We’d had a Power Failure On A Winter Day In Our City Home and we decided  we’d do what we could do to be ready for another one.

In wasn’t long before we were looking at Generators.

As usual, we looked for answers on the Internet. In addition, we talked to retailers and, when we could, to electricians. We got information on specific products, and that was alright. We felt, however, that what we really needed at our stage of the game was the ‘Big Picture ‘and that there was very little of that.

We felt that an understanding of how all the different pieces went together would give us the best chance of getting the generators and overall setups that best suited to our particular needs.

So here you will see the ‘big picture’ of installation options and generator types that we’ve pieced together. We think we’ve improved our chances of getting what’s right for us. We are not generator experts. We’re not electricians. We’re still working on Voltage Control and Power Quality. But we think that what we now have is the sort of big picture we’d like to have had in the beginning, and that it might be useful to someone else looking at generators for the first time. Here’s our story to date.

How We Came to Look at Generators.

Matching Generators and Electric Motors

Running One Piece of Equipment at a Time

What about Running Everything at Once?

What Installation Options are there?

What types of Generators are Available?

You may want to read our entire story. You may want to skip to one of the headings above. If you have information on Voltage Control or Power Quality, we’d be happy to have it. If you can improve on what we have done so far, we’d be happy to hear about that as well.

How We Came to Look at Generators

First we wanted the ability to get heat for our City home We hadn’t had that during our power failure.

We decided that after that, we’d also look at some on-going problems at our cottage.

Generators were not the first thing we looked at. They came a little later.

It began on a cold winter day in our smallish city home. We had no power and we had no heat. We knew, however, that some neighbors had natural gas fireplaces that ran without electricity. They probably had no worries about frozen pipes. They were likely sitting cozily beside their fireplaces.

Should we get a natural gas fireplace? We’d investigate.

First, we learned that a ‘direct vent’ natural gas fireplace would be our best choice. Second, we learned that the in-store estimate for the installation of their least expensive ‘simulated-airtight-stove’ model was something approaching $5000. Third, it became obvious that there was no ‘nice’ place for the beauty of any fireplace in our four-room home. A fireplace seemed expensive; it wouldn’t fit in our place anyway. It wasn’t an option for us.

Next, we thought about a generator to supply electricity for our furnace fan. That would solve our heat problem. Generator prices in big box stores were attractive. In addition, since a generator had to be set up outside, a generator would solve our space problem. We would learn to understand generators, how to set one up, and how to pick one out.

In the city, power failures had been a problem in the summer as well as in the winter. While we solved our heat problem, we’d look at what we needed for our two refrigerators, our freezer, a fry pan, a computer and a couple of lights as well.

Then there was our cottage. We were having more power outages there. We imagined hydro crews searching miles of bush to find a problem, especially in the winter, with some combination of heavy snow, strong wind or -20 degree temperatures.

Our problems at the cottage, however, were not the same as our problems in the city. Heat is not a problem since we have an airtight wood stove there.

Light can be a problem at the cottage. Candles and burning oil lamps make us uneasy on cloudy black nights and carrying hot stove ashes outside through the cottage in the dark makes us uncomfortable, even with battery light.

Refrigeration is also an issue at the cottage. The refrigerator freezer stays cold for eight hours with the door closed but in thirty hours its contents turn to mush.

In addition, we’d like to be able to use the well pump. We can drink bottled water but, without the well pump, flushing toilets is a problem. Being in our seventies, we find buckets of water heavy and clumsy. Lifting them to fill the toilet tank is exacting work – missing means a messy clean-up job!

We know from experience that throwing buckets in the bowl only works if you throw enough water into the bowl quickly. Otherwise, you can plug the drain. And do you keep full buckets on hand forever? When will the next power failure come?

In the city, the number one issue would be electricity for the furnace fan. We would also like our two refrigerators, our freezer, a frying pan or stockpot, some lights and a computer.

At the cottage, we would want lights, the well pump, at least one of our two refrigerators, a frying pan and our notebooks. Satellite internet should not require much additional power and we want to know what’s going on.

Matching Generators and Electric Motors

Now that we knew what we wanted, the next step was to figure out how to get it.

We learned that generators produce Watts, that Watts are the result of Volts (push) times Amps (volume), and that Watts is Power. We also noticed that the watts a generator produced seemed to vary with the horsepower of the engine in the generator.

The watts required to run things like toasters and light bulbs were easy to define. They were listed on the box or the product itself.

When we looked into the watts required to run electric motors, however, we ran into problems. We learned that Electric Motors could have both Starting Watt and Running Watt needs. The Starting Watts needed by some electric motors (that is the power they needed to get their drive shafts ‘unlocked’ and starting to rotate) could be difficult to define.

