Yeh, there are times I think about how much of my time would be freed up if I lived in a retirement home...then things like COVID hit and I breath a sigh of relief that I still have autonomy. Regarding neighborhood power plants: government agents would soon be by pulling your "unauthorized" plugs.
Good point and yes the old peak VS average power in audio is really a tricky selling spec. With WH generators one must consider what load they can run 24/7 with allowance for peaks. I am not sure if there is a standard for rating generators or if their advertised rating is based on the peak. I do know one neighbor bought a portable generator based on peak and while it delivered the said amps, the voltage dropped within a dangerous range for their freezer compressor and burnt it out. If the peak is advertised in amps that is one thing but if the peak is advertised in watts, then the voltage must not drop with the amps they claim it delivers or their wattage claims are bogus.
Thanks for bringing the thread back on topic. I hope the Lonely Hearts Club can covene elsewhere, at least while there's any interest in generators.
We are waiting on another company's estimate right now, Faye. A few of our neighbors have had them installed and we're comparing their costs and quality of installation. Seems to be all over the place. Being hurricane season, interest is high again so the companies are busy.
Well. This is timely. Our power just went out about 15 minutes ago and isn't expected to be back on for several hours. Not sure what caused the outage but it's 100 degrees outside. Ugh.
Is there any variance in the stated specs for propane consumption per-watt-generated (efficiency) between manufacturers? It seems to be that fuel is the biggest potential cost.
I have no idea; we'd be connecting to natural gas, not propane. I haven't considered gas consumption per generated watt.
The grid was probably overloaded so they are using the California blackout method. One of my neighbors an industrial master electrician was telling me that several WH generator hookups to power here had to be redone because the electrician installer didn't use the right compound for joining copper to aluminum and electrolysis started in one joint and got hot and melted the insulation off the wire and started a fire after putting toxic fumes in the house. I had that happen earlier this spring on my service line because during the big wind storm a couple of years ago, they were restoring service as fast as they could, and tiring workers took shortcuts. The affected joint looked like it was melted by lightning and you could see the arcing and smell the burning insulation a block away. His opinion was that installers were rushing and cutting corners on installations because they were so behind. @Beth Gallagher I may have asked before, but do you have overhead or underground service?
If you can't get it installed soon, perhaps you can get the switch installed that would be compatible with your whole-house rig and hook a large portable to it for the time being, then sell the portable at the next disaster for a profit.
I've done tons of charity repair work in trailers. This is a big issue in them (aluminum wiring and copper-terminal receptacles)...and they tend to be tinderboxes anyway. But I've not seen aluminum wiring outside of mobile homes.
Actually, the stated cause was "downed tree." We're back up and running. In the subdivision the power is underground but there are plenty of feeder lines on poles between here and the power plant.
One of our neighbors has a setup similar to that, only he keeps his large portable generator in a storage unit. So when the power is out he has to drive across town to pick up the genny.