3500W generator I picked up

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moparmat2000

moparmat2000

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Picked up a 110V 3500W generator after last years cold weather fiasco here in Texas. I bet people arent thinking about this. Well, as far as I'm concerned old man winter can go suck a dick. I plan to run a handful of things in the main house like my gas heater, microwave, some lights and TV, and DVD. Its dual fuel and I plan on picking up some extra bottles of propane before this winter. I will run it off propane and use the gasoline option as a last resort. It will run 10 hours on a 15 lb bottle of propane. I ran it 5 hours to break in the engine. Then drained the oil last night. Generator cost me $359 plus tax at Sam's club. I added the 3 year extended warranty and was out the door for $430.

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Is that an invertor type generator? If not, you need to be careful running sensitive electronics off of it- make sure computers/tvs etc. run through a surge protector or some sort of line conditioner to make sure they play together happily. People forget about things like high efficiency furnace controls, microwaves, etc. that can be sensitive.
I would look into some kind of indicator light on your main panel to let you know when your power comes back on so you can shut down the generator and flip your main breaker back on.
 
Make sure you have a disconnect between your house and the service. Backfeeding to the grid is dangerous stuff for the linemen repairing downed powerlines. Looks like a nice genset.
 
I would not be running it inside the garage or house.
While you're out shopping get a couple of weeks Supply of food and bung fodder.(TP)
 
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My shop is not connected to the house. It's a seperate building 15 feet away. Will be running propane, not gasoline. We keep a fairly healty rotating stock of food in the house anyways.
 
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Everyone should have a backup generator. We have a small Honda still in the box just to run the refrigerators and a few lights. Hope it still works.
 
moparmat2000 said:
I will have the circuits labelled what needs to be on, and what needs to be off. The main in the shop sub panel needs to be on to back feed the house. The main in the house will be turned off to NOT backfeed the grid. Only 4 circuits in the house will be live. The circuit coming in from the shop. Living room, dining room and furnace. All others will be turned off. All my lighting is LED bulbs. 7.2W each. So getting lights on wont draw much. My heater draws approx 800W, microwave 1300W and TV 200W so I should be just fine. My main concern is the heater. I plan on putting in a wood stove, but this is cheaper and faster for right now, last go round we were without power 4 days. I figure w propane I dont have carb issues like with gasoline with ethanol in it.
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Sounds like you have it figured out. Smart call on the LP thing.
 
I bought this 3500w inverter from Northern. Just for a backup. Just going to plug the small fridge and a small heater if needed.

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Don't plan on running a whole lot with a 3500 Generator. I have 18K standby Generac and it won't run everything in my house.
 
SGBARRACUDA said:
Don't plan on running a whole lot with a 3500 Generator. I have 18K standby Generac and it won't run everything in my house.
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Didnt plan on it. I am well aware of its limitations, as such only the handful of circuits i mentioned will be used. My gas heater, some lights, a TV, and a microwave. I checked the wattage on each item. I'm looking at 2300W total plus some misc LED lights in 2 rooms. This thing runs 3500W. Plus the microwave wont be in continuous use anyways. So most of the time with it running I will be using 1000W plus small misc.
 
What you are planning IS NOT LEGAL and could get you into trouble if "they show up." Me? I would do it in a heartbeat as long as no family members have any possibility of messing with the breakers, and you are "fully cognizant" and so on.

You are supposed to have this set up, either with a transfer panel or a mechanical lockout so that none of this can be interconnected

I got one of the lockout mechanical kits for my main box. There is no way to do such a thing from a sub panel
 
Lord Sparky said:
Everyone should have a backup generator. We have a small Honda still in the box just to run the refrigerators and a few lights. Hope it still works.
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Its a Honda it will be fine.
I have a little EU2000 portable honda unit and it is worth the money, I also have a huge generic 8500W and it is also a nice generator, but a total pain unless the power is out for days at a time.
The Honda is nice, grab it out of the garage, and hook it to the fridge and a few lights, it works fine.
The big one is used when the power company says it will be days before the power is back on, its so big to drag out of the garage, but it makes the power but it is noisy.
 
Food for thought....

I made a laminated step-by-step instruction sheet of each exact thing to do in the proper order for mine - from cable hookups to numbered breakers to throw to generator starting, etc. I keep it right at the main panel so there are no errors or confusion when power is off and it's dark, etc. Just grab a flashlight (or phone), and follow directions exactly as written. Seems like that shouldn't be needed but when you only need to use it every 3 or 4 years, it can be easy to forget.
This has worked well for me for close to 20 years. And like sireland67 notes above, it's a pain to haul the heavy Generac (7500W) out of my garage but I do it when I have to!!
 
Just my FYI- shutting off the “main” does not shut off the neutral. This allows for voltage back to the pole. And sometimes the main breaker does not disconnect both legs due to contacts sticking (rare cases but it happens) code calls for a mechanical disconnect like a knife switch. Even an automatic control panel has a spring loaded solenoid pull that disconnects the 3 legs. 4th leg (ground) goes to a grounding rod back to earth. Typically 6’ to 8’ long dependent on soil conditions. But hey- what do I know.
 
