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Has anyone heard of a battery that you can keep charged and use it in a power failure?
After last year's ice storm, I am hoping not to repeat three freezing days without power. Now, I only am concerned about heat, the blower of which runs on electricity (I have natural gas furnace). I can do without the other pleasantries if the house is warm enough for comfort. I don't really want to spring for a full-blown generator and wiring and all, and I did see a mention somewhere of a battery alternative. Did I imagine this?
I do hope to get a woodstove at some point, but not right now.
Thanks in advance.
Any battery only lasts so long, even large battery arrays have their limits. Most are not sized to last over a day's worth of power.
Might make sense to do a design that is used on a normal basis and has solar panels to charge it every day.
The other down side is batteries will have a working lifetime. Probably not all that cheap. Technology on batteries is changing but many of the same negative remain and probably will for the future.
Alternative power using wind, hydro, solar or whatever else one can dream up. That and a generator running on gasoline, natural gas or propane, something you can have a good tank full. Could be a generator and battery / inverter design too. Something pretty light weight, just enough to power the furnace and critical loads.
A fairly large marine battery can, if properly maintained, store the amount of energy equivalent of about 1/2 cup of gasoline. I had a battery and inverter setup in my van for van camping, using two marine batteries. It was recharged while driving, and powered a small refrigerator and a microwave. It barely kept the refrigerator going, and at the end of a two week vacation, they had been so abused that they were ready for recycling.
If all you want to do is run a furnace blower, those are about 1/2 hp. and you could get away with one of the cheap 800 watt two-cycle generators. Cost is about $150 from Northern or Harbor Freight, and assuming that the blower motor is 120 vts, you would just attach a cord and plug in the blower and let it run. The waveform of the cheap generators can be damaging to electronics so I wouldn't plug in all the circuitry. If you want to run a refrigerator as well, you would need a 2500 watt generator or larger. The inrush on startup would be too much when both were running.
FWIW, with a 5KW generator, 20 gallons of gas, 4 marine batteries and a 2000 watt inverter/charger and a 75 watt solar panel, we went for about 15 days of no power after hurricane Wilma. We ran the generator for just a few hours a day when we needed major power, and recharged the batteries, which then powered the refrigerator and fans overnight. We were quite comfortable, and were able to have hot showers and use a room AC during the heat of the day.
If you do nto want to go with the full blown stand by generator, just go to Harbor freight or look on craig's list and get a good sized gas powered unti that you keep in the garage. If the power goes out, drag it out, start it up and plug in your furnace or whatever.
Just be sure that you keep the generator outside. A couple of people dies every year when they put the generator inside their house and then suffocate from the fumes.
Thank you for the responses.
I do only want to power the furnace. The longest I've ever lost power was last year's ice storm, three days, and the only other time was one day in the winter- this over 18 years. (Am not in hurricane country).
I don't have a garage, but would be fine with building an outside box for the generator and running a connection to the furnace blower. Might not be elegant, but would work and be cheaper.
Should work. When you first get the genny, run maybe a cup of fuel in it to verify that it will do the job, then run it until it stops when that cup of fuel is used up. Store the genny inside to keep mice from building nests in the cowling or thieves from ripping it off. When ready to use, fuel it up, take it outside, and Bobs your uncle.
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Battery will have its problems...........
