So ,a winter storm hits .. like they often do this time of year .. They are shutting off our power to provide electricity to the states below us .. , they can actually go into the pwr grid and not allow you to use water heaters , stoves, W/D ..etc ..
I've lost pwr at house yesterday from 2 pm to 4 pm .. didn't affect me much , Texas is rough shape ..kinda funny they were always barking at me when I lived there about being on their own pwr grid and stuff so they could leave the union and survive on their own , looks like they can't .
Your welcome SD to the rescue !
The lips of fools bring them strife, and their mouths invite a beating.Proverbs 18:6
Re: Turning off power
[Re: bigdad]
#2889538 02/17/2110:02 AM02/17/2110:02 AM
My #2 son was telling me that MISO has issued a 'must run' order for the fossil plants. No scheduled outages or load reductions permitted. All the coal plants up here are running balls to the wall. Yeah, you know, all those dirty, despicable, polluting coal plants that are going to kill us all in (fill in the blank) years? Those plants that are now saving people from dying? Yeah, those plants.
"We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended".
Re: Turning off power
[Re: 6PakBee]
#2889562 02/17/2110:59 AM02/17/2110:59 AM
Our company is one of the top five buyers of power in the US. We had to shut down several of our large air separation plants in Texas and midwest. I heard that our mil rate, which is usually about $30 to $40 per MWhr went to $9000/MWhr for a few periods. That is how utilities get us to shut down our large plants. We can have anywhere from 10MW to 40MW motors on our compressors with some plants having up to three or four compressors. Fortunately we can run off liquid backup for short durations but if the cold snap lasts more than a day or two, we will need to run to top off tanks.
68 Road Runner (383/4speed, post car w/decor pkg) - Major Project 69 Road Runner w/472 Hemi & 4 speed. 70 Challenger R/T SE EF8 w/ V9J, U - A32 - Major Project 2023 Ford Mach 1
Power supplier, Griddy, told all 29,000 of its customers that they should switch to another provider as spot electricity prices soared to as high as $9,000 a megawatt-hour. Griddy’s customers are fully exposed to the real-time swings in wholesale power markets, so those who don’t leave soon will face extraordinarily high electricity bills.
This mess even stretched south of the border. Monday our manager announced that our engineering colleagues in Escobedo were offline due to power outages. Even yesterday I was trying to get ahold of an engineer down there and his status indicator in IM showed offline all day, so I'm guessing they were still down. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ern-mexico-after-cold-snap-idUSKBN2AF1G4
Our solar panels here at the school make way less power during the winter months than the summer due to less hours of daylight and the sun being lower in the sky,
And they don't make anything when they are covered with snow....
You ain't seen nothing yet.... The cheaters in power are going to make the lowly peasants pay. And to think that so many blithering idiots support the political party that has promised to rid the U.S of all coal fired power plants ...they consider cheap and reliable electric service to be a privilege that Americans don't deserve.
Originally Posted by John_Kunkel
With all the money people spend on their homes, everybody should have one of these.
A must for any home. I'll be doing the Generac route once i retire to a different state
One of those whole house generators seems to be a great thing to have. However the ones installed around me run off natural gas, and in Texas the natural gas supply got disrupted and therefore if you had a natural gas fueled whole house generator you would be staring from your dark cold house at a $8-10,000 DOA monument in your yard right now. If you were off the gas line network and using propane I guess you'd be OK. I have a Yamaha generator that is similar in size to the one John showed, and had an electrician friend install a generator panel with a outside plug to use. My friend didn't recommend trying to run too much off that generator for fear of overloading it, so it only runs the circuit with the fridge, the one for my boiler, and the one for my sump pump. Good enough to help insure against my food going bad, heat stays on, and basement doesn't flood, but not enough to live in comfort. I had the setup done 7 or 8 years ago, and since then just used it once when a summer storm knocked out power for 10 or 11 hours, but after that the only power outage I had that lasted more than a hour or two, was a early heavy wet snow storm that knocked out the power, and when I got home it was already after dark and spending an hour digging out the snow enough to get the generator out of the garage and over to the location it needed to be to plug into the house was not something I was going to tackle, so I lived without power and heat until around 4 in the morning when they finally got it back on.
