Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
OK-- As things go, several homeowners in my HOA are fed-up with the power interruptions and we have opportunity for a "group discount" from a few of the local full-service Generac generator companies ... and Generac has a 10 year warranty "special" going on... Add this CityData community has largely dissuaded me from further considering a solar+ battery array. I would've thought that the solar+ battery would have been an eventual replacement for generators, but the technology just isn't efficient enough yet. Maybe another 5-10 years.... Acting as my own GC would likely save some money, but Im having trouble getting plumbers or electricians over here for an estimate.
OK-- I managed to get a few different bids. And, like my other jobs, opinions vary wildly.
My GAS meter & Electric meter are on opposite sides of the house. I do have a 40,000 BTU Gas Pool Heater on the same of the house as the Electric meter-- about 25-30 feet away from the Electric meter. One contractor said that I needed a dedicated gas line coming off of the gas meter to service the Generator and that I could NOT piggy back off of the gas line for the pool heater. The other contractor said we could just TEE off of the pool heater line & keep the installation very simple.
At the end of the day, it has to work, and I don't want the generator starved for fuel.... but I'd rather not spend money I don't have to (I'm doing that enough already).
Does anyone know if the generator (Generac 26kw or 24kw) requires so much gas that it needs its own gas line? And what diameter the line should be? We're talking about a roughly $3000 difference. One guy said we could replace the gas meter with a larger one with more "delivery" potential... although I think that would require pressure regulators everywhere else in the house. I called our local gas company and they'll upsize the meter & delivery system for free (finally, something free!)...
Depends on how heavily you load the generator. At full capacity, the gennie load for 24 kw is over 80,000 BTU/hr plus about 15% conversion losses. If you buy a power meter that shows your peak load, you may find you never use or need close to that. So... the guy who wanted to T was right if your generator was a 10KW used lightly. The other guy was right if you want to hold a small rock concert.
A short, down and dirty way to estimate peak reasonable power draw is to open your windows and doors, crank the AC down to 60 degrees, turn all burners on the electric stove on as well as the exhaust fan, go outside, read your electric meter, write the number down, go back out one hour later and read it again. Subtract one from the other, look for any multiplier (if there is one) and you have how many kilowatts you have consumed in an hour. If you size your generator based on that plus a 10% leeway, it is more or less properly sized for most events.
All this is somewhat silly to me. When my power goes out, I fire up my portable 2KW generator, turn on a window AC and big tv and relax.
[quote=harry chickpea;65877973]Depends on how heavily you load the generator. At full capacity, the gennie load for 24 kw is over 80,000 BTU/hr plus about 15% conversion losses. If you buy a power meter that shows your peak load, you may find you never use or need close to that. So... the guy who wanted to T was right if your generator was a 10KW used lightly. The other guy was right if you want to hold a small rock concert.
A short, down and dirty way to estimate peak reasonable power draw is to open your windows and doors, crank the AC down to 60 degrees, turn all burners on the electric stove on as well as the exhaust fan, go outside, read your electric meter, write the number down, go back out one hour later and read it again. Subtract one from the other, look for any multiplier (if there is one) and you have how many kilowatts you have consumed in an hour. If you size your generator based on that plus a 10% leeway, it is more or less properly sized for most events.
All this is somewhat silly to me. When my power goes out, I fire up my portable 2KW generator, turn on a window AC and big tv and relax.[/QUOT
Thank you. Yes, the full service contractor suggested the dedicated gas line for the generator and recommended the 26kw Generac. We have two central air units, electric wall oven, Dishwasher, Washing Machine, Microwave, pool pump, refrigerator, small countertop oven and the standard small electric appliances.
The other bid I received accused the first guy of 'Upselling me" insofar as the installation method goes. The pool gas line is currently a dedicated piping run that originated at the meter, so branching off if it would mean two heavy use appliances (pool heater & generator)--- although IDK that I would heat the pool if we are using the generator. It was suggested that I could get a "larger meter", thereby increasing the delivery volume. I checked with my NG provider & this would be a free service.
All the internal gas appliances-- 2 furnaces, clothes dryer, stove, tankless water heater are all served on a gas line other than the pool heater.
I'll do your poor-mans load test and set everything to be running, to gauge the usage over 1 hour & see what I get.
When I used the Generac "Generator calculator", it recommended either the 18kW, 22 kW or 26kW. It wasn't very useful.
As far as being silly--- I'd agree with that to an extent. It does seem a bit ridiculous that these things, installed, are over $10K, but that's what the going rate is. We're just tired of power outages. I wish our provider was more reliable, but they're not.
Depends on how heavily you load the generator. At full capacity, the gennie load for 24 kw is over 80,000 BTU/hr plus about 15% conversion losses. If you buy a power meter that shows your peak load, you may find you never use or need close to that. So... the guy who wanted to T was right if your generator was a 10KW used lightly. The other guy was right if you want to hold a small rock concert.
A short, down and dirty way to estimate peak reasonable power draw is to open your windows and doors, crank the AC down to 60 degrees, turn all burners on the electric stove on as well as the exhaust fan, go outside, read your electric meter, write the number down, go back out one hour later and read it again. Subtract one from the other, look for any multiplier (if there is one) and you have how many kilowatts you have consumed in an hour. If you size your generator based on that plus a 10% leeway, it is more or less properly sized for most events.
