Your last generator Maintenance Run

[3930dave]

New natural gas hook-ups permits are already curtailed or not allowed to address Global Warming.

Going all electric to serve heat loads adds a new dimension as power loads tend to be large.

Anyone with a car with a 12 volt battery should be able to keep a cell phone charged.

Maybe just a fluke but the old DSL never went down... U-Verse and Infinity did... Also, the old rotary dial phone on the line since 1969 worked where all the Voice of IP stopped.

To me... anything with hot and cold running water is luxury living... most here do have gas water heaters but new installs will need to be electric only...

Also the blanket ban on wood heat removes wood as a viable option unless you have an older home and did not take the money to demo your wood burning fireplace.

Interesting that wood cooking is still allowed... the old pristine Wedgewood White and Chrome stove in the garage might have a new home soon as half it wood and half is gas...

I venture to say there are few of these 1940's stoves in regular use... built to last forever back when we built things to last.

Makes Sense...... drive complete dependence onto a grid that's been under-maintained for decades........ IF, you are trying to de-populate the State, or drive up the value of generator stocks.

Been a while since I've been to Cali....... to address CO, can I assume that all Drive-Thru's are closed and the combustion of weed is prohibited ?

Rgds, D.

 

[Industrial Toys]

It drives me crazy to see people lined up maybe a dozen deep at a drive through to get a coffee! If I'm in a big shopping comples, I may walk a quarter of a mile between stores, rather than getting back in my truck. I also don't need a gym membership.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Home back up power sources are changing to be more things than a gas generator I am starting to realize after getting the 2016 Nissan Leaf last month.

Nissan Energy Home can power a home's energy needs - YouTube

Below is a blip from a guy with Shell.

How Electric Vehicle Batteries Could Be Used to Power Entire Cities - YouTube

 

[grsthegreat]

New natural gas hook-ups permits are already curtailed or not allowed to address Global Warming.

Going all electric to serve heat loads adds a new dimension as power loads tend to be large.

Anyone with a car with a 12 volt battery should be able to keep a cell phone charged.

Maybe just a fluke but the old DSL never went down... U-Verse and Infinity did... Also, the old rotary dial phone on the line since 1969 worked where all the Voice of IP stopped.

To me... anything with hot and cold running water is luxury living... most here do have gas water heaters but new installs will need to be electric only...

Also the blanket ban on wood heat removes wood as a viable option unless you have an older home and did not take the money to demo your wood burning fireplace.

Interesting that wood cooking is still allowed... the old pristine Wedgewood White and Chrome stove in the garage might have a new home soon as half it wood and half is gas...

I venture to say there are few of these 1940's stoves in regular use... built to last forever back when we built things to last.

that would suck, especially considering the size of generator to run an all electric house. Up here all electrics usually have a small gen to run a small portion of house, and use wood to heat and propane for water heater. If anyone tried to enact a no burn policy here there would be riots. They push for natural gas extensions into propane territories. You left coasters sure have it tough. I was all nice and toasty tonight with my wood burning stove. You can grow and smoke weed in calif....but can’t burn wood. Maybe if they made flavored wood smoke ... like vaping... they would allow it

 

[daugen]

New natural gas hook-ups permits are already curtailed

This is going to directly affect my sister's ability to get a whole house gen put in Muir Beach.
Ultrarunner, is this aimed at both commercial and residential? Propane is the cleanest fuel out there, why would they curtail it?
Or maybe the issue is LNG by pipeline, not a residential 500 gallon tank.
Can you educate me a little as to what is going on out there involving new installs?
Drew

sister needs to get a gen first before I can show her how to maintain it....
In the middle of the outage she and her DIL went to a box store and found a 7500 Champion and used that.
Exactly what I told her NOT to buy but this is exactly a beggars can't be choosers situation.
With a little better planning...of course they have been trying for six months to get a 22kw put in and have gotten two quotes over 20k.
It's nuts there...The GOLD RUSH for electricians.

 

[shooterdon]

So, at $5.00 per gallon your cost is $7.50 - $18.00 per hour.
That is unacceptable for us. But each to their own.
I'm talking about us, not you or Californians.
We have had many 3 - 5 day outages in the last 30 years.
We use about 5 gallons, maybe slightly less per day.
When I was in HS, I worked on a dairy that had a back-up generator that ran constantly in an outage to keep the milk cool.
That makes sense.
For us, we don't run the generator any more than needed.
The wood stove heats the house in the winter, outage or no outage.
We had an outage for several hours about a week ago.
Lit a candle and played cards, then went to bed.
Power came on before we awoke.
Didn't run any of our 3 generators.

Resurrecting an old post but think it is worthwhile...

Harry, I am with you I am not willing to invest in installing or operating a whole house generator. I can see the application for some people, but not most people. Those that have them must poop their drawers when they see the fuel cost after a 3-7 day outage.

I recently sold my Honda EB11000. It was too big, and used too much fuel. Sold it for $2500. Purchased an electric start Champion 7500 watt dual fuel unit for $900 to replace it. I currently get propane at $1.39 so it is very affordable. Like you, we cycle our generator as needed during long outages...run it about 5-6 hours a day. It is backed up with 20 year old 5000 watt Generac that works well, but does not have electric start so I need to be home to start it as my fiancé cannot start it. We also have a small 900 watt generator from Harbor Freight that we can use if we need to.

Our plan is to have a propane line with QD run to a generator shed. The old Generac will be there as well. A line will be run from the house receptacle to the shed and either generator will be able to hook up. Using propane means no fuel storage issues, but it will be advantageous to have gas operation if the gets too cold to run propane or propane level is low.