That’s really lame to lose Nat Gas during a power outage. In 25 years of Nat Gas service I never had to do without. Even during a 5 day power outage. They need to fix that!!!
It’s strange that cold had so much to do with the issues this has caused with the grid there. I’ve read there is moisture in the natural gas lines there that froze, shutting off the flow. Natural gas is the main source of heating energy supply here and I’ve never had or heard of any weather related issues with supply. It’s been cold here for several weeks with below 0 night time lows for days, but my gas fired boiler and hot water heater are soldiering along burning an uninterrupted gas supply. It’s been over 20 below here over the years and everyone gripes about it, but at least we aren’t griping about our furnaces and boilers out due to frozen gas lines!
While I was asking in terms of backup power/generators, you made a great suggestion SRT6776.
My 'emergency' kit is a little more basic. I have two Colman propane powered single burners. I like the propane ones because propane is usually a little easier to find. For lights, I bought an Ozark Trail LED Lantern Set They're battery powered, but, I use rechargeable batteries and have a car charger for the batteries too. These lights are BRIGHT and will go for quite some time before needing fresh batteries.
And I have a huge cooler to keep things cold.
One thing I do regardless is ALWAYS keep two cases of water at both my place and my Mothers. While others are scrambling for water, I'm already set.
It was kinda funny in a sad way that people around here kicked into 'hurricane mode' when this ice storm hit. So many people complained about the loss of food due to no power, but it was 30 degrees or colder outside. Ummmmm.....hello? A majority of what I put outside, never thawed out. To my advantage though, both my Mom and I have outside closets, so it wasn't like we just set everything on the ground. Another thing people complained about was no water to flush toilets. Again, ummmm.....hello? Ice and snow everywhere out side, bring some in and melt it. It might take awhile to get a few gallons, but it can be done.
If you really want to step it up you could buy a 200ah lithium battery, an inverter and a solar panel. From my research, a small family using this set up in a travel trailer when camping will use 30ah a day in power but with sun a 100 watt solar panel will replace the 30ah during the day, so as long as the sun is out the battery will stay topped up. RV guys will use a few more of those batteries and solar panels and can even run the AC off it and stay dry camping until the tanks are full.
Re: Turning off power
[Re: SRT6776]
#2889920 02/18/2107:34 AM02/18/2107:34 AM
They did some rolling blackouts here, because most of our power comes from natural gas and that was in short supply somehow. I borrowed my Dad's extra generator and got it setup to run the needed items just in case. I didn't need thankfully.
After reading this, I am seriously considering a built in automatic backup generator. With a very large fuel storage tank, enough for a few weeks at least. Diesel or propane.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/boeexFms.jpg[/img] 31 Plymouth Coupe, 392 Hemi, T56 magnum RS23J71 RS27J77 RP23J71 RO23J71 WM21J8A I don't regret the things I've done. I only regret the things I didn't do. "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something. ~ Plato"
After reading this, I am seriously considering a built in automatic backup generator. With a very large fuel storage tank, enough for a few weeks at least. Diesel or propane.
Our neighbors down the street have one, runs on propane but everything in that house runs on electricity. The power goes out frequently around here and could be as long as two weeks sometimes. We are at the end of a line with only three houses here so not a big priority. I have two 3500 running watt gasoline generators that I can swap out to keep the power going but buying gasoline for them can be expensive and difficult at times. I have looked into the backup generators and may get one but we don't use a lot of electricity most of the appliances in this house are natural gas except the washer, freezer and refrigerators. our heat is also NG. You can get those backup generators to run on NG as well and since there is a NG well on our property I'm not too worried about not being able to get that. Occasionally it does freeze but I've been able to get it flowing again. Luckily we have not lost power here but it has happened south and west of us. We didn't get the ice storms here, just snow. I have over 50 gallons of gas in storage that should last two or more weeks. Good luck to you guys without power or heat. Why hasn't the administration declared a disaster and sent FEMA and the NG out to help you guys?
