Generators

[monkeylizard]

While the propane/methane does burn hotter, the gas is so much cleaner than gasoline that the engine will show practically zero wear.  There's no carbon/soot build up, no fouling, etc.  Dad used to deal with propane powered chevy trucks at a power plant.  After 200k miles running around the plant, they looked new inside. 

 

That's one reason I want to convert to tri-fuel.

[markshere2]

My solution to gas storage:

5 gal cans, numbered.

Once every couple of weeks I will dump one into one of the vehicles. 

Take the can to the gas station and refill on the next trip to town.

Put that can at the back of the rotation.

I'm up to 35 gal of gas stored, most stored in the metal NATO Jerrycans.

 

No issues to date, and If gas prices spike due to stupidity, I can delay a purchase for a couple of weeks.

 

Also my local grocery store gives 5 and 10 cents per gallon off for every $50 spent.

It's nice to get 40 gallons at $1.80 off the list price per gallon occasionally.

Edited January 28, 2014 by markshere2

[tnguy]

If you can find the ethanol free, you won't have to worry so much about rotation.

[glowdotGlock]

I drive a truck and have an APU (generator) behind the sleeper that mounts on the frame. It is a 2 cyl Kabota. It gives me 110 AC in the truck and it also has it's own alternator to keep the truck charged. They are pretty expensive but if I had money I would love to have one at home setup for emergencies. It consumes about 1 gallon every 3.5 hours vs. the 500 hp Cummins idling at around 1.1 gallons per hour.

[Jamie Jackson]

I'm bumping this back, because there's a lot of great information...and winter is coming. It just doesn't feel like it today. :pleased:

 

 

I believe I have the same generator that Lester mentions...A Coleman Vertex 5500.

 

My father purchased it right before Y2K. He used it back home in MS, frequent storms and occasional hurricanes. It sat idle since right after Katrina.

I brought it up to TN, purchased a new battery and had the carb reworked fora good small engine shop in West Knoxville.

 

While that sucker is noisy, it runs fine.

 

 

My father would keep his tank topped off and run the generator, with a small load, every month. (He did have his house secondarily wire for gen use).

 

What are your thoughts on state of readiness for your generators?

 

Do you keep them topped of with ethanol free gasoline?  Still use Stabil?

 

While not in protracted long term use (just monthly-bimonthly test run), how often do you change the oil?

 

Do you see any advantage to the higher priced synthetic oil?

 

 

 

 

btw...my generator is just one option or redundancies. I have an inverter set for my truck, a couple of Big Buddy heaters with fuel, fireplace & wood, propane camp stoves with fuel, etc.

 

I need a battery bank setup...but that'll come later. And some NiCad batteries with charger...

[R_Bert]

coincidentally, just a few minutes ago, I bought a can of 100% gas for mine.  Time to rotate out gas and do a oil change.

 

And being the anal-retentive guy I am, I change out the oil either seasonally, or when it shows a bit of stain.

 

And I use SeaFoam.

 

It's a 18 year old Coleman 5K with a Honda engine. Bought it when we were building the house. It still looks brand new.

 

B.

Edited October 2, 2014 by R_Bert

[Omega]

I have two portable ones; one is an 10hp Briggs which is a 5k gen, and an 8hp Briggs which is a 3k gen/welder. They are both gas only and have to have the gas treated to keep them ready to use but the bigger one has already paid for itself the first year I had it. Our power was out for three days and it kept the freezer, which had just been stocked, running along with some lights and some other electric items that we used to cook and for comfort. The second was purchased for the welder part, and I expect to have it pay for itself real quick.
I got both of these units used, for $250 or so each, they needed tuneups/adjustments but otherwise worked fine as was. I worked a JD for a year and we had many small engines come in needing carb work, most due to bad fuel, specially the one with ethanol additives. The best thing for small engines is to try to get ethanol free gas and use something like Stabil before long term storage. Starting all your gas engines at least once a month is not a bad idea either.

[Jamie Jackson]

Thanks R_Bert!

 

I haven't heard of SeaFoam before...so I Googled it. Interesting stuff. I make the bold assumption you are speaking of the gasoline additive? They have several products listed,

 

Yep...I was up at ORSA shooting yesterday so I stopped by GasMart and picked up 10 gallons of ethanol free gasoline. I have 3 more 5 gallon cans to fill and get into rotation.

 

Do you keep your tank topped off and run on a regular schedule?

 

I know some folks drain theirs, oil the spark plug hole, and various other things. It just seems like when you need it, you need it and generally the weather isn't exactly perfect out. LOL

[Jamie Jackson]

Good info Omega.

 

$250.00 each? Good deal Sir. :up:

 

We have 2 freezers as well. I do can a fair amount of meat, veges as well, but the convenience of the freezers is hard to beat.

