A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

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inbox788
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by inbox788 »

willthrill81 wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2020 9:50 amYes, if your time is limited, charging at a higher rate makes perfect sense, and I agree that even halving the lifespan of an Eneloop battery isn't a big deal.
OT, but interesting observation about Amazon algo. Echoes the idea that one has to make trade-offs.

I clicked on the above charger and noticed it was $129.95 on the first recommended seller, but it was a 3rd party seller. There were several other 3rd party sellers at $129.00. So why did the higher price win out? Did they pay for placement? Their "Arrives:" dates were later than some of the other sellers, at least with standard shipping. The only factor that they led was the "Fastest delivery", which is why I think they got top listing. Is this just a tie-breaker (and how close is a tie) for close prices or will faster delivery always win out, even if it's hundreds more? There are other variables, but one of the others lower prices had more ratings and higher percentage positive. Or is the algorithm more fuzzy considering all these factors?

Anyway, pay note to the seller. I prefer to deal with Amazon.com directly (if available) and avoid low volume 3rd party resellers, and they know that so they price it higher (or is it that the 3rd party resellers have to compete with Amazon by pricing lower). But this is a fuzzy preference as to how big a gap.
need403bhelp
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by need403bhelp »

willthrill81 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:01 pm
mervinj7 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:52 pm hey Will,
What's your opinion on the newish portable Lithium Ion "solar power station"? Some of my neighbors have been using it for their medical fridges. In our PG&E territory in CA, there is a high chance of a rolling blackout. They are typically 1-2 hours but some outages have been as long as 10 hours. Some of the larger ones include:

https://ecoflow.com/products/ecoflow-de ... 81k4_hoa45
https://www.jackery.com/products/explor ... er-station
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blue ... er-station
The EcoFlow only has 1,260 watt hours of capacity. You could buy a lead acid battery of that size, a 15 amp charger, and a 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter for around $400 rather than $1,400. True, the EcoFlow will recharge faster and is lighter and more portable, so it's a question as to whether those benefits are worth an additional $1,000. This is also true of the Jackery, though it's only $1,000. The Indiegogo seems ridiculously expensive.
Thanks for your great tutorial posts, very helpful.

I realize that we could do a much better DIY solution, but after being impacted by the recent TX power outages for 2 days, trying to think of a way we can have as much "normalcy" as possible during the next hurricane or other power outage.

I will have a whole-house generator company come out to take a look, but I think given our fairly small lot (we are townhouse, so also an HOA which is another hurdle), it will probably not be an option. That would be ideal option (AC out here where it is hot and humid in the summer would be awesome).

If whole-house generator really is not an option, was thinking about something like:
1. Yeti 6000X or similar (yes, I know, ~$5k and could DIY cheaper, but also want to make sure something works in an emergency without having a huge front-end and maintenance investment) https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable- ... r-station/ mainly to power kitchen fridge plus maybe some small appliances (occasional phones and laptops; wife really would like at least a fan but my brief research suggests a fan would use more power than the fridge).
2. A portable generator that is ideally quiet. This and a window AC unit (don't currently use but would have ready to go) for a small room that we could try to keep cooler. Issue here would be that we don't really have any place on our property that is 20 ft away from the main building, but I think could run at least on street site with no windows and point exhaust at the street. Haven't researched options here yet.

My main concern with Yeti 6000x and similar solutions is operating temperature (40C) and heat production. It doesn't usually get 40C here (I think 104 F), but it can easily get in high 80's and 90's. I know the Yeti itself generates heat, so I'm not sure if it would, itself, heat up to 40C, power itself down, and then we lose all the benefit despite a $5k investment.

I'm also not sure if there is a compelling argument for one of the competitors. For example, this site has 5 alternatives (none quite with same amount of power), and seems to criticize Yeti because they describe battery wear after ONLY 500 cycles https://shopsolarkits.com/blogs/learnin ... 00x-review . I realize this could be an issue for solar, but it seems that as backup power source only, 500 cycles is quite a bit? Or am I misunderstanding (if we're not using the battery and just keep the Yeti plugged in as recommended by the manufacturer, is it still cycling the battery)?

