Home Generators (or How DTE Energy Ruined My Holidays) 695
We are among the thousands without power in the northeast. Day four actually, and we've decided to look into generators so that next year's New Year's doesn't involve fears of frozen pipes bursting and hypothermic babies and cats. At the very least we just need enough juice to run the furnace blower, but if we're going to lay down the cash I'd like to know what it would take to get a little more power ... like enough to run a fridge, router, laptop and lightbulb. I know nothing about this sort of thing, but figure there are more than a few experts out there so I call out to the wisdom of the mob. What am I looking for? How difficult is the wiring? What will it cost me? On the extreme edge, what would it take to get off the grid entirely? (And on a side note, thanks to DTE Energy for telling us we had power when we didn't, for losing the ticket for our neighborhood, for telling us it would be back every single day when it wasn't, and for the helpful DTE representative who warned us that our pipes might burst. Thanks.)
Depends how hardcore you want to be... (Score:3, Interesting)
... but I'd look at surplus "permanent" diesel generators, and a dedicated genny shed. These will often be much, much cheaper than a new, smaller generator. Also, older kit tends to have been built well to begin with, and with repair and maintenance in mind - something that a lot of el-cheapo Chinese 80-quid-out-of-Lidl generators aren't.
If you buy a seriously large genny you may be able to split the costs with your neighbours - 30kW ought to do at least a couple of houses if you're careful. Ten years ago we used to have very frequent power cuts up north, and one enterprising chap bought a 10kW genny on a trailer which he towed round to people's houses every day to freeze their freezers for a small fee ;-)
I wouldn't bother with petrol-engined gennies - they're far more trouble than they're worth and will just plain not start when you need them. They also need constant servicing even when they're not used, and you need to keep fresh fuel in them - so that means either buying fuel and keeping the tank and carb dry (just what you need to sort out on a cold dark night), or running them pretty much every month enough to use a few gallons of petrol. Stick with diesels, they're simpler, easier to work on, and more reliable anyway.
It goes without saying that if you live in an area prone to power cuts, you should avoid electric heating and electric cookers. Don't run an electric cooker off the genny, it will guzzle fuel. If you have an electric cooker, get a petrol camping stove like one of the Coleman dual-burner ones, or a gas camping stove. A caravan/RV stove would be good, but will take up more space. I used to use a single-burner gas stove which took disposable gas bottles like large spray cans, but it was uneconomic to run. My petrol stove was quite expensive to buy, but much, *much* cheaper to run - plus if I run out of fuel I can just pump some from my car ;-)
You may be able to run your furnace blower from a large inverter, but they are typically not rated to run inductive loads for long. In the UK, we use small efficient blower motors in most boilers, which will run off a couple of hundred watts at most. The big old blowers with a squirrel-cage motor the size of a beer keg are long gone, something to be glad of ;-)
Re:Low-amp thermoelectric? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thermally driven fans are available for wood stoves. The ones I have seen mount inline with the exhaust pipe and use the thermal temperature difference to operated the fan but stove mounted ones for just circulating air around the stove are available also.
Re:The dirty way (Score:1, Interesting)
Lineman use shorting leads when working on power lines. ...like they would actually trust YOU not to kill them!!
Depends on how much you can spend (Score:3, Interesting)
As with most things. Basically you can buy a generator of any capacity you like. For small things, like a few lights and a heater and such, pretty much any one will do. Turns out that engines generate a rather lot of power in comparison to what most household items use. As a reference 1 horsepower = 745 watts. Gives you a little perspective on the amazing amount of power in a 200hp car engine.
Now this kind of thing would cost you somewhere in the range of $200-700 probably depending on size. It'll be a portable unit, gas powered. You'd wheel it outside, fire it up, and run an extension cord to your devices. Something to note though is the power is rather dirty. These small ones aren't so stable with the output. I don't know that you'd want to hook anything like a computer to it. Do so, and you might burn it out. For that you'd probably have to get a high quality DC inverter and hook it to the DC output (most small generators have a DC output). You'll also need to deal with the fuel. Gas isn't stable, you can't just keep a tank around for years. You'll have to periodically use the fuel and get more. You'll also want to keep extra fuel, past what it's tank can hold, since they usually aren't that large (5-20 hours worth or so normally). Finally, they are really noisy, like 90dB close up. Might bother some people.
