Backup generators for the home

“ski - check out the Guardian line of generators (http://www.guardiangenerators.com/products/guardian.asp?NavID=1). You can buy just the transfer switch and have your electrician install that with a plug on the end for your current generator, then go for the larger generator in the future.

bit is probably going to point out that most electric water heaters would be too big of a load for a 5kw genset - and he's right. If you have a gas or oil fired one you would be fine since they use very little electric.”

“Exactly. Unless you have a really small one-element heater (in which case I feel sorry for you), 5KW isn't enough to run a water heater. Also, is 5KW the peak or sustained rating of the generator?”

“Yeah, I need to check the amps used by the water heater. It's a 50 gallon electric water heater. I was wanting to switch to propane, anyway...Maybe now is a good time. I didn't really want the transfer switch done right now because I don't want the expense (I think they're around $1500)and it's not like I need one for a generator with a fairly small gas tank.

I'm pretty sure it's sustained, butpusher, but I'm not certain. I'll have to look through the litereature at home. It's a 10 horse motor if that tells you anything. I'm a complete newbie with generators.”

“Note on amps - most appliances use much more than their rated amps (or watts; watts = volts times amps) during start-up. Especially motors. You may need to play with the order you start stuff up so you have enough amps to run what is running plus start whatever is starting.

Note on propane - I have an electric water heater now, too, and am looking to move to propane since I have it already. Take a look at the "on demand" type of water heaters. A little more expensive to buy but 30% cheaper to run. I'll probably get that type when I change over.”

“The water heater probably has two big elements then, and probably pulls more than a 5Kw generator can keep up with. If you have a lot of outages, I'd switch to a propane gas water heater, and run a TV, your fridge, and some lights on the generator.”

“techntrek-

I looked at the on-demand type of water heaters when we installed propane for heat and the stove about a year and a half ago. The electric water heater was just a year old at that time. I remember that it was outrageously expensive for the on-demand water heater. It's something I'll definitely look at when I need to, but not too much before that. We were talking about a Rinnai on-demand water heater.”

“A real easy way to check the current consumption of your waterheater is too look in your electric panel.

Transfer switches are nice for the automatic/standby setups but are entirely unneccessary for a portable generator. I have installed quite a few generator setups and is amazingly cheap usually $200 parts and labor, even less if I am doing more work.

The simplest way is to wire a 30A or 40A plug (a four wire one is needed ususally for new generators) to your standard panel. Leave the 2 pole breaker its connected to off under normal conditions. In an outage, turn off your main breaker in your panel and plug in your generator. Make sure the main is off. Fire up the generator and you have now backfed your entire panel. If you dont turn off your main prior to starting the generator,when power is restored you will burn your house down gaurateed.When power is restored, turn off and unplug the generator and then tyurn your main back on,easy as pie and as I said very inexpensive.”

“I forgot to mention turning on the two pole breaker you have connected to the plug/generator to backfeed the house.”

“Birch nailed it.

Not quite as glitzy as a transfer switch, but just as effective and much more economical.”

“Much safer - you can buy manual transfer panels. They come with two 240v breakers connected with a special rocker so only one of the two can be on at a time (one breaker goes to the generator, one to a breaker in your regular panel). Then it has several more slots for the circuits you want to run.

A bunch cheaper than the auto transfer panel, but not as cheap as birch's option because you still need to move the circuits to the new panel. Only way to go to prevent your house from doing a Bic lighter impression 30 seconds after the power comes back on!”

“Finally had the full installation on the 31st. He forgot the battery so had to go buy one. Then it was too big, so he said he would be back on Sunday 1/2 with the right size. Arrived 1/2, hooked up the battery and immediately the PC control board inside fried. Said he would order a new one with overnight shipping. After several more snafus I STILL don't have the new PC board yet. Told it would be in tonight or tomorrow night. I'll believe it when I see it.

To top it off I went to install a light on one of the 10 circuits he moved from the old panel to the new generator panel. Turned off the circuit I wanted but it was still on. After a little more tinkering I realized some circuits were mislabeled. Ended up spending several hours testing things in the house and tracing wires (pulled the panel covers off) and finally figured out that 7 of the 10 circuits he wired were mislabeled on the new panel. Seven!

And I still haven't seen the thing run yet.”

“Sounds to me like your installer needs a little bit of education in the electrical department. I've installed many backup generators, and I don't understand why you'd need a new generator panel, or why you need to "move" circuits?

A double-pole double-throw automatic transfer switch (or manual if you're on a budget) will transfer the load from the grid to the generator. What else is necessary? If I were you, I'd get a second opinion and perhaps an attorney.”

“It just occured to me why you'd need to split your load so it's carried by two different panels: Your generator isn't sized large enough to carry the whole house, so you just isolated certain essential circuits for standby power? I'm guessing here.”

“I just have a 6500watt in my shed. Run cables in without direct wiring or auto start. Works out OK.

My uncle worked electronics all his life & was installing a backup generator for ma bell a few years back with his buddy after they retired. They blew out the entire 201 area code. $%#& happens.”

