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I have frequent power outages - had one already a few weeks ago - only lasted about 4 hours, but sometimes they last a 2-3 days.

But I am thinking about a strategy for dealing with an outage that lasts weeks to months - e.g., Cascadian Subduction Zone earthquake.

I have two inverter gensets, one is a 3.5kW transportable, the other is a 2kW portable. The larger one is for the house, the smaller is for the shop.

Neither one will run my well pump, and even if they could they can't as the pump is hooked up at the meter, not the house - so that is an issue - if I were to stay here (I don't plan to - I plan to sell next year), I would address that issue ($$$$ to fix it).

Well pump issue aside, I also have two battery power stations (256Wh & 512Wh), 6 solar panels (100W each), a 1500VA UPS and a 55 gal drum of gasoline in the shop. During the winter, I doubt I will get much solar power - maybe 10-20% of the rated power from the panels (need to test this).

What I am thinking is run the gensets for an hour or two each day to charge the power stations & UPS, the fridge in the house, the freezer in the shop, my laptop and phone and emergency lighting.

Use the laptop & Starlink about one hour per day. Laptop runs for 6-8 hours per charge, Starlink consumes 30-80 watts (varies a lot) so it can run off either power station and boots up in less than 5 minutes. I can SMS text and use FB msg and email from phone or laptop, get the latest news/etc. a couple of times per day this way without running the gensets all the time.

My best power station - an EcoFlow, charges on solar/car or AC. On AC it will charge at 600 watts and that takes about one hour to charge it up full.
 
I too live about 45 Miles out of pdx. We are out in the woods with a coop electric utility that is known to leave us without power for days and occaisionally a week or two. I have several slow turning water cooled diesel generators. They are great for us as they have long lives and run pretty inexpensively. One is a single cylinder diesel that runs at 625 rpm's and has no electronics. You start with a crank. My main generator is now a 3 cylinder Isuzu. If you shop them and are ready to pounce when they come up they are quite affordable. If outage is long term you can do like the boat people and while running generator use all your heavy power hogs while gen is running then go to batteries when you shut down gen. Not sure of your storage ability but I put in a transfer switch for safety to line crews who may be working on lines. "Would like to pick your brain on solar and batteries as I would like to add some in the near future and do not know where to start.
 
Yeah, when I move/buy/build, I will get a diesel who house genset, probably an inverter setup, as a backup.

I intend to DIY a solar and battery array to take the house and shop off-grid as necessary. But the genset might be necessary for extra power, especially in the winter, and maybe for some machinery (e.g., a welder).
If outage is long term you can do like the boat people and while running generator use all your heavy power hogs while gen is running then go to batteries when you shut down gen. Not
That is more or less my interim plan for now - charge up things with genset, then run off the batteries/power stations/UPS.
Not sure of your storage ability but I put in a transfer switch for safety to line crews who may be working on lines
I have a transfer switch, came with the house, but when I tried it a couple years ago, it always killed the 5kW genset I had and I haven't tried it since.
 
Hi Heretic; The only time I ever had switch gear kill a generator was when power legs were hooked up wrong and led to dead short. Check your wiring at transfer switch and I bet you will find problem Something like one of your 220 legs hooked to a ground lug. Cheers
 
Hi Heretic; The only time I ever had switch gear kill a generator was when power legs were hooked up wrong and led to dead short. Check your wiring at transfer switch and I bet you will find problem Something like one of your 220 legs hooked to a ground lug. Cheers
Yeah, I was going to have an electrician come out and fix it
 
As you have already identified, power conservation is key.

We have an RV and mostly live off grid several months out of the year. We do remote work and live a "normal" lifestyle. I have 6-6v batteries = 675 AH (8100WH) of batteries, a 3000 watt inverter and 1400 watts of solar. Unless we have several days of low/no sun, or we want to run high load items late in the evening there is no need to run the generator. This includes running Starlink, routers, computers, TV's, lights, chargers, etc.

Solar is actually more efficient in cold weather, however you will see reduced daily output since there is less hours of sun per day. With that said, the amount of direct sunlight will have the biggest effect on output.

