Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
I dislike diesel due to the inevitable mess and the fact it goes stale, has cold weather issues etc. If the disaster is bad enough to shut off the NG pipes, I think I don't want to be at work. -Original Message- From: Rex-List Account via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
I believe they make treatments to reduce the staleness of stored diesel. You'll also be burning some during your regularly scheduled load tests as well, right? *nudge* ;-) - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 8:28:57 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I dislike diesel due to the inevitable mess and the fact it goes stale, has cold weather issues etc. If the disaster is bad enough to shut off the NG pipes, I think I don't want to be at work. -Original Message- From: Rex-List Account via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
That only goes so far. There's a site near here with a huge diesel tank. I don't know the specs of the generator, but it's backup for a 35,000 Watt FM station.so in any case it's very big. I heard they have to run it for 24 hours each month in order to burn enough fuel to make room for fresh fuel so they don't go stale. I'm sure somebody did the math and decided this was worth it, but they must be burning 100 gallons per month for no better reason than to make room for fresh fuel. I believe they make treatments to reduce the staleness of stored diesel. You'll also be burning some during your regularly scheduled load tests as well, right? *nudge* ;-) - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com https://www.facebook.com/ICSILhttps://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalbhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutionshttps://twitter.com/ICSIL *From: *Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com *To: *af@afmug.com *Sent: *Monday, October 27, 2014 8:28:57 AM *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I dislike diesel due to the inevitable mess and the fact it goes stale, has cold weather issues etc. If the disaster is bad enough to shut off the NG pipes, I think I don't want to be at work. -Original Message- From: Rex-List Account via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
Yeahbut, your tests are generally once a week for 15 minutes, without load. You might burn a gallon of fuel. If you have a 1500 gallon tank, that is a lot of weeks (28 years...) worth of test runs. Even a 500 gallon tank would last almost 10 years on test runs along. Yes, they come along and top it off a couple of times a year but that does not do much to dilute the bad fuel with new. There are microbes that eat diesel. Not sure if the additives kill them completely or not. It must work because lots of large telecom sites have diesel tanks. I have always been LP or NG if I could get it. From: Mike Hammett via Af Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 7:36 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I believe they make treatments to reduce the staleness of stored diesel. You'll also be burning some during your regularly scheduled load tests as well, right? *nudge* ;-) - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 8:28:57 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I dislike diesel due to the inevitable mess and the fact it goes stale, has cold weather issues etc. If the disaster is bad enough to shut off the NG pipes, I think I don't want to be at work. -Original Message- From: Rex-List Account via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
How useful is a test run without load? - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 8:48:34 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Yeahbut, your tests are generally once a week for 15 minutes, without load. You might burn a gallon of fuel. If you have a 1500 gallon tank, that is a lot of weeks (28 years...) worth of test runs. Even a 500 gallon tank would last almost 10 years on test runs along. Yes, they come along and top it off a couple of times a year but that does not do much to dilute the bad fuel with new. There are microbes that eat diesel. Not sure if the additives kill them completely or not. It must work because lots of large telecom sites have diesel tanks. I have always been LP or NG if I could get it. From: Mike Hammett via Af Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 7:36 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I believe they make treatments to reduce the staleness of stored diesel. You'll also be burning some during your regularly scheduled load tests as well, right? *nudge* ;-) - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 8:28:57 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I dislike diesel due to the inevitable mess and the fact it goes stale, has cold weather issues etc. If the disaster is bad enough to shut off the NG pipes, I think I don't want to be at work. -Original Message- From: Rex-List Account via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
Half useful. And that half is the less useful half. I like the guys to kill the power and see the whole thing work a couple of times a year. They are always reticent to do so. “Something might not work!” From: Mike Hammett via Af Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 7:50 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question How useful is a test run without load? - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 8:48:34 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Yeahbut, your tests are generally once a week for 15 minutes, without load. You might burn a gallon of fuel. If you have a 1500 gallon tank, that is a lot of weeks (28 years...) worth of test runs. Even a 500 gallon tank would last almost 10 years on test runs along. Yes, they come along and top it off a couple of times a year but that does not do much to dilute the bad fuel with new. There are microbes that eat diesel. Not sure if the additives kill them completely or not. It must work because lots of large telecom sites have diesel tanks. I have always been LP or NG if I could get it. From: Mike Hammett via Af Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 7:36 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I believe they make treatments to reduce the staleness of stored diesel. You'll also be burning some during your regularly scheduled load tests as well, right? *nudge* ;-) - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com To: af@afmug.com Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 8:28:57 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I dislike diesel due to the inevitable mess and the fact it goes stale, has cold weather issues etc. If the disaster is bad enough to shut off the NG pipes, I think I don't want to be at work. -Original Message- From: Rex-List Account via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