Thanks so much!
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

need403bhelp wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:54 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:01 pm
mervinj7 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:52 pm hey Will,
What's your opinion on the newish portable Lithium Ion "solar power station"? Some of my neighbors have been using it for their medical fridges. In our PG&E territory in CA, there is a high chance of a rolling blackout. They are typically 1-2 hours but some outages have been as long as 10 hours. Some of the larger ones include:

https://ecoflow.com/products/ecoflow-de ... 81k4_hoa45
https://www.jackery.com/products/explor ... er-station
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blue ... er-station
The EcoFlow only has 1,260 watt hours of capacity. You could buy a lead acid battery of that size, a 15 amp charger, and a 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter for around $400 rather than $1,400. True, the EcoFlow will recharge faster and is lighter and more portable, so it's a question as to whether those benefits are worth an additional $1,000. This is also true of the Jackery, though it's only $1,000. The Indiegogo seems ridiculously expensive.
Thanks for your great tutorial posts, very helpful.

I realize that we could do a much better DIY solution, but after being impacted by the recent TX power outages for 2 days, trying to think of a way we can have as much "normalcy" as possible during the next hurricane or other power outage.

I will have a whole-house generator company come out to take a look, but I think given our fairly small lot (we are townhouse, so also an HOA which is another hurdle), it will probably not be an option. That would be ideal option (AC out here where it is hot and humid in the summer would be awesome).

If whole-house generator really is not an option, was thinking about something like:
1. Yeti 6000X or similar (yes, I know, ~$5k and could DIY cheaper, but also want to make sure something works in an emergency without having a huge front-end and maintenance investment) https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable- ... r-station/ mainly to power kitchen fridge plus maybe some small appliances (occasional phones and laptops; wife really would like at least a fan but my brief research suggests a fan would use more power than the fridge).
2. A portable generator that is ideally quiet. This and a window AC unit (don't currently use but would have ready to go) for a small room that we could try to keep cooler. Issue here would be that we don't really have any place on our property that is 20 ft away from the main building, but I think could run at least on street site with no windows and point exhaust at the street. Haven't researched options here yet.

My main concern with Yeti 6000x and similar solutions is operating temperature (40C) and heat production. It doesn't usually get 40C here (I think 104 F), but it can easily get in high 80's and 90's. I know the Yeti itself generates heat, so I'm not sure if it would, itself, heat up to 40C, power itself down, and then we lose all the benefit despite a $5k investment.

I'm also not sure if there is a compelling argument for one of the competitors. For example, this site has 5 alternatives (none quite with same amount of power), and seems to criticize Yeti because they describe battery wear after ONLY 500 cycles https://shopsolarkits.com/blogs/learnin ... 00x-review . I realize this could be an issue for solar, but it seems that as backup power source only, 500 cycles is quite a bit? Or am I misunderstanding (if we're not using the battery and just keep the Yeti plugged in as recommended by the manufacturer, is it still cycling the battery)?

Thanks so much!
I really doubt that a standby (aka 'whole house') generator will be feasible in a townhouse with an HOA.

The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)

A portable inverter generator sounds like just what you need. Something in the 2-3 kW range could easily run everything you've mentioned (i.e., refrigerator, small appliances, laptops, window unit AC, fan) and still have power left over.

And no matter what, I would definitely recommend that you get the Bestek 1,000 watt inverter (available on Amazon for $160, but I think there's an 8% coupon on it right now). You can just clamp on to your vehicle's battery, start the engine, and then run an extension cord into your house through a window. You can only draw about 400 watts continuously, but that would at least be enough for your refrigerator, a laptop, and some lights. Many in Texas would have loved to have had that much power.

Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.

Do you have a garage?
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need403bhelp
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by need403bhelp »

willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
need403bhelp wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:54 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:01 pm
mervinj7 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:52 pm hey Will,
What's your opinion on the newish portable Lithium Ion "solar power station"? Some of my neighbors have been using it for their medical fridges. In our PG&E territory in CA, there is a high chance of a rolling blackout. They are typically 1-2 hours but some outages have been as long as 10 hours. Some of the larger ones include:

https://ecoflow.com/products/ecoflow-de ... 81k4_hoa45
https://www.jackery.com/products/explor ... er-station
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blue ... er-station
The EcoFlow only has 1,260 watt hours of capacity. You could buy a lead acid battery of that size, a 15 amp charger, and a 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter for around $400 rather than $1,400. True, the EcoFlow will recharge faster and is lighter and more portable, so it's a question as to whether those benefits are worth an additional $1,000. This is also true of the Jackery, though it's only $1,000. The Indiegogo seems ridiculously expensive.
Thanks for your great tutorial posts, very helpful.

I realize that we could do a much better DIY solution, but after being impacted by the recent TX power outages for 2 days, trying to think of a way we can have as much "normalcy" as possible during the next hurricane or other power outage.