"Follow me the wise man said, but he walked behind"
'92 D250 Club Cab CTD, 47RH conversion, pump tweaks, injectors, rear disc and hydroboost conversion. '74 W200 Crew Cab 360, NV4500, D44, D60 and NP205 divorced transfer case. Rear disc and hydroboost conversion. 2019 1500 Long Horn Crew Cab 4WD, 5.7 Hemi.
Re: Turning off power
[Re: bigdad]
#2889934 02/18/2109:21 AM02/18/2109:21 AM
So ,a winter storm hits .. like they often do this time of year .. They are shutting off our power to provide electricity to the states below us .. , they can actually go into the pwr grid and not allow you to use water heaters , stoves, W/D ..etc ..
I've lost pwr at house yesterday from 2 pm to 4 pm .. didn't affect me much , Texas is rough shape ..kinda funny they were always barking at me when I lived there about being on their own pwr grid and stuff so they could leave the union and survive on their own , looks like they can't .
Your welcome SD to the rescue ! [/quote
The problem is the energy here is supplied by windmills now. Texas is up to 25% wind power now. When they shut down, there is not enough gas fired plants to take up the slack like there used to be. The politicians in Washington decide what Texas does , not Texas. All these green people need to wake up. They won’t.
my younger brother in Houston needed a generator and bought a Ryobi at Home Depot. In helping find out what manufacturers engine it had (Honda GX390) I came upon this online seller
and was surprised to find that Ryobi also factory makes 6300 watt ($433) and 700 watt ($151) propane fueled units
The little cheap 700 watt propane unit left me wanting to pull out the Kill-A-Watt meter and measure what the total of the circulating fan and downdraft fan is, plus the temporary period when the ignitor power draw is on.
Re: Turning off power
[Re: 360view]
#2889975 02/18/2111:01 AM02/18/2111:01 AM
I spent 20+ years working in an industry where the power going out just wasn't an option so my perspectives are a bit skewed. Standard setup was 1 or more huge Cat 16 cyl diesel generators with big battery banks to feed the inverters after utility cuts off while waiting for the gen to spin up. Includes big enough underground tank to run the thing for a few days at minimum and the biggest issue was treating the fuel to survive sitting in the tank until needed.
A scaled down set up was high on my list when I bought my first house and 20+ years later, still on the list. Shopped the Generac whole house units and discovered NG only and don't have that this far out in the sticks. Revisited later and saw versions that can run on pump gas but the MPG was horrible. Haven't looked in to availability of propane fed units but I'm thinking swapping out NG for propane should be fairly simple. I think a standard issue fork lift tank (33 lbs cap) should probably keep it up for at least 8 hours.
Have had enough 12 hour outages that it would be "nice to have" but local grid maintenance has improved up time and shortened black outs. The only time it would have been "worth the investment" is when Sandy rolled through and the place went dark for 3 days. Rode that out living in front of the wood fire place, not flushing toilets and fortunately had a stash of cold cuts. I think if I was in TX this week I'd drain the pipes and bug out for a hotel in OK.
Some interesting options here but haven't looked at final sale prices:
After reading this, I am seriously considering a built in automatic backup generator. With a very large fuel storage tank, enough for a few weeks at least. Diesel or propane.
Just remember for them to work when needed generators must be tested and maintained. Diesel needs to be tested and treated. Then with propane you could have delivery problems and a tank to hold that much would be large and expensive.
Natural gas has often been thought of as a 100% available fuel but that has not been the case this time around.
After running data centers for many years I had to learn about this stuff.
One of those whole house generators seems to be a great thing to have. However the ones installed around me run off natural gas, and in Texas the natural gas supply got disrupted and therefore if you had a natural gas fueled whole house generator you would be staring from your dark cold house at a $8-10,000 DOA monument in your yard right now. If you were off the gas line network and using propane I guess you'd be OK. I have a Yamaha generator that is similar in size to the one John showed, and had an electrician friend install a generator panel with a outside plug to use. My friend didn't recommend trying to run too much off that generator for fear of overloading it, so it only runs the circuit with the fridge, the one for my boiler, and the one for my sump pump. Good enough to help insure against my food going bad, heat stays on, and basement doesn't flood, but not enough to live in comfort. I had the setup done 7 or 8 years ago, and since then just used it once when a summer storm knocked out power for 10 or 11 hours, but after that the only power outage I had that lasted more than a hour or two, was a early heavy wet snow storm that knocked out the power, and when I got home it was already after dark and spending an hour digging out the snow enough to get the generator out of the garage and over to the location it needed to be to plug into the house was not something I was going to tackle, so I lived without power and heat until around 4 in the morning when they finally got it back on.
