Whole home generators

[Ken / Claudia]

Thanks, Xrated for the reply.

I would only have the electric co. that wired the house come back and do what is needed for a back-up system that is legal and more important safe. If by chance my 3200 watt output is not enough. I will buy a unit that is, just for that use.
That same co. already came out and wired up a 30a RV outlet, installed breakers so I have shore power to the RV pad. That was a extra the 1st owner did not want while the house was being built for him. He lived here 1 winter and moved back to Seattle. His loss our gain. It is a great house.

[xrated]

Originally Posted by Ken / Claudia

Thanks, Xrated for the reply.

I would only have the electric co. that wired the house come back and do what is needed for a back-up system that is legal and more important safe. If by chance my 3200 watt output is not enough. I will buy a unit that is, just for that use.
That same co. already came out and wired up a 30a RV outlet, installed breakers so I have shore power to the RV pad. That was a extra the 1st owner did not want while the house was being built for him. He lived here 1 winter and moved back to Seattle. His loss our gain. It is a great house.

You're welcome sir.

[xrated]

Just a little update. I seriously gave some thought to installing a whole house generator, and the cost of the entire system vs. the probable number of times it would be used, and I decided to just go ahead and do some upgrades to my existing measures. I already had the Yamaha 6300W inverter type generator and a way to tie it into the house panel, but I wanted to redo it and add a couple of things to my system. Here are some pics of what I have now.....

This is where it all begins...the Yamaha generator....


Next up is the breaker panel with a set of instructions for doing the swap over from Utility power to generator power. Also shown is the generator inlet recept. and the Reliance "Powerback" module. The Powerback module is installed with a sensor on one of the two incoming utility power line phases, and you leave the Powerback turned off. During the process of switching over to generator power, the Powerback is turned on and when the utility power has been restored, the Powerback will sound a 100 dB alarm to let you know......


The last picture shows the inside of the breaker panel with the Interlock device mounted on it. With this setup, when the Breaker Panel Main breaker is in the ON position, the upper right 2 pole breaker has to be in the OFF position. That breaker is the one that the generator feeds into, to supply power to the breaker panel. And conversely, when THAT breaker is on, you cannot turn the Main breaker on. That assures that the generator DOES NOT backfeed into the utility grid and possibly injure or kill a lineman or utility worker. You may also see some small RED DOTS on the labelling of the breakers in the panel. Those are the breakers that I will have turned to the ON position when I'm on generator power. They feed stuff like the refrigerators, lights, fireplace fan, furnace fan, etc. Pretty much everything else is turned off, and especially the heavy power draw stuff like the Electric Heat strips in the heat pump unit, the clothes dryer, the electric stove, the water heater.


And just in case anyone is wondering why the generator inlet is inside the garage instead of outside the house, I plan on buying a generator exhaust port to install in my overhead garage door. When that is complete, along with the all metal generator exhaust hose, I will be able to operate the generator in the garage and exhaust the fumes to the outside. That leaves my $4000 generator safely locked in the garage and not outside and a target for thieves. I will also add a CO2 monitor to the garage when I do that.

I hope this is of some help to any of you that are wanting to use a portable generator vs. getting a whole house generator. If you have any questions, please ask/post them up and I'd be happy to answer anything about my setup.

[Camping family]

While done and the co monitor is a good ideal. Some kind of back up is always good. I know the whole,house generator system is expensive but it was a while worth install for us. Nice for it to just start up when needed and don’t even miss a beat. Power goes out and it kicks on power go back on it cuts off. I’m to old to be running around looking for fuel or stocking up on 5 gallon cans. Besides around here when the power goes out from a hurricane most gas stations are closed either no power or they run out of fuel. With our system the full tank of propane will last about 2 weeks conservative.

[sourdough]

I have bounced the benefits of a whole house generator around in my head for a couple of months now. For us I don't see an option. Chances that I'll be there if the power goes down are slim. If I'm not there to flip the switches, fire up the genset etc. the entire thing would be wasted money. The whole house unit probably will be too no more than I anticipate it will ever be needed but we have determined that it's not worth "hoping" everything is going to be OK, and expect to be, then something go south with no way to do anything about it. We've decided to bite the bullet and forget it then convince ourselves it's just another insurance policy.

[xrated]

Originally Posted by Camping family

While done and the co monitor is a good ideal. Some kind of back up is always good. I know the whole,house generator system is expensive but it was a while worth install for us. Nice for it to just start up when needed and don’t even miss a beat. Power goes out and it kicks on power go back on it cuts off. I’m to old to be running around looking for fuel or stocking up on 5 gallon cans. Besides around here when the power goes out from a hurricane most gas stations are closed either no power or they run out of fuel. With our system the full tank of propane will last about 2 weeks conservative.