[Omega]

Good info Omega.
 
$250.00 each? Good deal Sir. :up:
 
We have 2 freezers as well. I do can a fair amount of meat, veges as well, but the convenience of the freezers is hard to beat.

Yea, good deals which can be had on craigslist and bookoo.com (Campbell yard sales) weekly.

As for the freezers, I agree, those things come in handy as heck. My side-by-side in the house holds the regular stuff while my upright one, in the shed, holds my deer and oversized things like the turkey and any meat packs which we get on sale. I had to run an isolated line out to my shed that wasn't on a GCF circuit because lightning would sometimes trigger the GCF and if I didn't catch it everything would thaw out. I lost two deer once, what a dang shame.

[Jamie Jackson]

Yea, good deals which can be had on craigslist and bookoo.com (Campbell yard sales) weekly.

As for the freezers, I agree, those things come in handy as heck. My side-by-side in the house holds the regular stuff while my upright one, in the shed, holds my deer and oversized things like the turkey and any meat packs which we get on sale. I had to run an isolated line out to my shed that wasn't on a GCF circuit because lightning would sometimes trigger the GCF and if I didn't catch it everything would thaw out.[b] I lost two deer once, what a dang shame.[/b]

 

 

I'd be sick at losing the venison my friend. Btw...home canned venison is flipping great! :up:

[monkeylizard]

An update on that Honda eu6500 carb I was having problems with....

 

I took it out and cleaned it. Put it all back together. Not much better. Decided to call it a day so I took it off again (probably the 4th or 5th time that day) and took it in to Howard's Honda in Donelson. They cleaned it up and I put it back on with fresh gaskets. When I turned the fuel supply on, gas was flowing all over the place. I thought the float was stuck and not pushing the needle up to stop the flow, but that wasn't it. Took it apart a few times trying to figure it out, then took it back in the next day. Talked with the tech there and discovered that I'm an idiot. I had the fuel supply and fuel drain lines backwards. He gave me a word of warning that I had probably dumped fuel all down in the cylinder which would also get in the oil, so I needed to change the oil. I did so and mounted the carb properly. It started, but still ran rough.

 

Took the whole thing in (what a pain to load that beast in the back of the SUV) the next day. Once he heard how it was running, he started asking all the right questions. I had replaced the dead battery with an aftermarket one and added a battery tender at the same time. The slightly larger battery size along with the wires for the battery tender were restricting the airflow. He said they're super-sensitive about that. He tucked the wiring up nice and neat and voila! It's running like new. It was probably never a problem with the carb at all.

 

I was reminded of a sign at my old mechanic's shop:

Repair rates = $50/hour.

If you watch = $75/hour.

If you help = $100/hour.

If you tried to fix it before you brought it in = $200/hour

[tnhawk]

During the last few weekends, I've been thinking it was time to exercise my generator.  As there are possible storms approaching today, I started up and let it run for awhile.  As long as I take care of it, it seems I never need it.

[tnhawk]

Honda is the only way to go. Period.


Having said that, a generator is a very poor choice for SHTF power. It's noisy and non renewable. How will you feed it? If you want a better solution to SHTF power, start studying up on solar.

In the middle of the night, when the power goes out, solar won't immediately produce the power I desire.

[Jamie Jackson]

You know. I look at generators much like I do MRE's.

 

They are not my first choice in a SHTF scenario, but they are handy and ready to go. Hopefully that will give me time to get my longer term situations in order.

 

The various layers of preparedness all have their place.

[Hershmeister]

Anyone have a natural gas generator? I am building a new home and plan on getting it wired to accept a genny, and have thought maybe a natural gas genny would solve the hassle of gasoline rotation and storage. Thoughts?

[Luke E.]

I haven't made it all the way through the thread yet but one option you might want to think about is finding a motor home generator that someone has upgraded or from one that has become run down from sitting in a fence row because the owner can't afford to feed it $3-$4 per gallon gas. I picked  one up for $400 already mounted on a homemade wagon type thing. Has a live front axle and a tongue that you cant just drag it around or hitch it to a mower or ATV. I would have to look to make certain but I believe it is either 5,500 or 6,000 watts continuous. Another option for those looking for something to use strictly as alternative power for your house should look into picking up a big mil-surp genset. We sent 2 40' shipping containers full of them to Liberia about 4 years ago and I had to go through and make sure they were all ready to go. The things are built like a tank and most models are "multi fuel" so will run on pretty much any fuel that you can make or buy. The ones we had would run our house with power to spare! I forget what we had to pay for the things but we bought them from the gov. online auctions. I will check what we paid each for them tomorrow and report back in case anyone is interested. They were WAY cheaper than buying any other generator that size.

