I have a generator that it say it can produce 7000 watts of continuous power. I am moving off to the new property soon, How much power is that really? Can it run a full kitchen and air conditioner in an RV. I realize it would be a guess but, I am looking to see if I am close or not even in the ballpark. Thanks!
Depends on a lot. If it's a gas kitchen or all electric and is the air conditioner 120 or 240? As a big 120v air conditioner will load up one leg of 120 and it may trip the breaker when you turn on 240v stuff. Typical consumer generators are only intended to run at "rated power" for short periods, less than 20 minutes. Really you only want to run them at about 1/2 to 2/3 power continuously.
The one I have now is rated at 1870, 1700 continuous. That is what I am looking at, should I go with a small RV or medium sized RV. I wanted to use the generator until I get the Solar up and running.
Take that published “Rating” and chuck it where the Sun don’t shine, because it is nothing but a Marketing Fantasy… As an Alaskan Bush Liver for 40+ years and generating ALL MY OWN POWER, I have a ton of experience in this area… If you intend to buy new, then ask the Head Shop Mechanic (Not the Sales Puke) about “ Mean time between failures” for the Genset your looking at.. If you are buying used, are you going for Gasoline, or Diesel? Look for an Onan J Series with less than 10k hours since last rebuild… Onan J Series come in 3, 6, and 12kw sizes and come in both Air and Water cooled, as well as Gas, and Diesel Fueled…Still plenty of rebuild parts available for the J Series Onans. I ran our whole place on an Onan 3Kw Diesel Onan Water cooled Genset by just doing some creative Load Management… Remember that LubeOil and Filters are the cheapest Insurance money can buy for a Genset.. Change that often… Never, never, ever buy a Genset that doesn’t have a LubeOil Filter… Those are a Waste of money.. I put 120,000 operational hours on a pair of Northern Lights 20Kw Diesel Gensets when I ran a business in the bush..Two Water pumps replaced, and LubeOil and Filter changes every 200 Hours… Replaced both with the newer versions, and when I reTIRED, the replacements has 35,000 hours each, and are still running for the new Owner…. Look at your loads, and figure what they require, and if you can stagger their operations, so as to not run them necessarily at the same time… That is what is called Creative Load Management…
so... you don't have the RV now, you plan to move to a property and buy an RV to live in? You have two generators now and want to know what RV to buy so they can run on the RV? I know more about RVs than generators, but some of this may be helpful. I wouldn't think any portable generator is up to that job for full time living. Depending on the RV it may come with a generator. Motor homes usually do, trailers usually don't. Larger RVs with 2 air conditioners or more will be ready for 50A electrical service, smaller one-A/C units will be set up for 30A. Your 7kw generator should provide power to a 30A for occasional use. The stove, oven, fridge, furnace and water heater all likely run on propane, fridge and water heater may also be able to run on electric. Your 1.7kw generator probably won't run even one A/C without a soft-starter, would be my guess. You can supposedly run a 30A RV or even a 50A as long as you only use one A/C, on a 20A breaker from a house if it has a soft-starter.
Yes, I already have the land (10 acres), The RV is down to a few candidates.. One small and one that's bigger. One of them has 2 AC units that can be turned on separately. The RV is wired for RV parking or off solar as well. Stove and over are propane and I have a spare 100 Gal. tank. The fridge is what I want to protect then air. The hot water is an on demand unit. I live in Oklahoma so the winters are not an Alaska type thing. The summers can get hot though.
If it's an RV fridge it should, key word should, be able to run on LPG and 12v/120v. The fridge in our RV is LPG/120v. There is a switch to either use LPG or "Auto" (meaning use 120 if available otherwise LPG). For your AC look into installing an AC Soft Start. With the AC it's not the running power that is killer, it's the startup power draw. I will be installing one of these on our RV and home unit. Our RV has one AC unit and is a 30A system. All of my 'big' generators (3 out of the 4 I own) have a 240/30A receptacle that are capable of running the RV.
Thanks for the info and the video! I am waiting on email now to find out the info on the appliances and the Air Conditioners
Many of the RV Style fridge/freezers are three-way powered.. LP/120ac/12vdc… We have a Three-way Norcold fridge in our cabin.. On auto mode it switches between any of the power sources, with priority given to 120Vac, then LP, then 12Vdc… The fridge control System requires 300ma of 12Vdc, and when the fridge is running on 12Vdc it draws 6 amps.. Each cabin has a 800 watt,12Vdc Solar System, that includes 800AmpHours of Battery, a MPPT Charge Controller, and a 30Amp 120Vac Charger that runs whenever the Genset is running..The cooking is all done with LP, and heating is by Wood burning Stove that also supplies all the domestic Hot Water.. We power the 120Vac with a Honda 3Kw Inverter Genset, which runs to both cabins, our Shower-house/Laundry/Sauna, Our Double Garage, and the two Shops…. We can do Laundry while all the other 120Vac loads are running, except pumping water from the creek to our 500 USG Domestic Water Storage Containers… One for each cabin, and one in the Shower-house… Creative Load Management means you try not to run the vacuum at the same time as you pop your popcorn in the microwave.. We used to have a Powerhouse with a 7Kw Diesel Genset, a 3Kw Diesel Genset, and a 5.5 Kw Gasoline Genset.. but AlaskaChick had a Fire last summer and it burned to the ground and was a Total Loss..
If you have a oil filterless generator you have to change the oil about every 20 to 30 hours. I'm refitting my new predator 459cc engines with oil filters and temporarily rigging up oil temperature gauge to see how hot the oil gets to see if they need an oil cooler in addition to the filter.
It depends. The 459cc engines have pressurized oil, but no filter. A typical Honda gx motor, no pump. Only splash.
Yeah might as well do an oil cooler. I don't run my small engines excessively rich so I don't have much fuel going down into the oil.
yeah they claim that, but the little outlet on mine is only a plug wired directly to the battery, nothing "solar" about it, and it only takes 10A. Not that you couldn't make other arrangements. Be aware that it's an entire internet industry trying to figure out whether it's actually possible to run A/C off solar, don't take that for granted. You'd need a great deal of battery storage too, probably even more expensive than the solar. You're heading down a road many have tried and abandoned.
Yes most RV's will not come standard with an inverter so all you will get is a 12v system. Anything requiring 120 and you'll need to and an inverter to the works, and look at upgrading the std 12v battery and possibly the charger. My RV came "Inverter prepped" so no inverter but it's pretty much plug and play once we decide to get one. I also have an MPPT charge controller. I lucked out a couple of years ago and found 3 solar panels at a discount store. For the price of them I gambled and won. I checked all 3 panels and they are in perfect working order. My RV came with a plug on the front to accept additional solar input. So I have a 200W panel on the roof and at total of 300W that will be ground mounted if needed. Before I get the panels all wired up I'm going to be upgrading the 12v battery to a Li type, but that will be down the road once we get a few bills paid off.
