Back up home battery systems? Generators? Solar panels?

[HowlingDog]

I am kinda in the same boat. I want some solar but I am not "electricity" minded, meaning I do not understand it at all! As a result, I have been looking at the battery units with solar panels, kinda All In One units. I have not made a decision or purchase yet, but here is a little bit of what I have found.

There are three brands that are relatively new (2019 ish), that are getting alot of advertising and press: Bluetti, EcoFlow and Jackery. They all have some kind of box unit and solar panel kits but they are pricey, about $1 a watt or more. They look and sound like they would be the solution for temporary needs but I am still thinking before spending $3000 for a 2000w system.

There is a forum, DIYSolarpower.com or something like that, which is an excellent resource. Started by a guy, Will Prowse who has some great YouTube videos on all things solar. He even reviews some of the units I mentioned above. They are a group of enthusiast who will answer questions and help you design your own solar system, and offer build advice (sounds familiar??)..... I have spent alot of time on there but my brain just does not comprehend volts, fuses, AC DC charge controllers and all the various connections. If you have a decent understanding of electricity, you could make yourself a nice system for less than a purchase. There is a company, Renogy that sells individual components. There are many other companies that sell, and I have never bought from Renogy, but I found it helpful to start to see components and a price.

I am not technical enough to get into a discussion of battery types, number of charge cycles, 12v vs 24v vs 48v systems, which is why I am looking at one of the three brands I mentioned above. Right now, Costco has both EcoFlow and Jackery on their website. Bluetti seems to be direct website sales. I really want their AC300 Max with a couple batteries and panels but I would have to sell a kidney to afford one.

Not sure if this helps, and it is a bit unorganized. There is alot to all this solar battery stuff so if you have any questions, I will tell ya what I know, which isn't much.

Mark

 

[xbubblehead]

Most solar installations are designed to feed back into the electrical grid and the homeowner gets "free" electricity based on solar system output and home consumption but is still tied to the grid in the case of an outage. Installing a true off the grid solar powered battery backup is expensive and dangerous if not correctly done.

Emergency generators make a lot of sense for infrequent outages, are reasonably affordable and most important, are independent of the grid when connected through an automatic power switchover.

 

[Buttah Butts]

Kohler over generac is a no brainer. Much better generator end and better cabinet options. I have kohler propane unit worth every penny when you lose power. Have a 1000 gal buried tank.

 

[radioguy]

I have a 10Kw gas powered generator. Manual hook up to house. Will run my HVAC, hot water . I have to selectively move loads as it cant power it all at once. Do you have plumbed natural gas? You can run them on that as well. Generac commercial equip is top notch, we ran lots of them in cell sites. my current 10Kw is generac, kawasaki engine.
RG

 

[SmokinAl]

We had a Generac whole house generator in our house in Ft. Lauderdale, and it ran non-stop for 9 days during hurricane Andrew. Oh and BTW it was 12 years old at that point. We now have one here in Sebring, and hope we don’t have any extended outages, but if we do I think the Generac will do the job.
Al

 

[schlotz]

When we were building our new house last year I checked into solar and the cost required to cover the whole house. The cost was well north of $50k vs a whole home 22KW from Generac that was approx $10k. Hard part, Generac was at that time backordered to the tune of 12-16 months. Don't know if that has improved any or not. We were fortunate to locate a dealer that had small supply of them on hand and were able to get it installed last fall. Two choices, natural gas or propane. The propane ones yield the highest output btw.

 

[Chasdev]

After doing research and reading replies here it seems my dream of solar backup with home battery it way way out of my price range, even with the 28% fed tax reduction.
I'm leaning towards gas power gen and lots of Stabil in the stored fuel.

 

[Saint87]

With a solar system, you will need a battery bank and an inverter to turn the DC current to AC current.

As long as you have sunlight you will be producing power. If I lived on the Texas power grid, I would be seriously thinking about investing in a solar system.

Portable fossil fuel generators are great short term supplements to power your home but are often underpowered and overly noisy. That brings you to a residential backup generator.

Your home averages about 1kW running but you will need a bigger generator depending on how many inductive loads you plan to run. This will likely be electric motors that run cooling compressors, clothes dryers, fans, etc. To start a motor, you can require up to 10 times more current than to keep it running. This is why you need 10kW to run a standard household.

Fuel: Generators can be fueled by liquid or gaseous fuels. You can also configure the genset to switch between different fuel types.

Residential generator systems will often have automatic switchgear that will start the generator and repower your home in about 10 seconds after a power interruption.

As far as brands go. I would not buy a Generac product ever for any reason. They don't pull their rated power and just get worse as they get hot. They are cheap junk.

If you want a solid genset, Kohler or Onan are the only ones I would spend my $$ on. I worked at the Kohler Power systems engineering lab for years and did quite bit of genset testing.

Hope this is helpful.

JC

Whew glad I saw this. You are making me completely rethink the Generac plan. I was looking into a whole home system as well and Generac was the plan. Much appreciation's for your input!

 

[TH-n-PA]

Not sure what happened here..

At first I thought you were talking about the Generac bashing and drilling holes in plumbing fixtures but then saw you had a double post or something.

 

[jcam222]

Have you checked with the HOA on a buried propane tank? They don’t have to be above grade.....no one will even know it’s there....

Exactly what I was thinking! This is a great topic. I keep pondering a generator of some kind myself. Our outages are infrequent but I have 2 full freezers and 2 frig freezers full of meat. Everyone around us in nearby towns lost power the last few days. If that had been us I’d have lost thousands in meat. I’m looking for the best solution what would just run two freezers in the garage and perhaps the garage frig.