We've been in this house since April, 2007 and we've lost power probably 2 dozen times over that time period. I'd say 80% of them were less than a minute or two and the rest were anywhere from say 1/2 hour up to the longest one which was 12 1/2 hours a few years ago. The long one was a tornado touching down about 1/2 mile from our house and taking out trees that in turn, took down the power lines. A whole house generator would have been great for that one, but mostly all the others were something that a portable generator setup like I have would have been just the ticket. We aren't in a Hurricane area here in E. TN, but we do get our share of severe storms and some tornados. If I were going to spend the money on emergency protection, my choice would probably be to have a tornado shelter installed at the house....we are on a slab, so no basement to go to.

[JRTJH]

We've been in our house since 2009. That's going on 13 years and our Generac whole house generator has a total of 58 hours of run time. It powers up for 15 minutes monthly, so that's 3 hours a year x 12 years = 36 hours of "test runs", leaving 22 of "actual emergency operation".. That averages roughly 1.8 hours per year. If I remember correctly, we were without power for an overnight event about 5 years ago and I turned off the generator when we went to bed, started it again the next morning and the power came back on about 2 or 3 hours after that.

So, we've had one "extended outage" of about 25-30 hours and a few "less than an hour" events in 12+ years....

With the installation price of roughly $10,000 and a 12 year "total use" of 22 hours, that boils down to roughly $455 per hour of use. The "extended warranty expired 6 years ago, so anything that might happen now is either "me pay or maybe insurance pay"...

That's why, when my BIL was looking for a means of powering his house in emergencies, we went through everything he needed to power (gas furnace, refrigerator, freezer, well pump and a few lights/TV, etc) and came up with a system very near the same concept as xrated. BIL uses a similar "circuit breaker interlock", a Champion 4000 watt generator with a 240 VAC capability, an outside the house generator connection plug and 10 ga ROMEX to connect to a 30 amp breaker on the house circuit breaker panel in the "top right opening"... He has a separate garage and "parks" his generator inside the garage with a "through the wall" generator exhaust.

He's used it a couple of times and has the same "lights on, refrigerator running, house warm" result as I have. His total investment: About $500.

[JRTJH]

Vernon,

These are the "exhaust fittings/metal exhaust" that we used for BIL's system. The "through the wall muffler" required, if I remember correctly, a 3" hole, but I could be wrong because we cut a "larger than needed hole" to prevent the hot metal from touching anything except the outer metal sheeting as it went through the wall. The only thing I wish it would have had is a "90 degree cut" on the end rather than the 45 degree cut. That way we could have put a vertical mount tractor muffler on the outside of his garage and got the exhaust from the generator above the eve overhang on his garage to prevent any chance of CO seeping into the soffet vents. We tried a workaround, but it would have meant taking it all apart again and welding an extension on the "through the wall fitting"... So, he's lived with it for about 3 years now with no problems, so it was a "plan that never happened and probably wasn't needed anyway".....

He bought the 8' exhaust pipe kit and has more than enough room to move things around as needed. The quick disconnect fitting makes it a "2 second connection" when he's hooking it up with no worry about crushing the exhaust hose. IMHO, well worth the few extra bucks.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[xrated]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

Vernon,

These are the "exhaust fittings/metal exhaust" that we used for BIL's system. The "through the wall muffler" required, if I remember correctly, a 3" hole, but I could be wrong because we cut a "larger than needed hole" to prevent the hot metal from touching anything except the outer metal sheeting as it went through the wall. The only thing I wish it would have had is a "90 degree cut" on the end rather than the 45 degree cut. That way we could have put a vertical mount tractor muffler on the outside of his garage and got the exhaust from the generator above the eve overhang on his garage to prevent any chance of CO seeping into the soffet vents. We tried a workaround, but it would have meant taking it all apart again and welding an extension on the "through the wall fitting"... So, he's lived with it for about 3 years now with no problems, so it was a "plan that never happened and probably wasn't needed anyway".....

He bought the 8' exhaust pipe kit and has more than enough room to move things around as needed. The quick disconnect fitting makes it a "2 second connection" when he's hooking it up with no worry about crushing the exhaust hose. IMHO, well worth the few extra bucks.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thank you for the info John...I'll certainly see if that stuff will work for my application.

Your information about how little the whole house generator actually was needed, got me thinking about how often we would really need it vs. what the portable would be able to do. I may end up regretting it if we were ever in a "long term" power outage, but I should be OK for the foreseeable future. So I guess I owe you one....you probably saved me at least 10K by just using what I already had...minus the few things I posted above. Thanks again.

