Angels and PITAs - ice storm

[Madeleine]

I appreciate the talk of large, nat gas or in my case, propane whole house generators. The total electrical load here is large (5-room inn) so I would need about 24kW or install a smaller unit that is not meant to run everything. My neighbor has one and it was installed at the time he built his house so the wiring is set up so it can power lights, etc. but not the large loads. For me to do that I would have to do some major electrical re-work. Hmmm ....

For me to do that I would have to do some major electrical re-work. Hmmm ...

I have a Generac system too. Mine is natural gas powered, but my sister's Generac is on propane. Her tank is sized to hold enough propane to power her whole house for about 2 weeks if the electricity goes off that long.
The electrical work is really not THAT major. You just have 2 breaker boxes, and you have to switch some circuits from the old breaker box to the generator's breaker box.
Since the circuit wires won't be long enough to reach from their current location in your breaker box to the new box, you have to splice on some more Romex to make them longer.
Things that will NOT be powered by the new generator stay like they are, wired in the current breaker box.
For circuits that will be powered by the generator, you just...

• Disconnect the circuit from the current breaker box. That is, you unscrew the circuit's hot and neutral wires from the current breaker box and pull the Romex out of the breaker box.
• Install a junction box by the current breaker box and run the circuit's Romex to the new junction box.
• Inside the new junction box, splice a piece of longer Romex so that circuit can reach the new breaker box that's powered by the generator.
• Attach the extended Romex to one of the terminals in the generator breaker box.
• So now that circuit is powered by the generator breaker box rather than the old breaker box.
• Now repeat the above steps for all the other circuits you want to move to the generator.

For my house, it was like a half-day project to move the circuits from the old breaker box to the generator box. When you're done, it's all automatic. If the power goes off, the generator kicks on and powers the circuits attached to its breaker box. When the power comes back on, the generator goes off and the circuits are switched back to utility power.
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If his house is like mine...
We have four breaker boxes. It cost me $500 to have an outlet moved several years ago. I think having to move wiring to a new box would set me back quite a bit given how much wiring would have to move.
Unless we concentrated on only heat, heat water, refrigeration and common area lighting. Very important items!
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I think having to move wiring to a new box would set me back quite a bit given how much wiring would have to move.

I did it all myself. You mean you're not up to a little challenge, and possible electrocution? Where is your sporting spirit? ;-)
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It's illegal here for me to do my own electrical work. On my own house ok. Not on the inn. Can't put strangers in harm's way!
Otherwise, sure, we'd give it a go. But, it would take a week to get it done.

 

[happyjacks]

I appreciate the talk of large, nat gas or in my case, propane whole house generators. The total electrical load here is large (5-room inn) so I would need about 24kW or install a smaller unit that is not meant to run everything. My neighbor has one and it was installed at the time he built his house so the wiring is set up so it can power lights, etc. but not the large loads. For me to do that I would have to do some major electrical re-work. Hmmm ....

I appreciate the talk of large, nat gas or in my case, propane whole house generators. The total electrical load here is large (5-room inn) so I would need about 24kW or install a smaller unit that is not meant to run everything. My neighbor has one and it was installed at the time he built his house so the wiring is set up so it can power lights, etc. but not the large loads. For me to do that I would have to do some major electrical re-work. Hmmm ...

Hi Tom, we're also a 5-room located out in the country where power outages happen a few times per year.
While I would love to have a big, automatic generac system that will power everything at once, we didn't have the capital to go that way when we realized we needed some sort of backup power so we started small and simple and built a system over the years to work reasonably well. Note, our stove runs entirely on propane; we have woodburning stoves (one to heat our quarters and one to heat the guest lounge) but all the rest of the heat is electric baseboard. The well pump is electric.
We started with a small (maybe 3500 W?) generator that would only run things we could physically plug into it (coffee maker, fridges, lamps). We got a larger generator when we could but was still limited to plug-in appliances.
Then we got something called a Generlink. This essentially is a cable that hooks the generator up to the electrical panel and lets us power anything on the panel. Our current generator is 10000 W. It's still not large enough to power everything all at once, but we can turn breakers on and off to run power to different circuits at different times, depending on what we need to use throughout the day or night, or whether or not we have guests.
It's not automatic, we have to plug in the cable and manually start the generator when the power goes out, but for us it's a good balance between cost and functionality.