Or clicking links and getting lost in a vortex....

 

Will ck that one out though.

 A decent kerosene heater with a good wick shouldn't smoke the place up too badly, just light it outside, wait a couple minutes, then bring it inside.   Just be sure that after you fill the tank, you let the fuel soak into the wick for a while before you light it.  Kerosene may be expensive ($5.80 here) but it stores well and burns very efficiently.  I believe they hold around 1.5 gallons and ours goes all night before requiring a refill.  As an added bonus, we used ours every day during the Sandy aftermath, and the top was hot enough for me to fry up some bacon and eggs in a pan each morning, plus boil water for coffee and tea.

Being a heating and Air mechanic I cant tell you how happy I get when I hear about people running furnaces and boilers with electronic controls off of back up batterys and generators. The entire two weeks of Sandy all I did was run around changing burnt up controls. The modern boards on newer equipment dosent do well with voltage drops. I probably changed 50 boards and primary controls within 3 weeks. Make sure you dont let your generator run out of fuel while your unit is running a heating cycle. When you shut the generator down to gas it up turn your heating equipment off first. Or you will be calling a guy like me to come take your money. Actually it got very difficult to find any electronic parts at all during the weeks following the storm. Glad I had a good stock in my shop.

Just a friendly heads up for everyone here. Sucks not having power, sucks worse not having heat either.

 

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So do you have a constructive solution to the problem besides just being happy for the business?

^^^^ I gave you the solution above. Dont allow your generator to run out of fuel and die. When it does that it starts to drop voltage, and if the computer controlled parts experience a drop like that they can and do burn up, same goes for start up. Sometimes they will give a spike in power. Surges in power kill the control boards, these parts are very sensitive to voltage drops. Always turn the switch off on your heating equipment before starting your portable generator, then once the generator is up to full rmp's restore power to your heating equipment. Same reason a computer is plugged into a surge protection device. Some of the boards on the high efficiency equipment out there are not always readily available either, theres a possibility of having to wait a few weeks for parts. Especially a brand like Trane or America Standard. If its a German made unit even longer sometimes. And those parts are expensive, a Viessman or Buderus control board for example is upwards of $1k plus labor. A stand alone permanent Nat gas generator won't have those issues. But a gasoline fired unit will when it turns on or off. As the engine slows down the dynamo is spinning slower and slower and slower but still producing less and less and less voltage. The solution is the red switch on your boiler/furnace, use it. You dig?

 

And yes I loved the work!!! Puts food on my table and a roof over my head. I just dont want anyone here to fund my next AR Build.

 

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I have a wood burning fireplace. After sandy I was gifted a substantial quantity of wood from all the downed trees. I could easily make it several weeks to a month just on that for heat alone. that coupled with the NG powered portable generator (final install pending... goddamn snow storms!) that can also run on gasoline we're good at least until the food runs out. If we're out of wood, out of NG, out of gas and out of food... it's long past bug out time.

In lieu of not being able to buy a NG generator to power your whole home...

I bought this from a hardware store in Lambertville. Gasoline/NG/propane. It's 8000kw on gasoline and 6500kw on NG. I installed an Interlock on my main panel. I tested it by before the storms this season and was able to power EVERY circuit. That includes my forced hot air furnace, fridge, lights on three floors, and outlets. I didn't power on the microwave but you get the point. That was running on gasoline as I haven't ran the NG line yet.

^^^^ I gave you the solution above. Dont allow your generator to run out of fuel and die. When it does that it starts to drop voltage, and if the computer controlled parts experience a drop like that they can and do burn up, same goes for start up. Sometimes they will give a spike in power. Surges in power kill the control boards. Always turn the switch off on your heating equipment before and after you start your portable generator. A stand alone permanent Nat gas generator won't have those issues. But a gasoline fired unit will when it turns on or off. As the engine slows down the dynamo is spinning slower and slower and slower but still producing less and less and less voltage. The solution is the red switch on your boiler/furnace, use it. You dig? And yes I loved the work!!! Puts food on my table and a roof over my head. I just dont want anyone here to fund my next AR Build. Sent using Tapatalk 2 NOW FREE!!!

 

Thats all good advice but the premise of the question was what to do when you are out of gas for your generator.

