Generators revisited

Yesterday morning we had a nasty and very deep low pressure roar in off the coast and blow the hell outta things.

Trees of 2-3 foot through (Fir) were toppled all over.

No damage to the house, but a bigggggggggggggggg mess to clean up.

Power went out about 8:30 to the tune of three blinks, then at 9:20 it was over.

Never in my 65 years here have I seen an April low pressure get that nasty.

Soooooooooooooooo

No power and widespread damage and close to 200 K folks outta power.

Time to drag out the Gen set.

We had purchased one of the 3200/4000 Sets from the Harbor last summer and had it serviced and ready to roll.

We ran it Solid for 30 hours with the 2 Quadrafire 1000 plugged into it.

Nooooooooooooooooooo issues.
No harmonics from phase issues and they ran perfectly.

Ran them clean through the night on a half tank of fuel.

Made life far better with heat.

Not nasty cold, but upper 30's

Got power back an hour or so ago.

Had a nice hot shower and ready for the the sack.

Not a nice night with things all outta whack.

The Harbor 3200/4000 generator is a winner, and for the tiny dibble of $$$ (Got it on sale plus having a 25% off coupon to use too)

Definitely a good little backup unit.

 

I don't have one, but from the reviews they are hard to beat for the money.

 

Glad that gen worked out well for ya man. My generator saved my house after the ice storm we had in 1998. No power for a week. And has provided us with power on several occasions since then.

 

We have the 6500/5000 model. It has earned its keep several times over. Needed it yesterday for a half day power outage. Great little generator.

 

Learn something new everyday.

 

Thanks troops

The cleanup is just gonna take time to rake up the limbs and junk and get it on the burn pile.

Was a lovely night last night with the Little Whit churning away all night.

Even the Kitty was a happy camper.

Compared to some folks in the area we just had nuisance issues rather than any real damage.

Glad to have had the Gen Set and the Big Quad to shoulder the load.

The last outage we had we used a 1750 watt Coleman Gen set (Little suitcase type unit) and it was OK but the Quad made weird harmonic noises, likely the phase was not perfect.

Harbor freight gets some flak on some stuff, but the Gen set and the pressure washer I bought have been great units.

We have a large 20 kw diesel gen set that is wired through a big transfer switch to run the entire house, but the 300 gallon fuel tank is old and I don't trust it any longer to be sound so have not

Got a 550 gallon tank offered to me, so we may get that set up soon.

More stuff for the summer project list

 

We lost power on Friday too! Same low blew through. Were out from noon to 4 pm and the woodstove worked without power but the refrigerators and the various electronic devices like the microwave sure liked to have power. Our kids are home on Spring break so I ran my little champion inverter 2800 genset. It's good to use these things to keep them working well. Oh, I installed a whole house transfer panel that uses an interlock. The dang Chinese generator makes better power than my utility.

 

Some of the Stuff from across the Pacific pond is not too bad any more.

I would buy another gen set from the Harbor in a heart beat.

Looks to be well made, easy start, quiet, sips fuel.

It has four 120 volt plugs and a single 240 volt plug.
Ground lug, circuit breakers and low oil shut off.

Large fuel tank makes it great for the "night shift"

I keep a supply of non ethanol blend premium in the shed for the outdoor tools as it saves the carburetors and plastic fuel hoses from an early death.

The other day while we were at the restaurant (During the power outage) we ran into the fella that did the concrete work on the house here at the ranch, and he offered me a 550 gallon fuel tank FREE if I wanted it

Gonna replace the 300 gallon tank we currently have for the 20 KW gen set.

The tank was purchased during the oil crunch in the early 70's for fuel storage here for the equipment, and I am nervous about the bottom being rusted on the inside after all the years in the weather with condensation and such.

Just really gonna revamp stuff here this summer.

The plan is to get the big generator fully operational again as well as getting a 1000 gallon water storage tank set up for the well instead of the pressure tanks.

The pressure tanks each have a 29 gallon draw down (2) and this just does not last long.

Just gotta take it one step at a time.

 

Thanks for the positive review a genny has been on my wish list for awhile may look in that before next winter .

 

Watch the Harbor advertiser papers and when they put on a sale, m,any times you can use a 20-25% coupon on top of the sale price.

Ours is the 3200/4000 surge

Runs two stoves handily without breaking a sweat.

 

I think I've told y'all before, but I use the genny in my motorhome to power my whole house. 5500 watts. Does my house and the apartment upstairs. Needed it a couple of weeks ago for 24 hours when a nor'easter came through. You can hear how happy the electric motors are on a generator. Mine hum a bit more than normal but I've probably run my stove for a couple of weeks over the last 8 years with no issues.
Snowy, when the day comes that I no longer have a motorhome, I'm going with a 15 to 20 KW diesel genny that will run off my oil tank for my furnace. That way I can run my water heater, stove, and dryer.

 

Was thinking about getting a genny for the shack. Like the dual fuel models, as I already run the heat off (2) 120 Gal tanks.......shouldn't be too much of an issue to adapt the genny to them.....it comes pre-plumbed for the propane tank, and still maintains the 8.5 Gal gas tank. Even a 30-35lb. tank should run the unit for at least 1 1/2 days. And I want PLENTY of watts to run everything I need. (heat, lights, refrig, etc)
This is the one I'm considering:
Duromax 10,000-Watt Dual Fuel Electric Start Portable Generator-XP10000EH - The Home Depot

 

That thing will be LOUD!

 

Actually, manufacturer claims 72db.

 

That's LOUD. Compare to my champion at 58 and the little Hondas at 53. Remember that sound pressure is a logarithmic scale so every 3 dB is a doubling!

 

C'mon, you don't have to leave things out. We're all friends here. Your kegerator. Your beer fridge.

 

I want that