I will have a whole-house generator company come out to take a look, but I think given our fairly small lot (we are townhouse, so also an HOA which is another hurdle), it will probably not be an option. That would be ideal option (AC out here where it is hot and humid in the summer would be awesome).

If whole-house generator really is not an option, was thinking about something like:
1. Yeti 6000X or similar (yes, I know, ~$5k and could DIY cheaper, but also want to make sure something works in an emergency without having a huge front-end and maintenance investment) https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable- ... r-station/ mainly to power kitchen fridge plus maybe some small appliances (occasional phones and laptops; wife really would like at least a fan but my brief research suggests a fan would use more power than the fridge).
2. A portable generator that is ideally quiet. This and a window AC unit (don't currently use but would have ready to go) for a small room that we could try to keep cooler. Issue here would be that we don't really have any place on our property that is 20 ft away from the main building, but I think could run at least on street site with no windows and point exhaust at the street. Haven't researched options here yet.

My main concern with Yeti 6000x and similar solutions is operating temperature (40C) and heat production. It doesn't usually get 40C here (I think 104 F), but it can easily get in high 80's and 90's. I know the Yeti itself generates heat, so I'm not sure if it would, itself, heat up to 40C, power itself down, and then we lose all the benefit despite a $5k investment.

I'm also not sure if there is a compelling argument for one of the competitors. For example, this site has 5 alternatives (none quite with same amount of power), and seems to criticize Yeti because they describe battery wear after ONLY 500 cycles https://shopsolarkits.com/blogs/learnin ... 00x-review . I realize this could be an issue for solar, but it seems that as backup power source only, 500 cycles is quite a bit? Or am I misunderstanding (if we're not using the battery and just keep the Yeti plugged in as recommended by the manufacturer, is it still cycling the battery)?

Thanks so much!
I really doubt that a standby (aka 'whole house') generator will be feasible in a townhouse with an HOA.

The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)

A portable inverter generator sounds like just what you need. Something in the 2-3 kW range could easily run everything you've mentioned (i.e., refrigerator, small appliances, laptops, window unit AC, fan) and still have power left over.

And no matter what, I would definitely recommend that you get the Bestek 1,000 watt inverter (available on Amazon for $160, but I think there's an 8% coupon on it right now). You can just clamp on to your vehicle's battery, start the engine, and then run an extension cord into your house through a window. You can only draw about 400 watts continuously, but that would at least be enough for your refrigerator, a laptop, and some lights. Many in Texas would have loved to have had that much power.

Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.

Do you have a garage?
I see, thanks for the advice and for the recommendation re the inverter that can be used to get power from my car.

I do have a garage, although it is part of the townhouse (part of 1st story of a 3 story townhouse).

Why do you ask?

EDIT: I'll mention that our area has been prone to flooding in past few years, although not, to my knowledge, our townhouse itself or the immediate surrounding area.
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willthrill81
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

need403bhelp wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:56 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
need403bhelp wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:54 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:01 pm
mervinj7 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:52 pm hey Will,
What's your opinion on the newish portable Lithium Ion "solar power station"? Some of my neighbors have been using it for their medical fridges. In our PG&E territory in CA, there is a high chance of a rolling blackout. They are typically 1-2 hours but some outages have been as long as 10 hours. Some of the larger ones include:

https://ecoflow.com/products/ecoflow-de ... 81k4_hoa45
https://www.jackery.com/products/explor ... er-station
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blue ... er-station
The EcoFlow only has 1,260 watt hours of capacity. You could buy a lead acid battery of that size, a 15 amp charger, and a 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter for around $400 rather than $1,400. True, the EcoFlow will recharge faster and is lighter and more portable, so it's a question as to whether those benefits are worth an additional $1,000. This is also true of the Jackery, though it's only $1,000. The Indiegogo seems ridiculously expensive.
Thanks for your great tutorial posts, very helpful.

I realize that we could do a much better DIY solution, but after being impacted by the recent TX power outages for 2 days, trying to think of a way we can have as much "normalcy" as possible during the next hurricane or other power outage.

I will have a whole-house generator company come out to take a look, but I think given our fairly small lot (we are townhouse, so also an HOA which is another hurdle), it will probably not be an option. That would be ideal option (AC out here where it is hot and humid in the summer would be awesome).

If whole-house generator really is not an option, was thinking about something like:
1. Yeti 6000X or similar (yes, I know, ~$5k and could DIY cheaper, but also want to make sure something works in an emergency without having a huge front-end and maintenance investment) https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable- ... r-station/ mainly to power kitchen fridge plus maybe some small appliances (occasional phones and laptops; wife really would like at least a fan but my brief research suggests a fan would use more power than the fridge).
2. A portable generator that is ideally quiet. This and a window AC unit (don't currently use but would have ready to go) for a small room that we could try to keep cooler. Issue here would be that we don't really have any place on our property that is 20 ft away from the main building, but I think could run at least on street site with no windows and point exhaust at the street. Haven't researched options here yet.

