Standby power: propane versus diesel?

[John Mc]

John, do you have a friend that works on cars? Most hand-held car scopes these days have little full-blown digital oscilloscopes built in...

I never would have thought of that... I'll have to nose around a bit to see what some of my friends have.

Mine is a Generac 4000EXL. 4000 watt continuous, 7.8 HP, electric start (or it would be if I ever got around to replacing the battery). About the only thing impressive about it is that it has a 6600 watt surge capacity -- or so the specs claim. I haven't seen many others with a 50+% surge rating

In the 7 years I've owned it, it's probably only run about 125 hours.

[WoodMiller]

Our 12 KW Generac Standby genset got about a 6 hour workout this morning during our little winter storm.  It ran just fine, according to the wife, but the UPS for the computer, which isn't on a backed up circuit, kept waking her up with its power interruption alarm.  I was plowing snow at the airport when she called me to tell me that the alarm was keeping her awake, so she unplugged it from the outlet "but the alarm kept going off!!!"

We've been married for better than 25 years, so I just bit my tongue and told her where the on/off switch is.......

[TerryKing]

Someone said: "I have a Generac 15KW propane standby generator and it has been very reliable - biggest maintenance issue was to remember to check the battery water when we changed the oil.  The battery is on a trickle charger and can lose water over the year. "

I installed and maintained several generators for broadcast stations over the years. 

Propane is the easiest to maintain.  Diesel is necessary for the big ones, though.   

A few observations:

- Buried tanks are best.. much more independent of outdoor temperatures..
- Batteries need regular (monthly) checkups.
- Batteries best at room temperature for starting. When the genset was near a building wall, I ran large cables through the wall and put batteries inside the building. Also easy to maintain!
- Diesels need block heaters for quick starts in real cold weather.  I could drop 15 Kw load on 25 Kw generator 15 seconds after starting.
- Run the genset for at least 15 minutes, loaded, once a month.  We used 5  2KW baseboard type heaters as a load.
- Test the whole system and automatic switchgear by cutting the main breaker every 3 months. In Broadcast, that meant a 2AM Sunday Night / Monday Morning trip to the transmitter site. Usually had other power-down maintenance to do anyway...

These days, I'm looking at the diesel with woodgas setups for the old Vermont homestead...

[Ironwood]

Well, I have a 5500 portable junk Colman gen that my Dad kinda' directed my way. OK I suppose.   

 Today I found a slick 7KW Kohler (4 cylinder) out of a box utility van. It is low RPM, has two little compressors and a two speed heat exchanger to pull the hot air from an additional radiator loop. Really a neat set up. Includes two retractable hose reels on it too. I bought it for $400  . A little smaller than I wanted, but it will keep us in good shape for a power outage. Said to run on about a gallon and hour (seems resonable). I may get one of those dual fuel conversions, although I may be able to find one on a forklift (thanks for the link John Mc). I need to put a few Army can holders on it as it was directly hooked to his van's fuel tank. I think I will modify a jerry can lid to have the fuel line directly thru it. Then I can put my 20 jerry can fleet to work . Guy who owned it had a small construction co. that he had to get out of. Also scored a nice 6' x 16' (internal dimensions) galvanized ice delivery box van body, I am going to put my Ebac-800  in it. REALLY heavy old galvinized unit.  Gotta love Craig's list.

                  Ironwood

[srt]

I was on the farm this past week, and as I usually do when I'm there for more than a day, I light off the 6KW diesel generator  and plug a load into it for 15 or so minutes (or until I remember it's running a couple hours later, whichever comes first).

I've put stabilizer in the fuel, as it rarely gets used except to make sure it still works.  However, I was thinking as I walked past the fuel oil tank for the house furnace.  Can I run that diesel off home heating oil in an extended electrical outage?  Google gives many different answers.  So what's the real truth about running diesel engines off home heating oil?  Yes, I know enough not to pull from the bottom of the tank, and I would batch fill the generator tank, not hook the 270 gal tank to a vibrating gen set. 

