Generator related questions

[larjoranj]

I wasn't affected by the storm but my wife had 5 siblings who were, ranging from 1 day to 1 week. Now she would like us to get a generator on the off chance that we'll need one in the future. A whole house backup is out of the question. Way too expensive. So I thought we'd get a portable gasoline unit. Heat is the main priority. After some research every website or youtube video that addresses the subject says it's an extreme fire hazard to connect an electric space heater to an extension cord.

I have electric central heat and air. No gas. I do have a woodburning fireplace that would help. But if you can't heat your house safely with a generator, what good would it do me? I can put my food on the deck and keep it cold. I can eat canned food and peanut butter til the power comes back on. I've got several battery powered lanterns. I can do without tv or internet a few days. I can stockpile water if a storm is forecast.

I have seen you can hook up a transfer switch to plug a portable generator to and then use your home outlets to plug your devices to? If that is correct I guess that would work if not too expensive. I've read it would take a huge generator to run the hvac and the rest of the house but maybe not so much to just run 3 or 4 of the breakers and have those rooms to plug stuff into and have a little light. Any thoughts?

Edited to add - I don't understand why the dinky little cords on space heaters are safe but a 10 awg extension cord will get too hot? The cord on space heaters looks like lamp cord. In winter I plug in mine in the bathroom 30 minutes before I get a shower to get it toasty warm and my wife usually follows so it runs at least an hour and never gets hot. Rarely even warm.

 

[hog88]

I wasn't affected by the storm but my wife had 5 siblings who were, ranging from 1 day to 1 week. Now she would like us to get a generator on the off chance that we'll need one in the future. A whole house backup is out of the question. Way too expensive. So I thought we'd get a portable gasoline unit. Heat is the main priority. After some research every website or youtube video that addresses the subject says it's an extreme fire hazard to connect an electric space heater to an extension cord.

I have electric central heat and air. No gas. I do have a woodburning fireplace that would help. But if you can't heat your house safely with a generator, what good would it do me? I can put my food on the deck and keep it cold. I can eat canned food and peanut butter til the power comes back on. I've got several battery powered lanterns. I can do without tv or internet a few days. I can stockpile water if a storm is forecast.

I have seen you can hook up a transfer switch to plug a portable generator to and then use your home outlets to plug your devices to? If that is correct I guess that would work if not too expensive. I've read it would take a huge generator to run the hvac and the rest of the house but maybe not so much to just run 3 or 4 of the breakers and have those rooms to plug stuff into and have a little light. Any thoughts?

Depending on where you’re at you can get a manual transfer switch and plug installed for less than a grand. Then you need to do the calculations on what you want to run during an outage to properly size a generator.

 

[Wireless1]

First, if you consider any of my advice, first make sure you have multiple CO monitors in you space.
If heat is your concern, consider kerosene heaters. If you need gas for the generator, you probably can get kerosene for the heater, and it’s nearly 100% efficient for heating. Of course if you have natural gas or propane, you can get vent free for those, and if you have a gas furnace, you can have an electrician (or yourself) put a plug on the 120 feed that runs the controls and blower and run that off the generator.
Running heat pumps on generators means you’ve got a big generator (50 amps at 240v in many cases) and it’s hard on the generator and the heat pump. For about $300 you can get a kerosene heater and 10
Gallons of fuel (3 days) to keep 1000 square feet warm.
Then you just need a modest generator for lights, charging, and internet if those lines are not down.

 

[feathersax]

We have a Generac pull-start generator that has served us well over the years. After our 11-day siege without power during the recent Nashville Ice Storm, I can attest to its dependability. Had to go every morning to get gasoline (uses about 8 gallons every 24 hours), but the house was kept warm & comfortable. Air conditioning, microwaves, stovetops, ovens, coffee makers, etc. pull excess power, but the lights & heat work fine. Wife wants us to get a larger, more expensive unit that starts immediately when the Power goes out. I'm still debating.

 

[hog88]

We have a Generac pull-start generator that has served us well over the years. After our 11-day siege without power during the recent Nashville Ice Storm, I can attest to its dependability. Had to go every morning to get gasoline (uses about 8 gallons every 24 hours), but the house was kept warm & comfortable. Air conditioning, microwaves, stovetops, ovens, coffee makers, etc. pull excess power, but the lights & heat work fine. Wife wants us to get a larger, more expensive unit that starts immediately when the Power goes out. I'm still debating.

IMO they are well worth the money. At the old house we spent the 10k for a Generac whole house setup that ran off our NG supply because power outages were pretty common because of old poles and trees overgrowing the lines. We had the Generac installed and wallah! Power company put in new poles and trimmed trees, didn't have an outage for a couple years.

 

[GVF]

Went through that extensively with my HVAC guy who is also an electrician, and he wired his own two auto whole houses in his and his dad's place: I bought a 12kw 50amp Firman. Will tote a decent amount. I also made a chart of all my appliances and the amps/watts required so I'd know what I could have on w/o bogging down the generator. A 12kw/50amp is hte minimum size to accomplish anything other than HVAC and if you go to small you won't be able to do that. By comparison, and 24kw is the minimum to run your house as though power was on. In portables, that is getting into the $4K range. And alot of gas.

