It was our first snowstorm of the season, at least something that counts as a snowstorm. We received 10 inches of snow here at The Gulch while the other areas in our town received up to 20 inches. The differences in snowfall can be attributed to the three hills surrounding The Gulch. Unless the storm is a Nor’easter we are shielded by those surrounding hills which tends to lower the snowfall totals we see here. However, if the storm is a Nor’easter, we see much higher snow totals.
One of the other side effects of the snowfall was widespread power outages due to the dense, heavy snow bringing down tree limbs which took down power lines. The power at The Gulch went out around 7:30 this morning and the Official Weekend Pundit Generator was pulled out of the garage, connected to the external power connector, and fired it up. This turned out to be the first ‘long term’ test of the Official Weekend Pundit Generator as power wasn’t restored for over 8 hours. The previous use of the generator lasted 3 hours, so now I have 11+ hours on it and have a better idea of the fuel usage. With average winter power usage, under 2000 watts of power draw, I figured a full 40lb propane bottle – about 11 gallons of propane - will last better than 16 hours. This implies a standard 20lb propane bottle will last at least 8 hours. That means if all my propane bottles are full there’s enough to run the generator for at least 48 hours continuously.
As you may have noticed I haven’t mentioned anything about gasoline.
It’s not that the Official Weekend Pundit Generator can’t use it. It is a dual-fuel unit.
It isn’t that I won’t use gasoline. I will. But it does have one downside, that being it doesn’t store well for lengthy periods of time. It can go bad over time. Propane, on the other hand, doesn’t go bad. It can be stored for years and be just as good as the day it was pumped into the bottle. If there will be a lengthy power outage then gasoline makes perfect sense, particularly since one fuel or the other could be in short supply for one reason or another. Being able to use both gives some flexibility.
One of the things that throws so many people is trying to decide what size generator they should buy. By ‘size’ I mean the generator’s power capacity. The one I bought for The Gulch has 5500 watts/5000 watts of continuous generating capacity. The reason for the two ratings is the difference in the energy density of the fuel being used. The first is for gasoline and the second for propane.
Some folks think they need to have a generator capable of supplying 100% of the power required to run their home with everything turned on. My question for those folks is “When do you ever have everything turned on? Why does your generator need to be able to carry that much load?”
Other folks think they only need a enough for a couple of lights, maybe a laptop or other computer, and the fridge. That’s great if a generator will only be needed for a couple of hours in a temperate climate. But it isn’t appropriate for a lengthy outage, particularly during a summer heatwave or a winter blizzard or ice storm.
The generator for The Gulch is big enough to handle all of the lighting (mostly LED lighting so the power draw isn’t huge), the refrigerator, the furnace (for heat and hot water) or one of the A/C units (depending on the season), the microwave, the computers (two desktops and two laptops), a TV and DVD/BluRay player, and if cable is still operating a cable box, cable modem, and wireless router. Worst case power draw was under 4000 watts, with the average power draw running under 2000 watts. The generator is sized to handle just about anything in The Gulch with two exceptions, those being the electric stove/range and the clothes drier.
About the only other decision that needs to be made is whether to buy a ‘traditional’ generator with a standard alternator or one of them newfangled inverter types which generates a clean 60Hz sine wave regardless of the engine speed. The engine speeds up/slows down as the current draw changes. They also tend to be quieter...and more expensive.
Of course none of this would be necessary if we all had our own Mr. Fusion home fusion units.
