We’re considering getting a generator for emergency purposes to power our house in the event of a long term power outage. Irene knocked out our power for 3.5 days, and fortunately we were able to borrow a generator - but we’re considering getting one for future issues. Also fortunate is that we didn’t need heat during this time around - the major concern is losing power during the winter and having pipes freeze and such. However one of the questions is whether to go with propane or gasoline.
I realize that in the end, it makes little real difference for our purposes due to the infrequency of needing to use a generator, but I’m curious as to the masses opinions, thoughts and pro’s and con’s of each.
Our situation:
We have natural gas heat
Our hot water heater has a pilot light (so no electronic ignition)
Our stove is gas
Our drier is gas
Town water and sewer
Our primary needs for electricity would then be: furnace (in the winter time), lights, fridge, freezer, TV, computer(s)
Our electricity has historically (for the past 4 years we’ve been in the house, anyway) been very stable. A few times we’d come home from work to clocks that have been reset, so there was a momentary outage during the day. We’ve been through numerous blizzards over the past few years in our area (eastern MA) without a hiccup, and we rarely get hurricane force winds up here. None of the ice storms that have occured further north have reached us.
So all in all, I’m still on the fence about a generator in the first place because the only situation I can foresee that results in a wide-area outage (which could subsequently result in long repair times) in the winter time is an ice storm. Just about anything else is fairly localized or would occur during a time of year when freezing pipes are not an issue - and while power may be lost, it likely wouldn’t be lost for long enough to be concerned with. All this considered makes me think that getting a generator is insurance for a once every 15-20 years event.
Arguments for going with gasoline:
There are more gas stations than propane stations
Cheaper generator
More generator options available
Arguments for going with propane:
Quieter
No need to worry about fouled up lines, gas, etc.
Cheaper to run (and I’m of the belief that propane costs will be less volatile than gasoline in the future)
So I’m just curious what other thoughts people may have that should be considered, because right now the plusses for propane outweigh its negatives to me.
A full propane tank will run the generator if you ever need it. Gasoline will go stale unless you pour it into your car’s tank and replace it now and then. Especially in cold weather, old gas can make starting tough. It may be safer to store a tank of propane than a gas can. (or not, depending) OTOH, you can siphon “fresh” gas out of your car if you ever need to run the genny, and you can just steal some more from the neighbor’s car if that isn’t enough. (I kid!) Propane makes for very easy starting, and the exhaust is far safer as well, still not OK to run indoors though. Dual fuel units are available.
Yes this is a portable generator - currently thinking about 4kW size. However I’d ultimately figure on using either a transfer switch or interlock kit to power up the entire existing panel so I don’t have to run cords all over the place. Besides, the furnace is directly powered from its particular circuit - it doesn’t have a plug that I could use an extension cord with.
Is there a way to connect up a portable generator to a fixed gas line? It’d be real nice to use natural gas, but from what I saw, the expense of that is way too high to justify for my purposes because the generator installation would be fixed.
You can get quick connect sockets which can be plumbed into a fixed natural gas line with a shutoff cock. Then a flexible hose connects between the socket & the generator. They’re commonly used for portable gas barbeques & space heaters. You’re talking just a few bucks for parts, plus labor to install at a convenient spot. The expensive part would be if your existing gas line runs nowhere near where you want to set up the portable generator. Then you’d be paying for many feet of pipe & perhaps trenching to bury it, etc.
Natural gas & propane are very different fuels. Not to say manufactuerers can’t readily make a machine to burn both (as the link above points out), but don’t assume converting between fuels is a DIY project for any generator you happen to buy.
A conversion kit should take care of the differences between propane and NG by altering the carb, and thus altering the fuel/air mixture appropriate for the new fuel.
The only other issue is that a given generator produces less power on propane than gasoline due to the reduced energy density. Going to NG, since it is predominantly methane, reduces that further. So it’d require a bigger generator to get the same wattage of power out of it.
You really have to ask yourself: is the cost of a generator, its mountings, and its connections (both fuel and electricity) worth it? Unless someone in your house is on a ventilator, it sounds like the only thing you’re trying to prevent is inconvenience (loss of Xbox, etc). In the winter, you can always put food out in the garage/porch to keep it cold. Heat might be a problem if you don’t have a fireplace. Even then, power has to be out for several days to get a house cold enough to freeze piping [and you can always leave the taps trickling to prevent this].
Is insuring against these problems worth the cost, especially considering the rarity of any issues?
I have a fixed in place 15KW propane fueled generator. It can run most of the house including heat and AC. It’s air cooled and runs at 3600 RPM, so it’s not too quiet. If there’s a really bad storm and I can’t get my tank refilled, I’m SOL. That’s not an issue with natural gas, but living in the country it wasn’t an issue.
As LSLGuy mentioned, there are quick disconnects for the gas line that solves the portability issues, but you will need a manual transfer switch. You want to be sure not to back feed the power grid and kill a linemen working on the wires.
Of course if it runs on natural gas you eliminate the possibility of using it further afield unless you have a really long connection hose.
It’s definitely worth it. What’s the longest you’ve been without power yourself? We once lost power for five days before we got a generator. Even with the fireplace going 20 hours a day it was a struggle to keep the house above 50F. It was absolutely miserable. And this was December, I can’t even imagine how cold it would have been in February.
Propane generators are awesome. Ours, 3500 watts, takes the same tank as the grill, and it costs ~$16 to have it filled (pro tip: U-Haul offers filling services even if no where else in the area does) and it runs for 12-16 hours before it needs to have the tank swapped out for the second one.
