Propane Whole House Generators, Warning.

[Travelover]

My solution is a 6000 watt portable generator that runs on gasoline or natural gas and a 1000 watt gasoline generator. The little generator provides power to the house to keep the lights and internet on and the bigger generator is run occasionally for the well, refrigerator and furnace. If I had to depend on propane, I'd surely not run it 24/7 after a hurricane.

 

[Industrial Toys]

It does seem foolish to live in Hurricane country and then select a system that you can't use in a long outage. Maybe he has money he doesn't know what to do with, but I would think he is set with his 7.5 Diesel in his RV. Heck, if his house is destroyed, he may even have a place to live on site!

 

[k0ua]

On the other hand, my lady friend is not the most incapable person with equipment, but a fire pump once went all squirrelly on it's side and she just stood there in a daze watching it! That kind of thing scares me.

My wife is just the opposite. She walked by the kitchen sink and noticed a puddle of water on the floor. She started digging out the many things stored under the sink and saw that one of the water feed lines had popped out of its compression fitting. She found the shut off valve and shut off the water and started to clean up. Now she did wait on me to get the parts to fix the problem, but she had done all of the clean up she could do and had things drying out, and she had brains enough to know that the water has to be shut off. Sad to say not everyone would do that.

 

[Industrial Toys]

It was as though she was afraid to touch it, like some crazed animal (the pump, not her)!

Reminds me of being in a friends place of employment. Someone was moving a large bottle of welding gas without the cap. He inadvertently turned on the valve, it startled him and he dropped the cylinder so it went spinning around the shop floor. Me and a manager took cover and my friend walks over, cool as a cucumber, stops the thing, shuts it off, stands it up and walks away, without a word. If I had thought about it, I would have realized the fitting was at a ninty, so it's not like it's gonna take off.

 

[oosik]

When we lived in Anchorage ( '65 to '82 ) - natural gas was king. They almost gave it away. Electricity was, even then, VERY costly. We choose to go electric on our clothes dryer. Too much lint, too close to a flame. Maybe just overly cautious.

 

[k0ua]

When we lived in Anchorage ( '65 to '82 ) - natural gas was king. They almost gave it away. Electricity was, even then, VERY costly. We choose to go electric on our clothes dryer. Too much lint, too close to a flame. Maybe just overly cautious.

I remember as a kid we had a gas dryer we used for decades. I don't remember any problems with it. We had propane gas refrigerators too. You don't see them much anymore. These were old even then, made by Servel. Nothing but a little flame running all the time. It didn't matter when the power went out, you still had refrigerator and freezer section. Very quiet too. I think modern propane fridges are made, but they are not all that common except the little ones in RV's.

 

[3Ts]

I think modern propane fridges are made, but they are not all that common except the little ones in RV's.

Unique Off Grid

22 cuft seems to be the biggest they make and are intended for off-grid applications. And they are very proud of their refigerators - $~3k proud.

 

[MossRoad]

It says it uses about 2.1 pounds of propane every 24 hours.
There's about 4.2 pounds of propane in 1 gallon of propane.
So that's 1/2 gallon of propane per day.
3.5 gallons of propane per week.
15ish gallons per month.
182.5 gallons per year. Let's just say 200 for easy math.
200 gallons of propane per year to run the fridge.
Propane in the U.S. has averaged around $2.50 per gallon over the last 10 years.
200 x $2.50 = $500 per year to run the refrigerator on propane.
$5000 to run that propane fridge for the last 10 years.
U.S. Propane Residential Price (Dollars per Gallon)

I just looked at my 9 year old fridge/freezer. $110 per year @ eleven cents per kwh.
$1100 to run that electric fridge for 10 years.

I guess if propane is your only choice, you have no choice, but man, that's about 5 times the cost to operate VS electric.

Our electric fridge was about $600, too, so 5 times less expensive to purchase and 5 times less to operate. YIKES!

 

[Industrial Toys]

But hey, even our Christmas liests are LED, we are a GREEN eco friendly domicile!

Always sad when reality meets best intentions/delusions.

I wonder what the real numbers say about my Dads 1950s GE fridge (converted by Ontario Hydro from 25 to 60 cycles). Has he been throwing money away, or is he ahead?

 

[MossRoad]

But hey, even our Christmas liests are LED, we are a GREEN eco friendly domicile!

Always sad when reality meets best intentions/delusions.

I wonder what the real numbers say about my Dads 1950s GE fridge (converted by Ontario Hydro from 25 to 60 cycles). Has he been throwing money away, or is he ahead?

Hard to say on the fridge. As for LED Christmas lights... I've been trying to justify getting them for our tree out front. However, it's about 42' tall and would take hundreds of dollars of strings VS the old conventional strings I get for about $5 on clearance. A tree that tall, I end up leaving half a dozen strings on each year bacause I can't pull them down. They get caught in the branches. I'd leave about $40-$50 worth of LEDs in that tree each year.

I've tried to convince the wife that I can justify a $5000 used bucket truck for twice-a-year Christmas light use.... not having much success on that issue yet. :laughing:

 

[Industrial Toys]

I never got mine out of the tree from last year. Good thing, it seemed like just yesterday anyway.

I just can't comprehend what some people spend on X-Mas lighting, even just the extension cords, and TIME! Maybe they hire someone.

