Generator for Pellet Stove

[pegdot]

Well.....SHOOT! Now I'm going to have to roll out the genny and try it on the stove. Better make sure it will work before I need it! Ours is big so I don't think size would be an issue but this "clean" electricity thing is news to me. I've never used it to power any sophisticated electronics. Usually just saws, lights, air compressor, battery charger, and such. We've only ever had to use it for the house once and if I remember right I had a sump pump, the blower on our wood burner, the microwave, one TV, and a couple of lamps plugged in to it. Certainly did a nice job. The only danger was tripping over the extension cords. :roll:

 

[Highbeam]

Good idea Peggy. It is very important to test your emergency equipment even to the extent of eating an MRE just so you know what to expect.

If your generator ran the microwave and TV with no apparent ill effects like flickers, crazy displays, etc. then I would say that your odds are good for success with the stove. Make sure that your extension cord is adequate for the amperage.

Running extension cords of adequate gauge and length can be a tripping hazard but it is electrically a very safe way to do things. Even better is one of the various transfer switch options but that requires investment. Much worse than extension cords is the famous double male ended suicide cord used to send current from the generator through an existing plug in the house like a dryer or welder outlet. Very common and quite illegal.

 

[drizler]

At 4 times in 14 years you will surely have way more problems with the gen set than you could ever hope to have with needing power during a winter outage. You will have to change out the gas and or start it regularly or it will literally get all gummed up and not start when you need it. Why not just go to Wallyworld or Sammys club or wherever and get an inverter. Then you can run it off one of your cars batteries till the power comes back on or the house is warm. I have a POWER ON BOARD 500 That I haven't even used and sits in a little plastic box it came in.. I think I paid around $25 or so at Sams club. Its a modified sine wave like the generator I use on occasion. Its small and just sits there waiting to be needed. On the other hand my generator needs starting every couple months and has had a few small rubber pieces go bad and I have had to replace and pull the carb apart and clean out once since 1998. We get outages every few months here in NY.
When it comes to generators we got the full education in our big ice storm and I had the privelige of owning a Cloleman. It was a big monster 6200. Very hard to start no compression break so it was doubly hard and ran very badly. A good genset should cost around 700 bucks and is a world of difference. Sears sells decent ones that I think are made by Generac. If you do get one keep it filled with decent gas and STABIL fuel stabilizer and dump it in your car every 6 months and replace. For what you need I think a cheap inverter utilizing whatever batteries you may have around the house would serve your needs better. You can use any car, tractor boat or whatever 12 volt you have around just keep them charged up on a battery maintainer, something you should do anyway. Buying a purpose specific battery like deep cycle is nice but won't do you any good if it goes dead sitting around so you need that charged up too. They do sell those neat little solar chargers on ebay that come on all the new volkswagens in transit . They are nice and well built for a good price. Otherwise Wallyworld sells a Black and decker plug in model that suffices. I have one of those and it only runs once in a while and as needed for a price under 20 bucks.
My own personal favorite for emergency heating is one of those coleman powermate 45000 btu radiant heaters you put on top of a propane BBQ bottle. No electric needed will heat your house for a day or 2 on a BBQ bottle of propane and is small since it sits on top vertically being about 3 feet high sitting on top of the bottle. Its easy to move around carrying by the bottles handles too. I use mine all the time sunning my tushey fixing broken cars and tractors in a snowbank and to heat my garage when I need quick heat. Ebay for around 100 usually and can be dialed down from 45 k to 25 I believe. I positively love mine and wouldnt be without one again. I use it to heat up the house in the morning when its super cold to make up for the pellet stove being so slow to bring it up to temp. I hope all this isn't too confusing but as you can see there is no simple cheap or long term answer now is there. Remember those wise words of the kindly drill seargant , "KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID". It all goes so much easier when things go wrong doing it that way.

 

[MainePellethead]