You n me must be identical twins! I could have wrote that word for word. Did exactly the same setup.
But every time I lose power, drag it out and hook it up, the power comes right back on...
Oh well, at least it’s there if the real need hits...
I have friends who have backup whole house generators and they are set up to turn on and run once a week to confirm they are still online, and to keep them from having maintenance problems,. With my Yamaha portable generator, I've been told I should start it and run it once a month, preferably with something plugged into it to put a load on it. I try to do that, but have to admit sometimes a couple months will go by before I think to do it.
The problem is Texas has know for over a decade that they needed to upgrade their gas and electric generation for colder weather and reserve capacity. They haven't keep up with added generation for their growth and are living on the edge.The big boys want to stay independent and have a monopoly on residents of Texas but they don't want to pay for the upgrades. The only reason Texas has wind power is it was basically free from the feds and added capacity. Funny that Iowa has the second most windmills of any state and they work. Natural gas works in even of the coldest parts of the US. They've been pocketing the funds that should have been used to upgrade their systems for years. It's plan mismanagement and watch how quickly they reach into our pockets and ask the feds to upgrade their independent grid.
The problem is Texas has know for over a decade that they needed to upgrade their gas and electric generation for colder weather and reserve capacity. They haven't keep up with added generation for their growth and are living on the edge.The big boys want to stay independent and have a monopoly on residents of Texas but they don't want to pay for the upgrades. The only reason Texas has wind power is it was basically free from the feds and added capacity. Funny that Iowa has the second most windmills of any state and they work. Natural gas works in even of the coldest parts of the US. They've been pocketing the funds that should have been used to upgrade their systems for years. It's plan mismanagement and watch how quickly they reach into our pockets and ask the feds to upgrade their independent grid.
Iowa did not get the ice Texas did so maybe that's it. I still do not understand the natural gas freeze up, our gas meters and pipe are outside, it gets to -30, 202 hours straight below zero, and it has never been an issue. We have run black iron gas line right on the ground to get heat in a garage till spring and it never freezes. Maybe it is like an airhose, when it goes thru an orifice it freezes? It kinda looks like some power plant onsite liquid natural gas storage and insulation might be the thing to do, before we go all government program and make it worse. I would like to hear from some engineers, maybe those in a cold weather state, that knows natural gas, and keep the politicians away to solve it.
Re: Turning off power
[Re: 4406bbl]
#2890053 02/18/2101:17 PM02/18/2101:17 PM
EROCT screwed up all right. They’ll just pass the blame. They could make provisions for the ice on the turbines, but they chose not to so they could save money. According to one guy, “ this will happen once every ten years unless you want to spend big bucks to prepare. So, it’s not worth it. “ As far as Bill Gates, that guy is only interested in his agenda and that’s it. He’s worse than a politician. I’ve seen it this cold ten years ago and we did not have water or electric problems. Everyone is moving to Texas for sure and it will continue to stress our infrastructure. Hm. Seams like there was this elected official that mentioned we need to fix our infrastructure in the USA instead of supporting all these foreign countries. I wonder who that was? .
Re: Turning off power
[Re: 340Cuda]
#2890060 02/18/2101:34 PM02/18/2101:34 PM
Just remember for them to work when needed generators must be tested and maintained. Diesel needs to be tested and treated. Then with propane you could have delivery problems and a tank to hold that much would be large and expensive.
Had one customer location with the big diesel back up generator set up. Would work mostly fine during routine run tests. When the transfer switch tried to spin it up automatically, it would usually fail. Took way too long for the vendor to find that bug but at least we had juice. In this part of the world propane is very common in trailer parks, weekend homes and warehouses so keeping the tank full doesn't sound like weakest link in the plan. As far as I can tell from running fork lifts, ya get about the same mileage from the same size tank NG vs propane.