Another option is a full home backup generator. These are modified car engines hooked to generators. They produce enough power to do an entire home. You wire them in to your breaker box, usually with an automatic transfer switch (though you can do manual transfer if you like). When the power dies, the generator fires up and transfers over. You then use your outlets as normal.
These generally run off of propane or natural gas (really large ones use diesel but you won't need that). If you have gas to your house, that makes fueling real simple. You simply take it from that. You never worry about refueling. If not, you install a propane tank, which you likely already have, and use that. Run time is really only limited by available fuel, and they come in sizes as large as you like. They also produce power stable enough that it is fine to run electronics on it. Hell, they have better power than some parts of the grid.
Downsides are size and cost. They are big, immobile things. You are going to have to have it installed and it is the a permanent part of the house. The cost is also high. Probably $2000 minimum, more realistically around $5000 and as much as $10,000-12,000. However, if you spend some cash you can get one that is rather quiet (around what a 4 cylinder car would be at 3,000rpm or so) and will easily do your whole house.
If you live in an area with major power problems, the whole house solution is the thing to check out. Expensive, but works great. Generac, or their consumer brand Guardian would be a good choice. They also test themselves (once a week normally) so you'll know if there are problems.
If you go for a cheap solution, just be mindful of all the gotchas. Make sure to test it, make sure to keep fresh fuel around, and if you need to use sensitive devices, make sure there is something cleaning up the power for them unless you are ok if they get burnt up. It might not be a problem, the generator might produce nice clean power and/or the device might have a power supply that doesn't care at all, but then it might end up killing something.
How about a Prius (Score:4, Interesting)
Car Generator [nytimes.com]
Wood Stove (Score:3, Interesting)
1 Wood stove will do you just fine for keeping things warm from a survivability stand point. Several exotic solutions are also radiant heat setups with the woodstove as part of the fluid line (in short rather then using electricity to heat the radiant heat the wood stove does.) I've seen that setup in several garages in the floors (some very nice crude ones too in the middle of nowhere for storage sheds.) Usually there is a sterling engine style pump that is integrated to help move the fluid.
In a long term emergency go into the garage and get your camping tent. Set up the tent in basement of the house (use soup cans or other weights instead of spikes. I use bungie cords to some unfinished studs.(most homes freeze top-down fyi) Place 3-4 blankets and towels down as a floor in the tent. Grab some scrap 2x4s and nail up a pair of V shaped legs with a beam connecting them and build a small mini-tent inside the tent. Place blankets on top of that so you have a mini-tent inside for sleeping. Place any pets inside the main tent. This should keep the air temperature comfortable (sometimes even hot) in weather up to -20 degrees (your house is a big wind barrier.) turn off the water to the house and drain pipes. Wait for help.
Pipes freezing you should shut em off and bleed em empty if possible. A single wood stove in most homes will keep the ambient temp above freezing with little problem.
Re:I just finished something similar (Score:3, Interesting)
This company has several options, and there are others. This is as close to professional grade as you can get cheaply. There are cheaper options that utilize a mandraulic process, but that doesn't help if you are on the west coast for holidays when the power drops. Don't forget to figure maintenance costs as it's not a one time charge for such a system. Most people ignore maintenance costs for heaters and A/C units and just repair when it breaks, but this is something you want to make sure works regularly.
If you go with something that is not N/G powered, there is more maintenance to do. Cutting back to bare necessities under backup power can cause installation difficulties, but reduce overall costs long term by reducing the size of generator required etc.
I'm discussing with the HOA the possibility of solar charging for a battery backup system at my location. Heat is never a problem here, but fans would be nice if power failed, as would A/C. I've got plenty of sun and wind, so want to use that as a regular stipend to my household budgeting. Hopefully there will be tax breaks for this soon, and perhaps you can search around to see if some version of backup will qualify for tax breaks to drop the price for you.
Re:I just finished something similar (Score:1, Interesting)
Your first and largest problem is the HOA.
I will NEVER buy a house/condo/whatever where an HOA is involved.
Go with a Honda EcoThrottle model (Score:3, Interesting)
jdb2
Re:tips (Score:5, Interesting)
Make sure the generator is in a locked location, or at least chained down. They have a tendency to sprout legs during emergencies."