To be more specific, the starting watts needed by some electric motors could be as much as (or more than) three times their Running Watts (the power they needed to maintain their running speed once they reached it).

It seemed to be like an automobile. The more weight (people?) you had in the car, the more difficult it could be to get the car moving. You had to push harder on the gas peddle. You could hear the engine working harder. Once you got the car up to cruising speed, however, it seemed relatively easy to keep it there.

It seemed that in somewhat the same way, you might not know the Starting Watts needed to get an electric motor up to cruising speed (you might not know how much ‘weight’ you were dealing with). But once you got the motor up to speed, it might not be so hard to keep it there. 

In addition, refrigerators and furnaces started at unpredictable times. What were the chances and what would be the effect of more than one electric motor starting at the same time while running on one generator.

Could an inadequate generator destroy itself and/or an electric motor? Might a few seconds of insufficient Starting Watts overheat and damage a generator or a motor – maybe not immediately but over time? Might it trip a circuit breaker? Marginal generator capacity was likely a bad idea.

Running One Piece of Equipment At A Time

In the city, each circuit breaker on the main panel had a label. The furnace ran on a 15-amp breaker. Since that breaker had never tripped, 15 amps x 120 volts or 1800 Watts would start and run the furnace. It might take fewer watts, but not more. The big refrigerator said 10 Amps inside the cabinet. Did this mean (10 amps x 120 volts) 1200 watts Running Watts or 1200 Starting Watts? Since this fridge ran on a 20-amp breaker (20 amps x 120 volts = 2400 watts), it might take as much as 2400 watts to start. The breaker labels might overstate requirements, but at least they ought to be adequate. The other refrigerator (7.9 amps) and the freezer (5.5 amps) ran on 15 amp breakers. Therefore, 2400 watts was the load of our largest piece of equipment.

Turning breakers on and off, we should be able to cycle through this equipment one piece at a time.

With 2400 watts for starting the big refrigerator and a 600 watt allowance for lights and a computer, a generator with 3000 Starting Watts should do it. We would have to be there to manage the cycling.

In the city, then, with the right extensions, we could have perhaps three half hour runs on each of the two refrigerators and the freezer with a half hour run every two hours on the furnace. If we could get the power from the generator to the furnace, this should work.

At the cottage, we mapped many circuits by turning breakers on and off and then selected the circuits that would provide us with basic cooking and computing and essential lighting. When we turned off a 40-amp breaker and the well pump would not start, we knew that the starting watts for the well pump could be no more than 40 amps which multiplied by 120 volts gave us 4800 watts. We did not have the exact Starting Watts but we knew that it could be not more than the 4800 watts that had worked for years.

On the other hand, the well pump motor controller said ’5.9 amps max at 240 volts’ (5.9amps x 240 volts) or 1416 watts. Is that what ‘max’ meant? Did it mean 1416 Starting Watts? Would doubling that to 2832 watts or tripling it to 4248 watts be necessary? On the phone, the people who installed the well in 1985 said that they advise all well owners to allow 5000 watts to start a well pump. Our 4800 watts for the well pump would then, at the least, be adequate. Therefore, we came to the same answer for the pump both ways.

If we cycled through one piece of equipment at a time (as above in the city) and allowed 4800 watts for the pump and an additional 600 watts for some lights and a computer that might be running when we started the well pump, 5400 watts should do it. With the pump off, the ’6.5 amps max’ (6.5amps x 120volt = 780watt) refrigerator and the ’5.5 amp’ refrigerator should be no problem.

What about running Everything at Once?

Making tables for the Running and Starting Watts of the equipment in our city home and at our cottage showed us the maximum starting watts at each of our locations.

In The City

At The Cottage

In the city, if we decided to run one piece of equipment at a time, we would need 2400 Starting Watts. If we wanted lights at the same time we might add 600 watts for a total of 3000 Starting Watts.

At the cottage adding 600 watts for lights would mean (4800+ 600 watts) a total of 5400 Starting Watts.

3000 and 5400 are probably the minimums we would select. Depending on models available and prices, we might decide to buy bigger units and enjoy more flexibility.

As an aside, on the Internet, we have noticed that a few libraries are loaning out watt meters – one library asks for a $70 check it would cash if the meter were not back on time. What a great service! Their idea seems to be to help members to identify energy-hog appliances. It might help define generator requirements as well.

With an idea of the watts we needed, we had another thing to think about. We still had to get the electricity from the generators to things like the furnace in the city and the well pump at the cottage. Those things run on circuit breakers in the main utility panel.

An electrician with generator experience might answer many of our questions. Some have said they would try to help – but no luck so far. The building boom may be the problem.