Diving down the rabbit hole for a bit: Looks like above ground tanks range from $500 ish for 120 gal cans to $1500 for the monster 500 gallon. Not horrible in the context of what the generator and xfer switch is gonna cost. Retail residential propane is about $2.50 / gal right now. Generac says an 11kw generator will burn 2 gal/hr at full load but ya really gotta dig. Lost interest before getting to the answer about gallons per KwH based on fuel type. Rough estimate to run my entire house (electric heat pump) on propane looks like $8-10k installed and $8-10 in fuel per hour. Bugging out for a hotel with power is way cheaper.
Re: Turning off power
[Re: ]
#2890075 02/18/2102:09 PM02/18/2102:09 PM
The problem is Texas has know for over a decade that they needed to upgrade their gas and electric generation for colder weather and reserve capacity. They haven't keep up with added generation for their growth and are living on the edge.The big boys want to stay independent and have a monopoly on residents of Texas but they don't want to pay for the upgrades. The only reason Texas has wind power is it was basically free from the feds and added capacity. Funny that Iowa has the second most windmills of any state and they work. Natural gas works in even of the coldest parts of the US. They've been pocketing the funds that should have been used to upgrade their systems for years. It's plan mismanagement and watch how quickly they reach into our pockets and ask the feds to upgrade their independent grid.
Iowa did not get the ice Texas did so maybe that's it. I still do not understand the natural gas freeze up, our gas meters and pipe are outside, it gets to -30, 202 hours straight below zero, and it has never been an issue. We have run black iron gas line right on the ground to get heat in a garage till spring and it never freezes. Maybe it is like an airhose, when it goes thru an orifice it freezes? It kinda looks like some power plant onsite liquid natural gas storage and insulation might be the thing to do, before we go all government program and make it worse. I would like to hear from some engineers, maybe those in a cold weather state, that knows natural gas, and keep the politicians away to solve it.
I've been told the freezing is from moisture in the lines. NG operates at about 5psi so not a lot of pressure. Where or how the moisture gets there I don't know. From the well or condensation inside the transmission equipment maybe?
"Follow me the wise man said, but he walked behind"
'92 D250 Club Cab CTD, 47RH conversion, pump tweaks, injectors, rear disc and hydroboost conversion. '74 W200 Crew Cab 360, NV4500, D44, D60 and NP205 divorced transfer case. Rear disc and hydroboost conversion. 2019 1500 Long Horn Crew Cab 4WD, 5.7 Hemi.
The problem is Texas has know for over a decade that they needed to upgrade their gas and electric generation for colder weather and reserve capacity. They haven't keep up with added generation for their growth and are living on the edge.The big boys want to stay independent and have a monopoly on residents of Texas but they don't want to pay for the upgrades. The only reason Texas has wind power is it was basically free from the feds and added capacity. Funny that Iowa has the second most windmills of any state and they work. Natural gas works in even of the coldest parts of the US. They've been pocketing the funds that should have been used to upgrade their systems for years. It's plan mismanagement and watch how quickly they reach into our pockets and ask the feds to upgrade their independent grid.
Iowa did not get the ice Texas did so maybe that's it. I still do not understand the natural gas freeze up, our gas meters and pipe are outside, it gets to -30, 202 hours straight below zero, and it has never been an issue. We have run black iron gas line right on the ground to get heat in a garage till spring and it never freezes. Maybe it is like an airhose, when it goes thru an orifice it freezes? It kinda looks like some power plant onsite liquid natural gas storage and insulation might be the thing to do, before we go all government program and make it worse. I would like to hear from some engineers, maybe those in a cold weather state, that knows natural gas, and keep the politicians away to solve it.
I've been told the freezing is from moisture in the lines. NG operates at about 5psi so not a lot of pressure. Where or how the moisture gets there I don't know. From the well or condensation inside the transmission equipment maybe?
I don't know for sure but I remember hearing complaints about 25 years ago they'd dropped the pressure from ~ 8 to 4psi, complaint being it was an effective rate increase. After the NG explosions in NW Dallas two years ago there's been some chatter about pressure being dropped AGAIN. Complaints about record NG bills seem to back up the assertion.
Just remember for them to work when needed generators must be tested and maintained. Diesel needs to be tested and treated. Then with propane you could have delivery problems and a tank to hold that much would be large and expensive.