1) Make sure you have a 240 on top right breaker and put the slide lock on it. Can't have the chance to have generator and main breaker engaged at same time. You'll kill a lineman. There are other options as well, but this one is the cheapest, and properly installed approved by the inspector. You will still want a proper 50amp plug run to the outside wall though.

2) When power is off, remove furnace panel and unplug top connector on heat strips down to (1) 5kw strip. Tape them up so as not to make contact with anything when you fire up the gen. Then switch from auto to on. (only one start up draw). This sets your amp draw at a base of 20, and gives you room for 25 more continuous amps.

3) Refer to your appliance chart and choose what to run with your heat. In my case, I could run my Heat, and rotate from fridge and freezers to water heater to keep water temp up. And allow for lights/tv etc., and one eye on the stove. The range is the big no no. 4 eyes and the oven at one time will pull 40 amps. Large eyes are typically 14 amps each.

4) Min generator to do what I have is a 12kw start up, 10kw running generator. And if you manage your panel as described will get you by. About $1700. At half draw on my generator, I can get about 11 hours per 9 gal tank. Prob 8 hours on full draw. so, have atleast two gas cans. I live relatively close to a gas station, so no biggie. Extended outages can add up on generator gas. About $40 a day. Mine is a tri-fuel, but gasoline gives the most output power. You can also supplement with a smaller one and runs cords in just for the fridge and freezer and keep them off the panel set up.

We were fortunate, and I did not have to test any of this. But, bringing appliances online on the generator is important. Flip the heat on first and let it finish kicking on. Then each breaker in succession for what you want to power up.

 

[GVF]

We have a Generac pull-start generator that has served us well over the years. After our 11-day siege without power during the recent Nashville Ice Storm, I can attest to its dependability. Had to go every morning to get gasoline (uses about 8 gallons every 24 hours), but the house was kept warm & comfortable. Air conditioning, microwaves, stovetops, ovens, coffee makers, etc. pull excess power, but the lights & heat work fine. Wife wants us to get a larger, more expensive unit that starts immediately when the Power goes out. I'm still debating.

That auto system is on the wish list. Mainly cause the wife won't ever have to learn how to do all the other. Which ain't gonna happen. Just the system itself is about $7-8K, plus installation, unless you have a good friend. Disconnect fee is $50 from EMC, and the electrician gets the inspection approved before EMC turns back on.

Coolest Set up I've seen if it's real and not AI, is new out. It's and extension of the meter. Pull the meter off, put this rings extension on that has the plug and auto switches and back feed preventers in it. Put meter back onto that. All you have to do is plug into that.

 

[larjoranj]

We have a Generac pull-start generator that has served us well over the years. After our 11-day siege without power during the recent Nashville Ice Storm, I can attest to its dependability. Had to go every morning to get gasoline (uses about 8 gallons every 24 hours), but the house was kept warm & comfortable. Air conditioning, microwaves, stovetops, ovens, coffee makers, etc. pull excess power, but the lights & heat work fine. Wife wants us to get a larger, more expensive unit that starts immediately when the Power goes out. I'm still debating.

You have a generac whole house or portable generator?

 

[Firebirdparts]

Feeding your house with a generator is very convenient - but it's really hard to explain all the steps without getting something wrong. Just know, however that you can run electricity through suitably large wires into the house and yes, everything will light up, safely if you do it right. It's very nice. That's what we do at home.

HOWEVER: Running heat pumps on a generator is pretty difficult to do. The compressor has as big rush-in load that is hard to accomodate. I have a 6000 Watt generator (7000-ish peak) and it won't start up one of the two compressors. As the government has dictated higher and higher efficiency, the compressors have gotten smaller over the years, so when you replace your heat pump, this gets easier relative to the old one. heat pumps also have backup heat which sucks a lot of power, but there's no rush-in on that. Just sucks a lot of power. You can't control it directly, as it'll come on when the unit defrosts and you can't stop that (I mean unless you cut the wires to it).

It's much easier to explain that running a space heater on a generator is a trivial thing to do. Children could do it. Whoever wrote it was an "extreme safety hazard" was just simply a liar. I think that is probably a decent way to go in your case. Space heaters are almost always 1500 watts in order to be compatible with home circuits. Figure out how many you want to run. You need suitably large extension cords.

For me, I enjoy powering the whole house and doing the power management manually. It's just part of the fun.

You may want to price out transfer switch installation. If the circuit breakers are in an unfinished part of the house, let's say, and/or close to an outside wall where you want the generator to sit, it may be pretty cheap/worth it. It is a whole lot more fun.

 

[GVF]

Feeding your house with a generator is very convenient - but it's really hard to explain all the steps without getting something wrong. Just know, however that you can run electricity through suitably large wires into the house and yes, everything will light up, safely if you do it right. It's very nice. That's what we do at home.