Aside from wiring, I am not sure why your 3500 watt generator will not run your well. Even at 1 hp that is 750 watts. If we are out of power for more than a day we typically take our 3500 watt generator down to the well house, disconnect the main power and wire the pump direct. I did buy a transfer switch and inlet last year, but did not get it installed yet.....

As for a whole house generator, there are some pros and cons. Do you really need/want to run the whole house or just select items? A generator that can run the whole house is going to be more costly, use more fuel and be in a fixed location compared to a smaller unit that will run select items.
 
Solar is actually more efficient in cold weather, however you will see reduced daily output since there is less hours of sun per day. With that said, the amount of direct sunlight will have the biggest effect on output.
I live in the Willamette Valley (albeit, on a small mountain) - so during the winter, clouds are more common than sun, and that means low solar power.
 
Aside from wiring, I am not sure why your 3500 watt generator will not run your well. Even at 1 hp that is 750 watts. If we are out of power for more than a day we typically take our 3500 watt generator down to the well house, disconnect the main power and wire the pump direct. I did buy a transfer switch and inlet last year, but did not get it installed yet.....
The gensets are small 120VAC. The well pump requires 220VAC.

Also, the well pump is hooked into the switch box for the electricity meter, not the house. So I would need to put a transfer switch at that point to run the well pump with a genset when the power fails. I suspect the PO did not think about this when they put in the transfer switch to the house.
 
The gensets are small 120VAC. The well pump requires 220VAC.

Also, the well pump is hooked into the switch box for the electricity meter, not the house. So I would need to put a transfer switch at that point to run the well pump with a genset when the power fails. I suspect the PO did not think about this when they put in the transfer switch to the house.
Aaahhh, my experience with 3500 watt generators all had 240v.
 
I set up a Predator 8750 for my folks house. Built a shed for it and buried the wires from the shed to the house in conduit. Got it a few years back and put it straight to work when a winter storm took out power.
More than enough to run the whole house including electric water heater, all electric kitchen, and 2 chest freezers along with the entertainment stuff. Even ran a couple power cords over to the neighbors house so they could use an oil heater and TV for their kids.

I did build it so the muffler is outside the shed and there is a 12v radiator fan that pulls the hot air up and out.

I will say this, it took me 3 generators to get one that worked. First one had a broken motor mount out of the box, second one blew up (literally blew the carb apart) on first start up. Third one has been working well since install. Gets run an hour every month if not used.
I add 12v hour meters to every generator I have. Easy to either tap into the 12v circuit or just build a plug in meter. My 3k iPower just hit 1k hours after about a year.
 
If you are intending to sell your home, this gives you the perfect opportunity to make your next home purchase with self reliance in mind. On the one end would be to build a fully off-grid home (this is what I did). The other end would be to find or build a home that lends itself to energy efficiency to make alternative power systems more workable for when grid power is unavailable.

One thing to keep in mind is that the most cost effective thing you can do when it comes to alternative energy is first figure out how to use less electricity. Using less electricity to begin with is always more cost effective than buying a bigger battery bank, bigger inverter, larger generator or more solar panels. An example of this would be use propane for space heating, water heating, cooking and clothes drying. There are also energy efficient options for pumping water from a well and/or into a booster tank.

You'll also want to search for property with good sun exposure for a solar array. Reject properties overly shaded by trees. If you want long term alternative energy, solar panels and batteries are the direction to go. If you just want to bridge the gap for short term outages of about a week or less, buy a decent generator and transfer switch.

Good luck whatever you decide to do.
 
The gensets are small 120VAC. The well pump requires 220VAC.

Also, the well pump is hooked into the switch box for the electricity meter, not the house. So I would need to put a transfer switch at that point to run the well pump with a genset when the power fails. I suspect the PO did not think about this when they put in the transfer switch to the house.
Most small, single-phase motors like that can be re-wired to run on either 120V or 240V. If you remove the wiring cover and look inside of it, there are typically two diagrams which show you how to connect the motor leads and incoming lines depending on which voltage you want to use. Current (Amps) will be twice as much in the 120V configuration, but power used (Watts) is still the same.
 
If they are 110. a old school briggs 5hp should do both . or alternate them back and forth .modern appliance's don't have near the power draw the old ones did , especially on start up. run a good cord .they are cheap and easy to work on
 

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