Boom
06-13-06, 22:40
I live in the land of paradise. :D With that said the one real bad thing about living in Florida is the @$#&%&%@* good for nothing damn hurricanes. :mad:
I have spent many hours looking into several different generators and decided that smaller is better. Instead of trying to power my entire house I have decided to power my 110 plugs and lights along with the 220 volt stove. This way I can run all the lights, fans, computers, Refig, TVs, one small A/C unit along with dozens of other smaller items and the stove to cook on, if it's still raining hard. It beats pulling out the grill and standing outside in the heat.
I've installed a 10 circuit transfer switch which runs my loads with no problems. I run a Troy Built 3550 running watts with 5250 surge watts/20 amp genny. It has a B&S Hitek 6.75 HP engine and runs very smoothly. I have been very happy with B&S engines and the Hitek line of motors for some time. I have an old B&S pressure washer that has several thousand hours under it and the unit still starts on the first pull. It's also a 6.75 HP motor so I have a spare if my main unit fails. :p
Right now I am building a dog house style shed to house the generator with a buried 10/4 cable run underground thru conduit up to the house. To cut down on the noise these models put out I designed a shed that has several baffles the sound must travel thru in order to exit the building. It has two openings, one for the fresh air and one for the exhaust. The fresh air intake has a large box fan just inside the small building to provide forced air intake to blow the exhaust out the other side and provide clean cool air for the generator to run on. The roof of the building tips open which provides full axcess and one of the side walls pulls up and out if I wish to remove the unit for service or replacement.
The generator will run 12 hrs on 4 gallons of gas under 1/2 load or 7 hrs at full load. My normal run time is around 9.5 to 10 hrs for the amount of juice I use. I have a dozen 5 gallon cans I store fuel in. I fill the cans three days before a storm makes land fall. This beats the crowds/rush that occurs for every storm. You would think people would plan ahead and be ready concidering we live in the hurricane capital. I keep the full cans in a shed at the end of my property in case of fire and other known dangerous reasons. After the storm passes I then just run the cans into the trucks/cars in order to use the gas so it does not sit waiting for a storm that may not come.
This provides me with a fresh batch of gas for each storm. Yes I do have to fill the cans several times a year. But I am happy to do it. I would rather run fresh gas then do damage to my generator because I wanted to be lazy.
After you do the math I have almost six days worth of fuel if I run the generator none stop. Most of the time I can stretch it out to seven to eight days by running the unit when I need to have juice for important things. If its cool outside then the generator does not run more then 10 hrs per day and the fuel will last for a couple weeks. When it's hot that baby runs full time to keep the house cool. The small window unit I have does not cool the entire house. It does cool down four rooms of the eastern half of the house. Kitchen, dining room, livingroom and the spare bathroom. The dining room is turned into a large bedroom and the furniture is moved into the garage. I pull out the cotts and air mattresses and sleep in A/C. I can watch TV and eat in a cool kitchen along with spending better quality time with my family as we shut the west wing of the house down.
Last year we did not have power for a full week. The year before we were out for a total of three weeks. :( As you can see this sucks. But life must go on and it's far easier to store 60 gallons of gas instead of 100 or more gallons to run a big unit.
For those who do not have a generator setup take your time and decide what you really need to run to live well while the juice is out. Remember it will only be a short time before the power comes back unless you took a full hit and then maybe weeks to months. Remember to conserve your fuel and give the smaller is better idea a hard look before you decide on that big unit that can run your entire house.
Also go buy a transfer switch. I spent 400 bucks to set up my house so it would run safe. The switch costs 300 at Home Depot and another 100 to have a electrical pro hardwire it into my home. Now I do not have to worry about back feeding anything, plus my wife can restore power in case I am not at home by starting the generator and throwing a switch.
I wanted to write this up to help some of you guys decide who are sitting on the fence about installing a backup system. I remember reading everything I could find but still had dozens of questions for which I could find no answers. I will be happy to answer any questions you guys have. I hope this helps.