This is part of why I’m still on the fence on the whole thing - because it is a rare event for power to go out for more than a few hours at a time.
However, it was only a few years ago that my sister and her family, less than 50 miles north, lost power for over a week due to an ice storm. They had pipes freeze, they had to live in a hotel, board their dogs, eat out all the time - very expensive and not just an inconvenience. It cost them thousands - so a generator would have paid for itself immediately, and thats just the monetary value, nevermind the convenience factor.
A fireplace is only good for about a 10’ radius from said fireplace. Other than that, it makes the house colder. We use the fireplace in the wintertime on occasion, but only for effect and ambiance - and everytime we do the rest of the house drops a good 5-10 degrees.
But honestly, yes - the biggest thing is convenience, except that rare once in 20 years event where it turns out to allow us to continue living in the house when we otherwise would not be able to. But when you think of the overall cost (about $1500) over that period of time (20 years) - you’re talking about <$10/month for that insurance. Depending on your view of the value of insurance, that is either a steal, a decent value, or not worth it.
Elfkin477 - you sound like you have the generator I’ve been looking at. My main concern with propane is the fewer filling stations as opposed to gas. I had a coworker adamently defend using gasoline because he apparently had it on personal experience that power would be restored to a gas station before it gets restored to the pumping unit that propane refilling stations (BJ’s, hardware stores, etc) use. However I know there is a Suburban Propane facility near here - one of the ones that fills up the big trucks with propane for delivery to residential and commercial facilities. I’d have to imagine they would have decently high priority, since some people depend on propane for heat.
Anyway - long winded way of asking whether you’ve found any issues at all with refilling the 20# tanks during a power outage.
I looked into the options a while back and went with gasoline. It was far cheaper and easier. The second choice was buying a gasoline generator and buying a conversion kit to get it to run, at reduced capacity, on propane.
I use gasoline also for the lawn mower and snowblower, so while not always fresh, the gas is not that old either.
Over the past maybe 8 years I’ve had no problem starting, it always started easily. It did start to run a bit rough with next to no load on it perhaps a year ago. I just plugged a space heater in (which adds some load) it runs fine, maybe some carb cleaner would help.
You have to remember that a generator is a long term investment, you can expect to have it many years. So even though you may use it infrequently, the times when you use it will add up over time. During that time it is likely that there will be a major power outage or more, where it will really come in handy.
It is also peace of mind, when the power goes out in below freezing temperatures, if the generator is running you don’t have to worry this also applies to not worrying about food spoiling.
It also means that you can continue your life, a blackout won’t stop you.
Just a very quick and dirty calculation having the generator about 8 years, looking at a log book and estimating the total cost of it including fuel, oil, and the wiring is $1200, which gave me apx 100 hrs of use or $12/h.
So overall if you had a choice of sitting in the dark for a hour or paying $12 to have your power on for a hour, you have to decide because that it the real cost of the generator over time (and also potentially saving you money by saving food and pipes from freezing).
Also I just notices that fuel cost was actually minimal, for the above it was I estimated $300 out of the $1200 for gasoline, so it may not make much sense to chose propane based on fuel cost.
Until last week, no problems at all. However, the road that the place that fills them in town was closed for a day due to fallen trees/powerlines, so we had to fill them at a place 10 miles away rather than 4.
Do you have a hardware store in town? Give them a call and see if they fill them - I had no idea that some do until we needed to have it done. We called around to see how many places in the area/on the way to places we work filled them before deciding, and I recommend that you do too. You might be able to use online yellow pages to help your investigation, and U-Haul has a propane refill locator here.
If you think it will be an issue, I’d think about buying a second propane tank like we have, just in case you need to run the generator for 24 hours before you can fill up again.
Are you referring to a small propane tank like barbecue grills use? The round ones? I didn’t realize they’d run a generator 12 hours. With gas you have to refill the tank long before that. Plus gas cans are so much heavier to mess with.
This thread got my interest. Keep talking. I’ve been thinking about a generator for years. My issue was always storing the gas and using it before it went stale.
Does propane go stale? Or will it last years in a tank?
As I said, it takes the same tank as the grill, which I believe is 20lbs. You know, roundish, cream-colored. And propane does not go bad. It can be stored for years.
I guess it goes w/o saying that you should get all the inspections you needs from your city & utility after having it installed by a licensed professional. Should something go wrong, it might mitigate some liability & insurance companies might have issues covering you if you don’t.
Three years ago, my area lost power for four days thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Ike. My employer had a ~15kW unit fed by two 100-lb propane tanks, which was sufficient to run us for about 4 days.
On day two of the outage, I called our propane supplier to inquire about getting the tanks topped up in the event that we went without power for a third day. I got an answering service, which had no idea how to get in touch with anybody at the propane company. I got more than a little nervous.
Later that evening, I got a call from the company president. As it turns out, their phone system was not on any kind of battery or genny backup. Pretty ironic for a fuel supplier.
Luckily, we got power back at the office that evening. When we moved offices a couple of years later, we switched to a 20kW natural gas-fed Generac. I’d rather not depend on an external supplier in that kind of situation.
I’ve been musing about a backup generator for some time as well.
Natural gas seems the no-brainer solution where we are: generic suburbia. But … I’ve always wondered whether there’d be any failures of the natural gas supply in an extended power failure. The gas utility’s system relies on electrics for control, monitoring, and pumping. I’d bet they have backup power sources for much of it, but for how long?
It’d be a bitch to invest in a natural gas generator and then find your public gas supply fails on day 3 of a 5-day power outage in Feb.