Thats all good advice but the premise of the question was what to do when you are out of gas for your generator.

not much you can do if your plan is to rely on gasoline in the first place. Gasoline is a short term solution to a no power situation. Short term meaning a few days. During the storm I had no power for 14 days I had four 5 gallon cans filled before the storm along with all my vehicles gassed up. I ran out of fuel in 3-1/2 days. Luckily my boat was in the driveway with 160gal of stabilized fuel in it. I had no problems but not everyone has that source, including myself when my boat is in the lake during summer months. Unless I pull it and bring it home for an auxiliary fuel source. My recommendation to anyone relying on a gasoline fired generator that dosent have natural gas at home would be to invest in a propane conversion. & have a bottle delivered and piped in. At least you can get two weeks out of a bottle. If that ran out you could use grille bottles in a pinch. They are abundant. Space heaters in a house that burn any type of fuel are never a great idea. All of them produce carbon monoxide, & a potential for a fire. The reason our heating equipment uses a chimney and your gas fired dryer is vented outside, same thing with the hood over your gas fired stove. (common sense) A wood fired boiler is always an option but expensive initially to install, and you need a supply of wood. But they can be a great investment for security of heat in any situation also can be used when there is power to save on fuel. They make indoor or outdoor units for hot water applications. I've never seen one in steam but I never looked for one either. I cant imagine you could use a steam boiler outside because the water couldn't be treated against freezing like a hot water system could. The beauty of an outdoor unit over indoor is obvious, no mess inside, no bringing in wood, no wood smell in the house. They also make dual fuel units that can fire on wood, or gas/oil. I have a few customers that have them. Not a bad plan IMO. Even a home with a hot water boiler instead of steam only requires a small amount of power to run the circulator pump. That could be had from a back up battery or smaller generator. Even without a pump the hot water will migrate through the system just by gravity, although not as well as pumping it would. Steam needs no pump and works solely on the premises that heat rises. Now if you use forced air your screwed, you have to have power to run the blower motor. And nothing wrong with a wood burning stove or removing that inefficient fireplace and doing a wood burning insert instead. Thats what I personally have and it heats 80% of my home without power if needed.

 

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not much you can do if your plan is to rely on gasoline in the first place. Gasoline is a short term solution to a no power situation. Short term meaning a few days. During the storm I had no power for 14 days I had four 5 gallon cans filled before the storm along with all my vehicles gassed up. I ran out of fuel in 3-1/2 days.

Were you running it continuously? You should be running it for an hour about 6 times a day. Just to keep the fridge/freezer cold, get the heat running, and get the water supply back up.

NG hot water heat systems can be modified to heat the floors above the furnace by opening the zone valves manually, disconnecting the circulator pump relay and feeding the control circuit from a low voltage source.

 

It requires a little knowledge of electrical circuits, but I was able to heat my house with a light line to my car battery that I would recharge every couple of days by running the car.

 

After that, I went for a generator.

Were you running it continuously? You should be running it for an hour about 6 times a day. Just to keep the fridge/freezer cold, get the heat running, and get the water supply back up.

I have women in my house they dont go for that on and off crap all day. That winds up becoming my problem. I have forced air wich turns on and off constantly, a well wich needs power and electric water heater. I let it run all day. Shut it off at night to sleep. Then back on all day. If it were sub zero outside I would run it all night also.

 

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NG hot water heat systems can be modified to heat the floors above the furnace by opening the zone valves manually, disconnecting the circulator pump relay and feeding the control circuit from a low voltage source.

 

It requires a little knowledge of electrical circuits, but I was able to heat my house with a light line to my car battery that I would recharge every couple of days by running the car.

 

After that, I went for a generator.

I stated this in my above post just didn't get into that much detail. Not every hot water system uses zone valves either, some have a pump for each zone, and flo check valves. With a zone valve manually open it would circulate without the pump running. This is how the first hotwater systems worked before circulator pumps were used. It was called a gravity hot water system. It wont work as well as having the pump running but it will heat. Now if you have an oil fired boiler you still need power for the burner. And newer gas fired units need power to open the gas valve also. Thats why wood fired is ideal for long term or completely off grid heating.

 

Also boilers heat water, furnaces heat air. There is no such thing as a hot water furnace. Unless you count a hydronic coil, but even then your still heating air, and would also require a boiler. To a heating guy calling a boiler a furnace is like calling a magazine a clip lol.

 

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go buy a bag of fire wood and use the fireplace...

I believe anything involving a non-sealed vent through the fireplace will result in a net loss of heat. 

 

A fireplace is great. The radiative heat will keep you warm. But it's dragging in air from your entire home, through all the cracks and openings, from the cold outdoors.

Were you running it continuously? You should be running it for an hour about 6 times a day. Just to keep the fridge/freezer cold, get the heat running, and get the water supply back up.

mipafox,

 

I've had many time where I have had to run my generator continuously for a week as my french drains were emptying into the pit and the pump was draining the pit every few minutes.  So running a generator for an hour about six times per day for an hour would have flooded my basement.

Were you running it continuously? You should be running it for an hour about 6 times a day. Just to keep the fridge/freezer cold, get the heat running, and get the water supply back up.

