Quick question about generators!

Every thing you need and use should have a back up. Your back up should have a back up. Think propane, wood, solar etc. What if the power never comes back on? You need a plan. It won't happen over night. It needs to become a life style.

 

Very well said.

 

I have a generac whole home generator but I also have a gas stove so I don’t have to worry about that load. It is on a transfer switch and was actually on a few hours yesterday when the power went out. Now I want to get a propane conversion it for it and bury a large propane tank in my back yard just in case.

 

More about having a propane stove for outages.

Craigslist, Space Coast, FL, 06/30/2019 :
Coleman two-burner camp stove: $10.00
Three empty propane tanks (20 lb.): $10.00 for all.

New Coleman Triton two-burner camp stove (Home Depot) $72.74
(All less expensive models are no longer available. All other models are much more expensive.)

First: you can exchange any tank for a Blue Rhino refill. But you only get 15-lbs of gas in that 20-lb tank. It's still four times cheaper than buying the 1-lb propane bottles.

Refilling old tanks is cheaper than exchanging with Blue Rhino. Here is the full skinny on that: Propane tank refill vs exchange - eLivermore.com

So lets say you spend $20.00 on a stove and three empty tanks.

You exchange the tanks one time at Lowe's (Blue Rhino), making sure you get new tanks. That's $19.97 X 3=$59.91for 45 pounds of fuel, or $64.10 with taxes.

Total investment: $84.10, including taxes on the fuel. Call it about $6.00 more than the cost of just a new stove--at $77.83, including taxes.

Forever after, you refill the tanks at $16.17 per tank, getting the full 20 lbs of fuel. You save $3.80 and get an extra five lbs. of "free" fuel each time.

Oh--and if you had to buy Blue Rhino tanks (with no exchange) holding 15 lbs. of fuel, they're only $49.97 each--or $160.40 for three, including tax.

The summary:
Prices on propane stoves and fuel tanks have gone up, and will go up more.
If you don't have a propane stove in reserve, get one. You will eventually need it.

 

She has a budget of $400 tops.

@BailyTheFox I bought my generator off of Craigs List for $300. I got a great deal and it was big enough to power half the house (well pump included) but we would have been conservative with what we were running. Absolute needs are water and fridge. Glad you will be looking for a small grill because that is more cost effective and easier plus portable if you ever need to evacuate. See @UncleMorgan's post #24, he is the penny-pinching king. His propane stove & tank off Craigs list is perfect, cheap and can be stored easily. You are in Florida so wells may get murky or contaminate after a hurricane if there is flooding therefore you will need water storage. Drinking water after hurricane Read @Seawolf1090 post. Rain barrels could work but with a hurricane it could blow away, get contaminated or you may not have the storage for it. I am in a rental also and have water BOB $35 Water BOB. Since your danger is usually hurricane, you would have time to fill it.

 

Got 3
15 hp Briggs Tri fuel-Converted this myself
EM-3500-X Honda,Gasoline-Bought off facie-bookie in the market place for 300.00
1175 Honda Gasoline-Bought off facie-bookie in the market place for 200.00
Shop around for used to fit your budget, Bring an hair dryer to test each plug-in for juice!

 

LOL the best time to shop Craiglist and FB market place for good CHEAP generators is after a major power outage. For whatever reason people clear the generator aisles during the outage and for some strange reason sell the generator for bargain bin prices 1-3 weeks after the lights come back on LOL.

 

You are going to have to allow the refrigerator to run 6 to 12 hours a day.
The power inverter take battery power and converts it to 120v alternating current that will power anything that plugs in.
Most power inverters can not run a well pump.

90% of the power inverters out there are cheap crap. You need to be paying at least around 20 cents a watt for a decent one.
Anything you find for 10 cents a watt is crap.

 

I had a Chinese POS inverter take out a 25CF freezer compressor (just lucky i had freezer alarms on ,or the food also ), the inverter was expensive for junk , replaced all of them with Outbacks and Schneider 6848 stacked system ,, never again buy low end stuff.

sloth

 

One back up plan I have for a long term power outage It to convert the meat and other food in my freezers from frozen to canned or dry. I have 4 All American caners and two dehydrators. If the power were to go out for longer then I can keep up with my two generators, I can convert several hundred pounds of frozen food in a couple of days. Something to think about.

 

Might consider a solar set up with a large battery bank to power some or all of yer freezer needs. My little solar set up can be switched over to power 4 of the 35cu foot freezers indefinitely and a sizable battery bank big enough to get through a week or more of bad or no sun. Day to day it just powers electric fences, well pumps, one barns lights and the beer fridge in the barn and keeps the batteries cycling but not strained. Switch over to the four freezers is just a matter of turning one breaker off and another breaker on and plugging the freezers in to outlets below the grid outlets. Only have around $3,000 into the panels and probably $4500 into the battery bank, charge controller and inverter. Looked at powering everything with solar here but ain't going to spend $120,000+ on what it would take and still have to have grid power for welders and the commercial kitchen.