I am 69, and if the "cheap" Champion lasts as long as the "cheap" Generac, I am set for life. IHMO, two "cheap" generators are better than one "good" one. Also, being able to use two fuels is a bonus. If I was starting over, I would get two of the Champions, but as I already have the Generac is will serve a decent backup. I believe in redundancy for critical things.

Here is rural MI, we get very few outages and they do not last long. Longest in the last 7 years has been about 3 days. Most are under 4 hours and like you, we do not hook up the generator unless it lasts more than 6- 8 hours. So investing in a top of the line generator, good for thousands of hours, is foolish in my circumstances. I still want to be prepared for a 7 day outage that may happen once every few years. If the SHTF, we can reduce generator use to 2 hours a day to charge batteries, plus power the well, fridge and freezer. Fuel consumption and cost become more important for long/frequent outages. To me, it makes a whole house generator even less attractive. But I can survive without TV and internet forever is need be. LOL

 

[3930dave]

Home back up power sources are changing to be more things than a gas generator I am starting to realize after getting the 2016 Nissan Leaf last month.

Nissan Energy Home can power a home's energy needs - YouTube

Below is a blip from a guy with Shell.

How Electric Vehicle Batteries Could Be Used to Power Entire Cities - YouTube

Batteries have been used by utilities for a very long time, for their own purposes (station switching). Most consumers can't/won't roll-their-own systems (like 90 has); an EV is an easy way to buy mobile battery pack in this respect.

Batteries have their place in the mix..... if ur's surgeons have provisioned their grid-ties with batteries, they could be running their house and car just fine through these PG&E shutdowns.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Batteries have been used by utilities for a very long time, for their own purposes (station switching). Most consumers can't/won't roll-their-own systems (like 90 has); an EV is an easy way to buy mobile battery pack in this respect.

Batteries have their place in the mix..... if ur's surgeons have provisioned their grid-ties with batteries, they could be running their house and car just fine through these PG&E shutdowns.....

Rgds, D.

I remember touring the Lake Barkley Dam with my son and his scouting troop and we were shown a room full of the tall (2 volt?) batteries for their power generation control systems.

While today marks my first 4 weeks of EV ownership I am learning there is another world of back up power out there.

The electric pick up trucks will be a hit with campers and contractors because by default if you drive your EV you brought your power source for !20 and 240 volts.

Being able to potentially jump start dead EV's is something I never through about a month ago by giving another EV some of the charge out of your traction battery.

Below is an article about some fast EV charging ability in development in the labs today.

Recharge An Electric Car Battery In 10 Minutes. It痴 Less Exciting Than You Think.

Recharge An Electric Car Battery In 1 Minutes. It’s Less Exciting Than You Think.

[h=1][/h]

 

[3930dave]

Resurrecting an old post but think it is worthwhile...

Harry, I am with you I am not willing to invest in installing or operating a whole house generator. I can see the application for some people, but not most people. Those that have them must poop their drawers when they see the fuel cost after a 3-7 day outage.

I recently sold my Honda EB11000. It was too big, and used too much fuel. Sold it for $2500. Purchased an electric start Champion 7500 watt dual fuel unit for $900 to replace it. I currently get propane at $1.39 so it is very affordable. Like you, we cycle our generator as needed during long outages...run it about 5-6 hours a day. It is backed up with 20 year old 5000 watt Generac that works well, but does not have electric start so I need to be home to start it as my fiancé cannot start it. We also have a small 900 watt generator from Harbor Freight that we can use if we need to.

Our plan is to have a propane line with QD run to a generator shed. The old Generac will be there as well. A line will be run from the house receptacle to the shed and either generator will be able to hook up. Using propane means no fuel storage issues, but it will be advantageous to have gas operation if the gets too cold to run propane or propane level is low.

I am 69, and if the "cheap" Champion lasts as long as the "cheap" Generac, I am set for life. IHMO, two "cheap" generators are better than one "good" one. Also, being able to use two fuels is a bonus. If I was starting over, I would get two of the Champions, but as I already have the Generac is will serve a decent backup. I believe in redundancy for critical things.

Here is rural MI, we get very few outages and they do not last long. Longest in the last 7 years has been about 3 days. Most are under 4 hours and like you, we do not hook up the generator unless it lasts more than 6- 8 hours. So investing in a top of the line generator, good for thousands of hours, is foolish in my circumstances. I still want to be prepared for a 7 day outage that may happen once every few years. If the SHTF, we can reduce generator use to 2 hours a day to charge batteries, plus power the well, fridge and freezer. Fuel consumption and cost become more important for long/frequent outages. To me, it makes a whole house generator even less attractive. But I can survive without TV and internet forever is need be. LOL

No one size fits all in this game..... too many variables with wants/needs/budget/technical skills/local conditions for that to happen.

This thread has wound through a lot of interesting setups, problems, and fixes...... what I was thinking of in post 1, keeps coming to the forefront - maintenance matters. (I knew that to begin with , just wanted this bitstream to help me with getting 'er done.....).

We've seen basic portable generators (that somebody else neglected) brought back from dead, to running fine. Also, we've seen people (courtesy of grs) calling for service on a whole house system that's had zero maintenance - blown batteries, and little or no crankcase oil (likely original) years after installation.

Regardless of kw rating, it ain't gonna help ya in an outage if it can't do much other than anchor a boat......

Find what works for you, and give it some TLC now and then...... :thumbsup: Small engines in general can be really irritating when they don't work, but a generator not starting can expand your idea of what a Bad Day is.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

Battery supply for switchgear is typically 125VDC.

On the topic of old resurrected iron, mine is one I’ve been meaning to upgrade for about 15 years now and followed me through three moves and still a temporary installation. BUT... a little maintenance is required if you want to avoid frustration. Points, plugs and a new fuel pump today.

This one has well over 16k hours on it by the way.