What Installation Options are there?

With the right generator, we still had to get the power to all the equipment we wanted to run.

To run a few lights and a refrigerator, it seemed we’d need nothing more than grounding for the generator and appropriate extensions for plugging the equipment into the generator (we want to know more about surge protection).

The furnace in the city and the well pump at the cottage, however, were not ‘plug-ins’. They ran directly from circuit breakers in the main panel and we learned that we needed a ‘Transfer Panel’ to run them from a generator. If we wanted to get electricity from a generator to anything that had been running on a circuit breaker in the main panel, that circuit breaker had to be moved from the main utility circuit breaker panel to a Transfer Panel.

The Function of ‘Transfer Panels’

The sketches below are meant to depict the functions of a standard Transfer Panel set-up.

In the following sketches, the Transfer Panel Switch is a key component.

In the first sketch, the Utility is ‘On’. In this case, with the Transfer Panel Switch connecting the Transfer Panel to the Main Utility Panel, electricity from the utility goes to both the Utility Main Panel and to the Transfer Panel and both panels feed electricity into the house (on the right).

Below, the Transfer Panel Switch is disconnected from the Utility Main Panel and connected to the generator. Now, only the Generator can feed electricity to the Transfer Panel (and the house).

Now, only those circuit breakers that were moved to the Transfer Panel can feed electricity to the house. The utility is not connected to the house and the generator can not ‘back-feed’ to the utility.

A licensed electrician should install a transfer panel. In addition, your utility must also approve your transfer panel. An improperly installed transfer panel could back-feed electricity from the generator to the utility’s lines and electrocute anyone working on the line – possibly someone repairing the damage that created your need for a generator.

What types of Transfer Panels are Available?

So far, we have found three general types of transfer panels.

First, there is the ‘traditional’ setup depicted above. Power produced by the generator can reach the transfer panel when the transfer switch is disconnected from the main panel and connected to the line from the generator. Switching is done manually. 

In this traditional ‘renovation’ type installation at either our city home or at the cottage, the wires leading to the circuit breakers that would be moved from the main panel would be too short to reach those breakers when they were moved to a more distant transfer panel. In both locations, junction boxes and additional wire would be needed to reach those circuit breakers in their new location. This looks like a significant amount of labor for an electrician.

We understand that the second type of transfer panel is a relatively new type that comes with its own breakers and extensions for connection to a main utility panel. You are buying additional breakers, making it more expensive initially. It could, however, require less labor and cost less overall. A licensed electrician should also install this type. It must also be approved by your utility.

The third type and the only one of its type we have found is the ‘Generlink’. A Generlink has a magnet that connects your main circuit panel to the utility when the utility is delivering power. When utility power fails, the magnet disconnects your main circuit panel from the utility and you can connect your generator to your main panel.

This allows you to connect any combination of circuits in the main panel up to the capacity of your generator. It seems expensive. There should, however, be savings in labor cost. We like the flexibility it offers – not having to make choices in advance.

Either an electrician or the utility installs a ‘Generlink’ underneath the electricity meter. A licensed electrician must subsequently make some changes on the main panel.

What types of Generators are Available?

Before meeting with a professional, early in our planning, we want to think about the following issues. Some of them will be factors in our choice of a generator. A generator may have solved our fireplace space problem, but it creates problems of its own. We have to think about the following:

- running location. Generators can’t be run in an enclosed space. The exhaust is very dangerous.

- generator storage. We expect to store a portable inside out of the weather. Many have bright paint. We are thinking of adding black paint if we store one in a garage so that it will be less visible at a distance.

- fuel storage. Fuel in the generator’s tank and in storage containers can emit dangerous gas fumes. We are concerned about sparks that fuel fumes might reach. In addition, we will add a gas preservative to fuel when we buy it to help keep fuel lines and carburetors clean. Gasoline could sit in a generator’s fuel tank or in other storage containers for a long time before it’s all burned.

- moving a generator outdoors to run. A conventional generator can weigh more than 200 pounds. In addition, a portable generator will need a flexible extension of the right gauge and length with appropriate insulation to connect it to either a transfer panel or to the equipment it might run. 

- establishing a ground and keeping it connected to a portable generator. The amount of power involved will likely be significant.

- weather protection. We don’t want to run electrical equipment in the rain.

- fuelling. Spills could be a problem. They say you want a generator cool for fueling.

- running the generator regularly (10 minutes twice a month?) to ensure it will start.    

Types of generators

There are two broad types of generators – Portable and ‘Residential’. Make it three if you don’t consider invertors as a sub-set of portables.