The big guys take care of the diesel tanks by either running their own filtration/conditioning system or having a contractor come out every couple of months and process the fuel through a polishing system.Not cheap but necessary with diesel standby systems. Mark On 10/27/14, 9:48 AM, Chuck McCown via Af wrote: Yeahbut, your tests are generally once a week for 15 minutes, without load. You might burn a gallon of fuel. If you have a 1500 gallon tank, that is a lot of weeks (28 years...) worth of test runs. Even a 500 gallon tank would last almost 10 years on test runs along. Yes, they come along and top it off a couple of times a year but that does not do much to dilute the bad fuel with new. There are microbes that eat diesel. Not sure if the additives kill them completely or not. It must work because lots of large telecom sites have diesel tanks. I have always been LP or NG if I could get it. *From:* Mike Hammett via Af mailto:af@afmug.com *Sent:* Monday, October 27, 2014 7:36 AM *To:* af@afmug.com mailto:af@afmug.com *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I believe they make treatments to reduce the staleness of stored diesel. You'll also be burning some during your regularly scheduled load tests as well, right? *nudge* ;-) - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com https://www.facebook.com/ICSILhttps://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalbhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutionshttps://twitter.com/ICSIL *From: *Chuck McCown via Af af@afmug.com *To: *af@afmug.com *Sent: *Monday, October 27, 2014 8:28:57 AM *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Generator question I dislike diesel due to the inevitable mess and the fact it goes stale, has cold weather issues etc. If the disaster is bad enough to shut off the NG pipes, I think I don't want to be at work. -Original Message- From: Rex-List Account via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 5:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like. -- Mark Radabaugh Amplex m...@amplex.net 419.837.5015 x 1021
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
I'd probably put in two transfer switches. One at the main panel at each building. Then run the output from the generator to each of the transfer switches. The only issue is if the power is out at one building, but not the other. That's probably a utility issue, but no harm either way. The whole point of the transfer switch is to avoid the hazard of back-feeding the utility from the generator. bp On 10/26/2014 2:17 PM, George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af wrote: So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
[AFMUG] Generator question
So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
You could put in the transfer switch that comes with the generator and connect it up as normal for one of the feeds, then add a slave transfer relay that would operate with the following two conditions: 1)Mains voltage of second feed is zero. 2)Voltage out of the generator is not zero. Feed the slave from the input of the generac transfer switch. It would take some additional puzzling to figure out how to force the generator to run when the second feed only is down. I am sure it can be done. You could have a relay between the meter and the transfer switch of feed 1 that would cut feed 1 if feed 2 died. That would force everything to start and run. Cheap and dirty. Inefficient but it would work. I am sure there is a better way. -Original Message- From: George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 3:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
There should be a way to make that work. But if the equipment in one building only draws a modest amount of power, could you put in something like an APC or Tripp-Lite automatic transfer switch, and connect one input to power from the other building AFTER the transfer switch, making this input the secondary? That way you don't have to worry about starting the generator, you just use commercial power from the other building if it's available, otherwise the other building takes care of starting the generator and transferring power to it. -Original Message- From: Chuck McCown via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:58 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question You could put in the transfer switch that comes with the generator and connect it up as normal for one of the feeds, then add a slave transfer relay that would operate with the following two conditions: 1)Mains voltage of second feed is zero. 2)Voltage out of the generator is not zero. Feed the slave from the input of the generac transfer switch. It would take some additional puzzling to figure out how to force the generator to run when the second feed only is down. I am sure it can be done. You could have a relay between the meter and the transfer switch of feed 1 that would cut feed 1 if feed 2 died. That would force everything to start and run. Cheap and dirty. Inefficient but it would work. I am sure there is a better way. -Original Message- From: George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 3:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
On 10/26/14, 14:17, George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af wrote: So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like. Feed a panelboard that subfeeds multiple transfer switches. Use switches that are two wire start signal and a generator that accepts a two wire start signal. Parallel the start connections. They'll switch independently. Pretty common and straightforward thing. I'm feeding three on a bus. If any one of the three want to go to emergency it will and the other two will do whatever they think is right, too. Don't do anything dumb like trying to come up with logic that depends on the others. ~Seth
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
Exactly my thought, which is why I brought this up. So maybe a master switch feeding two sub switches? But I need either or both sides to be able to tell the generator I need power. On 10/26/2014 5:11 PM, Chuck McCown via Af wrote: Those generacs have lots of interconnections between the transfer switch and the generator. They may be able to do a two wire start, but I would not count on it. I have installed lots of them and it seems like there is about 8 control wire. -Original Message- From: Seth Mattinen via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:06 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question On 10/26/14, 14:17, George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af wrote: So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like. Feed a panelboard that subfeeds multiple transfer switches. Use switches that are two wire start signal and a generator that accepts a two wire start signal. Parallel the start connections. They'll switch independently. Pretty common and straightforward thing. I'm feeding three on a bus. If any one of the three want to go to emergency it will and the other two will do whatever they think is right, too. Don't do anything dumb like trying to come up with logic that depends on the others. ~Seth
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
