware-is-tired-of-people-asking-for-double-ended-male-adapters