At 4 times in 14 years you will surely have way more problems with the gen set than you could ever hope to have with needing power during a winter outage. You will have to change out the gas and or start it regularly or it will literally get all gummed up and not start when you need it. Why not just go to Wallyworld or Sammys club or wherever and get an inverter. Then you can run it off one of your cars batteries till the power comes back on or the house is warm. I have a POWER ON BOARD 500 That I haven't even used and sits in a little plastic box it came in.. I think I paid around $25 or so at Sams club. Its a modified sine wave like the generator I use on occasion. Its small and just sits there waiting to be needed. On the other hand my generator needs starting every couple months and has had a few small rubber pieces go bad and I have had to replace and pull the carb apart and clean out once since 1998. We get outages every few months here in NY.
When it comes to generators we got the full education in our big ice storm and I had the privelige of owning a Cloleman. It was a big monster 6200. Very hard to start no compression break so it was doubly hard and ran very badly. A good genset should cost around 700 bucks and is a world of difference. Sears sells decent ones that I think are made by Generac. If you do get one keep it filled with decent gas and STABIL fuel stabilizer and dump it in your car every 6 months and replace. For what you need I think a cheap inverter utilizing whatever batteries you may have around the house would serve your needs better. You can use any car, tractor boat or whatever 12 volt you have around just keep them charged up on a battery maintainer, something you should do anyway. Buying a purpose specific battery like deep cycle is nice but won't do you any good if it goes dead sitting around so you need that charged up too. They do sell those neat little solar chargers on ebay that come on all the new volkswagens in transit . They are nice and well built for a good price. Otherwise Wallyworld sells a Black and decker plug in model that suffices. I have one of those and it only runs once in a while and as needed for a price under 20 bucks.
My own personal favorite for emergency heating is one of those coleman powermate 45000 btu radiant heaters you put on top of a propane BBQ bottle. No electric needed will heat your house for a day or 2 on a BBQ bottle of propane and is small since it sits on top vertically being about 3 feet high sitting on top of the bottle. Its easy to move around carrying by the bottles handles too. I use mine all the time sunning my tushey fixing broken cars and tractors in a snowbank and to heat my garage when I need quick heat. Ebay for around 100 usually and can be dialed down from 45 k to 25 I believe. I positively love mine and wouldnt be without one again. I use it to heat up the house in the morning when its super cold to make up for the pellet stove being so slow to bring it up to temp. I hope all this isn't too confusing but as you can see there is no simple cheap or long term answer now is there. Remember those wise words of the kindly drill seargant , "KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID". It all goes so much easier when things go wrong doing it that way.

I hadnt planned on "just" for the pellet stove. As with my other toys I would run it fairly regular for various chores around the house etc....but yes.....what you have said makes sense. Thanks

 

[Kenny1]

Before buying a generator. prehaps you should do some thinking about what you are going to use it for and how you are going to connect it.

If you just wish to power a pellet stove, a small generator will suffice. If you wish to ride out a 2 or 3 day power outage, and run the stove, fridge, well pump, freezer, etc., you may need a larger unit (and a large amount of stored fuel!).

Gas is handy for most of use, but does not store well. Desiel keeps longer. but the generators cost more. NG may also be an option for you, or propane.

How often does the power go out for long periods where you live? Are you planning for the “storm of the centuary” or just looking to ride out “typical” conditions? To handle a week requires a much larger budget than to cover a 1 - 2 day outage.

What is the load size? Do you want to run everything (including the big screen TV), or would a fridge and a couple of CF light bulbs be enough? Keep in mind the start up current draw of motors (e.g. well pump).

How will you connect the generator to the load? This is very critical for your safety (and the safety of others). A proper transfer switch is required for powering hard wired appliances, and is very safe and convient. Extensions cords are fine for smaller loads, but more work to hook up.

Will you have fuel for your generator? How much? How long can you store it for? Where will you store it?

Whatever you do get, be sure to order some extra filters for it (you need to change them durning a power outage).

If you do go gas, then the smallest generator will require the least amount of fuel (a good thing if gas is scarce!).

BTW, we have a B&S;PRO4000 (nice, clean, well regulated power), and a bunch of extension cords.

Cheers


Kenny

 

[zogboy]

I converted my Homelite/b+s 4500 w to burn
propane a few years back.
I got the parts from a WVa company for around $35.
I took about an hour to do the conversion .
I have a manual transfer I got out of salvage from work.

The oil seems to stay cleaner with propane and the plug is alway clean.

It will run my boiler, fridge, lights , and entertainment.
in the inverter
But if I just need power to the pellet stove I plug into the 750 w inverter on my little car and let that run
to power the car.
It is a lot less hassle.

 

[wilbilt]

How will you connect the generator to the load? This is very critical for your safety (and the safety of others). A proper transfer switch is required for powering hard wired appliances, and is very safe and convient. Extensions cords are fine for smaller loads, but more work to hook up.

I agree that safety in this matter is of utmost concern. It is absolutely imperative that you do not backfeed the utility lines.

My home is a manufactured home, which means it has a subpanel that powers everything in the home, but the well pump and outbuildings are fed from the main panel out on the power pole. I installed a 6-circuit transfer switch on the house panel several years ago (remember Y2K? LOL) but due to procrastination, I never wired it in.

During this latest outage, I simply pulled an extension cord in through a window to power a refrigerator and freezer as well as cell phone chargers, etc.

In order to power the well pump, I had to tie into the pump circuit at the main panel. With the main breaker shut off, I removed the wires going to the pump from their circuit breaker and wired them to a Romex pigtail with a 220V plug to match the generator cord.