Had one customer location with the big diesel back up generator set up. Would work mostly fine during routine run tests. When the transfer switch tried to spin it up automatically, it would usually fail. Took way too long for the vendor to find that bug but at least we had juice. In this part of the world propane is very common in trailer parks, weekend homes and warehouses so keeping the tank full doesn't sound like weakest link in the plan. As far as I can tell from running fork lifts, ya get about the same mileage from the same size tank NG vs propane.
Diving down the rabbit hole for a bit: Looks like above ground tanks range from $500 ish for 120 gal cans to $1500 for the monster 500 gallon. Not horrible in the context of what the generator and xfer switch is gonna cost. Retail residential propane is about $2.50 / gal right now. Generac says an 11kw generator will burn 2 gal/hr at full load but ya really gotta dig. Lost interest before getting to the answer about gallons per KwH based on fuel type. Rough estimate to run my entire house (electric heat pump) on propane looks like $8-10k installed and $8-10 in fuel per hour. Bugging out for a hotel with power is way cheaper.
We bought our 500gal propane tank used a few years ago off Craig's List for $350. It was ugly, needed paint. Still see them on there regularly from $400 to $750 depending on condition. Smaller ones are quite a bit less money. Propane has been $1.30 +/-, but I haven't checked the last month or two.
I'm gonna keep my eye out for another cheap 500gal tank. That way we have plenty of capacity for whatever may come. $500 or so is cheap insurance even if we don't really need that much capacity.
The problem is Texas has know for over a decade that they needed to upgrade their gas and electric generation for colder weather and reserve capacity. They haven't keep up with added generation for their growth and are living on the edge.The big boys want to stay independent and have a monopoly on residents of Texas but they don't want to pay for the upgrades. The only reason Texas has wind power is it was basically free from the feds and added capacity. Funny that Iowa has the second most windmills of any state and they work. Natural gas works in even of the coldest parts of the US. They've been pocketing the funds that should have been used to upgrade their systems for years. It's plan mismanagement and watch how quickly they reach into our pockets and ask the feds to upgrade their independent grid.
Iowa did not get the ice Texas did so maybe that's it. I still do not understand the natural gas freeze up, our gas meters and pipe are outside, it gets to -30, 202 hours straight below zero, and it has never been an issue. We have run black iron gas line right on the ground to get heat in a garage till spring and it never freezes. Maybe it is like an airhose, when it goes thru an orifice it freezes? It kinda looks like some power plant onsite liquid natural gas storage and insulation might be the thing to do, before we go all government program and make it worse. I would like to hear from some engineers, maybe those in a cold weather state, that knows natural gas, and keep the politicians away to solve it.
I've been told the freezing is from moisture in the lines. NG operates at about 5psi so not a lot of pressure. Where or how the moisture gets there I don't know. From the well or condensation inside the transmission equipment maybe?
I don't know for sure but I remember hearing complaints about 25 years ago they'd dropped the pressure from ~ 8 to 4psi, complaint being it was an effective rate increase. After the NG explosions in NW Dallas two years ago there's been some chatter about pressure being dropped AGAIN. Complaints about record NG bills seem to back up the assertion.
I don't know, we don't pay for it, it's deeded to us as the well is on the property. It's up on top of the mountain where we don't see it anyway unless you walk up there. The neighbors tell me the freezing only happens when the sun comes out which increases my speculation that it's condensation related.
"Follow me the wise man said, but he walked behind"
'92 D250 Club Cab CTD, 47RH conversion, pump tweaks, injectors, rear disc and hydroboost conversion. '74 W200 Crew Cab 360, NV4500, D44, D60 and NP205 divorced transfer case. Rear disc and hydroboost conversion. 2019 1500 Long Horn Crew Cab 4WD, 5.7 Hemi.
That’s really lame to lose Nat Gas during a power outage. In 25 years of Nat Gas service I never had to do without. Even during a 5 day power outage. They need to fix that!!!