 

[chopsaw]

I’m looking for the best solution what would just run two freezers in the garage and perhaps the garage frig.

Jeff , I'm the same here . Not worried about the freezer in the basement , but the garage and kitchen fridge won't last long .
I keep a 2 liter soda bottle frozen in the garage freezer to help buy some time .

I've been around the Honda portables . You can't hardly hear them running . That's a big deal for me .

 

[TH-n-PA]

This thread made me buy a propane conversion kit for my Yamaha 2000SI…..

At one time I had two that I could link together until some dirtbag stole one from my truck at the hotel in Asheboro, NC.

 

[clifish]

This thread made me buy a propane conversion kit for my Yamaha 2000SI…..

At one time I had two that I could link together until some dirtbag stole one from my truck at the hotel in Asheboro, NC.

I converted mine to NG now I can run it right from the house NG

 

[lvrgsp]

I'll offer up a few suggestions. You said your house is 100% electric.
You really need to think about what you want to run in the house, ie... just certain appliances or a whole house generator. In thinking about that decision you need to get together a load test. Furnace, air fridges, freezers, stove..they all have a different load range and draw.
If you want a whole house version you could get an LP generator and have a 2 or 3 100 pound bottles in the garage that you can easily run a line to. Maybe that would eliminate your HOA issue.
Second you could get a portable generator have an ac disconnect wired into your house, I have this option I wired in with 6 circuits.
The essentials heat, ac. Fridges, freezers, sump pump and my stove.
I may not use that generator every year, but I start it monthly for 30 minutes and shut the fuel off to kill the generator, there's no need for a fuel stabilizer doing that.
Occasionally I plug things into the generator to use it and load it down.
Really doesn't take that much to maintain. Mine is a 10KW generator it runs what I need to and runs them good.
As has been mentioned before, and not discussed much, is the ac wave, not all ac wave lengths are clean. Some items do not run well or will be hampered.
I would not have a problem with Kohler or Generac. A whole house preference for me....Kohler.
Generac portable.
Good luck

 

[Cabo]

We have 7.5 kw gas powered generator. Power goes out pretty often due to storms. It will run outlets, fridges, freezers and a portable AC. Every year at the start of hurricane season I fill up (10) six gallon gas cans. After hurricane Irma it ran for a week straight, but dealing with gas is a pain.

 

[JC in GB]

Jeff , I'm the same here . Not worried about the freezer in the basement , but the garage and kitchen fridge won't last long .
I keep a 2 liter soda bottle frozen in the garage freezer to help buy some time .

I've been around the Honda portables . You can't hardly hear them running . That's a big deal for me .

I find the Honda generators to be nice and quite. I never did any testing on them so I can't really speak to their load and performance ability.

I would consider one for portable power.

JC

 

[sandyut]

Funny timing...our power went out yesterday and we broke out the generator...mostly for the refer so we could make cocktails.

The Generac systems sure look nice. Less expensive than I thought. but this year is out. $8700 in medical bills, washer and dryer crapping out (new ones on order-hope the old one keep working another 3 weeks), and we started the front yard landscaping...

 

[Jonok]

I’ve got a house with a 400 amp service and a 25KW generac. Got a commercial generac load shedder with an integral disconnect which allowed me to get rid of a bunch of boxes on the front of the house
The thing runs on natural gas, and seems to be pretty flawless. I’ve had it since 2011 and have not had any problems during power outages. It turns itself on for 15 min every Wednesday and I change the battery every couple of years.
Haven’t found a reason to complain, and it runs my whole house (3 seperate hvac systems, 5600 ft2, two kitchens, 3 fridges and two seperate freezers) without any appreciable issues. Gotta give credit where it’s due.

 

[Chasdev]

Sad to hear the comments on Generac, I've seen so many of their adverts the name is stuck in my brain..
The max KW in my shack is just under 1300KW on the coldest day last winter.
For some reason my heat pump uses more juice than the A/C but in any case under1500.
Total month's bill on "normal" temp days is around $185, on days like the last two months it goes to $225.
How to figure amp draw is beyond my cave man understanding of such things.
I found and read my HOA regs and they do allow gens with any fuel but do not talk about hiding propane tanks.
I posted up that question on their forum and hope to get an answer before Texas turns into the Sonora desert.

 

[leont]

I'll offer up a few suggestions. You said your house is 100% electric.
You really need to think about what you want to run in the house, ie... just certain appliances or a whole house generator. In thinking about that decision you need to get together a load test. Furnace, air fridges, freezers, stove..they all have a different load range and draw.
If you want a whole house version you could get an LP generator and have a 2 or 3 100 pound bottles in the garage that you can easily run a line to. Maybe that would eliminate your HOA issue.
Second you could get a portable generator have an ac disconnect wired into your house, I have this option I wired in with 6 circuits.
The essentials heat, ac. Fridges, freezers, sump pump and my stove.
I may not use that generator every year, but I start it monthly for 30 minutes and shut the fuel off to kill the generator, there's no need for a fuel stabilizer doing that.
Occasionally I plug things into the generator to use it and load it down.
Really doesn't take that much to maintain. Mine is a 10KW generator it runs what I need to and runs them good.
As has been mentioned before, and not discussed much, is the ac wave, not all ac wave lengths are clean. Some items do not run well or will be hampered.
I would not have a problem with Kohler or Generac. A whole house preference for me....Kohler.
Generac portable.
Good luck

Load test is a great way to check how fixtures will perform. By the way, I did not think that portable generators could fit, but now technology has stepped far forward.