Sandy knocked out our grid power for 8 days. We ran a portable generator on and off during the day to keep the fridge cool. Hunting for gas was the biggest challenge. For that stretch heat was not a problem. We have an old school NG hot water heater. K-1 was a backup heat source.

mipafox,

 

I've had many time where I have had to run my generator continuously for a week as my french drains were emptying into the pit and the pump was draining the pit every few minutes.  So running a generator for an hour about six times per day for an hour would have flooded my basement.

thats an exception i believe. I think he means for those that do not have or need a pump. conserve by running an hour get it cold torn off the generator and the do later again. By all means if you need to use your pump like that i would do the same and run it all day. You ever think about getting some 55 gallon drums and a hand pump and just putting fuel i your garage for it, cheaper way than getting a natural gas generator with a decent supply of fuel. use whatever cans you have to get fuel at a gas station bring home and dump in there. i mean if you have 5  5 gallon cans in 2 trips to the gas station you can fill 1 drum.

Sandy knocked out our grid power for 8 days. We ran a portable generator on and off during the day to keep the fridge cool. Hunting for gas was the biggest challenge. For that stretch heat was not a problem. We have an old school NG hot water heater. K-1 was a backup heat source.

i was out for about 2 weeks. and had no problem, i had 5 5 gallon cans and both cars full. didn't get gas tiill almost 3 weeks after the storm.

You ever think about getting some 55 gallon drums and a hand pump and just putting fuel i your garage for it, 

 

 

You ever see a gallon of gas burn?  

 

 55 gallon drums filled with gasoline in your garage -- NOT ME!!!

 

I have 6 - 5 gallon cans filled...  In my shed 100 feet from my home

So you think 30gal vs 55gal really matters? If one of your cans goes, the rest will too.   Personally I don't want 55gal drums to move around or deal with, but I think if designed to hold fuel they are probably no more dangerous then gas cans. I recall the military used to use lots of those barrels for fuel.

When it comes to metal drum containers, storing them anywhere is dangerous. BUT, if you do, good rule of thumb is drive a copper grounding rod into the ground, and run grounding cable and clamps to the drum. One of the biggest dangerous outside of open flame is static discharge. Plastic gas cans not as much. But my shed has vents which I'm sure any good one should. Proper storage is always key.

 

Also, sealed tight containers like drums can cause bigger boom booms.

 

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Liquid fuel won't burn.  It needs to vaporize first.  When a 50 gallon drum is filled with fuel, the only fuel available to explode is the little bit of vapor at the top.  A 5 gallon plastic drum half full has more danger from explosion than a 50 gallon drum filled to the top.  

 

Of course, if it's fire and not explosion you're concerned about a 50 gallon drum results in more fire.  but a 5 gallon can has plenty of fuel to burn down a house. 

 

Growing up on a farm with our own gasoline and fuel tanks including transfer tanks mounted on trucks and trailers - I'm very comfortable with gasoline stored in a 50 gallon drum.   Don't smoke when transferring fuel and you'll be just fine.  No need to over think it.  Millions of gallons are transferred every day with very few mishaps and the mishaps that do happen are almost always caused because somebody was smoking or working near an open flame. 

 

My gasoline is safer than my guns.

mipafox,

 

I've had many time where I have had to run my generator continuously for a week as my french drains were emptying into the pit and the pump was draining the pit every few minutes.  So running a generator for an hour about six times per day for an hour would have flooded my basement.

I would consider getting a battery system to recharge the sump and using the generator to recharge the battery system.

 

Or, get one of those little 2 cycle generators for $80. They'll run half a day on a gallon of gas. Use it just for the sump. Hook up your generator in parallel, and if it is "whole house" then wire a fault float (above the on/off floats) into the trigger for the whole house/on demand generator.

 

I happen to have a centrifugal trash pump (although I don't like those words together) that is gasoline powered. It will run 8 hours on probably half a gallon of gas. I would probable tee that into my sump discharge and then count on the battery system to come on when it ran out. I don't have a sump but I hear the battery systems run for a long time. A more simpler option would be a float or water switch above the float system for the sump that triggers a wireless alarm. Compatible with the wireless driveway/cheapass security alarms you could get the transmitter and wireless alarm for $40 I would guess. I have a freeze alarm for $30 that has an auto-dialer and calls me and it has an input that I could attach a float to.

 

If I have to run a sump to keep water out of my basement it is going to have to come on by itself when I am at work/on vacation and there is no power, notify me of power failure, and not require me running an 8000 watt generator continuously during a two-week power outage.

Liquid fuel won't burn.  It needs to vaporize first.  When a 50 gallon drum is filled with fuel, the only fuel available to explode is the little but of vapor at the top.  A 5 gallon plastic drum half full has more danger from explosion than a 50 gallon drum filled to the top.  