I 100% agree! That's how most everyone along the coast does it durning hurricane season when they hit and take power out here. I was at a friends house during Gustav near Baton Rouge...and he had one generator we did fine on. I'm not sure the size, but, will try to ask and come back with an answer.
But, with this one generator...we kept a window unit AC going (hot and muggy is our problem during that time of year)...we could run his 50" LCD flatpanel tv...along with DVD and stereo for entertainment...we'd also plug in cell phones, charge computers...etc. I know we had to unplug something occasionally to plug the fridge(s) and chest freezer in, to keep food good, but, over all it worked well.
The things get pretty darned LOUD tho....but, I've heard that the Honda ones...at a premium price, and very, very quiet. Just make sure to have plenty of gasoline stocked up, and oil. We actually ran through our gas supply...and built a little dc pump out of a fuel pump, hooked to a hose and run off a car battery...to siphon gas out of their large Surburban SUV. Now..I am not a fan of SUV's....but, the thing did serve well as a tanker truck for quite a number of days. After the gas stations got back online, and actually got gas delivered to them...we filled up all our tanks...and the SUV tanks to brimming....and had plenty to last us till the electricity came back on.
Thank goodness for gas to cook on, as well as for the water heater....and we also used the propane gas grill outside s few times too....kinda turned into a fun camping trip with them!
A blow to anti-government capitalists (Score:3, Interesting)
And on a side note, thanks to DTE Energy for telling us we had power when we didn't, for losing the ticket for our neighborhood, for telling us it would be back every single day when it wasn't, and for the helpful DTE representative who warned us that our pipes might burst. Thanks
Many folks here are wary of anything government, saying that the private sector can always do the job better and cheaper than government, but Springfield IL's city government puts the lie to that. Our power plant, CWLP [cwlp.com] (third picture down is General Manager Mr. Burns... er, sorry, Todd Renfrow. He just looks like Mr. Burns) is owned by the city.
When two F-2 tornados destroyed most of the city's south end infrastructure in 2006 we didn't have any of the problems the submitter experienced with his private utility. Power was out for a week at the longest in the hardest hit areas; poles and lines and transformers and everything else had to be replaced. It was three weeks before the privately owned telcos got landlines working, and a month before Insight (since bought out) got my cable and internet back online.
A few months later and a hundred miles south a single F1 went through the St. Louis area, doing far less damage. The private company Ameren took over a month to get power restored to all its customers.
See, it's not government, but government's bureaucracy. The bureaucracy doesn't come from the fact that it's government, it comes from the fact that the bigger an organization, any orginazation, the more bureaucracy, the less customer service, the more the cost, and the shoddier the workmanship.
If I'm unhappy with my electric service I can vote for the Mayor's opponent the next election. If you're unhappy with your private electric company you're shit out of luck. You can't just go down the street and use a different power company, they have you by the balls and there's nothing whatever you can do about it (save getting a humungous generator).
6500 watt runs most everything (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a 6500 watt portable generator that runs diesel. An electrician charged about $1000 to put in a transfer switch - legally - to the power box. (I know that's expensive, but I also know it's done correctly to code as it was permitted inspected by the State.) The generator runs hot water, plus all lights, microwave, electronics, etc. It will NOT run the heat pump or the oven/range or the drier, but everything else works, literally. The generator burns about half a gallon an hour. I have a 240 gallon tank full (usually) of biodiesel along with a Duramax truck which holds another 34 gallons. Of course, you take your chances with either of those being 100% full during an outage, but I figure with frugal use I can get by about six weeks at the minimum and twice that at the maximum.
1) Better have surge suppressors -- good ones -- on all electronics. Only the more expensive generators have compensators on them which regulate the voltage within tolerances expected by stuff like computers.
2) I would NOT put an auto start on a generator, myself, for fear it would start up when I was not at home. In my opinion, home generators need personalized attendance to regulate what is on and off. You don't want to waste fuel.
3) depending on how you're set up, the furnace fan idea might work if the furnace heat source is not electric, but I've chosen a wood stove which is capable of heating most of the downstairs rather than waste heat upstairs where it isn't really needed. I keep a cord of wood back and I can always steal wood from my neighbors. :-)
Just my opinion FYI. My system works pretty well for me. No real complaints.
