quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
In-ground Propane Tank (Purchased not leased. Also included an additional 65' of copper line.) - $3,500

Generator and Transfer Switch (Delivered to my home) - $4,400

Electrician Installation - $1,700

I poured the slab for it because, well, I'm too picky to let someone else do it.

So all in, $9,600

Running on propane vs gas, is one preferred over the other? I realize during a hurricane and shortly after, gas may be in short supply or with long lines.

Which electrician company did you use?

I'm in the phase of debating whether I should just go with a portable generator and only power a couple appliances (one window AC unit & fridge) and a light. Not sure if I want to spend $10k.

The only real difference is what's available. If you have gas plumbed down your street, you'll use gas and get it from the gas company because it's generally cheaper. If not, your only choice is to install a propane tank and use propane which generally costs more per gallon.

^^ I had one customer who had NG to her house, but had Washington Gas kill gas to neighborhood during flood (Alexandria VA) she had a propane tank installed and we set generator on pad 4' off the ground in the event of a flood. Her install was not cheap, but would provide power regardless of utilities. In a real shitty situation you can't count on gas company pumping stations to stay online. She wanted to prepare for worst of worst case scenario. Diabetic in the house, could not handle prolonged outages.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
^^ I had one customer who had NG to her house, but had Washington Gas kill gas to neighborhood during flood (Alexandria VA) she had a propane tank installed and we set generator on pad 4' off the ground in the event of a flood. Her install was not cheap, but would provide power regardless of utilities. In a real shitty situation you can't count on gas company pumping stations to stay online. She wanted to prepare for worst of worst case scenario. Diabetic in the house, could not handle prolonged outages.

What did she do for buoyancy control on a the propane tank or was it 4' in the air too? The only reason I ask is putting a generator 4' in the air for a flood is useless if the propane tank floats and the resulting forces snap off your propane connection. You wouldn't believe the shit I've seen float in O&G that people never dreamed could float (e.g. sump tanks pop out of the ground, above ground storage tanks float, etc)

One of the items not frequently talked about is the fuel consumption and durability of these units. 20kw generators are going to use something like 3 gallons of propane an hour which is approximately 72 gallons a day. At $2 a gallon for propane, 24 hours of electricity will cost $144. A 500 gallon tank, if filled to 80% is only going to last for 6 days. Running the generator continuously for a week is going to put 168 hours on it. In a prolonged outage the life of the generator is going to be used up in a matter of weeks. What is the real life expectancy of these units in hours? The commercials for these things kind of gloss over those facts and show the happy family living life as usual. As pointed out, natural gas could be shut off. I have one and am grateful for it but I sure don't want to have to use it very much. We have a basement and I sized ours to not include running A/C which means the propane consumption is cut in half. We will go to the basement if it is hot outside. I guess I'm cheap.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Gene Hillman,

quote:

What did she do for buoyancy control on a the propane tank or was it 4' in the air too?

It was buried. I assume the ground would keep it in place. Tank was installed by propane company, never even thought about the idea of a LP tank floating.

She showed me a video from last major flood she had of water coming in the dryer vent, looked like a fire hydrant. I would have moved after that.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

What did she do for buoyancy control on a the propane tank or was it 4' in the air too?

It was buried. I assume the ground would keep it in place. Tank was installed by propane company, never even thought about the idea of a LP tank floating.

Need to install buoyancy control or it'll do this next flood:


There is enough uplift forces that a buried tank can breech even if under a concrete parking lot:


This isn't buried yet, but it's an example of buoyancy control system that still allows cathodic protection to protect all 360 degrees of the tank.

Damn tater!

If she has another one of the 100 year floods that happen every 10 years or so she's not going to be a happy camper. I am sure that she didn't go through that effort, don't know for sure as the propane company set the tank and plumbed it to the stub up at the house for our gas guy to run the final segment to genny. Knowing this lady she may have asked them to bolt the the to the upper mantle for all I know. She had 3 feet of standing water in her yard so I don't think the tank would stay put after seeing your pics.

Propane is god awful expensive. I honestly think the best course of action is to run a smaller generator and power less circuits. Do you REALLY need to power that 220V dryer? Would a clothes line work instead?

People over buy on size on these things and dont think about how much is actually cost to run these things. You need to keep your food cold, and your house comfortable. And a few lights and a modem on. If you do that, your comfortable. And you can do that with 10K watts.

An in ground propane tank will set you back $4000 install price and last you 6 days until its empty. Natural gas is cheaper, hooked to the house, and probably the better option if you have it.

I think we paid $13K for our whole house generator when we had the house built last year. I think it’s 20kW. Propane fuel as it’s what heats our house. We have lost power about 8 times this past year, not for long times. But frequent enough to be happy we have a generator.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Propane is god awful expensive. I honestly think the best course of action is to run a smaller generator and power less circuits. Do you REALLY need to power that 220V dryer? Would a clothes line work instead?

People over buy on size on these things and dont think about how much is actually cost to run these things. You need to keep your food cold, and your house comfortable. And a few lights and a modem on. If you do that, your comfortable. And you can do that with 10K watts.

An in ground propane tank will set you back $4000 install price and last you 6 days until its empty. Natural gas is cheaper, hooked to the house, and probably the better option if you have it.

Generators burn less if they're running less of a load. If you have a 20 KW generator and your demand is 9 kw, it's going to burn quite a bit less fuel than if you're demanding 18 kw.

On yachts where we have a 20 kw DIESEL generator I factor in and generally the generator is using .75-1 gph, on a 24 hour average. Our HVAC load is considerable compared to a house and during the day easily averaging 50 amps per hour at 240v. I can also easily load it up fully during the day with the RO water maker at 20-25 amps 240v, washer/dryer, electric grill and stove/oven. I would think a propane (or NG) 20 kw generator would use more GPH than diesel, but I'd figure 1.5 gph average (depending on demand). Keep in mind at night a house generally uses much less electric (if it's hot outside).

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Propane is god awful expensive. I honestly think the best course of action is to run a smaller generator and power less circuits. Do you REALLY need to power that 220V dryer? Would a clothes line work instead?

People over buy on size on these things and dont think about how much is actually cost to run these things. You need to keep your food cold, and your house comfortable. And a few lights and a modem on. If you do that, your comfortable. And you can do that with 10K watts.

An in ground propane tank will set you back $4000 install price and last you 6 days until its empty. Natural gas is cheaper, hooked to the house, and probably the better option if you have it.

Good thing he specified he'd be using NG.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
In-ground Propane Tank (Purchased not leased. Also included an additional 65' of copper line.) - $3,500

Generator and Transfer Switch (Delivered to my home) - $4,400

Electrician Installation - $1,700

I poured the slab for it because, well, I'm too picky to let someone else do it.

So all in, $9,600

Running on propane vs gas, is one preferred over the other? I realize during a hurricane and shortly after, gas may be in short supply or with long lines.

Which electrician company did you use?

I'm in the phase of debating whether I should just go with a portable generator and only power a couple appliances (one window AC unit & fridge) and a light. Not sure if I want to spend $10k.

Propane has a much, much, longer shelf life than gas. And I think the propane tank they installed is like 300 gallons, which gives me a run time of like 4 days before needing to be refilled. Th electrician used was recommended by the generator company I bought the hardware from.

Last time I checked, even if you have say a 22kw Generac generator and transfer switch on site, the wait for installations was something like 6 months given the backup in their pipeline. The guy I bought my system from stopped selling new installs while trying to catch up on his backlog. Don't know how current times have impacted that though.