 

[k0ua]

It says it uses about 2.1 pounds of propane every 24 hours.
There's about 4.2 pounds of propane in 1 gallon of propane.
So that's 1/2 gallon of propane per day.
3.5 gallons of propane per week.
15ish gallons per month.
182.5 gallons per year. Let's just say 200 for easy math.
200 gallons of propane per year to run the fridge.
Propane in the U.S. has averaged around $2.50 per gallon over the last 10 years.
200 x $2.50 = $500 per year to run the refrigerator on propane.
$5000 to run that propane fridge for the last 10 years.
U.S. Propane Residential Price (Dollars per Gallon)

I just looked at my 9 year old fridge/freezer. $110 per year @ eleven cents per kwh.
$1100 to run that electric fridge for 10 years.

I guess if propane is your only choice, you have no choice, but man, that's about 5 times the cost to operate VS electric.

Our electric fridge was about $600, too, so 5 times less expensive to purchase and 5 times less to operate. YIKES!

Do you know how much propane cost back "in the day" when I was a kid? $0.05 to $0.10 per gallon.. They practically gave the stuff away. By the 70's it went up in price considerably.

 

[check]

Do you know how much propane cost back "in the day" when I was a kid? $0.05 to $0.10 per gallon.. They practically gave the stuff away. By the 70's it went up in price considerably.

We used to get natural gas bills of 2 to 3 dollars a month. And they hand-delivered them!

 

[MossRoad]

Do you know how much propane cost back "in the day" when I was a kid? $0.05 to $0.10 per gallon.. They practically gave the stuff away. By the 70's it went up in price considerably.

The house I spent the first 24 years of my life in, my father designed and built himself with just his cousin for help with the exception of the masonry fireplace and concrete foundation. It was a 2700sq ft ranch house, open concept, heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright. We had lots of windows. 17 floor to ceiling glass walls 4' wide by 8' tall in the living room, dining room, master bedroom and front entry halls. And multiple windows in all the bedrooms and family room. No curtains in the house except the bedrooms. He had two basements (one was a bomb shelter) and two natural gas furnaces. The roof was tongue and groove douglas fir with three layers of tar paper and felt, then gravel. So, NO insulation in walls or ceilings. None. In northern Indiana. In winter. I remember in the 70's he had $3-400 per month heating bills. I asked him why he did a house in our climate with no insulation or curtains, etc.... he said at the time he built the house, natural gas was almost free! :laughing:

 

[oosik]

When we lived in Anchorage our new house was typical split level. Three bedroom, two bathroom with a big open room ( billiard room ) downstairs - 2800 sq ft. Our natural gas bill was $25 to $30 a month. Our electric bill was $90 to $110 a month.

 

[k0ua]

The house I spent the first 24 years of my life in, my father designed and built himself with just his cousin for help with the exception of the masonry fireplace and concrete foundation. It was a 2700sq ft ranch house, open concept, heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright. We had lots of windows. 17 floor to ceiling glass walls 4' wide by 8' tall in the living room, dining room, master bedroom and front entry halls. And multiple windows in all the bedrooms and family room. No curtains in the house except the bedrooms. He had two basements (one was a bomb shelter) and two natural gas furnaces. The roof was tongue and groove douglas fir with three layers of tar paper and felt, then gravel. So, NO insulation in walls or ceilings. None. In northern Indiana. In winter. I remember in the 70's he had $3-400 per month heating bills. I asked him why he did a house in our climate with no insulation or curtains, etc.... he said at the time he built the house, natural gas was almost free! :laughing:

Yeah, if you were lucky enough to be on Natural gas. And propane wasn't too far behind. But it went up, and that's when my family switched from heating the house with propane (sure was nice and easy) to burning wood. (lots of work).

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, if you were lucky enough to be on Natural gas. And propane wasn't too far behind. But it went up, and that's when my family switched from heating the house with propane (sure was nice and easy) to burning wood. (lots of work).

We had a fireplace, but it was only good for heating the living room that was located at the end of one of the long Y wings of the house. We had a neat cantilevered hearth out along the front of the fireplace. It was also a sitting bench on each side of the fireplace. I remember many cold mornings when my dad would make a fire. We could sit on our butts on the floor with our feet under the hearth and eat our breakfast on the hearth in front of the fire. Great memories. He did orient the house to take advantage of the sun. In winter, the sun would shine directly into the house first thing in the morning at sunrise and hit a large brick wall, which it would heat up. The sunshine came in almost all day long until sunset. In summer, it came up way to the left and quickly got blocked by the roof overhang, and didn't shine in all day long. Passive solar before passive solar was cool. :laughing:

 

[MNBobcat]

What people don't think about is in a real hit the fan situation you won't be able to get propane but you can siphon diesel from vehicles and otherwise find diesel.

All it would take is for the sun to throw one large coronal mass ejection directly at earth and we (the whole country) would be without power for about a year. That's because so much of our fragile grid depends on components made from overseas with no back up replacement inventory kept here in the U.S.

Diesel is a far better choice because the fuel is much more available. If a propane truck can't get to you -- you're SOL.

 

[fried1765]

I remember as a kid we had a gas dryer we used for decades. I don't remember any problems with it. We had propane gas refrigerators too. You don't see them much anymore. These were old even then, made by Servel. Nothing but a little flame running all the time. It didn't matter when the power went out, you still had refrigerator and freezer section. Very quiet too. I think modern propane fridges are made, but they are not all that common except the little ones in RV's.

Now I am going to show you guys how old I REALLY am!
In the 40's we had a ...... KEROSENE REFRIGERATOR (no electricity available).

 

[Travelover]

Now I am going to show you guys how old I REALLY am!
In the 40's we had a ...... KEROSENE REFRIGERATOR (no electricity available).

That's nuthin'. :laughing: When I was a kid we had one that used ice.