Re:tips (Score:4, Interesting)
Its not only "probably illegal", in most places in the US its very illegal. The cord used to back-feed a house that way is referred to as a "dead man cord". The reason for that is because besides back-feeding your house, if you don't throw a transfer switch you are also back-feeding part of your neighborhood's wiring. This will make the linemen who are repairing that wiring at the least very unhappy, and in all likelihood it will make them very dead.
Filling that propane tank == $$$$ (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's see here... 1000 gallons of compressed liquefied propane at about $2.55/gallon delivered (local Texas prices, some parts of the US it costs nearly $4/gallon delivered) equals $2550! Ouch.
How long does a tankful last in your house?
A buddy of mine who built a new house on Lake Travis near Austin, TX runs his house's water heaters, furnace, cooking stove and clothes dryer on a buried 250 gallon propane tank and he has to fill it about every 6-8 weeks in the coldest winter months. That seems more expensive than natural gas or a total electric house.
I guess Hank Hill must be enjoying that brand new red Ford Super Duty pickup truck, eh?
Go Green! (Score:4, Interesting)
You can use a Toyota Prius [wikihow.com] to generate power enough to keep essentials operable.
I think that the first thing I would do is figure out what circuit breakers go to essential services (that you need in a cold weather power outage) and carefully label those fuses. Then run the power to your box with only those circuits hot.
This is not something you can just throw together, this is something you should get a licensed electrician to put together for you. The link to the article should tell any electrician what kind of power is coming off the Prius and that should give him ideas about how to set things up.
I highly recommend that your Prius have plenty of gasoline before you set it up as your generator. But this article [obsessable.com] suggests one person was able to supply his home with three days worth of power on five gallons of gasoline.
Of course you'll have to take the other car to work.
Re:tips (Score:4, Interesting)
Good advice. I have a generator and a manual transfer switch set up, and I did the "define needs" process, too. Since we'd just had an ice storm that knocked out power for two days, I knew exactly what I would've liked to run off the generator.
In my case, I'd have a generator anyway, because it's permanently mounted in my camper (I probably wouldn't bother otherwise). Also, the generator in the camper was new; I'd just had it replaced a few months before the ice storm, so being able to use it for backup power was a nice bonus.
I bought a small 15 amp transfer switch for four circuits and had it installed. I verified the installation using a multimeter to make sure I wouldn't be electrocuting anyone and to make sure everything operated the way I expected. It took half an hour or so but now I KNOW there are no problems.
The generator can produce 2500 watts, but I went with a 15-amp transfer switch because that's all I needed for the circuits I wanted to power. Since my generator isn't that large (20 amps max), a 15-amp switch was fine and I knew I wouldn't be able to power more than one, possibly two, circuits at once. No problem.
The four circuits I chose were:
1. Furnace fan (I have natural gas heat)
2. Kitchen lighting/outlets
3. Master bedroom and bathroom lighting/outlets
4. Refrigerator
The main point was to be able to keep food, keep the house from freezing, be able to use the bathrooms, and be able to sleep in the master bedroom (possibly using an electric space heater if necessary). I actually got more than I really needed, but only because my house has relatively few circuits wired and a lot of things are on the same circuits (the house was built in 1964).
Why not just stay in the camper? Because, during the winter, I have it winterized, so I can't use the water system, and it sits at an odd angle in the driveway, making it uncomfortable to sleep in. I did make some spaghetti one night during the outage (propane stove in the camper), but with everything so far off level, you really have to be careful what you cook and what pan you use.
How about a house that stabilises at 60F?... (Score:3, Interesting)
...in a case of total power loss? (and even that after some time, with the rate of loss at 1F per day)
Granted, it's not really in line with gas-guzzling culture, but...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house [wikipedia.org]
You all are making this too hard (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone seems to have their own method of doing this. It seems to me it's a rather simple process:
1) Go to Home Depot store or website.
2) Plunk down cash (or credit/debit card) for THIS [homedepot.com] plus installation costs.
3) Enjoy whole house LP or NG powered emergency backup power.
See? That wasn't so hard now, was it? And nobody got electrocuted in the process either.