[JRTJH]

Based on my actual use experience, the biggest investment we've made in our house that has turned out to be "the biggest regret" is the whole house generator. Sure, it's "nice to have things go dark and in 10 or 15 seconds, everything powers up again AUTOMATICALLY". But based on our "actual use" (not what the Generac advertisements say) the reality is that has only happened, at most a couple of times annually, and in almost every one of those times, it shut itself down before the DirecTV box was up and running. And, when it shuts down, everything has to reset anyway, so all the clocks, all the appliances, all the TV boxes either have to be reset or take their time to reset automatically.

In reality, if I had a "manual setup system" (like we installed for my BIL), almost always (with maybe 3 exceptions in the past 12 years) the power would be back on before I got the pole barn door open to connect the generator to the house... So, the actual "quick response of the Generac" is all that allowed it to come online faster than the power restored itself. Typically, the 1 or 2 times a year we lose power, it's for less than 60 seconds, so in reality, with the Generac, all our "stuff" get shut down, powered up, shut down and powered up again at every power outage. At my BIL's, it gets shut down and before he even gets his generator started, his house is powered up again on regular power, avoiding one of the "power up/down's" that my system forces on everything.... You can think of it as turning off the house main breaker two times for every one time his main breaker is turned off....

If I had it to do over again, in our situation, with the "power reliability" we have, I wouldn't have bought the Generac if I knew then what I know now...

At "best guess estimates" that 10K left in my 401K aggressive growth portfolio" would be worth around 30K or maybe more. So in reality, that 22 hours of "Generac time" really cost us closer to 40K all things considered... Of course I could always say that if I hadn't put it into the Generac I'd have put it into another ATV or boat or ??? So would it have been invested or not ??? Who knows....

Bottom line, I wouldn't buy another Generac for the way our power grid has worked for the past 12+ years. That said, if I was still in Louisiana and another Katrina were to hit.... Entirely different situation and I'd be in line to install a "whole house system" in my main home all over again...

[xrated]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

Based on my actual use experience, the biggest investment we've made in our house that has turned out to be "the biggest regret" is the whole house generator. Sure, it's "nice to have things go dark and in 10 or 15 seconds, everything powers up again AUTOMATICALLY". But based on our "actual use" (not what the Generac advertisements say) the reality is that has only happened, at most a couple of times annually, and in almost every one of those times, it shut itself down before the DirecTV box was up and running. And, when it shuts down, everything has to reset anyway, so all the clocks, all the appliances, all the TV boxes either have to be reset or take their time to reset automatically.

In reality, if I had a "manual setup system" (like we installed for my BIL), almost always (with maybe 3 exceptions in the past 12 years) the power would be back on before I got the pole barn door open to connect the generator to the house... So, the actual "quick response of the Generac" is all that allowed it to come online faster than the power restored itself. Typically, the 1 or 2 times a year we lose power, it's for less than 60 seconds, so in reality, with the Generac, all our "stuff" get shut down, powered up, shut down and powered up again at every power outage. At my BIL's, it gets shut down and before he even gets his generator started, his house is powered up again on regular power, avoiding one of the "power up/down's" that my system forces on everything.... You can think of it as turning off the house main breaker two times for every one time his main breaker is turned off....

If I had it to do over again, in our situation, with the "power reliability" we have, I wouldn't have bought the Generac if I knew then what I know now...

At "best guess estimates" that 10K left in my 401K aggressive growth portfolio" would be worth around 30K or maybe more. So in reality, that 22 hours of "Generac time" really cost us closer to 40K all things considered... Of course I could always say that if I hadn't put it into the Generac I'd have put it into another ATV or boat or ??? So would it have been invested or not ??? Who knows....

Bottom line, I wouldn't buy another Generac for the way our power grid has worked for the past 12+ years. That said, if I was still in Louisiana and another Katrina were to hit.... Entirely different situation and I'd be in line to install a "whole house system" in my main home all over again...

Everything you've said makes perfect sense to me, including the "where you live" part of it. If your BIL doesn't have anyway of knowing when the power comes back on, other than looking at neighbors lights or ??, that reliance "Powerback" alarm is a nice little accessory to have for that purpose. I thought about building something with a fused 240VAC relay and using a set of dry contacts on it to signal my wireless burglar alarm that the power was back on, but by the time I bought another wireless module for our system, the relay, a box to put everything in and then wire it up and program it into the alarm system, it just made more sense to buy the Reliance Powerback. It's a self contained unit that runs on a 9V transistor battery, and since you leave it turned off all the time, until you are actually running on generator power, it economical too. I think I paid under $70 for it on ebay...and Reliance brand equipment is pretty good quality stuff.

[JRTJH]

BIL's pole barn and garage are on a different main panel and meter, so when the power comes back on, the lights in the pole barn come on. He just turns on the "pole barn outside light switch" and when the lights are on, he knows he's going to have power to the house without the generator. LOL

[B-O-B'03]

I have all of my electronics connected to UPSes (cable, internet, DVRs, computers, etc) so I can stand several minutes of outage without affecting them.