Syleng1 said:
Just my FYI- shutting off the “main” does not shut off the neutral. This allows for voltage back to the pole. And sometimes the main breaker does not disconnect both legs due to contacts sticking (rare cases but it happens) code calls for a mechanical disconnect like a knife switch. Even an automatic control panel has a spring loaded solenoid pull that disconnects the 3 legs. 4th leg (ground) goes to a grounding rod back to earth. Typically 6’ to 8’ long dependent on soil conditions. But hey- what do I know.
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I'm not sure that neutral is an issue. The neutral is tied to ground at the pole and at the house. Most? All? houses around here only have a two wire plus ground feed. Many "drops" (like mine) even have a bare ground/ neutral. The neutral at the main box is grounded, and the neutral and transformer case is grounded at the pole

In my case I am sort of "double" protected. I have the main on the garage and it goes from there to the house box which has it's own "main" that disconnects from that line. So there are two "mains" in series so to say. I pull both of them and the garage is completely dead during genset work. On mine the genset feeds the house box
 
I live in North Dakota and winter can be nasty at times and nothing to be 20 below for a week or longer and seen it over 50 below many times. 10 below I think is pretty much standard all winter and if we loose power I run the generator to keep heat in the house and is propane so doesn't take a lot of power and a few lights but mostly run lamp oil lights and maybe watch a movie on a dvd and eat canned chili or what ever doesn't need to be cooked. Works for me just fine. No need for all the gadgets to keep me happy.
 
Fred Scigliano said:
I live in North Dakota and winter can be nasty at times and nothing to be 20 below for a week or longer and seen it over 50 below many times. 10 below I think is pretty much standard all winter and if we loose power I run the generator to keep heat in the house and is propane so doesn't take a lot of power and a few lights but mostly run lamp oil lights and maybe watch a movie on a dvd and eat canned chili or what ever doesn't need to be cooked. Works for me just fine. No need for all the gadgets to keep me happy.
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That just tells us how tough you really are Fred. But then we already knew it.

I can remember back during the Ice Age when we couldn't find a can opener we would just chew the can open. Then we would rub two saber tooth tigers butts together to state a cooking fire.
Of course this was only if we could not get the generator started.
 
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Jadaharabi said:
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That just tells us how tough you really are Fred. But then we already knew it.

I can remember back during the Ice Age when we couldn't find a can opener we would just chew the can open. Then we would rub two saber tooth tigers butts together to state a cooking fire.
Of course this was only if we could not get the generator started.
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:rofl:For sure.
I'm not tough though just simple.
 
Demonx2 said:
Food for thought....

I made a laminated step-by-step instruction sheet of each exact thing to do in the proper order for mine - from cable hookups to numbered breakers to throw to generator starting, etc. I keep it right at the main panel so there are no errors or confusion when power is off and it's dark, etc. Just grab a flashlight (or phone), and follow directions exactly as written. Seems like that shouldn't be needed but when you only need to use it every 3 or 4 years, it can be easy to forget.
This has worked well for me for close to 20 years. And like sireland67 notes above, it's a pain to haul the heavy Generac (7500W) out of my garage but I do it when I have to!!
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^ This is the way to go, if you can't install a mechanical lockout on your HOUSE panel. I know you fix aircraft, and are used to strictly following procedures....but an interlock will take any room for error away. It sounds like you may not be able to use one in your situation. I've worked for the power company for 44 years, and seen more than one instance where someone got all excited about the power being back on, and goofed up their disconnect of the generator before flipping the main back on. A guy that lives on Michigan Street in Tulsa, OK did that....and you wouldn't believe the fireball that came out of his garage. Flash burnt his eyes when his breaker box exploded, and started a brush fire behind his and his neighbors house when the fault current he created burnt down the open wire secondary we had just put up to get the power back on. That was after the power had been out for a week because of the ice storm that hit right before Christmas of 2007. Please just be careful. I don't want you to get hurt.
 
I just got one too. My wife works for qvc and we got one if the dual fuel ones with her discount. It thinks it's a 3600 running and 4200 starting only thing im disappointed with is it dont have a 220 plug i was really wanting one. But we got it for 220 bucks with her discount compared to 799 for the one with 220 so I don't mind too bad lol
 
After reading much on this subject, I think I am going to just run a 10-3 30 amp rated cord into the house through the dog door, plug in my gas heat, a few electrical items and be done with it. Actually hoping that now I have this thing, Murphy's law will determine that I wont ever have to use it.
 
67Dart273 said:
I'm not sure that neutral is an issue. The neutral is tied to ground at the pole and at the house.
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moparmat2000 said:
After reading much on this subject, I think I am going to just run a 10-3 30 amp rated cord into the house through the dog door,...
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you probably would never of had an issue with what you first planned, but i'm glad you came up with a simpler solution. the electric company doesn't know who knows what they're doing and who's an idiot. i've spent enough time going to peoples houses when there's an outage, trying to figure out if they hooked up the genni correctly. if it was hooked into the panel without a visible open to the service, or a proper transfer switch, they had to disconnect it or we'd cut the service at the pole. they'd be the last ones on too
 
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