[monkeylizard]

Anyone have a natural gas generator? I am building a new home and plan on getting it wired to accept a genny, and have thought maybe a natural gas genny would solve the hassle of gasoline rotation and storage. Thoughts?

 

If you're doing a fixed-install whole-house setup then portability won't be your concern. NG would be the way to go.

 

I'm still thinking about converting my Honda EU6500 to a tri-fuel system where it can run on gasoline, propane, or natural gas. Then I can have my gas line tapped near where I want to put it and connect in a cut-off and QD hoses. Then it's still portable with either a gasoline or propane tank, but I don't have to keep rotating gasoline. Now that I have become a master at removing the carb (though apparently not at diagnosing problems) I can ship it off to CMD for the conversion. It's strong enough to power much of what I need. It won't run the HVAC, microwave, or range, but it can power pretty much the rest of the house. Gotta do a transfer switch and that won't be fun because where I want to put the genny when it's running is nowhere near the main panel box.

Edited October 3, 2014 by monkeylizard

[peejman]

Anyone have a natural gas generator? I am building a new home and plan on getting it wired to accept a genny, and have thought maybe a natural gas genny would solve the hassle of gasoline rotation and storage. Thoughts?

 

 

Dad has a fixed and hard-wired propane generator that's honestly been a disaster from day 1, mostly from lack of maintenance.  When they first installed it (while building the house), I fussed at him frequently to test it out and make sure it was working properly.  When he finally got around to that... maybe a year later.... it never really worked right, he got tired of messing with it, and wouldn't call in a tech to come get it sorted.  Then the critters found it and decided it would make a wonderful home.  I think he tried to clean it out and get it working again a few years ago, but it still never ran right.  14 years later, it's a big, expensive hunk of scrap metal. 

 

That said, during those 14 years their power has been out for more than a couple hours maybe twice with 24 hrs being the longest outage.  In a SHTF situation or some other major natural disaster, you would expect the gas service to go down so your generator will quit working. 

[Mark A]

Some folks are lucky enough to have natural gas wells on their property. I am not one of them but I wish I was.

 

Maybe I am looking at it wrong but I am not looking to generate power for the next 10 years. I want to get through an immediate emergency and have enough fuel to run a generator a few hours a day to keep the fridge and freezers cold. By then, if services aren't coming back online we have bigger problems.

 

In a months time I can eat the already prepared foods like my chili and stuff like red sauce and get everything else in there canned or dehydrated

 

Mark

[monkeylizard]

In the middle of the night, when the power goes out, solar won't immediately produce the power I desire.

 

I think Caster's point was that a genny is a poor choice for a true TEOTWAWKI event. It's not a viable long-term solution. A genny is a good solution for short-term power outages of a few days or maybe a couple of weeks. They have a lot of good things going for them  like portability, low cost, and simplicity. In the event of a true SHTF scenario, you'd need a more comprehensive energy strategy, such as solar panels and deep-cycle batteries. If you had a properly-sized setup like that before a SHTF you'd be in good shape. The normal power outages probably wouldn't matter either. You may not even notice them as your power may never go down, depending on the solar/battery setup. Most homes use very little electricity apart from a handful of major appliances and HVAC. Except for people who do laundry and roast a turkey at 2:00am, the batteries would be sufficient in most cases.

[Omega]

A portable generator would be great to have in a TEOTWAWKI event.  Depending on what event took place, there should still be some gas left in storage, damaged vehicles, farm tanks etc.  If the event is something like a giant volcano, meteor/comet the sun may not be getting through for some time.

 

I personally would think being mobile is better, just in case a good home defense is unattainable. But there is no reason you can't have both!

[tnguy]

I think I already said earlier in the thread but avoid getting one without 240V if you can help it but anything is better than nothing.

[Luke E.]

 The multi fuel generators that I mentioned us buying earlier in the thread were actually generators from refrigerated rail cars. That's what my Dad remembers anyhow but They were painted olive drab sooo.. I do know that most of them that we had were 20kw sets with a couple of them being 12.5kw. We bought them for about $800 each !! but I'm not sure what it would cost or even if you could buy just one from the group we bought from. I did see that the last purchase we made was for 22 of them so i'm sure that there was a bulk discount given, I didn't make the purchase so i'm not sure. They have likely gone up substantially over the last handful of years but I'd say you can't touch this kind of wattage for any where close to that price even if it cost double now.

 

I just did a quick google search and found a company selling them for WAY more and they're sold out but to give an idea here's a link,

 

http://affordablepower.com/generators/12-5kw-and-20kw/

 

Looks like I need to buy another truckload of them and sell them at a profit rather than sending them as aid!

Edited October 4, 2014 by Luke E.

[tnguy]

Group buy? :)