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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.
This coming from the can't-feel-my-toes department? Put it outside!
This coming from the order-of-importance dept: cold beer, internet, all other stuff.
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 object to your derrogatory and inflamatory efforts to drive my net asset value down.
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.
hypothermic babies and cats
mmmmmm, frozen tacos - yum
/Homer
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
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
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
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
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.
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
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!