I have spent many hours looking into several different generators and decided that smaller is better. Instead of trying to power my entire house I have decided to power my 110 plugs and lights along with the 220 volt stove. This way I can run all the lights, fans, computers, Refig, TVs, one small A/C unit along with dozens of other smaller items and the stove to cook on, if it's still raining hard. It beats pulling out the grill and standing outside in the heat.
I've installed a 10 circuit transfer switch which runs my loads with no problems. I run a Troy Built 3550 running watts with 5250 surge watts/20 amp genny. It has a B&S Hitek 6.75 HP engine and runs very smoothly. I have been very happy with B&S engines and the Hitek line of motors for some time. I have an old B&S pressure washer that has several thousand hours under it and the unit still starts on the first pull. It's also a 6.75 HP motor so I have a spare if my main unit fails. :p
Right now I am building a dog house style shed to house the generator with a buried 10/4 cable run underground thru conduit up to the house. To cut down on the noise these models put out I designed a shed that has several baffles the sound must travel thru in order to exit the building. It has two openings, one for the fresh air and one for the exhaust. The fresh air intake has a large box fan just inside the small building to provide forced air intake to blow the exhaust out the other side and provide clean cool air for the generator to run on. The roof of the building tips open which provides full axcess and one of the side walls pulls up and out if I wish to remove the unit for service or replacement.
The generator will run 12 hrs on 4 gallons of gas under 1/2 load or 7 hrs at full load. My normal run time is around 9.5 to 10 hrs for the amount of juice I use. I have a dozen 5 gallon cans I store fuel in. I fill the cans three days before a storm makes land fall. This beats the crowds/rush that occurs for every storm. You would think people would plan ahead and be ready concidering we live in the hurricane capital. I keep the full cans in a shed at the end of my property in case of fire and other known dangerous reasons. After the storm passes I then just run the cans into the trucks/cars in order to use the gas so it does not sit waiting for a storm that may not come.
This provides me with a fresh batch of gas for each storm. Yes I do have to fill the cans several times a year. But I am happy to do it. I would rather run fresh gas then do damage to my generator because I wanted to be lazy.
After you do the math I have almost six days worth of fuel if I run the generator none stop. Most of the time I can stretch it out to seven to eight days by running the unit when I need to have juice for important things. If its cool outside then the generator does not run more then 10 hrs per day and the fuel will last for a couple weeks. When it's hot that baby runs full time to keep the house cool. The small window unit I have does not cool the entire house. It does cool down four rooms of the eastern half of the house. Kitchen, dining room, livingroom and the spare bathroom. The dining room is turned into a large bedroom and the furniture is moved into the garage. I pull out the cotts and air mattresses and sleep in A/C. I can watch TV and eat in a cool kitchen along with spending better quality time with my family as we shut the west wing of the house down.
Last year we did not have power for a full week. The year before we were out for a total of three weeks. :( As you can see this sucks. But life must go on and it's far easier to store 60 gallons of gas instead of 100 or more gallons to run a big unit.
For those who do not have a generator setup take your time and decide what you really need to run to live well while the juice is out. Remember it will only be a short time before the power comes back unless you took a full hit and then maybe weeks to months. Remember to conserve your fuel and give the smaller is better idea a hard look before you decide on that big unit that can run your entire house.
Also go buy a transfer switch. I spent 400 bucks to set up my house so it would run safe. The switch costs 300 at Home Depot and another 100 to have a electrical pro hardwire it into my home. Now I do not have to worry about back feeding anything, plus my wife can restore power in case I am not at home by starting the generator and throwing a switch.
I wanted to write this up to help some of you guys decide who are sitting on the fence about installing a backup system. I remember reading everything I could find but still had dozens of questions for which I could find no answers. I will be happy to answer any questions you guys have. I hope this helps.