Fuel Consumption Test

[Art]

In a previous thread I talked about how I had had a new breaker box with an interlock kit installed on our house so we can run the house, minus the HVAC directly from the portable generator. Well today I decided to test the system to see how many hours I could get from one gallon of fuel in the Troybilt 8,500/6,250 watt unit. I shut off the A/C and was running lights in the front of the house, one ceiling fan, the front T.V., the refrigerator and the freezer in the garage. Our house has gas kitchen appliances and water heater so that part doesn't use much. I ran the microwave for about a minute during breakfast. Under that load I got about 2 hours to one gallon which was almost exactly what I expected. Since we would only run the thing for 4-5 hours a day and have 22 gallons of reserve fuel on hand with just that I figure somewhere between 7 and 9 days before I would have to attempt a gas run. Of course if I was able to fuel it up first I could add another day or two.

One aside. We have some freeze dried food on hand, a bucket of Wise and a bucket of Mountain House. I was at Academy the other day and picked up a couple of individual packages of Mountain House freeze dried food just to test it. I got the Chicken Terriaki and scrambled eggs with bacon. Unlike Wise the Mountain house actually has meat in it. It wasn't gourmet cooking but was certainly a lot more than simply edible. I recommend it. One of the problems with freeze dried is the very low calorie load. The Chicken Terriaki pack claimed 2 one cup servings at about 220 calories each. to get the number of servings advertised in a bucket you'd be going on less than 1,000 calories a day. That isn't far from being in Dachau, so whatever the package says on servings...at least double it.

[bruce]

Smart! W/o fuel, generator cannot make power! Would not have thought it'd take two gallons/day. But, that's just my own inexperience. Sincerely. bruce.

[Art]

Smart! W/o fuel, generator cannot make power! Would not have thought it'd take two gallons/day. But, that's just my own inexperience. Sincerely. bruce.

It has more power than we probably need, we actually could run a "window shaker" A/C unit and probably a couple of other things on it too but that would obviously increase fuel consumption. If we have another freeze-out power failure it's nice to know that we can run an electric space heater or two off it with no problem.

[Merc]

Home generators are a great idea. Couple suggestions:

Convert your generator, or replace it with one that runs on propane or natural gas.

Use surge protectors on all of your electronic devices including your refrigerator and furnace.

[Art]

On surge protectors; when we got the new breaker box we had a whole house surge protector installed. We also have individual surge protectors on the 'puter and all home entertainment systems.

The thought of propane has crossed my mind but frankly, in my case, at this point it doesn't seem "the juice is worth the squeeze."

[Merc]

Smart to do whole house surge protection. Electronic devices are everywhere these days and are vulnerable to electrical disturbances.

[Former Cav]

So what did this complete set up cost you?
did you have it professionally installed?
how close is your nearest next door neighbor?
any idea how many decibles the Gen makes?
I am in "close quarters" in a Del Webb retirement community.
TIA
Bob

[Allen]

My brother use to have portable generator that attached to the meter. During hurricanes he would power the whole house but do it within reason. Due to my mother's age and his wife's health he would run the central A/C with it. The only problem there is when the a/c compressor kicks on there is a slight quick "brown out" till the engine governor catches on the generator.

I don't remember the watts but the engine was an Onan 22hp. It used a lot of fuel. What made it worse was the little 3-5gal tank and having to go out into the storm to refill it.

Since then he sold it and bought a gov't surplus generator with a 6cyl 130hp AC diesel engine. He also ran a cable about 100yds to my mothers house to her meter box. Fortunately we haven't had a hurricane bad enough since to need this.

I just use a small generator (5000 watts I think). It powers all we need, gets good fuel mileage which is way more important than the cost of the fuel. I do have to run a bunch of extension cords though but storm related power outages don't last forever. Sometimes we get power back in a couple of days, sometimes it is a couple of weeks or longer.

There's always so much other stuff going on like trees down, home/building damage, etc, etc that the inconvenience of using a generator is just a part of it all.

[Art]

So what did this complete set up cost you?
did you have it professionally installed?
how close is your nearest next door neighbor?
any idea how many decibles the Gen makes?
I am in "close quarters" in a Del Webb retirement community.
TIA
Bob

Our old breaker box was in truly sorry, in fact probably down right dangerous condition and had to be replaced so we decided to go with the "full monty."

We got an excellent deal. The new breaker box with the surge protector and interlock kit, a new meter box, conduit to take the wiring to the most advantageous place for my generator plug and of course the plug all installed to code was $2,900.00. Like I said that is an unusually good deal. The other bids averaged just under $5,000.00.

With some serious shopping around I would suspect you could expect ordinarily to pay about $3,200.00 to $3,500.00 for what we got.

Now the good news. If you use your existing breaker box the job would be much, much less. I bet you could get the interlock kit and a plug installed it done for under $1,000.00 in that case, maybe well under depending on your situation. The 30 amp cable you run from the generator to the plug on your house will be a bit pricey too...$70.00 to $100.00 depending on length and stuff.

I couldn't give you a DB estimate but the things are noisy. Imagine a lawn mower running outside your house, plus a little.

[dogtag]

Surge protectors won't protect against an EMP - they're too slow. The Pulse is light speed or close.
Let's hiope we don't get one.