Standby Generator - Diesel or NG?

[RobJ]

In the south you also have to worry about hurricanes! After Hugo I hauled diesel in 5 gallon cans out to a 40kW for 19 days straight It was using around 10 gallons a day. Many homes were without power even longer than that. Mine has never been out more than 6 hours or so. I am on a well and that is my biggest problem, I can do without heat or cooling for awhile but I gotta have water

How long were you running it to use 10 gallons a day? When we lost power with Rita I think I only ran power for a couple hours. Mainly to run my fridges and my neighbors fridge. We did watch TV because we have a dish, cable was out of course. Water not a problem either. While others were waiting in line to but bottled water, I bought 2 35 gallon trash cans for $8 each and filled them before the storm. I keep my propanes ready to go all the time.

If the area only suffered power loss it's really sort of fun. Spending time outside with neighbors and going to bed early. Down south the bad part is the AC and the heat at night. But it would be REALLY expensive to put in a system to just run the AC.

 

[Skyco]

The 40kW was running 24 hours a day at a communications tower. Had over 25 pine trees down across the driveway to the tower, about 150 yards long. Had to chainsaw a path through the fallen trees to even get the generator in there.

Yeah the lack of AC can be brutal since we are all spoiled in the south I figure we can always move into the toy hauler trailer, has all the conveniences of home and its own built in 4kW generator. Whenever a hurricane or freezing precip is predicted I make sure all the vehicles and the boat are filled with gas for reserve.

 

[SpringHollow]

But for your scenario to be relevant, you need a terrorist act, an act of nature, or an accident that takes out both the natural gas and electrical distribution systems while keeping the roads passable.

I suppose we all need to assess our perceived risks and prioritize our resources accordingly. In this area, we KNOW we will lose electric for 4 - 10 days from an ice storm where the roads will be closed due to downed trees or power lines. Happens every 10 years or so. I wish I could have natural gas at my house for my generator. Since I can not, I installed a propane generator with a 1000 gallon tank. I sized it so I could have heat and electric for 2 weeks during the coldest part of the winter with the tank only half full. Now that I have a wood boiler, I can run for even longer. I certainly would not want to bring in diesel via 5 gallon cans for a 4 day outage. However, one could install a large diesel tank with all of the issues associated with it. The main reason most people do not go with diesel is that the unit/installation costs are significantly more than Natural Gas or Propane and there is little benefit when looking at standby use. For 24/7 power generation off grid, diesel would make more sense.

Ken

 

[Skyco]

Never heard of rolling shutdown of NG pipelines. If there is no break then there is no need for a shutdown. Plenty of reserves comming into the pipeline. And with the pipeline underground, not many problems to deal with like power lines.

Sounds like a conspiracy!!

To be honest I haven't either although another website I visited claims it is done during shortages.

BTW if you google "natural gas outages" you will find an astounding number of such documented instances, whatever the cause.

 

[Pilot]

I would ask what might cause NG service to fail in your area. Here we have floods, landslides, windstorms & earthquakes that could affect us. If an earthquake, it would affect a large area and we could be off line for several days, if not weeks. I doubt that Ontario is an earthquake area, but what might take out NG service over a very large area? Could a major supply line get washed out?

 

[Highbeam]

I would ask what might cause NG service to fail in your area. Here we have floods, landslides, windstorms & earthquakes that could affect us. If an earthquake, it would affect a large area and we could be off line for several days, if not weeks. I doubt that Ontario is an earthquake area, but what might take out NG service over a very large area? Could a major supply line get washed out?

Yes. There are a handfull of major pipelines pumping NG through the northwest. One pair runs through the city where I work in a 70 foot right-of-way. A 36" and a 24" high pressure, 1000 psi they say, pipes running massive volumes of gas to where it needs to go. The lines go over hills, under highways, and through construction projects where I have permitted construction of other large diameter utilities. Landslides, or a goon on the excavator could disable this transmission main. Even just putting a hole in a 36" line at 1000 psi will cause a major shutdown. Then every little old lady in the city will have to relight their pilot lights to get hot water. Major mess.

If small diesel gensets were priced similar to the small gasoline gensets then I would gladly jump on the diesel bandwagon. Until then, my little 100 lb, 3500 watt, 300$ gasoline generator will run for a long time on the 4 gallon tank plus every other gasoline tank I own including cars, trucks, motorcylces, lawnmowers, and even the 5 gallon cans. I have wood heat and oil lamps for light. A power outage is part of an emergency so I don't expect to live a normal life during the outage but I do intend to stay warm, safe, and to keep my refrigerator cold. What is so essential in your home that you need even 20KW of standby power? A little planning will go a long way here.

 

[Tig]

Our earthquakes are insignificant. St Catherines has a major gas pipeline coming from the north (Toronto) and is adjacent to major hydro electric resources (Niagara falls).

 

[chh]

A small town and quite a few semi-rural houses near me lost their NG over a small gas company going under last year. It took 2 to 3 weeks for another company to take over and get gas going again. An oddball situation but it could happen. On the other side of that, during our ice storm here last January propane and diesel suppliers couldn't transfer fuel from the tanks to the delivery trucks until the electricity came back on. They didn't have backup power. Most were down 2 to 3 days. Since most rural houses around here are propane or total electric people who were low on fuel got a rude suprise. NG is not an option for me so I try to make sure my propane and diesel tanks are pretty full this time of year. 2 major ice storms in 7 years will do that to you. I was down 13 days the first time and only 9 the second.

 

[kenmac]

Curious as to how come? On a standby unit just less to go wrong or maintenance to keep up with. Biggest air cooled diesel I worked on was a V-12. Not a problem.


Well, back when I use to install generac generators. Generac didn't recommend connecting an A/C unit to their air cooled gensets. They ( generac) felt that would over heat & over work the small air cooled engine & doing this would void the warranty. So I would never connect an A/C on any air cooled generac genset that I installed. The air cooled engine is belt driven, the water cooled is direct drive. The water cooled runs much quieter & cooler

 

[RonMar]

Aircooled engines are less thermally stable so they must be built to lower tollerances to allow for thermal expansion and contraction. Because of this they typically burn more oil. The smaller aircooled generators, if run continously will shut down after a few days on a low oil alarm. I was talking power outages with a tech rep for a generac retailer and he said that is their number one question and repair response during an extended power failure in a region. About day 4 the phone starts ringing off the hook and they attempt to walk the owners thru the procedure to check and top off the engine oil... We have an Onan aircooled Vtwin on a mountain top that is good for about 4 1/2 days before it shuts down on low oil.

Water cooled engines are more thermally stable and can have tighter tollerances. How often do you have to add oil to your auto engine...