When You are Ready for that Generator

Part 1 of 6

This series of articles will run through the ins and out of buying a generator

Your power is off – again! Off you go to get some dry ice or bagged ice, before it is all gone, so you can save your food. Such a hassle! If it’s a major heat wave or winter storm, then it switches from inconvenient to dangerous. Multi-hour and sometimes multi-day power outages are on the rise. It is well documented that our electric grid faces many challenges. Intrusive regulations, rapidly increasing load, unreliable energy sources, corporate profit philosophy, and age all play a role in power reliability. Regardless of the reasons, loss of power impacts the end consumer, you. So, let’s talk about options for a backup generator that might get you through.

Note* I am deliberately avoiding solar panels and backup batteries in this article. I am not an expert on this technology, so I would be out of my lane. I do know it is relatively new and still going through some development pains. Also, I am always dubious about batteries going into an emergency, once the charge is depleted, you are done. I have seen some interesting off grid installations where if the batteries fall to XX%, a generator will start to charge them. Let’s just say that’s high dollar, but if you want to chase it, it is out there. Some of the standby battery systems are starting to work with a generator as well.

So, you’re hopping mad, and you’re not going to take it anymore. Let’s talk about what to do, and, more importantly, what not to do next. Rule #1 do not wait until the power is off to run out and buy a generator. You will be waiting in line with every other schmuck that has had enough; the line will be long!

When you get there, all the cool generators will be gone, and only the little camping ones, or the stuff no one wants will be left. Also, you will probably make a rash decision and buy something from Ace Hardware or similar. You will pay too much for something that is too small for your needs, and you will end up blaming that poor little piece of metal. So, make a plan.

Where do You Start?

Let’s start with the questions you need to ask yourself, make a list, check them off, and confer with your domestic partner less you find yourself sleeping in the car.

1. Do you live in a single-family home or multi-family dwelling? Single-family home, you may proceed without concern. If you have an HOA, you do need to check if they have noise restrictions, or any other rules that may apply. In a multi-family home, you face some challenges. In a duplex or a fourplex you at least need to make sure your neighbors are OK with your plan. Otherwise, you will need to explain yourself to the officer when he knocks on your door. If you are in a fourth-floor apartment, you are probably stuck with one of the home standby battery packs you can put inside your unit. If you are interested, Goal Zero Jackery, Ecoflow, Allpowers and Anker all manufacture those battery packs, among others. On a per watt basis a battery will cost you double to triple the price of a generator.

2. What should I plan to backup. That is entirely a personal decision. There is a direct correlation, the more you backup, the more the generator you need will cost. Small things add small costs, large things add large costs, it’s pretty direct. However, a word of caution, don’t cheat yourself. Trust me based on experience, eight hours into an outage, just keeping the fridge and some lights on, no big deal. Three days into an outage and still eating cold sandwiches, no HVAC, no water to shower, or flush toilets, people will run out of patience. So, when you plan, do yourself a favor and say if my power was off for one to two weeks, what do I need, and what can I live without? You can budget from there. If you need assistance calculating the size you need, virtually all the major brands will have a generator sizing calculator to assist you. I recommend you run your calcs on several websites and take an average. Those sites may ask you to plug in the nameplate information off the devices you want to run.

3. Should you buy the biggest generator you can afford? Probably not, is the short answer. Except for PTO generators, your generator runs best at around 50% load or a little more. ICE (Internal Combustion Engines), do not like to idle, and running unloaded or lighted loaded at RPM is called high idle, and it’s bad for the engine. So, unless you have a compelling reason for something bigger, size your generator to run at half load while running your biggest appliance and the usual house loads. It might get closer to full load when you turn on some less used appliances, and you may even need to do some coordinated operation of some big loads, but it’s better than running at high idle most of the time. FYI the RPM (speed) of a non-inverter generator directly affects the frequency of the electricity. In the USA, the utility provides 60hZ power, 50hZ in many other parts of the world. Your appliances can be damaged if the generator frequency varies too far from the design frequency, usually ± 10%.

4. Is your house all electric? If the answer is yes, then unless you only want to back up your refrigerator, you will probably have to commit to permanent home standby or PTO generator. You simply will not be able to buy a big enough portable to meet your needs. I did a 7500-watt portable on an all-electric house, it was a balancing act that made it almost impossible to cook. It worked but it wasn’t fun. All I was able to run were the 120 loads and the water heater. I had to switch off the water heater if I waned to run the microwave, an electric burner was out of the question. You can purchase some larger units than I had from places like Duromax, but they are expensive, and you will still likely come up short.

5. Will gas appliances help you? Absolutely, the more gas the better. Things that really impact your generator, which can be gas, water heater, furnace, range, and dryer. These are all big energy items that demand a lot of electricity. With gas that energy comes directly from the fuel.

6. Will having a heat pump help you? Not really unless it’s a ground source heat pump. All air source heat pumps have electric furnace heat strips as a backup. They are automatic and out of your control. When they come on it’s like stacking your air conditioner on top of your electric furnace. They typically are not on for long, but 1 second is all it takes to trip off your too small generator. Theoretically you could feed the heat strips from their own utility only breaker, but it means your heat pump will be blowing chilly air when it defrosts or can’t keep up.

7. It’s hot here, can I run my air conditioning? The answer is if you have enough generator to start the compressor, yes. But if your backup is a portable it gets tricky. Larger portables should easily start a window unit, but central HVAC is another issue. Simple across the line start compressors have starting currents eight to ten times the running current. The period is short, but it will often overwhelm a portable generator. If you have a variable speed compressor (rare) ($$$), they do not have this inrush problem. Fortunately, there are some modifications you can make to your compressor, and/or your well pump, you can make those motors considerably easier for your generator to start. They are called electronic soft start kits. A bigger capacitor will not help you with a generator, so tell your HVAC guy no. There are several companies out there making them. My go to is https://www.eltwin.com/hyper . They have been around for at least twenty years that I know of. I also see this company mentioned a fair bit too, https://www.microair.net/collections/easystart-soft-starters . Even if you install a soft start on your AC compressor and/or your well pump, you still need to leave some reserve capacity to start the motor

   

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8. You are building a new home; how do you plan for a future (whole house) generator? Primarily, see item #3. The more appliances you can plan to run on gas, the less generator you will need. It’s easy to wire a new home both ways during construction, and put gas stub ups in appliance locations, even if you don’t plan to move to gas right away. Make sure you plan for the generator fuel stub out too; it needs a large supply of gas if that’s the way you go.  Personally, I had my home built with a 2psi gas supply to assure I had sufficient fuel (a little more on that later). FYI, anecdotal, I would put in a stub out for that gas grill too. Have your wiring laid out so it is easy to add a transfer switch later. A separate “meter main” that contains your main breaker, and your electric meter really streamlines the process. The meter main should be separate from any other electric panels. Having a pre-planned location for your transfer switch, with wiring routed for access will really speed up the process. If you can only afford a portable now, this setup will still work until you are ready

   

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Next up let’s start talking about buying a generator. Let’s start out next time by talking about portables. 

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