I'd love to be able to just go over to the fuel oil tank for my diesel mowing tractor while I'm at it.  I don't use enough diesel on the farm to make a big tank practical, but it sure is cheaper and more handy from the heating oil tank than road diesel from the station.

Also, while I was there, the propane guy was out to talk about putting in a 500 gal tank for the guest house, where we're changing from oil to propane for the heat.  I bent his ear for a while about propane, and the only thing I could get out of him that was noteworthy was what he said about burried tanks.  He doesn't like burried tanks.  He said they've had two leak on them in the past couple years, and that the mfgr only warrantees them for one year if burried.  I've never heard of them leaking, but that's what he said, and he's the owner of the company.  The leaks were at welds - not surprise there.

[Wudman]

For those that already have a suitable power source, I would look at a PTO generator.  We have an old 50 Kw Winpower on the farm.  We have a Deutz D100 06 with a 1000 rpm pto to pull it.  Just pulling the house, the tractor is barely off idle.  Fuel consumption is minimal.  As the tractor is used regularly, things are fairly reliable. 

Wudman

[Modat22]

I had to jump in here, my advice to anyone getting an emergency power genny for the home is get the smallest Genny that will do what you need it to do.  If you have a 20kw but only use 4kw its still using 18 to 20kw worth of fuel.

I run my whole house off a 5kw lincoln welder/generator and had to do it for about 8 days this year. Wife had a baby and the day after we got home the ice storm hit and we couldn't get out. I ran the house 24/7 off that little beasty (lights, well pump, furnice, fridge and freezer and the hot water heater at night) burned about 10 gallons every 24 hours.

Took me 8 hours of drive time to find fuel the next day because all the stations in my area had no power.

[Ironwood]

Modatt 
 
 Your right on the having what you need ( and not too much extra). I had not thought of this until you begin considering  how much fuel one of these things uses. I guess 7 KW is good, just enough to pump water from our well, keep the freezer and furnace going, and a few lights. We'll have to get by .

           
 Off road diesel and/or heating oil  should run your diesel gen fine. I thought about getting diesel for effiecency and the fact there is usually 300 gal on the place at anytime, but the potential future prospect of a gas well kept me thinking gasoline/propane/NG.

 I got my little 7 KW on a steel pallet, w/ a fuel tube welded into a Army jerry can lid (can be transfered from can to can), and a new battery and welded up a crude air cleaner, and fired it up. Really quiet, which is nice compared to my 5.5 screaming Coleman. I am missing one of the sheet metal sides and I will likely do a few other things enclosing it a bit. One idea I had was to create a trailer from the steel pallet (I have 50 of these) with my Norwood stub axles. I never go mobile w/ the mill, and I could use them in various ways via these pallets. One ongoing thought is to throw cord wood directly ont othe pallet IN the woods, then just pull the axles off and it is a "Pallet" of wood again, put the axles on the next pallet. Gotta think about this but I think there is something there........

 Ironwood

 

   

[submarinesailor]

scsmith42:  "I personally do not care for Generac products.  At the telecom company, we dealt with most of the major brands of generators, and Generac's failure rate was 500% greater than the other major brands.  Many of our field techs referred to them as "Generjunk" or "Genercrap" because of their poor performance.

Scott,

After your comments about Generac, I got to looking for something else.  So, plan "B" is Kolhler 12RES for about $1,000 more.  Is the extra $1000 worth the Kolhler name?

Anyone else like Kolhler better than Generac?

Bruce

[Ironwood]

The little 7 KW I bought was a Kohler 4 cylinder (looks like the Continental in my forklift), fires right up, and quiet. The fellow I bought it from ran it for a little construction co he owned and closed, he said about a gallon an hour. Purrs right along, I am no expert, but this thing is from 1989-90 and runs great. I don't know how many hours are on it, I'll have to look.

             Ironwood