 

Of course, if it's fire and not explosion you're concerned about a 50 gallon drum results in more fire.  but a 5 gallon can has plenty of fuel to burn down a house. 

 

Growing up on a farm with our own gasoline and fuel tanks including transfer tanks mounted on trucks and trailers - I'm very comfortable with gasoline stored in a 50 gallon drum.   Don't smoke when transferring fuel and you'll be just fine.  Just like we see with the anti-gun crowd - fear of the unknown helps us form our opinions.

Gasoline vapors in the headspace of a drum will be above the UEL (UFL) there and therefore not flammable nor explosive. So, a full drum would be more dangerous than a less full drum.

 

But the level of incremental danger would be small under most circumstances for residential purposes.

 

One or two gallons of gasoline can cover the floor of my garage for the most part and reach LEL pretty much the same as more. More would be worse but either would blow up or burn down my house just fine.

 

Now, more containers mean a greater chance that one of them leaks. So 50 1-gallon cans are definitively a lot more dangerous than a single 1-gallon can.

 

It would certainly help to keep that stuff in a secondary containment tub like you can get at McMaster Carr, or a flammable liquids storage cabinet with secondary containment and seal/venting. Obviously keeping it away from the house would be extremely helpful.

ive never had a problem with a steel 55 gallon drum leaking, we use then for work, mainly for oils, waste oil, hydraulic ect. But some for fuel too. I mean you could always get an above ground fuel tank and use that if you are really concerned.

 

ive never had a problem with a steel 55 gallon drum leaking, we use then for work, mainly for oils, waste oil, hydraulic ect. But some for fuel too. I mean you could always get an above ground fuel tank and use that if you are really concerned.

 

 

I've had many of them leak. They most often leak when they are hit, when they freeze (not gasoline), or when they are exposed to the elements for long periods. If it's in your garage and you are not driving a fork lift around it probably won't leak. But I would still put it in a plastic secondary containment tub just to prevent the environmental liability since the cost of prevention is so low. Also keeps the floor clean when transferring stuff in/out.

  

 

I've had many of them leak. They most often leak when they are hit, when they freeze (not gasoline), or when they are exposed to the elements for long periods. If it's in your garage and you are not driving a fork lift around it probably won't leak. But I would still put it in a plastic secondary containment tub just to prevent the environmental liability since the cost of prevention is so low. Also keeps the floor clean when transferring stuff in/out.

One of those plastic kiddy pools would be a simple and cheap back up if your concerned.

 

 

 

Just an FYI to everyone using a Natural Gas Natural Draft Water heater. They wont be available for purchase much longer. New energy codes have deemed them as in efficient and will be discontinued by law within the next year. Every gas fired water heater from then on will be direct vented, these water heaters all use inducing fans and electronic ignition. Basically this means no power no hot water. So if your water heater is between 7-10 years old now (the average lifespan of a water heater), you may want to replace it this year before your forced into one that relies on electricity to operate. The water heaters companies fought the federal government on this for the past few years and just lost the battle. This law was supposed to take effect last year but their litigation delayed it until 2015. Also be prepared for a much higher install cost when this law takes effect. The new tanks are much larger due to the massive amount of extra insulation now required to meet the code. And they will all need new PVC exhaust ran since they do not use a conventional chimney. As well as a (20A in many cases) electrical outlet located directly next to the unit for power. Especially if you've got a finished basement and the vent has to be run outside not near the actual unit. Cant run vent under decks, overhangs or within 2' vertically or horizontaly of any opening in a building: ie doors/windows. This will also be a huge cost factor for those with water heaters located inside of closets, due to the much larger diameter tank not fitting through the doorway. (The larger tank diameter also effects electric tanks) Figure I would share this since its relevant to some here.

 

http://www.bradfordwhite.com/department-energy-doe-final-rule-effective-04162015

 

 Cant run vent under decks, overhangs or within 2' vertically or horizontaly of any opening in a building: ie doors/windows. Figure I would share this here since its relevant to some here. Sent using Tapatalk 2 NOW FREE!!!

 

Some vents can be beneath overhangs if there is at least 5' from the top of the vent to the eve, soffit or overhang.   Less depending on the size of the heater.  Horizontally, some can be within 1 foot.   You have to check the installation manual.

 

While this is an issue for some people and it is a big deal if you have to retrofit direct venting, the increased efficiency of new heaters can be very helpful for the wallet.

^^^ I agree with the fuel savings 110%!

 

But regardless of what the manufacturers installation recommendations are, if our NJ adopted code says 2' that's what you have to do. We must comply with whichever is the most strict. Our mechanical code, or the manufacturer recommended installation.

 

I especially like the part where I get to charge more $ to do an install. Thank you Obama team energy code drafters. (Sarcasm)

 

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