All this is somewhat silly to me. When my power goes out, I fire up my portable 2KW generator, turn on a window AC and big tv and relax.
I guess I would make sure to get enough gas to the generator to allow it to run at rated power, there may be problems associated with an inadequate fuel supply, i.e. running lean, which could damage the engine, specifically burn exhaust valves, which would not likely be covered by warranty.
Beyond that, do you want to be able to run whatever you want in your house on the genset, or are you willing to accept a smaller genset that will run your lights and fridge, but not an electric range, or your A/C system?
You might want to think about putting in a gas range, and/or water heater, and some sort of gas heater that does not require electric power, although your genset should easily run the blower on a gas forced air system. But running your own genset to run an electric range is far less efficient than running a gas range.
Proper management of a genset means you run it say monthly, under load not just idling.
When you put in a genset, you are in the power engineering business, like it or not.: cool:
Of course the salesman will tell you it will take care of itself. News flash: It will not.
You or somebody also needs to check oil level, unless these have an auto-add oil system, and even there you need to check level in the add tank. An advantage of natural gas or propane is the oil stays very clean, I would still change it at least annually, or more often if the OEM recommends. Oil is, relatively, cheap, while engines are expensife
In movie theatres, there can be a number of AC units. A small multiplex might have 14 of varying capacities. We were sometimes billed for "peak power" over a month. As you can imagine, starting all the units within a fifteen minute time frame was not something we ever wanted done, yet a new assistant manager arriving late might come in and flip on all of those plus lights and projection booth power in the space of ten minutes. To stop that, we installed energy saving systems that would limit the peaks with staggered startup and load shifting.
I say the above because with two central units and some of the other items you mentioned, such a system on a smaller scale might not only reduce the load on your generator (and possible damage) but allow you to run with a smaller generator.
One factor you may not have taken into account is that the larger the generator, the more fuel will be used. Fuel costs money. Run a big generator for a couple days and expect a fuel bill that could be as large as your power bill for a month.
After yet another recent power outage (Tulsa, OK), we decided to investigate whole house back-up generators (Generac Guardian) ...or... a whole house backup battery system (Generac PwrCell, or equivalent) with solar tie-in.
Pricing out the parts and understanding the labor involved, I had a certain price expectation for the Generator. But the GC's in our area want a sizeable profit for managing the entire Generator project, and have discouraged me from pursuing the Battery system. Maybe they know better, or maybe they have other motivations-- I don't know.
If I do the generator, I'm now convinced that I can save a notable sum by buying a Generator from a big box store, and hiring my own electrician & gas plumber, but the generator is loud, takes a larger footprint than I'd like and requires periodic maintenance.. albeit simple maintenance.... so I'm trying to justify the PwrCell battery setup-- if I can find better real world reviews & price data.
I've been HOA approved for a small rooftop solar array. It would be part of an overall remodel so the panel support & electrical tie-in could be elegantly "designed in". Our home is basically "half-way" run by electricity, with two A/C units, pool equipment, an electric oven, refrigerator, dishwasher & microwave oven being the power hogs. A battery system would have to cover that and the other common items. The rest of the items are powered by Natural gas.
Anyone have experiences with Generac whole house PwrCell or the Tesla PowerWall, or the Generac natural gas generators for that matter? I can envision an initial battery charge-up from the electrical grid and, eventually, a few hours of powering the home via battery each day with the solar array maintaining a near-capacity charge... but I have no idea if that's a realistic way that it would play out. Any data-- performance, price, failures, maintenance, etc would be helpful.
Thank you.
That would be a very expensive solar/battery system. And, it would not be small. As most on here have said a generator is the better option for your situation.
In 2015 we paid $ 7,800 for a NG 16 KW Generac, parts and labor. In California we pay $ 2.00 / hour to use it. I change the oil and plugs, never had a problem. The longest we lost power was 5 continuous days a few years back. I can't hear ours running when we are inside.
But: the 16 KW is overkill. It runs our home with everything all at once and has power left for another house like ours.
Being a bit paranoid, I bought 2 smaller inverter type gas portables, one 1,600 and the other 3,500 watts. The smaller runs 11 hours on one gallon of 87 octane gas. Unless we use the HVAC or the electric range we only need between 500-1,400 watts, verified by a small gadget. The cost savings are good, but the extension cords are not. After buying the portables we only use the big Generac for 5-6 hours per day, when needed. PG&E is getting more reliable lately, but we are always ready when they are not.
Last edited by mgforshort; 09-26-2023 at 05:59 PM..
I have Cummins units here in Arkansas, two home and one commercial. One of the home units was about $6500 and the commercial unit was $10k several years ago. We just put one in our new home this year and it was $8500. They (all three) come on every Wednesday at noon for a test run and we went with the service contract, because they change oil and keep it ready to go. Maintenance is so important in these units.
We will lose power for no apparent reason and it can always be hours and sometimes days.
While having generator power at work is essential nowadays, it is also very nice at home.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
