My new purchase based on the less is more theory of Generators.

dcmdon

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So a couple of years ago, during Hurricane Irene I found myself living on generator power for 6 days.

We did fine with a combination of a 900 watt old Yamaha generator and a larger 5000 watt chinese generator.
It was ok, but I found myself becoming a slave to the large generator and its huge fuel consumption. So we ended up running the Yamaha most of the time to just cover the fridge.

So I've been thinking things over and have tested items in my home for current draw and recently settled on a new generator. My requirements were:

1) quiet
2) good fuel efficiency
3) 2000 watts minimum - This will run the furnace and the fridge provided both don't start up at the same time as well as charge some batteries, laptop, phone, etc.

I basically decided that the luxury of a large gas powered generator is more than negated by the hassle of trying to feed the beast.

So in the end, I just purchased a Honda EU2000i inverter generator. It will run for 3 days straight on 6 gallons of fuel in an extended run setup I made with marine tank I already had. I've tested it and it runs the fridge and the heat.

If I decide I want more power, I can purchase another and siamese them with a cable. This will allow me to run 1 generator with accompanying low fuel use and bring in the second when needed.

Its not perfect, but its easy, portable and will work on extended outages. Once its broken in, I'll set it up to run on natural gas and propane. Our MA place has a city gas and our CT place has 400 gal of propane storage.

The funny thing is. since I've gotten this thing, I've found new uses for it. Rather than running 200 ft of extension cord to trim hedges, I just took the generator out back with a 30 ft cord and trimmed hedges.

Its scheduled to run a bouncie house at a friends birthday party next month. Ha.
 
If someone is in the market for a portable standby generator and they heat their home with oil, a diesel powered unit is a great choice. Not only are they more fuel efficient, typically require less maintenance, run quieter and and are generally more powerful than their gas counterparts, but you already have large on-site reserve tank of fuel for emergencies from which to draw.
 
If someone is in the market for a portable standby generator and they heat their home with oil, a diesel powered unit is a great choice. Not only are they more fuel efficient, typically require less maintenance, run quieter and and are generally more powerful than their gas counterparts, but you already have large on-site reserve tank of fuel for emergencies from which to draw.

I agree completely. If you have fuel on site to heat the home, your generator should be able to run on that fuel. I should have had the big generator set up to run on propane. Then I'd have been able to run for weeks.
 
My parents played with all kinds of generator scenarios. For them they found that in the end, it comes down to how little they wish to be inconvenienced by the power going out. In their neighborhood, they do not lose elecetricity often, but they ALWAYS do during or after a major storm, and for the past 19 years, it has always been for multiple days at a time. Since they have natural gas heat in their home, and they wanted as little hassle as possible when the power went, they got a whole house generator that's tapped into their gas line. Was it epxneisve this winter to run it for 4 days? Yes, but for them it was worth it.

Its all about what you want. Sounds like you've got the perfect set up for yourself!
 
Thats the best of all worlds. Except like you said, its expensive.
The only way to improve that would be to have a thousand gallons of propane in an in-ground tank as a backup.

I may have something like that someday. For the mid term, for me, I wanted to free myself of being a slave to the beast. That gives you 2 choices.

1) connect your generator to a large fuel source
2) get a fuel efficient generator.

Either way, its nice to not have to cycle it off and on to save fuel.

Don
 
I bought it locally. I paid $1000 for it on the tax holiday weekend.

They can be had all day long for $950 online. I've seen them as low as $900 new on line.

I've also seen them go as high as $950 used. These little generators hold their value so well, its not worth buying used.
I knowingly paid more because I felt that if I ever had a problem while a storm was bearing down on us, the shop would give me a little extra priority service.
I mentioned this to the woman who owned the store with her husband and she said that prior to a hurricane or winter storm, they are swamped and they do give
priority to people who purchased from them.

In the end, it wasn't worth going on line to save $50 or even $100 on this item.
 
Anyone check out the Goalzero stuff? From what I understand you can pre-charge or charge with a solar panel (which I know doesn't help in a rain storm) but it's totally quiet, small and portable... I'm thinking of getting one as if the power goes out all I need to run is fridge, chest freezer and well pump. I'm looking for some reviews...
 