(yeah, yeah, I skipped the stupid ??? -> Profit! meme. So sue me.)
Re:tips (Score:4, Interesting)
Things like furnaces are usually hardwired into the house electrical system - so you can't just "unplug" it and plug it in to an extension to your generator.
So wire up your furnace so it plugs into an outlet. Mine is exactly like this (already done by a previous owner). It's easy enough to do yourself, and will save you a lot of effort if the power ever goes out when it's cold.
As a result, many people build themselves a "male to male" extension cord
Sounds inherently dangerous. I'd rather not someone trip on an extension cord and pull out a live wire with live ends ends sticking out.
Re:tips (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Always have everything turned off when working with a cord with two male plug ends. Otherwise, when one end is plugged and the other isn't, you have a nice arc welder. A few extra minutes of running up and down your stairs may save your life.
2. Let the generator warm up first (see #4), then shut down and g to #1. Otherwise, when the furnace blower surges and your generator dies, you get to undo/redo #1 a few more times.
3. Typical master switch on your breaker panel is not really designed to prevent electricity inside your house from going back out onto the grid. This means, you might actually injure the people trying to fix your electricity. Lawsuits? might just want to wire in a outlet for your furnace and run only the furnace and fridge etc. directly from generator bypassing house wiring.
4. Most generators in the 3500 W range are really alternators, not generators. This means as long as your generator is perfectly tuned and running at the correct RPM the frequency of your electricity is good. Otherwise, not so much. So, I generally recommend run your furnace and your fridge/freezer, and not your expensive electronics that prefer clean electricity.
Re:tips (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah, not at all likely to make them dead, your typical home generator just doesn't put out enough juice to kill most of the time. It's almost like people on slashdot didn't play with electricity as a kid =) The worst shock I've ever received was from a 10KV fly back transformer in an old Sun SLC workstation (it was the part for powering the CRT). That jolt blew a hole in the screwdriver I was using and threw me a couple feet and knocked me out.
Pure nonsense. That flyback is 10kv at a very low amperage. The voltage/amperage sent back over the powerlines from a home generator is plenty to kill someone. It could also kill you at th 120/240 volt level if you get into that.
Furthermore, what happens out on the utility lines, grounded or at 12kv, might very well toast your generator and maybe put something on file.
Many a safety minded lineman has had a good chuckle about the *deserving* generator user that foolishly endangered lives with a backfeed.
DO NOT hook up directly. Please use a transfer switch or just hook up extension cords to your appliances.
Stay out of court.
PS. The power company I work for did not tell me what to say....
Re:go with diesel (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Gasoline is just as explosive as DYNOMITE, its SUPER SUPER dangerous to store. Diesel can be stored very safely for a long time, its not even really flammable hardly, and zero explosive dangers. Also its very dangerous to refill a hot generator with gasoline, diesel is safe enough to pretty much keep it running and refill it on the fly.
2) Gasoline generators usually run at about 6000RPM and are LOUD, Diesel generators run at about ONLY 1500-2000 RPM and are much much more quiet because of it.
3) Gasoline engines are only rated for a life expectancy of hundreds of hours. Diesel generator engines are rated for many thousands and more reliable over that lifetime to boot.
4) When all the gas stations are closed and you can't get anymore (because you were at lease not stupid enough to try and store gasoline on site), you can always steal some diesel from the national guard trucks when they are not looking.
Re:You all are making this too hard (Score:2, Interesting)
The price on the Home Depot generator is pretty good. After Ike came through, it took a week and a half to get power back in my neighborhood and I bought a generator within a couple of days. Cost me $700 for a 7500 watt unit that's a Chinese knockoff of a Honda generator. It ran well and I've since used it on the deer lease to power lights and other amenities. I've since bought a GenTran 60 Amp manual transfer switch and installed it myself...that was another $300 by the time it was all said and done, plus $50 for a power inlet so I don't have a male to male cable. I figure another $200 for connectors (that 25 foot cable from the generator to the power inlet was $120... and I'm now in the ballpark of the Home Depot genset.
I like the idea of the natural gas hookup. A 5 gallon can of gasoline would last through one night running the fridge and several fans.
At the end of the day, I probably nickel and dimed myself through the cost of the HD setup, but I couldn't take the up-front cost all at once.