Home generator specs?

[Shredhead]

I could just have my jet on a treadmill?

[Vt-Freeheel]

I wired one house and it had 570 amps dedicated for the roof heat tape system, split into 30 thirty amp 240 circuits. Just for eave and gutter melt. Another house had 12 gas boilers, of which 9 were for deck and drive snowmelt

I laughed

[Jethro]

I laughed

The waste here makes me wince. It’s the same at many resorts though.

[bodywhomper]

How do you wire the well pump(s) so you can plug them into a portable and disconnect from main box?

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I have a manual transfer switch for the whole house. The Honda genie runs 220v/120v. I plug the genie into a line that feeds into the transfer switch. Big ass 4-prong twist plug (I can’t remember the plug number).

If I wanted to go full hillbilly, I would have backfed the house through the dryer outlet. It’s a pretty bad idea and could kill somebody outside your home if you do it wrong.

[Jethro]

I have a manual transfer switch for the whole house. The Honda genie runs 220v/120v. I plug the genie into a line that feeds into the transfer switch. Big ass 4-prong twist plug (I can’t remember the plug number).

If I wanted to go full hillbilly, I would have backfed the house through the dryer outlet. It’s a pretty bad idea and could kill somebody outside your home if you do it wrong.

That works as long as you shut off your main breaker. Once you kill a linesman restoring power that cheap way might seem les desirable

[bodywhomper]

That works as long as you shut off your main breaker. Once you kill a linesman restoring power that cheap way might seem les desirable

Yep. With the CA power shutoffs due to fire!hazards, there have been reports of “ghost” power during the shutoffs in my area from some people back feeding and not shutting their main breaker. Neighbors of those improperly backfeeding were getting a little power from the nearby neighbor via the utility line. A proper transfer switch will keep that from being a problem.

If one takes the route that I did, be sure to calculate how much draw you’ll need for your place. I did some calculations to make sure I wasn’t shopping for too small a generators running our 220 pumps, fridge, water heater, lights, and a few electronics were critical.

[whipski]

I laughed

Have a friend who was a monster home builder in Aspen. Architect puts in snowmelt driveway couple hundred feet long. First big snow he gets the call. " Bub, Bub (his name is Bob but the guy is swedish) my gas bill was $4000! His reply," What did you expect you're heating the universe" Love this story.

[::: :::]

I wired one house and it had 570 amps dedicated for the roof heat tape system, split into 30 thirty amp 240 circuits. Just for eave and gutter melt.

I need to do some continuing ed...I really don’t understand electrical math at all

[ötzi]

Well you divide by 30, times 570, carry the nine, minus the...yeah me neither

[uglymoney]

I think an ac is 3500 watts per ton. So my house has a 2 ton I'd need 7500 just to run the ac all by itself with everything else turned off.

We lost power for 7.5 days in August. I had no generator and ran my deep freezer off of my car inverter for a couple days before throwing in the towel and running up to a friends for a 3500 watt $300 unit. It ran my washer but couldn't run the gas dryer. Microwave ran great. Coleman stove on the deck and natural gas grill for cooking. Natural gas hot water works with no power. We ran like 5 fans and the fridge, deep freeze, and all the lights, including outside security light with no problem for about 18 hours a day. Biggest issue was gas the first few days. No gas stations had power so we had to drive an hour to get gas. Luckily my friend that loaned me the gen lived an hour away and had several gas cans.

The Kohler natural gas gens look awesome!

There is a bunch of good videos on putting a transfer switch in. Looks easy DIY for handymen. I'd like to put one in.

In the end though, we have buried urban power lines and rarely lose power. The reason we lost power for so long this time all the feeder lines coming into town went down, almost all the overhead urban lines went down. It was a massive junkshow. Most likely scenario I buy the 2200 watt Honda Invertor generator and run extension cords everywhere like I did this time. Having the gen was really key to being able to function, keep going to work. It sucked not having ac but sleeping in the cool basement when I had to worked.

All that being said, the relatively few people we heard about with whole house gens (mostly rural) made us jelly. They were inside in the ac chiling and watching tv.

[Jethro]

Well you divide by 30, times 570, carry the nine, minus the...yeah me neither

The sum of the breakers amps city doesn’t add up to the main breaker amount since the breakers are usually never loaded to capacity. For example, if your house panel had 40 twenty amp breakers, you don’t need an 800 amp panel. 200 amps is more than enough

[ctsmith]

Not specific to generators, but the NEC has a formula to go through for determining the service size, it’s way less than the sum of breakers / everything in the house.

[exsparky]

200 amps can feed a house with 2 ac units and a lot of crap.

Anything over that, you probably have an elevator.

[k2skier112]

I need to do some continuing ed...I really don’t understand electrical math at all

amps x volts = watts

add up all the appliance amp draws and multiply by volts. some will be 120vac some will be 240vac

actually it's easy math. the big amp numbers are for running a lot of 240 volt stuff

[::: :::]

Out again

I live in a fucking city!

Electrical contractor friend has already been called and the conversation started, at least

[TBS]

^^^you live in Portland, an anarchist-socialist shithole!
:-)

I remember coming home from Mexico to a boil water order...

[easyrdr]

We put in a Generac 6 years ago. We are always last to have power restored and it is not uncommon to go two or three days without. The final straw for us was losing power for 3 days over Thanksgiving and 5 days over Christmas in the same year. The $5000 for the purchase/install is by far the best money I have ever spent on my house. Now when the power goes out we have to wait about 4 seconds for the whole house to come back on. Thing runs like a champ, just change the oil once a year. And it operates EVERYTHING, A/C, internet, fridge, washer/dryer, all at the same time. Best invention ever!

[Jethro]

We are looking to install a generator on an existing house with a 600 amp service. Our local utility looked at the house’s billing history and said a 70 amp output generator would cover their usage. We are looking to put in a 100 amp unit. This would power the whole house, which seems strange to me. Usually we have a dedicated panel backed up by the generator for specific crucial loads

Well we nixed this plan. I told my employer to run his plan by the county electrical inspector and any service over 400 amps looking for whole house service apparently needs engineered plans. There is no way they will buy off on a 100 amp generator supplying power to a 600 amp service, even if the utility says they don’t draw a fraction of that.