A friend offered to lend me his generator since he has power and I don't. I can plug in my fridge, he suggested. But, I can't plug in my HVAC, so I moved my food instead and left the house. If the weather is cool, I can maybe see the use of a small generator. But in Houston with 90 degree days, I don't know how to make use of it.
There is kinda a big valley of usefulness in backup generators. If you want whole house and 220v, get one that can run HVAC at like 8500 watts or over. Otherwise I think 2500-3500 watt is way better than middle sized. Run fridge, window AC, washing machine, all kinds of stuff. Use less gas and less noise. Anything above 3500 that cannot run HVAC on 220v seems pointless loud gas hog.
2 years after my setup was installed, it was put to live fire action and I’m very pleased. 12,000 W dual fuel generator (gasoline & propane). 50 amp plug into the breaker box. I’ve only run propane thus far but it has kept all the things running. I’ve been alternating AC units but it can run both at the same time. The surge of the AC startup if obvious so I think A soft starter kit would be helpful. I want to stick with propane unless it’s a total emergency but I’ve realized I need to upgrade and get at least one 100 lb tank. The good thing about propane tanks is that you can borrow all of the neighbor’s tanks from their outdoor grills, however managing them is a bit of a hassle so that’s why a 100 pounder helps juggling 10 + tanks
I remember the kid days, whenever the power would go out (or the AC would break) at our house...we went and stayed at the Adam's Mark Hotel on Westheimer and got to play like idiots in the room and pool for a day or so. Good times.
Last year, I lost power for about 1hr on a nice comfortable sunny day. I said, that's it so I invested in a Bluetti power bank wired to the house, like any generator. It runs the house for up to 24hrs on battery power alone. Think Telsa Powerwall but much cheaper. About 6 months ago, I bought a very small generator to recharge my batteries in the event of an extended outage. Glad I did as my batteries got me through the night and the next day I was able to fully recharge the batteries before sundown. I never lost cable/internet much less the fridge. DM me if you want to hear how I did it. It probably cost about 5k. So it's more than a gas generator but my wife can engage it in <3min without my involvement. Just turn on the batteries via a bluetooth app and flip of a switch and we are back online.
Really the only thing you can do is setup a window unit in one room and camp out there. Not easy with a family though
That's right. I'm going to install a few solar panels later this year. But solar wouldn't have helped in this storm as Friday it was cloudy all day and Saturday was a dense fog. Hence the reason to have a backup to the backup. Solar would help defer some of the cost as I can run the batteries year around and save on electricity. But the main purpose of the batteries isn't for ROI, it's for emergency preparation. It's funny when I mention this, folks usually say "you'll never get the ROI on solar". I ask, did you get the ROI on your gas generator or your Generac? The batteries are 1/3 the cost of a Generac ...and silent.
A battery backup solution with gas generator to supplement it seems like a great idea. Which Blueetti model and size? Do you have it hooked up to an interlock?
Yea, my rough math says that 90% of power outages last <4 hrs. so the battery backup works like a champ. Nobody wants to pull out a gas generator for a 1 hour outage. We assumed this outage would be longer than so we went into household conservation mode and squeezed ~24hrs out of the batteries but fully recharged off our propane generator. Worked great. We may add one or two more batteries to get us 48hrs of runtime! I use the AC300 as it was the best price at the time. The AC500 is running some specials right now. If you end up buying, let me know and I'll send you an referral link and I can split the kick-back with you. Another comparable brand is DeltaPro. Jackery is yet another brand but it isn't as scalable and/or interchangeable as Bluetti or DeltaPro.
I am off grid and don't know what you guys are talking about. Bluetti and other such backups probably have ease of setup and wife approval factors going for it, but you'd be way better off, cost wise, buying solar hybrid inverters and batteries even if you never put a solar panel to it. Every one I've seen has a UPS mode... doesn't get easier to use than that.
A string of 12v lead acid batteries are definitely cheaper but much uglier and requires more space in your garage/shed. So yea, the WAF and flexibility come at a cost. Another benefit to Bluetti and DeltaPro is you can unhook them, chunk them in your back seat and take them camping or hook them up to your next house. If you move to an apartment, you can throw your Bluetti in a closet. So yea, if your a dude living in the woods and have the space and inclination for setup/maintenance, your setup is great. Regarding cost, there is a 30% federal tax credit so that helps too.
I guess lead acid would work for seldom used UPS mode like I was talking about, but lithium iron phosphate is the go-to. Charges much faster and far less volatile than regular lipo, 4-6x cycle life. But the cost... I paid $120 per kWh delivered... that's cheaper than lead acid. $2400 would buy 20kWh. Another ~3k for 12kw of inverter and you're running a house. Not portable, but the idea is to have solar panels attached that save you $ every month. I get it, WAF matters for some, space matters for others.... but I'm just throwing it out there that if big backup power per dollar is what you need, there are options. Some wouldn't think about solar equipment, because they don't know you don't have to use solar panels.
So do those have mains hookups? I only see them with solar then the inverter AC output. Do you have a model for a bank of LiPo deep cycles?
Ecoflow also makes a system but if you own your own house a fully modular system makes the most sense I think. Those things you linked would be awesome for an apartment. A refrigerator is only like 200 watts.
Yes, typically the way they work is they have solar panels, they charge and discharge during the day with clouds and such, and switch over to the grid at night, leaving a well charged battery for outages. There are other modes of operation, however, every one I've ever seen will work as a giant UPS when only hooked up to mains power and a battery. A model for the battery? I'm using a bank made up of LittoKala 48v 40ah ali express batteries, even though they've been fantastic for me so far, not everyone has the same risk tolerance I do... but EG4 batteries from Signature Solar run $200-220 per kWh and have a solid reputation. I'm fused and fire insulated and so on, one battery going out doesn't bring down the whole bank as they are each 2kWh 48v in parallel.... though like I said I haven't had any issues. To me, things with the ali express batteries would have to go really, really bad to be worth the price difference, but I can understand someone who says "china batteries no way".
Can you link an inverter controller you recommend? I've looked into them and they are around 600 bucks? The. You add your own panels and batteries. Is that right?
