Back up generator for a home

I have had a 3kw military gas unit for maybe 20 years now. Used for both backup and construction jobs. Put about 2500 hours on my last one. Works for heater/fridge/lights/etc....but is noisy. Very noisy.

Service life on a B&S or similar small engine is something like 300-500 hours??

I just picked up a 10kw Diesel MEP-003a...1500lbs worth. Consumption is about 1 GPH. Made to run 24x7. 1800RPM...and much quieter than the 3kw gas. Do have to manual start it....but it's easy, wife can do it no problem. Big enough to run my welder and plasma (but it is a PIA to load/unload). This one had 3 hours on it when I got it for $3800.

You can do interlocks on breaker panel, so must turn off main before you can flip on breaker used as input. Doesn't break the neutral, but most transfer switches don't do that either. Several folks sell interlock kits online, and even available from Home Depot.
 
After speaking with my neighbor, said if we lost power, we're last on the list to get it back on, so I was in the hunt for a generator for a while as soon as we bought our house. For the price of a decent 6000+ watt generator, I was getting into the $1,000-1,500 range. At that point I quit looking at generators and found a welder. Scored a low hours Lincoln Ranger 10,000, on a trailer with 100' of leads, more than enough to run the house when the power goes out and I can take it out and weld with it. For me, it was a wise choice since I can use it to make money

Only thing now, I need a transfer switch and a short cord to hook it up, who's done it before and what do I need and where do I go? There's also a specific way to shut breakers off and switch to backup power, no?
 
Do you want to be legal or illegal? Do you want something that anyone in the family can hook up or is it just you? What is your budget?

Ranges from a double ended dryer plug (illegal, dangerous, cheapest, just as effective) to a complete tranfser switch (legal, most expensive, anyone can plug it in).
 
For <$500 you can buy an automatic transfer switch that will sense loss of power and crank your welder assuming it has 2 wire start capability.
There are a number of ways to make cords/plugs/etc but they will cost money. If you are handy you can make that trailer into a "permanent" ready to crank gen for under $500 and be able to disconnect it and take it anywhere in unde 15 minutes.
 
Here is a dumb question. My house was built in the 60s, it has a breaker box (not a fuse box), but lots of the fixtures do not have a ground wire. WIll this be a problem?
 
It will be no more a problem on generator power than it is on utility power.
A properly designed and installed back-up power system opwerates identical to a utility.
 
I would prefer the most non-ghetto/hack/cheap way and is legal. The wife's pretty smart, show her how to do it and she can handle firing up the welder and flipping some breakers and a switch.

I recall being told to flip off all the breakers before firing up or shutting off the generator, because of certain electronics that don't like a slow voltage drop, or something along those lines.
 
The only non-hack and legal way is through a transfer switch of some type. Any other option is mis-using devices (I.E. backfeeding through a recep). Not to say that cant be done and done safely but it is still a hack way of doing it. Until we installed our gen I powered my house with a 6500W and back fed through my compressor outlet which was wired into a 60A breaker and used 4AWG. The biggest issue is, if someone forgets to flip the main, you are back feeding the utility line and potentially electrocuting a lineman.
 
stinkbomb said:
I recall being told to flip off all the breakers before firing up or shutting off the generator, because of certain electronics that don't like a slow voltage drop, or something along those lines.
Click to expand...

If you're using an ATS, it will delay switchover until the gen comes up to speed. I think it's actually time-based, but it waits like 10-20s after it sees power on the gen side before switching over.
 
shawn said:
If you're using an ATS, it will delay switchover until the gen comes up to speed. I think it's actually time-based, but it waits like 10-20s after it sees power on the gen side before switching over.
Click to expand...

1- An ATS will not switch to a source until rated voltage and frequency are obtained and maintaind for an adjustable period of time.

very compressed sequence of ops looks like this.
1- Loss of utility sense
2- Time delay remote start initiated (usually ~1 second)
3- Crank gen
4- ATS is still connected to a dead utility, monitoring that utility and emergency
5- Once emergency power is available and stable initiate Time Delay Normal to Emerergency (typicaly ~1second)
6- Timer reaches 0 transfer to gen power
7- monitor utility
8-sense return of utility
9-initiate Time Delay E mergency to Normal (usually 15 minutes to ensure a stable utility)
10- Transfer to Utility
11- Initiate Time delay Generator cool down
12- shut down generator.
 
I had a Generlink (http://www.generlink.com/about_generlink.cfm) on my house in Maine. It was super cheap to install, basically just schedule a service disconnect and an electrician can have it installed in about 30 minutes. Probably the fastest way to get a legal hookup that is simple to use for everyone in the house that you can remove if you move. Downside is that you get no manual options like some transfer switches. I didn't like the idea of having no lever to flip if the circuitry failed to do it automatically. Initial cost is higher but saves time on installation especially for those hard to reach breaker boxes. Are you looking to have some type of autostart function? I think Ron may have much better insight for selection in that case.
 
Back
Top