We have successfully plumbed in RV-style hot water heaters with tiny tanks in
them, and set the thermostat to kick in at -20C (or whatever is required).
Locating the hot water heater on the floor beside the generator it
thermosiphons. One site has been working like this for 8 years unattended an
My apologies for the brief response I was on the road.
There are two options I have done.
I normally try to get batteries stored in a heated room, so adding the gen
if there is room there is an initial easy fix.
We vent the exhaust air with a motorized louvered damper controlled by a
room thermost
I too have an off grid customer with a Quad Stack, who has plumbed
his Onan 20kW (industrial) unit as a heat source to his home's
hydronic system. We installed his system in 2005; later he became
the CEO of Solar Logic, the state-of-the-art solar-hydronic controls
develop
Wrenches
We just had a utility side issue that had the same transfomer damage on
only neutral wire. This was a larger 3/0 inverter 333 k but the utility may
be a direction to look at. This was one of three systems, none of the
others showed damage either. There should be next to nothing on that wi
We have installed many low ambient temp propane genset and here are a few
suggestions. I would recommend underground 1k propane tank this allows
constant 50* temp improves the evap rate of liquid propane and prevents fuel
starvation /lean burn conditions due to low evap rates. Primary reg set f
Hi Kelly,
Sounds like a doozey. As others have posted, it sounds like an imbalance
issue. However, it might be possible to solve the problem without replacing
the major equipment (could just be wire size, phasing, fuses, etc?). Do you
have a single line diagram you can share?
Best,
August
Hi Dana,
I have an off-grid client (central/northern Alberta) who tried this but the
heat from the gen would shut down the magnum inverter due to over temp. This
was in an enclosed room (~15'x15') in a much larger shop.
The gen was being exhausted outside but it was an air-cooled unit, so blew
Chris,
After I hit the send button, I thought about how a small generator or
gas grill will use tank pressure through a vapor regulator. If this
generator is plumbed that way, there lies a problem that your solution
of heating the tank will work with. Personally I would not plumb a
generator
Hi Chris,
LP will boil (vaporize) at -44° so until your ambient temperature is
below that it is vaporizing. Heating the tank will increase the liquid
and vapor pressure in the tank but it is still liquid, not vapor, that
is plumbed to a cold regulator, or vaporizer if they have one, where the
A block heater and off grid will not mix well at all.
Might want to look at a "Wabasto heater" It is a mini furnace designed for
over the road trucks. Reasonable on fuel and power consumption. I think it
is www.webasto.com
Just a thought,
Bob
-Original Message-
From: RE-wrenches [mailto:
You may want to contact the gen set manufacture to see if the genny can go
cold "freeze protection" at sub zero because it may be required to operate
24/7in that condition. you may be able to install a thermostat to control
the block heater, this way its not always on. PS I would use the Outback
Hi guys,
I don't live in super cold.
I'm curious about the block heater part. With the good synthetic oils that are
thin at really cold
Is the issue heating the block or battery or heating the intake for propane
units?
Thanks
Jay
Peltz power
> On Apr 3, 2015, at 8:21 AM, James Jefferson J
At our high elevation installs the generator gets installed indoors with the
balance of the offgrid system we utilize the heat for the room
Dana Orzel 208.721.7003
Encourage Free Thinking Self Responsible Free Range Children
On Apr 2, 2015, at 8:47 PM, Gary Higbee wrote:
Wrenches,
I'm curio
Heating the regulator won't help if the propane is not vapourizing. You
would need to heat the tank.
However, you do not need to heat it very much, just enough to let it
vapourize. Think about putting it somewhere with a little heat, or burying
it.
On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Larry wrote:
>
Kelly- You've got phase-balancing issues that will not be entirely solved with 3-phase breakers, but that's a good place to start. As Jarmo wrote, some inverters will talk to each other to shut them all down when one stops. Many manufacturers are now building 3-phase inverters to solve this phase-
About the carb heat idea...LP is a liquid at -44°F. The liquid does not
combust, it must be vaporized. As the ambient temperature drops closer
to the LP liquid temperature, there would be a reduction in how fast
liquid is vaporizing and therefor a reduction in volume. What you need
in cold weat
OBTW, I do have one off grid customer that has the water jacket from his diesel genny plumbed into his heating system. So no only can he dump heat from the engine into his thermal storage tank, he can also treat the engine as a zone and heat it from the wood furnace.dbDan BrownFoxfire Energy Corp.R
We have had good luck with a product called "Kim Hot Start". We have one install that runs 24/7 and tokes some 800W (When it cycles). Another is set up for manual control (on a switch) that needs to be turned on a few hours before a start. I've been noodling with an Aux controlled contactor for aut
On 4/3/2015 9:32 AM, drake.chamber...@redwoodalliance.org wrote:
We are dealing with a generator that absolutely won't start when cold, so
I was considering a block heater. Below 20 deg F it has proven worthless,
and we can see -20 F on occasion.
I had a generator like that. Below zero it would
We are dealing with a generator that absolutely won't start when cold, so
I was considering a block heater. Below 20 deg F it has proven worthless,
and we can see -20 F on occasion.
My concern is using power from a low battery on a cold cloudy day to heat
a generator. How long does it take to make
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