Junk throw away generators have their uses. For example, it makes no sense for me to buy a $5,000 unit that is going to get beat to death in the back of the truck and ragged out fast from 40 hours run time week in and week out and have a life span of maybe 2 years. When a cheap unit that will work April through October that cost $600-$1000 will be beat to death and ragged out during that one season. $5,000 for 2 seasons or $1000 for one season in that equation, I will spend the $1,000 per year on the junk. Gotta also keep in mind that most Generator owners treat their generator like a unwanted step child. Run them once or twice, stick in the garage with half a tank of unstabilized gas in the tank and let it sit until the next time the power goes out and then buy a new one because the new one with 10 hours run time on it they bought last time won't start and all messed up from the bad gas. LOL I would highly suggest a junk throw away cheap generator for the average person. Then I can buy the bad gas, nasty carb generator for $50 bucks and drain the bad gas, clean the carb and put new fuel lines on and have a junk generator that will last a season

The genrac is newer only 240 hours on it so far this year. The red one is the Predator that the breaker didn't break on last year and caught on fire Amazingly have around 1400 hours run time on the Predator now, not bad fer a $500 generator (Well after I *Fixed* it). They get the hell beat of them back there on these fine Southern IL roads.

 

For Us @ the ranch . it's water , need to make sure you can flush the cans , wash and store some .
I had a well from hell for just over a month , that was a HUGE eye OPENER !!
Only I had made a back up system years ago (glad I did ) but not for a pump stuck in the well screen !!
Sloth

 

Right, but are we talking long term daily use or long term occasional use. I prefer Generac for my mobile units because they cost $1000-$1500 for a 10,000 - 12,000 watt unit and on average last me 1400-1600 running hours before needing any major work beyond normal maint. Usually rocker arms and piston rings. That would be a very good long term generator for occasional use. It would be a lousy generator for running 8+ hours per day for years. $400 I agree does not buy much generator and certainly not one with any quality in it, unless you have the knowledge and skills to modify them. But even then you can't get around the junk no name engines powering most of the cheap generators, that are impossible to get parts for. Briggs or Kohler engines are the way to go for parts availability alone. Buying used is a crap shoot and yer usually just buying someone else's problems, unless again you have the knowledge and skill to fix someone else's problems.

But really how many folks with a generator will run their generator even 100 hours per year? How many people actually store enough fuel to run a generator for 1400 hours? For me and the loads I run mobile that is around 250 gallons of gas. let us not forget the 5-6 quarts of oil and filters over that time.

Anyway all I am saying is a cheap generator can be viable depending on yer application and definition of long term. What I need for long term and what a typical residential home owner needs for long term are usually 2 very different critters and it would be a waste of money for most to have a $15,000-$20,000 back up unit where as for my situation that back up unit would keep 15,000-20,000 pounds of meat from going funky and can easily power the whole farm and commercial aspects of the business. Where a 5,000 watt generator would be more than ample for basic residential needs at a whole lot less money. Power also has been known to go out here for up to 3-4 weeks at a time after a big ice event....... Call me paranoid but I have back up power for my back up power and if all else fails a set of heavy duty jumper cables from the truck to the battery bank can get us by

My advice is always get the best you can afford and then save and plan to get better. Then you to can one day have a entire barn devoted to pallets of inferior but very functional STUFF LOL........... that you might need one day if the better stuff fails.

 

I went with a 6500 watt Titan diesel generator.
Also have a 4500 watt Coleman gas gen as well. (given to me by some one that did not know how cheap Briggs and Stratton engines worked. ) Some times you have to be smarter than the machinery .I also have smaller generator units and small engine driven alternators for supplementing my solar charging battery bank . This turns out to be the most efficient use of fuel in the long run . IMO the energy is pressed into storage and that reserve is dispensed as needed even while that generator is off.
When living in the desert off grid ,If I had to run the larger generator it also charged the battery bank as well , the wear and tear was not wasted on idle time.
Then we also used a gas refrigerator a more efficient use of fuel IMO because no engine was being worn out for the process.
If you fail to recognize wear in the process you will be disappointed in the life of the generator. Most small generators do not have a oil filter so oil must be changed from time to time ,the first 2 oil changes are the most critical getting rid of the iron filings from breaking in . If not done these get recycled through the machine and all it's bearing surfaces .
The oil changes need to be done the moment you shut it down so the particles are suspended in the oil .
Many of the small engines are splash lubricated ( the connecting rod has a protrusion that strikes the oil surface to splash the oil through out the inside of the crank case, which is why one uses a lighter weight oil so it will be dispersed more efficiently. ,making both oil level and engine level are very important.
commutator an brushes on older generators need to be protected in especially humid corrosive environments corrosion will glaze over the commutator and no electricity will be made WD 40 does not fix it . in most cases the commutator needs to be lightly sanded to remove the corrosion.
Gasoline storage needs to be "air tight" and tank full ,and stabilizer helps too.
Gas driven equipment that is finished work for the day ,the gas petcock is shut off and the engine allowed the carb to run dry, reduces problems in the future. cover the whole unit to keep as much moisture out as possible.

 

Engine driven automotive alternators that charge batteries are much cheaper and more efficient than running a 120v generator.

The automotive alternator can run at much slower speeds than a typical 120v generator.
3 phase power generation is about 11% more efficient than single phase.
The automotive alternator only produces the voltage you need, not making 120v then stepping it down to bank voltage.
Most of your GM alts will run 24v by just changing the voltage regulator, higher voltages are achievable with some fairly simple modifications. My welding alternator makes a peak of 86 volts with a 12v armature input.