Which one of you is this?
HerschelwoodHardhead said:
Question for the knowledgeable folks on this thread. I'm in Florida, and going to take advantage of tax free weekend to buy a portable generator to run fridges, window units, etc in the event of a storm. However, I don't have natural gas lines in my neighborhood. Would it make sense to buy a dual-fuel (gas plus propane) generator? Or is buying propane tanks a bad idea compared to just refilling with gasoline during a post-storm environment? I honestly have no idea how big a propane tank you'd need to keep a generator running for 24 hours.
Thanks for any advice.
Running just fridges and window units, I'd look at one of the medium sized, dual fuel inverter generators.HerschelwoodHardhead said:
Question for the knowledgeable folks on this thread. I'm in Florida, and going to take advantage of tax free weekend to buy a portable generator to run fridges, window units, etc in the event of a storm. However, I don't have natural gas lines in my neighborhood. Would it make sense to buy a dual-fuel (gas plus propane) generator? Or is buying propane tanks a bad idea compared to just refilling with gasoline during a post-storm environment? I honestly have no idea how big a propane tank you'd need to keep a generator running for 24 hours.
Thanks for any advice.
This, right here, is a giant part of the reasons we decided to go with the whole home gen set.Quote:
Buy a 100lb propane tank, fill it up, and store it. That should allow for 3+ days of run time without having to go search for gasoline. But even then, you only need to store like 10 additional gallons of gasoline for an extended outage.
Much better than the 10+ gallons a day I was getting to feed my 12,000kW running my house after Derecho and Beryl.
Why? Do you plan to leave your generator idling with nothing plugged in for a long period of time?94chem said:
The zero percent load is the number I want to know. I think that would weigh heavily into generator selection.
This, to me, is the biggest benefit of an inverter generator. It constantly throttles engine RPM based on load vs. running at a constant 3600 RPM, for instance. By design, it saves fuel under lighter load scenarios.Quote:
One thing that I would like to know...how much gasoline do generators burn on idle? I could have gotten a larger unit, but I like the 3500 portability as well. Also, I'd be concerned about the extra capacity not being used, and just burning fuel for nothing.
More expensive than the generators that will generally be in it.AlaskanAg99 said:
That housing is a custom unit that can be bought.
I have a link for it, I'm drawing up plans for a DIT, but you also need a slab or fitting paving bricks. Looks like this:
https://www.zombiebox.com/shop/xlarge
I'm very aware how it works. I've had a large portable setup for 5 years and used it more than I would have liked. To each their own.Dill-Ag13 said:This bold part is not true. No need to drain anything with a tri fuel if you're running NG or LP. There is not necessarily any strain, oversize your portable for your application so it's not running full throttle.AgLA06 said:Come on.P.H. Dexippus said:
Portable for the win. I had mine stored in the garage after Uri in 2021 until the derecho in May 2024 drained of gas and fresh synthetic oil. No maintenance required.
They both require maintenance to keep running.
Standby is expensive and gives you all the power you need and automatically kicks in but you have to service it regularly regardless of use.
Portable is cheaper and as long as you drain and store it properly between uses you can forget about it. But you have to manually transfer it and once you get it running they tend to strain under load and require all the same maintenance while being used to keep them going. Which means you have to shut it down to do so.
I'm a portable guy all the way due to financial value, but at least be truthful about it.
A 10 minute shut-down for an oil change every 100 hours is no big deal. Just have to watch some YouTube and be reasonably handy. Portables have come a long way in the past 3 years.
The problem is the trend that instead of 1-3 days the last several outages have been 5+ days and potentially 10+. Propane and gas get quite difficult to find in those scenarios and expensive if you do as most in the city can't have more than 100 pound tanks.Diggity said:
I think the bigger issue with propane/gasoline is obtaining and storing it during an emergency
These generators are going to be run a couple times a year max, so the relative costs of fueling them is pretty low on my list.
My facebook neighborhood page was bombarded with people w/ whole home's that **** the bed after Beryl and they couldn't get service....even though they were on a service plan.terradactylexpress said:
The problem with doing it yourself is when they **** the bed during an event good luck getting service if you aren't on their service plan
I've seen and heard this a lot, but part of me wonders how much of it was out of the service providers control.htxag09 said:My facebook neighborhood page was bombarded with people w/ whole home's that **** the bed after Beryl and they couldn't get service....even though they were on a service plan.terradactylexpress said:
The problem with doing it yourself is when they **** the bed during an event good luck getting service if you aren't on their service plan
I agree that there is a lot too it.CDUB98 said:I've seen and heard this a lot, but part of me wonders how much of it was out of the service providers control.htxag09 said:My facebook neighborhood page was bombarded with people w/ whole home's that **** the bed after Beryl and they couldn't get service....even though they were on a service plan.terradactylexpress said:
The problem with doing it yourself is when they **** the bed during an event good luck getting service if you aren't on their service plan
How many of those service people had damages and issues of their own preventing them from going to work?
How many gen sets were having issues, that, coupled with the previous simply created a demand problem?
It's not always black/white. I'm not saying those are THE reasons, just possible reasons.
There's no perfect system. We simply do the best with what we have.
This is what put the nail in the coffin on a Generac for me. The price you pay and they're still an air-cooled engine with notable failure rates.Diggity said:
it doesn't really matter the reason though.
if you're paying $12K+ for a generator that isn't serviceable without a 3rd party, that's a messed up situation.
My friend couldn't get his guy to call him back for weeks.
drumboy said:
If anyone is looking for a portable generator solution, the 5k watt dual fuel Predator is on sale this weekend. I was going to get two of these to daisy chain before I got a bigger gas Champion inverter.
https://go.harborfreight.com/email/2024/08/e182966-70143/
94chem said:drumboy said:
If anyone is looking for a portable generator solution, the 5k watt dual fuel Predator is on sale this weekend. I was going to get two of these to daisy chain before I got a bigger gas Champion inverter.
https://go.harborfreight.com/email/2024/08/e182966-70143/
If you buy a Honda instead of the Predator or Champion, you're throwing money away.