On 10/26/14, 15:11, Chuck McCown via Af wrote: Those generacs have lots of interconnections between the transfer switch and the generator. They may be able to do a two wire start, but I would not count on it. I have installed lots of them and it seems like there is about 8 control wire. I would say such a generator is the wrong tool for this kind of job if it can't handle a two wire start signal. Here's a crappy 30-second one line diagram for a normal situation. But I also don't use generators that mandate some proprietary transfer switch. The last thing I'll say on this topic is to avoid ghetto hack solutions or utility-to-utility transfers, because it really is straightforward (and safe) with the right tools for the job. If you want to hack something and are dead set on Generac, then hack it to come up with a universal two wire contact closure start input, not everything else around it. ~Seth
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
I said I wasn't dead set on the Generac. Only thing is, 1800RPM is cool and quiet. We have houses and other businesses around that don't want to hear an 18 wheeler running full bore all night long. And we have a 6x3' pad poured already, biggest we could fit. On 10/26/2014 5:49 PM, Seth Mattinen via Af wrote: On 10/26/14, 15:11, Chuck McCown via Af wrote: Those generacs have lots of interconnections between the transfer switch and the generator. They may be able to do a two wire start, but I would not count on it. I have installed lots of them and it seems like there is about 8 control wire. I would say such a generator is the wrong tool for this kind of job if it can't handle a two wire start signal. Here's a crappy 30-second one line diagram for a normal situation. But I also don't use generators that mandate some proprietary transfer switch. The last thing I'll say on this topic is to avoid ghetto hack solutions or utility-to-utility transfers, because it really is straightforward (and safe) with the right tools for the job. If you want to hack something and are dead set on Generac, then hack it to come up with a universal two wire contact closure start input, not everything else around it. ~Seth
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
That's the problem, both sides have stuff that needs to be on and are not insignificant loads. Both are 200A panels. On the north side there's the server room, telephone/office network closet, my desk (must have power!), boss' office, bookkeeper's office and the receptionist desk up front. Plus some hallway lights and stuff. The south half has offices and cubicles that must be on, which is probably the most critical because they answer the phones, but they can't do that if the stuff on the north side isn't up. This is also the side that has the tower and generator pad. So I guess on the south side, just install the transfer switch there and transfer that whole panel. Then run say a 50 or 60A circuit over to the north side that has its own simple auto transfer switch of some kind and put only the circuits on it that I need? Then the south panel should always be energized, either utility or gen. Yeah, Ken you're probably right, maybe I'm over-thinking this and that's the easier way to go. Right now I have two Tripp-Lite 3kVA UPS's in the main rack. Both are 110v L5-30 input. Not all of the servers, switches, routers, etc. have dual power supplies, but I can fix that either by replacement at some point or an ATS. So one UPS on the backed up feed and the other not and let it shut down. We're pulling under 1500 watts in the server room when the UPS's are charged. On 10/26/2014 5:06 PM, Ken Hohhof via Af wrote: There should be a way to make that work. But if the equipment in one building only draws a modest amount of power, could you put in something like an APC or Tripp-Lite automatic transfer switch, and connect one input to power from the other building AFTER the transfer switch, making this input the secondary? That way you don't have to worry about starting the generator, you just use commercial power from the other building if it's available, otherwise the other building takes care of starting the generator and transferring power to it. -Original Message- From: Chuck McCown via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:58 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question You could put in the transfer switch that comes with the generator and connect it up as normal for one of the feeds, then add a slave transfer relay that would operate with the following two conditions: 1)Mains voltage of second feed is zero. 2)Voltage out of the generator is not zero. Feed the slave from the input of the generac transfer switch. It would take some additional puzzling to figure out how to force the generator to run when the second feed only is down. I am sure it can be done. You could have a relay between the meter and the transfer switch of feed 1 that would cut feed 1 if feed 2 died. That would force everything to start and run. Cheap and dirty. Inefficient but it would work. I am sure there is a better way. -Original Message- From: George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 3:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
On 10/26/14, 3:56 PM, George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af wrote: I said I wasn't dead set on the Generac. Only thing is, 1800RPM is cool and quiet. We have houses and other businesses around that don't want to hear an 18 wheeler running full bore all night long. And we have a 6x3' pad poured already, biggest we could fit. Ah yes, you did say gas. I'm all diesel and thus 1800 RPM is normal. ~Seth
Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
Yes, standby for utility outages from storms. We have never had gas shut down. Not even after the tornado last year. Not saying it's impossible. If it happened, I could run the most absolutely critical stuff off of a portable generator and propane tank. On 10/26/2014 6:32 PM, Rex-List Account via Af wrote: Just to throw another curve into your thinking - what is your reasoning on the generator? Disaster recovery? Frequent power outages due to storms and such? As a thirty plus year vet at a phone company and a twenty five plus year vet on the fire department let me give you this to ponder. If it is for frequent power outages due to electrical storms, ice, and/or poor power lines then NG is fine. However it has been my experience that in disaster scenarios like earthquakes (ok I haven't actually seen this one) severe storms/tornadoes (I have seen way too many of these) then one of the first things the fire department does is shut down the natural gas pipelines. Too many houses destroyed and the possibilities of way too many leaks. I personally would go with diesel fuel. Almost always available - can be easily trucked in. LP can be hard to source and price fluctuates in the winter. There is always a farmer or construction company around with diesel. NG is defiantly more convenient, but in a true disaster situation it may not be available. Just my two cents worth. Rex -Original Message- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:17 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4 conduit between the two utility closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north, the other from the south. There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