I have that Honda too. So, your furnace uses 120 volts? It can't power my furnace, but I also have a pellet stove that will work fine with it. However, the furnace also heats the hot water, plus the well pump is 240v. So, I'll be looking to get another generator someday.
 
Excellent choice.
I came to the same conclusion reading all the generator threads here.
I'm also going with propane for the reason of long term fuel storage.
 
Anyone check out the Goalzero stuff? From what I understand you can pre-charge or charge with a solar panel (which I know doesn't help in a rain storm) but it's totally quiet, small and portable... I'm thinking of getting one as if the power goes out all I need to run is fridge, chest freezer and well pump. I'm looking for some reviews...

The amount of energy in one of those battery systems is equivalent to about a cup of gasoline. There is very very very little energy in one of those. You are better off buying a 250 watt inverter and storing it with an extra 5 gal of gas. Then in a pinch you can clamp the inverter to your car's battery and leave it idling as a low power makeshift generator.

Don't laugh. I did this during Irene.

- - - Updated - - -

I have that Honda too. So, your furnace uses 120 volts? It can't power my furnace, but I also have a pellet stove that will work fine with it. However, the furnace also heats the hot water, plus the well pump is 240v. So, I'll be looking to get another generator someday.

My CT place has a boiler. Its propane powered so there's no burner motor. Just the draft inducer motor, the control electronics and a couple of Taco 007 pumps. The tacos draw between .25 and .40 amps depending on how long the loop is. Their official power use from taco is .71 Amps, but thats pushing a full 10 ft of head.

The above gets me radiant on the first floor, which leaves the 2nd floor about 60 degrees on a cold night. Good enough.

The MA place has 2 furnaces. Each with a connection to a single pole 15a breaker. When running it draws 2.05 amps. x 120 = 246 watts. Figure 1000 watts for startup.
I can't test that because my clamp meter doesn't capture the jump.
 
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If someone is in the market for a portable standby generator and they heat their home with oil, a diesel powered unit is a great choice. Not only are they more fuel efficient, typically require less maintenance, run quieter and and are generally more powerful than their gas counterparts, but you already have large on-site reserve tank of fuel for emergencies from which to draw.

This may be a dumb question, so pardon my ignorance if so: how do you tap the oil tank in the basement to access that fuel?
 
The way that most appeals to me, since it keeps the mess out of the basement, and is cheap, is to simply stick a hose down the filler pipe and into the tank. Then you run it through a $7 harbor freight hand pump.

Multi-Use Transfer Pump

and you are done.

If you want to get fancy, you can buy an electric pump at a plumbing supply house designed to pump oil. Its what your boiler man typically uses to pump out tanks when he is installing a new tank. (hint, no they don't drain all the oil out through that little 3/8" copper pipe) I'm not sure how much this would cost, but figure at least $150.

You could get fancy and T into the line to the furnace/boiler, but whats the point. Then you have the fuel in the basement and need to get it outside. Better to pump it outside right from the start through the filler.
 
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I too have the same Honda for running fridge,pellet stove,TV and other small stuff. I also have a 5500 watt unit that is wired to a transfer switch to run pump when necessary. The bigger unit will run 14-15 hours on half load and 6 gallons of gas. So for essentials the Honda will sip gas and keep us warm and the food cold for way less in fuel. We call it our back up to our back up..
 
If someone is in the market for a portable standby generator and they heat their home with oil, a diesel powered unit is a great choice. Not only are they more fuel efficient, typically require less maintenance, run quieter and and are generally more powerful than their gas counterparts, but you already have large on-site reserve tank of fuel for emergencies from which to draw.
Anybody know of a firm near Manchester with experience in standby diesel generators? I have a good electrician who can install an automatic transfer switch, but he only works with solar and propane, so I need a firm that can handle site selection and installation of a diesel generator.

Anyone check out the Goalzero stuff? From what I understand you can pre-charge or charge with a solar panel...
Goalzero is fine to keep your cell phone charged, that's about it. Does not scale.

