Alternative Backup Power: Portable Generators
Backup power is an often debated topic. What works? How much do we need to cover? Is it easy to use? Will it work when we need it? Is it worth the price tag? All these are good questions and can have different answers depending on what your needs are and where you are located.
Portable Generator
Because of our location, we field a good number of calls about standby power. The typical call starts out with interest in a whole house unit, but as we ask questions and boil it down to what is necessary and what is in the budget, portable solutions are always a good place to land.
With the typical whole house automatic stand by landing somewhere in the $10,000 to $20,000 range, the portable option starts looking a lot better to some folks.
Most of you have seen these contraptions. They are typically a small gas motor on wheels. They have 120 Volt and 240 Volt receptacles on the front of them depending on the size and style. They come in multiple power ranges, allowing you to energize something as small as a few LED lights, or as big as an entire house.
For example, a 1,500 Watt generator will allow you to power small lighting and power loads, cell phone chargers, computers and maybe even the blower on your air handler. Whereas a 6,500 Watt unit produces almost 30 Amps. Allowing you to go about life as normal, powering all but a few large appliances.
Now that we’ve covered size, let’s talk interface.
I bet you have at some point or another heard the term “transfer switch”. This refers to the component that allows the generator to safely power identified circuits carefully selected or as we call them “critical”. This can come in many forms but when we’re trying to transfer power from a small generator to a large load like a house, we need to decide where we want the power to go. If we just wire it into the entire system without any direction, you will receive too much power going to your smaller loads and insufficient power on your large loads. A four to eight circuit transfer switch is an ideal way to direct lesser power exactly where it needs to go.
When we have adequate power, such as the 6,500 source we mentioned earlier, we would lean towards what is called a “generator interlock”. This is a fabricated piece of metal on springs that’s strategically placed in between your main breaker and the generator breaker in the panel. The metal insert slides between the two, only allowing one to be on at a time. What does this accomplish? This is the critical safety feature all transfer switches try to accomplish before power is disbursed. Keeping linemen safe on the downed powerlines is priority number one. After that is accomplished, your entire panel is restored back to life.
Now keep in mind. Using this method instead of the single circuit transfer switch will require more load management on your part, but more freedom of load choice. Just know depending on the size you choose, you will still most likely have to choose between drying a load of close or finishing dinner in the oven.
One last thought on the subject before we move on.
Generators are basically small car engines. So just like car, they need ran and they need maintenance. If you let them sit in the garage all year, I wouldn’t expect them to fire up when the lights go out in the dead of winter. We would also suggest a push button start. The last thing you need is to hurt yourself trying to pull start a generator in an emergency situation. So if your not handy with motors, and you don’t know anyone who can help maintain them, your better off spending your investment on a more reliable automatic whole house unit.
