Portable generator thoughts

Yup I have a 275g of heating oil and another with off road so I'm all set for fuel. Mine was used and is only 6500w, but for $2k..... and in the winter when it matters, we use a wood boiler for heat and domestic h/w. Only the 2 of us for elec. use, and the range and clothes dryer are LP. The 6500w is what everything adds up to as long as I don't fire up the welder or other stuff in the shop (compressor, phase converter, etc) In the summer, we don't really care as long as the freezers and fridg are good. I think I read where they offer the lowboy up to around 11kw. I also heard that the portable (tow behind) light towers can handle a normal house and for the other cheap dastards like me, they pop up at auctions or C/L from time to time and are also diesel.

 

My reality is, the only time I remember that street side power pilot light is... when power goes out... Years ago... I could have gotten some welding gloves, an insulated allen screw driver (for the main lugs), turn off all breakers (so there's no draw)... loosen one main lug, slide a fused line in and re-tighten... hard part is done. Now? I don't trust myself so I'd pay... ... for an electrician to pull the meter. Gawd I hates payin' for things I know how to do...

You sound like your location is like our old farm... at the end of the line. We had a lot of outages there, and was always last to get power back on. We had the same genny, but a seriously crazy set of breakers (in multiple panels) that I had to shut off, every time we went dark. Not fun.

Never did the pilot light there... either...

 

Thought I'd "close the loop" on my genny project. I built this enclosure to (originally) keep it outside and make it mouse proof along with keeping it out of the weather. Project creep got a hold of this and there's 3" of foam insulation surrounding it and provisions to run an extension cord to it for a battery tender and (possibly) a 100w light bulb for heat. Then there's a little wiring to plug the generator to an outside receptacle that will use another cord to connect it to the house. But then in order to operate it in nasty weather all closed up, I needed a door for the air for the radiator and an opening for air exit after it go's through the "cabinet". To fuel it without making the enclosure even bigger than it is, the genny needs to be pulled out so I bought some drawer slides that extend 3' and are rated for 500 pounds. Then another creep was I wanted to make a sturdy frame to move it around with the forks and also be able to "crane" it into the back of a pickup, so I needed to make the roof capable of those loads so I framed it with structural metal studs just thick enough to weld, 18ga. iirc.



The 120v connection for the battery tender and possible light or heat, and the radiator air opening.

Here's the cooling air exit, just a hatch. If I had it to do over I would have made a similar hatch for the radiator side. Also the 240v connection.

Lastly the exhaust, I simply have this pipe go through right above the factory pipe by about 1/2". For some reason we lost power yesterday and I had my first trial of it in it's new home.

 

Nice setup fuelrod

 

Also at "the end of the line" a mile from a rural town road.
Don't regret getting the Honda 7000i gen 4 years ago. With a transfer switch it does all what we need in an outage.
It is QUIET, starts fast, sips gas ( that if critical, can be siphoned from the cars ), and has a lower RPM setting for longer run time.
But it was $4000. with no discounts anywhere.
The other pull out gens were loud, and swallowed fuel.
We run this about every 2-3 weeks.
Worth the money. It is quiet.

 

You've done a lot of good stuff to store the genny out of the weather. At the risk of mentioning something you've already thought of... my experiences with generators in enclosed spaces is, there's no such thing as too much open air around it for cooling. The engines seem to do fine with added heat, for the most part... but the gen windings do not. They burn out easily from heat. Just a thought.

 

That is a concern of mine also Stinny, I was wondering what it would take to wire in a water temp gauge.
I suppose I could shoot it with my cheap IR thermometer in different operating conditions for an idea of what's going on temp. wise, and also it really wouldn't hurt anything if I were to run it with the doors wide open as well. Storage and mice are my big phobias, other than that, when I move it (for an outage) inside the "shed" or by its self, it still requires the tractor. I'll just have to monitor things somehow. The air is pulled in through the radiator with a conventional fan just like a car and the genny's factory enclosure is complete (except not mouse proof) and all the cooling air is directed out a series of louvers at the generator end.
My hopes were that if I accommodated the factory air in and air out that I might have it covered.

 

Does the manual give environmental operating conditions / limits? Like "Do not operate when ambient temperature exceeds 130*F"

I would think you should be OK if the air that is cooling the generator set is being pulled through the engine radiator first as long as the radiator is able to pull cool fresh air from outside the doghouse.