HOWEVER: Running heat pumps on a generator is pretty difficult to do. The compressor has as big rush-in load that is hard to accomodate. I have a 6000 Watt generator (7000-ish peak) and it won't start up one of the two compressors. As the government has dictated higher and higher efficiency, the compressors have gotten smaller over the years, so when you replace your heat pump, this gets easier relative to the old one. heat pumps also have backup heat which sucks a lot of power, but there's no rush-in on that. Just sucks a lot of power. You can't control it directly, as it'll come on when the unit defrosts and you can't stop that (I mean unless you cut the wires to it).

It's much easier to explain that running a space heater on a generator is a trivial thing to do. Children could do it. Whoever wrote it was an "extreme safety hazard" was just simply a liar. I think that is probably a decent way to go in your case. Space heaters are almost always 1500 watts in order to be compatible with home circuits. Figure out how many you want to run. You need suitably large extension cords.

For me, I enjoy powering the whole house and doing the power management manually. It's just part of the fun.

You may want to price out transfer switch installation. If the circuit breakers are in an unfinished part of the house, let's say, and/or close to an outside wall where you want the generator to sit, it may be pretty cheap/worth it. It is a whole lot more fun.

You need to bypass the heat pumps as they are doing very little under 20-25 degrees anyway, especially single digits. Switch to Emer Heat mode will not call for the outside heat pump and runs strictly off furnace heat strips, and saves that power demand from hte generator. Switch to ON not Auto. This will get down to one start up. Also, heat strips are typically 5kw per strip and pull 20 amps. So while power is down and if you are familiar with the inside of your furnace panel and basic electrical skills, unplug top connector on all but one strip and tape them up. In a 14-1600 sf house the one 5kw strip set to On will keep you in mid-60's. But, will not get up to 70's. And will baseline your generator at 20 amps continuous so you will know what else you can rotate on/off based on your generator. [all info provided by my HVAC guy] Even when power is on, I will switch to Emer Heat anyway in low teens and single digits and just let the heat pumps sit. Not great on your power bill over long term, but heat pumps are super inefficient below 25 already, so you may not notice much extra for a short term situation. [Also recommendations per HVAC guy}.

 

[VOLtaism]

Gas logs for the fireplace and your choice of an endless variety of solar electric generators and a couple of portable solar panels. You don't need to power the whole house in an emergency situation. I run my router/tv a few lights for several days without recharging and the gas logs heat 1 room.

 

[GroverCleveland]

Has anyone considered something like a Wilco pto-driven generator? Would, of course, not be instantaneous, but a compact diesel tractor would seem to be a nice alternative for long-term outages.

I've looked into it, but we have so few outages here to warrant the expense. When they do occur, it is about 1-2 hours at most and we can get by the two small inverters we have. If cold, we do have two gas fire places to keep things toasty.

Now when I lived in Tellico Plains, that was another story. Lots of outages and for somewhat lengthy periods of time. Had a nice contractor sized generator.

 

[hog88]

Has anyone considered something like a Wilco pto-driven generator? Would, of course, not be instantaneous, but a compact diesel tractor would seem to be a nice alternative for long-term outages.

I've looked into it, but we have so few outages here to warrant the expense. When they do occur, it is about 1-2 hours at most and we can get by the two small inverters we have. If cold, we do have two gas fire places to keep things toasty.

Now when I lived in Tellico Plains, that was another story. Lots of outages and for somewhat lengthy periods of time. Had a nice contractor sized generator.

That’s how we powered the milk parlor during outages.

 

[feathersax]

You have a generac whole house or portable generator?

Portable model.

 

[larjoranj]

Portable model.

Portable model.

How many watts is yours? Hooks to the house by a manual transfer switch? Do those have to go right next to the breaker box? Mine is in the garage and I'd have to raise the overhead garage door a little and run the cord 25 ft to the panel. Plus whatever distance outside is a safe distance from the house. My son just bought a portable with 9,500 running watts and 12,500 peak watts. My Hvac is 3.5 tons. I read conflicting opinions on google if that would be enough to run my hvac by itself, let alone running a few other things in the house.

 

[feathersax]

@larjoranj​

Generac Model GP5500 purchased in 2020 It has been very dependable. Had an electrician install 120/40 VAC receptacle in the garage for the power cord. Just open the side door too garage & start up the unit. Manual says 240/120 V, but I'm no expert. Your HVAC unit sounds much like ours. The HEAT runs in freezing temperatures, evidenced by our recent ICE storm. Open windows & don't use AC in summer. Hope this helps. Recommend checking out YouTube videos on this model, too.

 

[Plecoptera]

That’s how we powered the milk parlor during outages.

We had an old pto powered generator on our dairy as well.

 

[Plecoptera]

A gas wall heater is a good option for auxiliary heat. One of the small units is plenty to heat a decent size room. A friend of mine has one in his lake cabin and it heats it up good on the lowest setting.

I bought a Generac GP6500 two years ago during Helene and it has been good. I use it regularly when I’m at my hunting camp. A multi fuel generator is worth considering. During power outages having the option to run the generator on propane is a good option.