The ‘standard’ portable usually comes with a steel tube frame that boxes in the generator and the motor that drives it. It may or may not have wheels and the size and quality of the wheels can be significant..

As we think about the different models, several things come to mind.

The larger the generator’s motor, the more strength we’ll need for recoil starting.

The number of 120-volt outlets may be a concern. With 240-volt equipment, likely run through a Transfer Panel, we’ll need a generator that can produce 240 volts and an outlet consistent with the 240-volt amperage used – for instance, a 20 or 30 amp outlet. Specific types of sockets (plugs) are required.

Hours per tank-full are an issue. If we empty the tank in three hours, we may need an alarm clock! Longer runs mean fewer stops waiting for the generator to cool for fueling.

Being in our seventies, we expect ease of handling will be a significant concern. A conventional 6000-watt generator weighs 200 pounds. Ideally, we would like to have a generator outside in its own shed. Then we wouldn’t have to move it. Dangerous exhaust wouldn’t be a concern as long as it got plenty of air. Refueling should be easier in bad weather. Having it bolted down in one spot might mean it could be ‘hard-wired’ to eliminate the handling of heavy extension cords and to make theft more difficult.

High-end models may have more of the following features:

- Automatic Decompression to make recoil starting easier or put less load on a battery.

- ‘Low Oil Level Shutdown’ to protect the generator motor if it runs low on oil, particularly if you do not check the oil level every time you add fuel.

- Fuel, Voltage and Watt Meters and a ‘Total Hours Run’ Meter for maintenance.

- Better mufflers for less noise (you can hear a roar in the neighborhood when the power fails and the generators start up).

- Models that are more expensive may have better overall quality and longer life.

- We think electric start (this seems to be available only in generators with larger engines, if at all) is important. The larger the generator’s motor, the more strength you will need to start it using recoil start. We think we would spend a couple of hundred dollars for this feature.

All electric start models seem to come with recoil start as a backup if the battery fails. Some electric start generators recharge their own batteries automatically on a regular cycle and some have a remote start option. Since we normally have electricity from a utility, we may buy a battery charger that promises to top up a battery without damaging it.

We do not understand some of the things we see advertised. One is Automatic Voltage Control. Another is Power Quality. Higher prices may mean better power. Our notebooks use transformers which presumably protect them. Many of our other appliances, however, including our furnaces and refrigerators likely use sensitive electronic controls. We don’t remember seeing numbers or definitive details in Voltage Control or Quality Power ads. Our utility’s power seems adequate. We wonder how generators compare.

Invertors would appear to have the best power. Reduced noise, better fuel economy and especially reduced weight are attractive in themselves.

We’ve looked quickly at ‘electrical engineering’ on the internet. Voltage control and engine speed seem to be connected. If that is so, is variable engine speed questionable? ‘Sine waves’, presumably the issue in power quality, look very complicated. We want a better understanding and aren’t quite ready to give up yet.

Surge protectors with power filters seem to be restricted to the low power numbers you would associate with computers.

There is also the issue of the availability of parts, repair services and repair costs. And, if it is a 200-pound generator, getting it to a repair shop may be a problem.

Portables are available in both gas and diesel. Some say diesels cost more but last longer. In either case fuel storage or fuel availability could be a concern. If you have no power, your local gas station may not be pumping either.

‘Residential’ Type Generators

What we think of as ‘Residentials’ are installed outside like part of a central air system.

We think many of the above considerations, including quality, apply.

The units we have seen advertised start around 7000 watts and run on propane or natural gas. We have seen kits advertised that allow conversion to gasoline. 7200 watts divided by 120 volts means 60 amps, which, in the past, was considered enough to run a house.  

All seem to be designed for fixed mounting which, together with a weight of 300 pounds, should make theft more difficult.

Some start automatically when the power fails and shut down when it returns. They may also self-start on a schedule designed to keep them ‘tuned up’ and their batteries charged. Some also have a manual start option. This system seems to offer the ultimate in convenience, if you have natural gas or propane. We think installation costs may be a more significant part of their cost. With the money, we’d look carefully at one of these.

Overall, selecting a generator is not a simple matter. With money and significant power requirements, a ‘Residential’ generator might be ideal, subject to voltage control and power quality questions. An inverter may solve those problems. Then there is cost. To power ‘plug-ins’, a conventional portable, or a portable inverter, might make sense. A conventional portable or a portable inverter with a small ‘Type 2′ transfer panel or even a larger transfer panel might be best for some needs. Will it be ‘Emergency Backup’ or is it likely to run for more extended periods? For extended runs, a higher cost generator that may be of higher quality sounds like it might be the best idea. It looks like there’s no one answer. Understanding the big picture before making a decision, however, certainly seems to make sense.