The thing I do not currently have and really want is 220V, for the pool and AC units.

For this last outage I had a couple of blankets and a tarp covering the pool equipment, with a 150 watt shop light under them that kept things from freezing... several of our friends and neighbors were not so fortunate.

I think I ran the Champion for 40+ hours during our recent outage and last summer we had 2 outages (8 hours and 21 hours) one day apart.

We live in an older neighborhood, with above ground utilities and outages are not that uncommon, the street on the other side of the creek from from us never lost power, not sure if it had anything to do with them having underground utilities.

I think for a whole house generator I will not get one big enough to run everything all at the same time... AC is more important that baking cookies in the oven, so I would have to explain the setup to our friend that stays at the house when we travel.

Having to explain to him how to hook up a portable generator, which breakers to flip, etc is not in the cards.

Other than the double over, everything that makes heat in our house uses natural gas.

-Brian

[JRTJH]

Having someone else that's "responsible but not paying the bills" live in the house and connect/use an electrical system that they're not familiar with would give me nightmares.... I don't think I'd ever opt for someone else to connect a system like we installed at my BIL's house. He doesn't even ask his son (a very responsible 35 year old) to "go out and hook it up"... I wouldn't either....

As for the neighborhood on the other side of the creek not losing power. Trust me when I say it has nothing to do with them having "underground utilities".. When we built our "dream house" in Louisiana, it was in an exclusive, gated community with all underground utilities on 5+ acre "estates"... The "reliability of underground utilities" was a selling point... NOBODY told anyone about the truth !!!! There were underground utilities INSIDE the subdivision... That's true, but the power "coming into the area" was all ABOVE GROUND and a cypress tree falling a mile down the road can and will readily interrupt power in the "most reliable subdivision in Alexandria !!!!!

So, don't believe underground utilities in a subdivision makes it any more "reliable" than any other subdivision... LOL

[sourdough]

When it comes to utilities the "local", high end facilities have nothing to do with the reliability of said utility as they try to tell you and use as a selling point. Parts of the system feeding that particular area/subdivision may have been built in 1920 and never updated.

[flybouy]

Last long outage here was Hurricane Sandy. Power was out for 3 1/2 days. I have a 3,600 watt generator stored under the deck of our house beside our walk out basement patio. A 30 amp Reliance kit with disconnect outside and manual transfer switch inside at the panel. It runs the furnace and water heater (gas fired), two refrigerators, microwave in the kitchen, the circuits for the modem and routers, sump pump and security system, one big screen tv and some lights. Not enough for the air conditioner but a fan in the basement makes it tolerable if it's hot.

I pull the genset out from under the enclosed deck (I installed a door right beside the Genny) and let it rip. I will not run it while sleeping so I shut it down during the night. During Sandy I think I used about 6 or 7 gal of gas. All in it was right around a grand (that was in late 1999 or 2000 money) as I bought the genset and the transfer switch on sale and my labor to install. Would love to have the convenience of a natural gas fueled whole house standby but can't justify the money.

[Ken / Claudia]

Reading about some mentioning the need to have stored gas available. If you have a gas powered car or pickup that's your storage unit. As long as you don't keep the tanks empty.
Last thing I worry about is needing gas, I have a hand pump and electric (battery powered) A boat that has 48 gals of gas in it 8 months of the year, 2 cars with another 30gals. Even if they where all at half full, which is when they get topped off, that's a lot of genny run time for 2, 2000s.

[xrated]

Originally Posted by Ken / Claudia

Reading about some mentioning the need to have stored gas available. If you have a gas powered car or pickup that's your storage unit. As long as you don't keep the tanks empty.
Last thing I worry about is needing gas, I have a hand pump and electric (battery powered) A boat that has 48 gals of gas in it 8 months of the year, 2 cars with another 30gals. Even if they where all at half full, which is when they get topped off, that's a lot of genny run time for 2, 2000s.

I have a 14 gallon fuel tank on wheels, plus my Toy Hauler 30 gallon tank usually has fuel in it for the pump dispenser....so I'm in good shape too. Plus, I have a 6 gallon race fuel type fuel jug with a hand crank pump that will pump about 5 gallons a minute.

[blubuckaroo]

Originally Posted by xrated

I have a 14 gallon fuel tank on wheels, plus my Toy Hauler 30 gallon tank usually has fuel in it for the pump dispenser....so I'm in good shape too. Plus, I have a 6 gallon race fuel type fuel jug with a hand crank pump that will pump about 5 gallons a minute.

But what if you've got your jammies on and don't want to go back outside?

[BigBobIa]

Originally Posted by blubuckaroo

But what if you've got your jammies on and don't want to go back outside?

Then you hope it is not above 80° or below 50° so you can wait for morning!!