Go with the fuel type you already have, and just get a generator wired up. So if you are on city gas or propane for heat, that's what you want for electricity.
 
My parents played with all kinds of generator scenarios. For them they found that in the end, it comes down to how little they wish to be inconvenienced by the power going out. In their neighborhood, they do not lose elecetricity often, but they ALWAYS do during or after a major storm, and for the past 19 years, it has always been for multiple days at a time. Since they have natural gas heat in their home, and they wanted as little hassle as possible when the power went, they got a whole house


generator that's tapped into their gas line. Was it epxneisve this winter to run it for 4 days? Yes, but for them it was worth it.



Its all about what you want. Sounds like you've got the perfect set up for yourself!

I have natural gas heat, i did thank of a generator that runs on gasoline, but the

storage requirements turned me off. so given the obvious i went with natural gas.

its a Generac and has a smart switch. the switch feeds the entire breaker box, you run what

you want up to the limits of the generator, if you exceed the limit it will pop the breaker

at the generator. it also runs itself once week for 12 minutes. hope this info

helps someone.

JimB
 
I have natural gas heat, i did thank of a generator that runs on gasoline, but the

storage requirements turned me off. so given the obvious i went with natural gas.

its a Generac and has a smart switch. the switch feeds the entire breaker box, you run what

you want up to the limits of the generator, if you exceed the limit it will pop the breaker

at the generator. it also runs itself once week for 12 minutes. hope this info

helps someone.

JimB

Yup my parents does the same running test once a week. While they were in FL last winter, I had to go over during every snow storm to dig or the air inlets, so that it wouldn't kill itself. Not fun.
 
I ran a similar set up to what DCMDON is speaking of during Sandy for 22 days without power. I ran Honda EU2000I's in tandem, one Companion and one regular one. I purchased from Honda Accesories the 12 Volt Charging kit which is useful for charging 6 Volt batteries, like those your Home Burglar Alarm is backed up with. You will have no greater need for your alarm to keep working then when there is looting going on around you and no power for weeks at a time.

I also bought the Honda Hour meters, for each unit and wired them into the motor. The digital readout alternates between RPM's, so you have an idea of how much load you are putting on it and how many hours since the last oil change. I found out during the outage for Irene, that trying to keep track of running hours with paper and pen was not accurate.

I also rigged up a 14.2 gallon gas dock on a gravity feed system to one of the two gennys. This one I would run most of the day and only use the other one during breakfast and or dinner and laundry was done while breakfast was going on. When the need for power dropped after breakfast was over and the laundry was done, I shut down the one not connected to the gravity feed so my wife would not have to deal with having to fill it up, while I was out foraging for fuel, stores that had food and helping others.

I also had a $20 item called "kill a watt", that gave you a reading of power consumption for each appliance you might plug in to the genny in watts, volts, or amps. Well worth the $20 since most gennys I saw failed from people overloading them and not having any spare parts or even tools. I took a reading of all possible appliances that I may want to power from the genny and entered those readings into the notes section of my I Phone, since when the power goes out that is not the time to be looking through a dark office for your appliance power draw chart.

Don't foreget to get an extra spark plug, upper and lower air filter, camo genny cover and plenty of 10-30W since there was none to be found as everyone needed it for oil changes on their genny.

I also have some Goal Zero items. I like the Nomad 7 solar panel, since it is compact and light weight at 4 ouches and is good for charging a cell phone or I pad. Their lantern was good also and the read in the dark usb light was cheap at $8 and gave light where you needed it.

Sandy was a learning experience as well as a test of how well one was prepared.
 
The way that most appeals to me, since it keeps the mess out of the basement, and is cheap, is to simply stick a hose down the filler pipe and into the tank. Then you run it through a $7 harbor freight hand pump.

Multi-Use Transfer Pump

and you are done.

Thanks for that tip. A good siphon is an item that will not be found on shelves anywhere near the disaster area. You either have it before the storm hits, or you will not have one. I used a length of clear 3/8" fuel line hose which worked, but far from ideal. I will be picking up one of those Harbour frieght pumps and put a few buddies onto it as well.
 
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