“Just be careful not to backfeed. The liability for a connection like that is huge.”

“You got it, hobbit. I have a 12KW generator, but 400-amp service for my house (two 200 amp panels). Not gonna run everything in the house with 12KW. I could have just put in a 200 amp transfer switch to one of the panels and manually managed the load, but one advantage to the Guardian system is it is all auto, thus the need for a separate panel. It comes with a combo auto transfer switch and 10 circuit panel, all in one. So to install you choose the 10 circuits you want and use the color-coded wire they supply to run from the old panel to the new panel.

In my case I already had a smaller generator panel installed so worked it out so the 30 amp 240 V circuit on the new gen panel now feeds the old gen panel so I can manually manage my 2 biggest loads (A/C pump and dryer). That keeps them offline if the gen turns on while I'm away, and lets me squeeze an additional circuit onto the generator.”

“Damn granny.... the last time I put anything larger than 200 amps on a house, we had to use CT's instead of direct metering. It was a 600 amp service and the house was MONSTROUS! You must live in a castle. 12 KW would run my whole house INCLUDING the AC load.”

“I'm getting rid of my old Coleman 5K generator that someone gave me. It was too unreliable. You had to use spray ether to get it started when cold and the revs kept going up and down, even with no load on it. I bought a neighbor's 3 year old Generac portable generator with a Briggs & Stratton engine. They're moving soon and won't need it. It has 5550 running Watts and 8500 Starting Watts. The old Coleman had a 1.5 gallon gas tank and ran for almost exactly 3 hours at 1/2 load. The new one should run about 10 hours at 1/2 load with a 5 gallon gas tank. The gas tank is removable, so I can take that and my 5 gallon gas can to a gas station that has power and fill the tanks to run the generator for almost 24 hours. I could also buy more 5 gallon gas cans, but I don't like stroing that much gasoline in the garage.

I had an electrician wire in a 10 circuit manual transfer switch that will run my most frequently used 8 circuits...bathroom, kitchen, office, living room and 2 direct-vent propane heaters. He used 2 circuits for the electric water heater. Now, I know we will not typically run the 50 gallon water heater, but he said the generator should be able to power it if everything else is off. It will be nice to have hot water for showers, even if we have to plan it out as to when we'll shut everything else down and run the water heater. I also had him switch out the electric panel because the old one was from Federal Pacific Electric and just not as safe as a new Siemens electric panel. It seems that the breakers on the FPE panels were failing at an alarmingly high rate. My electrician sent me to a couple of websites so that I could read about it for myself. He's also a friend of mine.

When the power goes out, all I have to do is turn the main off, wheel out the generator and start it, then go downstairs to flip some switches on the transfer panel. It will be nice not having to run extension cords through the house to power just the fridge and a few lights. I'll also be able to keep my server and networking equipment running...provided the Comcast cable line is not down in the power outage.

I would have liked to go with the bigger LP based generator system, but this will work for now. I feel much safer with a new electric panel. It's nice to know that I can sustain a long power outage with minimal disruption. The area where we live in NH sees frequent power outages, sometimes lasting for a matter of days. We're almost always some of the last homes in the area to get reconnected. In the late 90's, an ice storm caused power to be out in our area for 11 days.”

“I just noticed your post, skiracer. Any chance to use the new genset, yet? After 3 years, mine has less than 50 hours on it and half of that is weekly maintanence start-ups.”

“I haven't had to use it, yet. We had a power outage a few weeks ago during the day, but I was out of town and my wife was at work. I wish I would have been in the home office when it happened. My UPS drained and the server went down hard twice. It caused some major problems for my server and I spent about 20 hours fixing that and installing a new firewall, but everything's running perfectly now. BTW, I now have my UPS connected to the server so that it will monitor the UPS and shut down the server normally when capacity reaches 25%.

Tonight, we're expecting about 1/2" of freezing rain and some gusty winds. I just might get to use it early in the morning. I went and fired up the generator for about 5 minutes tonight. Better to start it when it's at a moderate temp in the garage (door open, of course) than find out it won't start when you wheel it outside in the rain/sleet/snow.”

“I finally broke down and bought 2 UPSs at the local CompUSA clearance. One for the computer and one for our main DVR. Of course I still dont have one for the sever after 8 years of me saying I need to get one for it...

I eventually want to wire up a whole-house UPS. Ill update when that happens.”

“Still didn't get a chance to use the generator last night. We never lost power. Maybe it's because I have a reliable generator and the house is wired for it now.”

“That's exactly what happened to me - first 6 months in our home we had outage after outage. Including in the middle of an open house to meet all the neighbors. The 3 years since, almost nothing. Inverse Murphy's law?”

“Nat. Gas if you have it.”

“You get a major emergency (earthquake) and natural gas may not be there when you need it most. San Fran '89 left many neighboorhoods w\o gas for weeks.”

“WHAT...get a dozen or so illegals on bicycles to keep the power up.....”

“And when they all get kicked out of the country that leaves you with lots of bicycles, and nowhere to go. I guess you could give the bicycles to them as parting gifts.”