Well everything is controlled by SCADA, you lose power, backup generators turn on, they last about 3 days before they run out of fuel. Once the generators are dead, you lose communications to the system, once that is lost the systems assumes there is a catastrophic failure in the gas or electric grid, which then turns off both systems, which control the generators...its a triangle of systems for the grid and if you have a failure in any of the parts of the system long enough, you can lose the entire system. Then you have to manually turn things back on, which requires power and communication at each specific point to get the gas back on which runs a lot of power plants. Those said power plants then power the grid and communications networks. Not an easy or cheap fix if there is a serious national disaster. Tim
1941 Taylorcraft 1968 Charger 1994 Wrangler 1998 Wrangler 2008 Kia Rio 2017 Jetta
I didn't do 4 years and 9 months of Graduate School to be called Mister!
Just remember for them to work when needed generators must be tested and maintained. Diesel needs to be tested and treated. Then with propane you could have delivery problems and a tank to hold that much would be large and expensive.
Had one customer location with the big diesel back up generator set up. Would work mostly fine during routine run tests. When the transfer switch tried to spin it up automatically, it would usually fail. Took way too long for the vendor to find that bug but at least we had juice. In this part of the world propane is very common in trailer parks, weekend homes and warehouses so keeping the tank full doesn't sound like weakest link in the plan. As far as I can tell from running fork lifts, ya get about the same mileage from the same size tank NG vs propane.
Diving down the rabbit hole for a bit: Looks like above ground tanks range from $500 ish for 120 gal cans to $1500 for the monster 500 gallon. Not horrible in the context of what the generator and xfer switch is gonna cost. Retail residential propane is about $2.50 / gal right now. Generac says an 11kw generator will burn 2 gal/hr at full load but ya really gotta dig. Lost interest before getting to the answer about gallons per KwH based on fuel type. Rough estimate to run my entire house (electric heat pump) on propane looks like $8-10k installed and $8-10 in fuel per hour. Bugging out for a hotel with power is way cheaper.
We bought our 500gal propane tank used a few years ago off Craig's List for $350. It was ugly, needed paint. Still see them on there regularly from $400 to $750 depending on condition. Smaller ones are quite a bit less money. Propane has been $1.30 +/-, but I haven't checked the last month or two.
I'm gonna keep my eye out for another cheap 500gal tank. That way we have plenty of capacity for whatever may come. $500 or so is cheap insurance even if we don't really need that much capacity.
What's the story on age and certification of those tanks? I've got an upright rental and luckily the only thing running off it is the tube heater in my shop but my property isn't always accessible in the winter so sometimes you have you have to keep the heat down to stretch it out between refills.
my younger brother in Houston needed a generator and bought a Ryobi at Home Depot. In helping find out what manufacturers engine it had (Honda GX390) I came upon this online seller
and was surprised to find that Ryobi also factory makes 6300 watt ($433) and 700 watt ($151) propane fueled units
The little cheap 700 watt propane unit left me wanting to pull out the Kill-A-Watt meter and measure what the total of the circulating fan and downdraft fan is, plus the temporary period when the ignitor power draw is on.
I was real close to buying the parallel combo kit for $699, which seemed too good to be true. I am not sure that website is legit? The prices seem way to good, and the store is not accepting payment?
my younger brother in Houston needed a generator and bought a Ryobi at Home Depot. In helping find out what manufacturers engine it had (Honda GX390) I came upon this online seller
and was surprised to find that Ryobi also factory makes 6300 watt ($433) and 700 watt ($151) propane fueled units
The little cheap 700 watt propane unit left me wanting to pull out the Kill-A-Watt meter and measure what the total of the circulating fan and downdraft fan is, plus the temporary period when the ignitor power draw is on.
I was real close to buying the parallel combo kit for $699, which seemed too good to be true. I am not sure that website is legit? The prices seem way to good, and the store is not accepting payment?
Did you see where they are located? Japan...which means run
1941 Taylorcraft 1968 Charger 1994 Wrangler 1998 Wrangler 2008 Kia Rio 2017 Jetta
I didn't do 4 years and 9 months of Graduate School to be called Mister!
Re: Turning off power
[Re: 5thAve]
#2890388 02/19/2110:05 AM02/19/2110:05 AM
On the initial fill, as long as the original tag is on the tank, they check it for leaks and you're good to go. If you run out of propane (or maybe get to a very low amount) or add propane appliances, they want to check the appliances for leaks. That's about it.
