sota

2020: hold my beer...

Right, but can you say with 100% certainty that after wet storm you won't have a brutal cold snap press in?

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/propane-vapor-pressure-d_1020.html You can see from that that 1bar is about -40C, and at about 0C it's 3bar. The question becomes what's the flow rate at that pressure, taking into account all the losses from everything between the bottle and the inlet to the generator's carburetor.

I remember reading about people insulating their propane tanks, and/or installing heating elements on the outside of the tank. usually some like either those heater wires for gutters, or a flat stick on heater pad or blanket. They'd run the heaters when the temp got low enough, to keep vapor pressure up. Obviously if you do that, you'll want your heating element(s) to be also powered by the generator when the time comes.

Yea. I need to work on that aspect too. One piece at a time, and it will cost me a dime.

Sandy demonstrated the intelligence of being able to run on all 3 fuels: NG, propane, gasoline. Different areas has shortages of different fuels, and quite honestly you don't know which one will hit next time.

god I wish I could have kept and used that symmetra.

rode hard and put away wet.

Does the genset have a non-GFCI outlet? it's possible the fridge don't like it I mention this because, years ago I had bought a new fancy washer/dryer set, and every major storm I'd blow up the washer's brain board. After the 3rd time (under warranty/service contract, thank god!) they sent a smart tech who noticed, the washer was plugged into a GFCI outlet. He said the boards don't like them and can cause them to explode. I thought he was full of it, but I swapped it to a non-GFCI protected outlet and never blew a board up again for the 10 years after that I had that unit. a water leak and rot did it in.

well that'll do. I wouldn't want to run these for computers anymore, as they're both build date sometime in 1995, I've replaced the batteries countless times, and at least one of them like to bitch its tits off randomly but powers the load for the expected time. I'll probably keep them around for the "better than nothing for the time being" scenario(s) that will no doubt crop up at some point. And yea on that extension cord, I always looked at it like, house wiring is generally no smaller than 14ga solid, so if you're going to try and carry something power heavy, go up a size to 12ga.

I got a pair of APC Smart UPS 1400RM2U units here I'm "retiring" from primary computer duties, if you're interested in playing shuttle duties or your buddy wants to come buy one. Otherwise, I recommend this and this company: http://www.refurbups.com/APC-SUA1000-Smart-UPS-1000 They're good to deal with, and I have been for almost 2 decades now.

don't get that inlet box. get the one that faces down. doesn't strain the cable you also forgot an interlock kit for your backfeed breaker.

how is it different than the "consumer" red stuff?

running water and working refridgeration for food are my top two, with heat a close third. I can survive without A/C, and I have a wood burning fireplace. really the biggest concern is the pipes freezing, but I bet in an emergency of that nature I could draw down all the plumbing that's upstairs, and just keep the powder room pressurized, since it's right next to the family room fireplace.

you now have me interested in running a test. I know gas "yellows" pretty darn quickly, which means it's going bad. I wonder if stabil will stop the color change.

depends on the generator? both of mine removing the line from the petcock is really easy.

the biggest "portable" generacs (15000, 17500) spec 200 hours oil *and* filter change. note the filter aspect. that's probably why they run that long an interval. and if you want a potentially meaningless number, let's take 3600rpm to mean your car is doing 100mph (it's probably faster, but let's just do that for simple math's sake.) that's 1000 miles every 10 hours of usage. you can see that, in comparison, your "mileage" adds up really quick! also thinking of it that way, I did the oil change on mine back on 5/25. I might be due, due to all the "activity" lately. ~11 hours these past 2 weeks. plus the easy hour I spent yesterday. think I'll change it in a couple of days. I should get a couple more of these HF vacuum canister deals, and use one to suck dry the generator instead of lifting it up and pulling the drain plug.

kinda eyeballing their GP6500e. That surge rating of 8125, combined with the idea of the 3500W inverter unit for full-time critical loads, has me thinking that bad boy might be able to kick over the condenser. we got any electricians on this forum, that might be interested in doing a job for me?

also... Oh yeah! Generator is running smooth now. Replaced all the gas, drain the carburetor, ran on some straight seafoam for about 5 minutes, flooded the carburetor with liquid seafoam and let it sit for 20 minutes, filled it with fresh gas, topped it of with the rest the can of seafoam, ran it for 10 minutes to clear it out (BIG SMOKE SIGNALS), put a new spark plug in it, ran some more, and just finished tuning the power output by adjusting the governor, so I now have 133V no load, 125 volts 3kW load (pair of space heaters), and 115 volts at 6kW load (4 space heaters.) Should be no issues with it next time I need it, unlike Tuesday when it clearly wasn't happy and would drop a phase randomly. Go give your generators some love, people!!

not gonna dis generac; they make good shit. pricey, but good. if you ran it that long, do an oil change.

aww... I got peel'ed. not to be confused with pee'd.

http://reliancecontrols.com/ProductDetail.aspx?CSR302

@Scorpio64 that's where I'm heading now for the future setup. sub panel for the computers, fridge, freezer, maybe outside lights.

Some people, you can never please. @zeke wonder if they make one that's double hard wired.

link?