As you might have seen on the news (or experienced, for our PNW folks) we
had a nasty windstorm last week and pretty much the entire Puget Sound area
went black. I live out in the boonies and have a big 8KW welder/generator
and transfer switches, but a lot of suburban and urban folks don't and a
lot of people still don't have power, with no idea when they will.
Anyway, like I said, I have a big old Hobart 8KW welder generator with a
rebuilt Onan air cooled engine. It's connected to two transfer panels, one
for the well and house pump, and one for the house loads (kitchen, furnace,
about 40% of the lights). I have to have 2 panels because I have a split
service, one 200 amp panel for the house, one for the shop/well. I plan to
install about a 15KW diesel generator sometime soon to run the whole place,
in part because the welder uses over a gallon/hr of gasoline, and gas
storage is a problem. I routinely keep four 5 gallon cans w/Stabil out in
my shed and rotate it through my truck every six to nine months, but I
really don't like keeping that much gas around, and it's still only good
for 2-3 days. I figure if I go with an 1800 rpm diesel I can cut my fuel
consumption in half and store 50 to 100 gallons of diesel almost
indefinitely; I would also be able to use it in my two diesel tractors, so
it wouldn't get totally stale. The problem is there aren't a lot of 1800
rpm gensets around in this size range. One I'm looking at is something
like this:
http://www.generatorjoe.net/product.asp?0=335&1=468&3=2939
or
http://www.generatorjoe.net/product.asp?0=335&1=483&3=2563
or
http://www.generatorjoe.net/product.asp?0=335&1=370&3=466
Yanmar, Cummins and Mitsubishi engines. Anyone have any opinions or
alternatives? I have an old early 80s Mitsubishi 16HP tractor, and that
thing is bulletproof, FWIW.
Thanks
Dave C
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