Since we own the tank, we can buy propane from anyone. But the prices don't vary that much between suppliers other than once in a while someone will be quite a bit higher than everyone else for whatever reason.
Suppliers want to deliver a minimum of 200gals or they will up charge. The wife went back and averaged the last 4 years of propane use and we have averaged 40gals a month and the average price has been $1.25 a gallon. We certainly have used more than 40gals this month because I had a back-up furnace in the shop running to keep it from getting too cold overnight. I have a large wood burner in the shop so I don't normally run the propane furnace there, but it's been so cold lately, so.....
We have needed 2 deliveries a year on the tank and I would just feel better if we could go longer between fills. That way we could pick even more optimum price points and should be able to get through just about anything that the weather or our government's incompetence can throw at us.
And I used to cut and split my own wood out of our woods. But now I just go to one of the local saw mills when they have a large pile of trimmings and they load my trailer with their loader for $25. Mostly hardwood and it burns good. I don't know if I'm getting smarter or lazier in my old age.
my younger brother in Houston needed a generator and bought a Ryobi at Home Depot. In helping find out what manufacturers engine it had (Honda GX390) I came upon this online seller
and was surprised to find that Ryobi also factory makes 6300 watt ($433) and 700 watt ($151) propane fueled units
The little cheap 700 watt propane unit left me wanting to pull out the Kill-A-Watt meter and measure what the total of the circulating fan and downdraft fan is, plus the temporary period when the ignitor power draw is on.
I was real close to buying the parallel combo kit for $699, which seemed too good to be true. I am not sure that website is legit? The prices seem way to good, and the store is not accepting payment?
I have not bought from them.
It certainly would not hurt to print those descriptions out and take then to Home Depot order desk and see the HD prices on the equivalent Ryobi items.
Re: Turning off power
[Re: 360view]
#2890476 02/19/2112:59 PM02/19/2112:59 PM
my younger brother in Houston needed a generator and bought a Ryobi at Home Depot. In helping find out what manufacturers engine it had (Honda GX390) I came upon this online seller
and was surprised to find that Ryobi also factory makes 6300 watt ($433) and 700 watt ($151) propane fueled units
The little cheap 700 watt propane unit left me wanting to pull out the Kill-A-Watt meter and measure what the total of the circulating fan and downdraft fan is, plus the temporary period when the ignitor power draw is on.
I was real close to buying the parallel combo kit for $699, which seemed too good to be true. I am not sure that website is legit? The prices seem way to good, and the store is not accepting payment?
Did you see where they are located? Japan...which means run
I don't think anyone but Home Depot can sell Ryobi products.
Re: Turning off power
[Re: 340Cuda]
#2890603 02/19/2104:24 PM02/19/2104:24 PM
On the initial fill, as long as the original tag is on the tank, they check it for leaks and you're good to go. If you run out of propane (or maybe get to a very low amount) or add propane appliances, they want to check the appliances for leaks. That's about it.
Since we own the tank, we can buy propane from anyone. But the prices don't vary that much between suppliers other than once in a while someone will be quite a bit higher than everyone else for whatever reason.
Suppliers want to deliver a minimum of 200gals or they will up charge. The wife went back and averaged the last 4 years of propane use and we have averaged 40gals a month and the average price has been $1.25 a gallon. We certainly have used more than 40gals this month because I had a back-up furnace in the shop running to keep it from getting too cold overnight. I have a large wood burner in the shop so I don't normally run the propane furnace there, but it's been so cold lately, so.....
We have needed 2 deliveries a year on the tank and I would just feel better if we could go longer between fills. That way we could pick even more optimum price points and should be able to get through just about anything that the weather or our government's incompetence can throw at us.
And I used to cut and split my own wood out of our woods. But now I just go to one of the local saw mills when they have a large pile of trimmings and they load my trailer with their loader for $25. Mostly hardwood and it burns good. I don't know if I'm getting smarter or lazier in my old age.
![[Linked Image]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71TO89KgnzL._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71uTwez8c5L._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61UlfDXl1WL._AC_SL1200_.jpg)
