Whole Home Backup Genny

[Mexas Joe]

That last snowstorm showed me just how fragile the grid is. Even here in the Republic. Rumors are to expect rolling brownouts during the Summ-ah. And now we see how fragile the fuel supply chain is. 

I built this house with a genny panel and a plug for a portable genny, but everything is manual. Plus it's not whole house, only selected items such as fridge/heat/lights and shit. 

So Feck It. Plumber is heading over tomorrow or Friday to tie into my attic NG line and run it outside. I went with a Generac 22K Natural Gas with 200A transfer switch. I didn't need that much juice in reality, but I can get one in 7-10 days from Lowes or order an 18KW and wait till mid September. A no-brainer for about $500 more bonez. 

About a 9-10K investment for some peace of mind. Also who needs several K of frozen meat to go bad due to an outage? Or sweat my ass off with no AC in the Summ-ah?

[Augie91]

Smart move on the generator!!

[garyNconcord]

I like how you think. With the new house on a well, we would be up the creek, no HVAC or water without power. With me 65 and my wife 70, we don't need to be without heat for a week due to an ice storm which has happened before or even AC in the summer for that matter. I had our local gas company put in the same generator on propane.

[Mexas Joe]

Nice! How you you like it? How big is your propane tank?

I read that running propane gets you about 2-3KW more juice than running NG.

Mother Fecking plumber was a no-show today. No texts either. About to Dunken-fire him.

[Buzzie mcnugget]

I've got a 13kw and a 6kw .
I need to convert them to propane.

[garyNconcord]

Nice! How you you like it? How big is your propane tank?

I read that running propane gets you about 2-3KW more juice than running NG.

Mother Fecking plumber was a no-show today. No texts either. About to Dunken-fire him.

It cranks itself and runs every other week for about 20 mins as a test run.  Haven't had an outage to use it yet.  Power company came through and cut all the right of ways the week after I put the gen in. Go figure.
My tank is 325 gallons.  Its that size because my stove top, in line water heater and heat run off of it.   Its more than electricity but I like that warm air coming out of the register istead of the heat pump cool breeze.
I'd looked it up one time, don't remember, but you're right, propane has more BTU content per gallon than natural gas since its pure propane instead of a mix of gases.  When I was on nat gas, it was billed by the therm which is a little over 100,000 BTUs instead of gallons for cu ft, since the energy content varied depending on what they got.  That's why you have to change out orifices between nat gas and propane.

[Mexas Joe]

So hungry for orifices. Tho

[Mexas Joe]

Called another plumber that a friend recommended and they sent out a crew the next day. Got my tankless serviced and they tied into the high pressure gase line and dropped me service where the Genny is going.

A roll of 3/4 gas line (not sure the exact name but it comes in a roll) was over 1.2K for the material alone. Holy Feck Me Sideways.

Picked up the Genny at Lowes and it's parked in my shop on rollers.

Now I need to pour the slab and find an electrician to wire in the transfer switch.

[Augie91]

Prepping at its finest!

[Mexas Joe]

Got the high pressure gas line ran last week. Just need a regulator.

I got forms and wire in for the slab. Yeah, rebar is too damn expensive so I just used some leftover mesh, don't @me. 

Hopefully get it poured tonight. 5 Bags 80 lb each should be enough. I hate mixing concrete.