Since the generator I bought will not supply power to the 110V and 220V outlets at the same time, I had to alternate between running the appliances and running the well pump. This actually worked out pretty well, since my pellet stove runs directly on 12V power.

I could have cobbled together a "Y" cable to power everything at the same time, but since it was raining heavily, I did not want to temp fate by playing with electricity while soaking wet.

I plan to be better prepared for next time by wiring the transfer switch, adding a permanent twistlock connection for the well pump, and putting together some cables that will allow everything to be connected at once.

 

[MainePellethead]

"Driz" mentioned "inverters" . Can someone explain a little more on them. Not real familiar with....right size inverter? And the operation of the pellet stove with it?

 

[Highbeam]

An inverter takes direct current such as the power from a car battery and creats alternating current that looks sorta like what the power company sends you. Input is usually 12 volt and output is 110 volt. The inverter's AC output is generally good enough to run most things and some inverters do a better job of creating this cleanly. They all consume a bit of the power in the conversion. They are available in many sizes and price ranges. Some are small enough to plug into the cigarrete lighter of your car and produce AC to use for a home DVD player or cell phone charger. Some are big enough to run the entire house as is the case with most off-grid types folks that use solar or wind power to charge batteries.

There is another device called a converter that makes DC out of AC and is essentially a battery charger but if you had a 12volt DC device you could run it with AC power.

With an inverter, say a 1200 watt output one. You've got to send the same amount of watts to it from the battery so 1200 watts. Well that's 100 amps of 12 volt DC power and it's going to take two fat and expensive pieces of wire. Once you convert the same watts to AC it is only 10 amps and a tiny little 14 gauge wire will pass the current safely. The point is that you want to locate your inverter very close to the battery and then run the AC line to your appliance. The batteries will bubble and blow all kinds of nasty fumes and gas while putting out their power so you want the batteries outside or in an outbuilding.

A welder operates at 25 volts and I can weld 1/4" steel plate with 90 amps. 100 amps of DC power is really something and the batteries will be working.

 

[zogboy]

"Driz" mentioned "inverters" . Can someone explain a little more on them. Not real familiar with....right size inverter? And the operation of the pellet stove with it?

I got a little 750 watt inverter made by black and decker at walmart for $49.

I connect it directly to the battery in my little geo metro.
I put a large alternator on the car last summer to power this
setup.
It will idle for days on a tank of gas , I run a 14 ga 50 cord to my stove and stay toasty warm .

 

[bit_flores]

Ok, generators ==> I use a backup generator. I have a 5000 watt Generac. I bought it because we have an all-electric house and have outages here near Cleveland. It does NOT cause any major issues with the pellets stove when I have used it during an outage. Sine wave distortion or not, my pellet stove handles it well. If the pellet stove circuit design is robust enough, the only thing that should matter most is the voltage. The generator easily handles my standard emergency load: pellet stove, sump pump, lights, refrigerator, freezer, microwave if needed, plus a couple of computers if I want to get on the internet. My APC UPS units do complain because of the wave distortion, but they manage to still work and take the charge from the crappy sine wave.

Now, UPS units ==> I have successfully run my pellet stove with a APC 1000 Back-UPS Pro this last November. It had new batteries put in this last summer. The UPS ran fine, with the stove on a B setting. It ran for over an hour, with plenty of battery life left on the UPS. The power came back on, so I cannot tell you how long it would last until the battery charge would deplete. I have read on other forums that if you have a UPS that takes a 12 volt battery source input, you can use marine batteries as your battery source. That would greatly increase your UPS backup life. Just make sure that you use the proper wire gage, connectors and use the protective battery boxes.

 

[CygnusX1]

I use an American Power battery back up unit.

It's not much bigger than a stereo receiver.

I get 8-10 hours of uninterrupted power from it.

 

[wundercat]

Regardless of what power source is running your stove, you should always use a good surge protector between the stove and the 110v power source.
The "choppy" edges of the sinewave (or modified sine) create little needle-like spikes in the signal. The spikes are also created when motors turn on and off, back-feeding spikes to other devices connected to the same common power connections.

Low voltage digital circuits tend to be very sensitive to these spikes.

I would also make sure that any surge protector you purchase is rated for 360 joules or more. If that information isn't printed on the box, don't buy that surge protector.

 

[melody]

800 bucks? Where you shoppin?
I have a portable Coleman Proforce
3750 that powers my stove, computer,
and more. Paid 313.00 shipped on sale
from northern tool.
Price might be a little higher now but my
point being you can get a good one for
short money.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_449_449.

THanks for this. I was gonna ask the same thing so this would help.
It's still a lot of money for me though. Can't afford for sure but i'll save up.




Regards,
Melody
(broken link removed)