Is there a way to "seal" the radiator air intake so air can't be cycling around inside the doghouse to be pulled through the radiator again causing a "short circuit" of the air flow? Air conditioner window sealing foam??? Lots of garden tractors control cooling airflow with foam strips to avoid recycling air and ensure a fresh cool supply.

If you can ensure that the air being pulled into the radiator is only coming from outside the doghouse, you should be golden. If a good flow pattern can be established, that is a much better situation than running with doors open.

 

I could bend up a "collar" type thing out of something like aluminum trim coil or light weight galv. sheet (ductwork) that could slip in the air intake opening once the little door is opened that "snugged" up to the air intake @ the generator. Good idea and very simple.
One issue is what ever I do to direct the air in to only the radiator opening is that the generator has to be able to slide out (I put it on some HD drawer slides) in order to fuel the unit. But your suggestion reminds me that as a kid one of my crappy vehicles had some problem with the fan shroud, so as a kid with no money it simply was removed. Wrong - I learned about air flow, that is my POS vehicle overheated without that shroud.
I'll also check for an ambient air temp in the manual. I'm not sure I have a problem (yet) and just looked at my pics of the genny and it does have an idiot light for the water temp, but as Stinny brought up, the generator side really has nothing to do with the water temp. Good idea, thanks.

 

Those foam strips are pretty cheap and wouldn't damage the radiator or the doghouse and isolate any vibration while sealing it up. You could just roll the genny out, pick up the foam pieces, fuel it up, roll it back in and wedge the foam back in around the radiator. My Ingersoll GTs have foam in them that I replaced due to age. The foam in the big box stores for window air conditioner sealing comes in several sizes.

From the pix above it looks pretty good already.

Good luck with whatever you come up with.

 

Monin... I think my first attempt to cool your enclosure's trapped heat might be to simply draw built up heat out of the rear of the enclosure itself. You could try a simple 22"x22" window fan, sealed around it, exhausting air out... and leave the main doors open, with a temporary "roof" laid across the top edges of the 2 doors... to help keep some of the rain / snow from getting directly on the gen. Of course, the intake of air will draw in moisture anyway. If one fan wasn't enough, I'd add a second one beside it. Gotta remove that heated air around the gen that will build up quickly.

My 6500 watt Honda raises the heat in my 24'x36' garage to 80 plus (20 degrees outside)... with an opening in the wall, beside the gen, and the main 16' garage door cracked open 6". Unreal how much heat builds up. My 2 cents...

 

Most of the gennys that come from the factory in an enclosure like that will draw cooling air in the generator end and exhaust it out the engine end through the radiator...so as long as you do not restrict any of the factory intake or exhaust holes, it should run at about the same temps as was designed.

 

I'll have to pay attention if it's sucking or blowing through the radiator.

 

Should be drawing air into the radiator from outside, or away from the gen, so that cooler air will cool the water in the radiator.

 

Its really common on enclosed gennys for the radiator fan to be a "pusher" rather than a "puller". They want the cool air to get to the gennys windings first...the fan/radiator can be oversized if need be to keep the engine cool...a little extra heat from the windings through the radiator is no big deal...but if you blow the other way, hot air from the radiator to cool the windings is not good!

A good example of this is our backup genny at work...a 175KW Baldor powered by a 200HP JD diesel...when it is running at full throttle (1800 RPM) the side cabinet doors can hardly by pried open due to the "vacuum" that the cabinet is under due to the 3'+ diameter fan drawing air in through the back, (generator end) and exhausting it out the front through the radiator...well, it actually goes out the top via a large air scoop built into the cabinet that turns the air up after it goes through the radiator, if it just went straight out the front it would be like trying to stand in a hurricane if you walked by...would be noisy too I'm sure!
If the fan was a "puller", like in auto/truck applications, the cabinet would be "under pressure" and the door would like to knock you over if it was ever unlatched when operating...but like I said, it is in fact being "sucked shut"...very difficult to open!

 

Yup... enclosed genny's are designed differently than stand alone units, and are very impressive in exhausting most of the heat to protect the generator side. My stand alone Honda 6500 and fuelrod 's genny, are different animals. Our's are not intended to be used in tight spaces, rather outside, where there is adequate air. I think the popularity of on-demand, enclosed cabinet, whole house generators gets folks thinking (it got me years ago) they can use their stand alone units, that they already have... and just put them in a box and all will be well. It'll work just fine... for a short while... until the windings can't take the heat and... no power, while the engine is still running happily along. I have lost thousand$ over the years, learning this the hard way... And, to think enclosing genny's here in Maine, is as important to keep mice from destroying them, as the weather...