Residential Generators

[HardToHandle]

Newer houses or commercial structures with heat exchangers, geothermal or other high efficiency HVAC may need three phase generation.

If you are going to have a generator, put a proper circuit breaker to isolate from the public grid. That protects your home and generator and won't kill the people working on the lines.

[Bello]

Newer houses or commercial structures with heat exchangers, geothermal or other high efficiency HVAC may need three phase generation.

If you are going to have a generator, put a proper circuit breaker to isolate from the public grid. That protects your home and generator and won't kill the people working on the lines.

You mean a generator transfer panel?? Ya I'm an electrician

[sfd10]

Greeting to All. As a firefighter, I have two thoughts on generators;

Absolutely no suicide wiring. Use a manual transfer switch installed by an electrician.

Fixed systems; easy for the Mrs. to start when you're not home but, what if a severe storm rips the roof off your house??

I've had a 4000W Generac for 15 years. I refresh my gas supply twice a year, no big deal.

Check out the current edition of "Emergency Power for Radio Communications" ARRL publications

[munch520]

Good info, thank you sir!


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[tim808]

I currently do your first listed option with a gas gen. A bit of a pita. Biggest pita is running out to fill up all our gas containers. Thankfully outages are rare and weather is mild.

If we had a lot of outages I'd install a transfer switch, convert the gen to propane and install a big propane tank.
If we had gas meters/lines in our area I'd look at having a hookup to tie the gen to....rather than having an ugly propane tank near my home

Good point made by others if only your wife is home.

Good luck with it and post up when your done.

[akela]

I have a portable gasoline powered generator+ installed by electrician switch panel + installed (very easy install process) a trifuel converter so I can now run it from gasoline or natural gas or propane http://www.uscarb.com/

[zimm17]

If money was no object, and I didn't move every few years, I'd go with a permanently installed LP generator. By deciding to not have the ability to run the house A/C, I can get by on a portable.

I already had a Honda EU2000 generator (1600w continuous. If I bought over again, I'd get a Honda 3000 or 7000.

For under $250 I bought a panel and outdoor socket and installed myself with some conduit. The manual transfer switch intercepts the circuits of your choosing. The little Honda runs on a 4 circuit system. If I had a 3000 I could have went with a bigger 6-8 circuit system.

My house is all LP, so I wired in the main furnace, the gas hot water heater (it has a force fed blower), basement (chest freezer), and kitchen (fridge and a few outlets).

I can run the furnace, or kill the furnace and run everything else. If I run on only the kitchen, I also have the kid's entertainment center on that outlet- so I have a TV, cable box, modem/router. So if my Verizon FIOS is still on, I have TV and internet off the generator.





Red wires are the transfer switch circuits


Outside outlet:

[BuzzinSATX]

As we plan on building our next home, this has ben a great thread of info. I'm going to have my home wired to be able to have a generator backup to electric. Will be building in the South TX hill country, so my primary issues will be reefer/freezer, some lights, and the furnace blower. I realize I'll have to go very big to run AC unit, but as we have low humidity and evenings usually cool nicely, I should be okay with fans without suffering too much.

We're putting in a propane tank so I plan on getting a stationary propane unit with a smaller portable gas/diesel unit as a secondary that I can use on trips.

Still doing my research, but this thread has helped much.

[Pi3]

I am looking for a house with gas furnace & water heater with the intention of putting a window A/C in the master bedroom. Then a natural gas generator could cover cold & hot weather. How loud are the pad mounted units? How do you position them so they are not a noise nuisance to the neighbors? Has anyone had problems with them getting stolen?

[Thump_rrr]

In January of 1998 there was an ice storm that encompassed the northeastern United States and eastern Canada.

In Montreal we received 5" of freezing rain which downed trees and took down many major power transmission lines due to the towers collapsing from the weight of the ice.
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Many people were without power for over 30 days. We were without power for 10 days. Gasoline and Kerosene were in short supply and high demand.
Lines for gasoline stretched for hours and there was a maximum of 5 gallons sold per vehicle. Some stations selling gas and propane had no electricity to pump it.

I'm an HVAC contractor and I have done work at our regional natural gas distribution center. Most people think that natural gas is pumped when in actual fact it comes out of the ground at great pressures and the pressure is decreased through orifices to regulate it.
Natural gas utilities liquefy and store a certain quantity of natural gas for peak demand and network outages due to repairs.
Any interruption of gas service would be due to pipeline damage caused by earthquakes or fires.

In my professional opinion those living in states where the weather drop below freezing are best served by a heating system and generator using natural gas/propane.
Your generator requirements will be much smaller than If you require electric heat and it is the most reliable of all the utilities