jwstewar
Active member
We had a bit of an snow/ice storm here the last few days. Decided with all of the ice that was predicted I would just work from home Wednesday. Was going OK until about 9:30 or so, the power went out. I turned our vent free gas fire place on. Thought I would turn it on to keep the house from getting cold. Not only did this thing keep the house from getting cold, it kept most of the first floor fairly warm and kept the upstairs almost hot.
So we were good heat wise. I was still worried about the fridges & the sump pump. We've been wanting to do a stand by generator, but have been putting it off to try to save a little money for it. Welp, we put it off too long. I decided Wednesday I was going to go buy a portable one to get us through this winter.
I knew I wasn't going to be able to be too picky as at that time about 30% of the house holds in the county were w/o power. Before the storm Lowes had probably 15 different models for probably 100 or so units in stock. By this time they were down to 2 different models and probably 6 or 7 units. These were little Chinese made diesels. They were 5500 watt and 7500 watts for $2500 & $3500 respectively. Decided on the 5500 watt one and a new diesel can. I then went to an electrical store and bought the stuff to make a cord for it. I bought a 4 prong dryer end, the adapter to go into the generator, and then 40 feet of moisture resistant 10-4. Things were going well. I made the cord up. Put the generator together (wheels, legs, and connect the battery). I put oil in it and fuel it up with diesel. Took a little bit, but finally got it started and I'm letting it idle to warm up. All of a sudden it starts smoking. All of the wires on it started smoking. These were actually on the motor and not the alternator. I call Lowes. They have another. I go get it and take the one on display because the last one in the box has a dent. Not know how the dent was made, decided display was my better choice. Good thing is, they had marked it down $500. Took it home, put oil in it and fueled it up. Go to start it. No keys. I have to go back to Lowes and get the keys from the one I took back because they couldn't find the keys to any of their display models. Finally get it fired up and get it connected. I let it run from about 4:30 until about 10:30 Wednesday night. We were running 2 refridgerators, sump pumps, Garage door openers, most of the lights (not at the same time) in the house), propane furnace fan, igniter for our propane tankless water heater, and the TV and satellite receiver. We were sitting pretty good. In that 6 hours it probably burned just over a gallon of diesel.
Yesterday morning I fired it back up about 6:30 and it ran until 1:00 when the power came back on. Our barn is on a seperate circuit so I left the outside lights on so I could tell when the power came back on. It wasn't my first choice of how to do it, but it worked fine for what we needed. Now I just need to prepare the generator for storage, get a trickle charger for the battery, and get into an excersise routine for it.
Word of warning for anyone thinking of doing this, make sure you turn your main breaker off before you even think about connecting this to your house.
So we were good heat wise. I was still worried about the fridges & the sump pump. We've been wanting to do a stand by generator, but have been putting it off to try to save a little money for it. Welp, we put it off too long. I decided Wednesday I was going to go buy a portable one to get us through this winter.I knew I wasn't going to be able to be too picky as at that time about 30% of the house holds in the county were w/o power. Before the storm Lowes had probably 15 different models for probably 100 or so units in stock. By this time they were down to 2 different models and probably 6 or 7 units. These were little Chinese made diesels. They were 5500 watt and 7500 watts for $2500 & $3500 respectively. Decided on the 5500 watt one and a new diesel can. I then went to an electrical store and bought the stuff to make a cord for it. I bought a 4 prong dryer end, the adapter to go into the generator, and then 40 feet of moisture resistant 10-4. Things were going well. I made the cord up. Put the generator together (wheels, legs, and connect the battery). I put oil in it and fuel it up with diesel. Took a little bit, but finally got it started and I'm letting it idle to warm up. All of a sudden it starts smoking. All of the wires on it started smoking. These were actually on the motor and not the alternator. I call Lowes. They have another. I go get it and take the one on display because the last one in the box has a dent. Not know how the dent was made, decided display was my better choice. Good thing is, they had marked it down $500. Took it home, put oil in it and fueled it up. Go to start it. No keys. I have to go back to Lowes and get the keys from the one I took back because they couldn't find the keys to any of their display models. Finally get it fired up and get it connected. I let it run from about 4:30 until about 10:30 Wednesday night. We were running 2 refridgerators, sump pumps, Garage door openers, most of the lights (not at the same time) in the house), propane furnace fan, igniter for our propane tankless water heater, and the TV and satellite receiver. We were sitting pretty good. In that 6 hours it probably burned just over a gallon of diesel.
Yesterday morning I fired it back up about 6:30 and it ran until 1:00 when the power came back on. Our barn is on a seperate circuit so I left the outside lights on so I could tell when the power came back on. It wasn't my first choice of how to do it, but it worked fine for what we needed. Now I just need to prepare the generator for storage, get a trickle charger for the battery, and get into an excersise routine for it.
Word of warning for anyone thinking of doing this, make sure you turn your main breaker off before you even think about connecting this to your house.