My main concern with Yeti 6000x and similar solutions is operating temperature (40C) and heat production. It doesn't usually get 40C here (I think 104 F), but it can easily get in high 80's and 90's. I know the Yeti itself generates heat, so I'm not sure if it would, itself, heat up to 40C, power itself down, and then we lose all the benefit despite a $5k investment.

I'm also not sure if there is a compelling argument for one of the competitors. For example, this site has 5 alternatives (none quite with same amount of power), and seems to criticize Yeti because they describe battery wear after ONLY 500 cycles https://shopsolarkits.com/blogs/learnin ... 00x-review . I realize this could be an issue for solar, but it seems that as backup power source only, 500 cycles is quite a bit? Or am I misunderstanding (if we're not using the battery and just keep the Yeti plugged in as recommended by the manufacturer, is it still cycling the battery)?

Thanks so much!
I really doubt that a standby (aka 'whole house') generator will be feasible in a townhouse with an HOA.

The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)

A portable inverter generator sounds like just what you need. Something in the 2-3 kW range could easily run everything you've mentioned (i.e., refrigerator, small appliances, laptops, window unit AC, fan) and still have power left over.

And no matter what, I would definitely recommend that you get the Bestek 1,000 watt inverter (available on Amazon for $160, but I think there's an 8% coupon on it right now). You can just clamp on to your vehicle's battery, start the engine, and then run an extension cord into your house through a window. You can only draw about 400 watts continuously, but that would at least be enough for your refrigerator, a laptop, and some lights. Many in Texas would have loved to have had that much power.

Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.

Do you have a garage?
I see, thanks for the advice and for the recommendation re the inverter that can be used to get power from my car.

I do have a garage, although it is part of the townhouse (part of 1st story of a 3 story townhouse).

Why do you ask?
A garage is the best place to store gas cans for an inverter generator, though when we briefly lived in an apartment, I stored several gas cans in a outdoor 'closet' accessible from our outdoor balcony.

A Honda 2200i generator will run about 8 hours on 1 gallon of gasoline at half load, maybe 6 hours at full load, so that means that a 5 gallon can would allow you to run such a generator for 30-40 hours. And you shouldn't be running your generator 24 hours a day anyway.
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need403bhelp
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by need403bhelp »

willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 9:05 pm
need403bhelp wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:56 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
need403bhelp wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:54 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:01 pm

The EcoFlow only has 1,260 watt hours of capacity. You could buy a lead acid battery of that size, a 15 amp charger, and a 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter for around $400 rather than $1,400. True, the EcoFlow will recharge faster and is lighter and more portable, so it's a question as to whether those benefits are worth an additional $1,000. This is also true of the Jackery, though it's only $1,000. The Indiegogo seems ridiculously expensive.
Thanks for your great tutorial posts, very helpful.

I realize that we could do a much better DIY solution, but after being impacted by the recent TX power outages for 2 days, trying to think of a way we can have as much "normalcy" as possible during the next hurricane or other power outage.

I will have a whole-house generator company come out to take a look, but I think given our fairly small lot (we are townhouse, so also an HOA which is another hurdle), it will probably not be an option. That would be ideal option (AC out here where it is hot and humid in the summer would be awesome).

If whole-house generator really is not an option, was thinking about something like:
1. Yeti 6000X or similar (yes, I know, ~$5k and could DIY cheaper, but also want to make sure something works in an emergency without having a huge front-end and maintenance investment) https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable- ... r-station/ mainly to power kitchen fridge plus maybe some small appliances (occasional phones and laptops; wife really would like at least a fan but my brief research suggests a fan would use more power than the fridge).
2. A portable generator that is ideally quiet. This and a window AC unit (don't currently use but would have ready to go) for a small room that we could try to keep cooler. Issue here would be that we don't really have any place on our property that is 20 ft away from the main building, but I think could run at least on street site with no windows and point exhaust at the street. Haven't researched options here yet.

My main concern with Yeti 6000x and similar solutions is operating temperature (40C) and heat production. It doesn't usually get 40C here (I think 104 F), but it can easily get in high 80's and 90's. I know the Yeti itself generates heat, so I'm not sure if it would, itself, heat up to 40C, power itself down, and then we lose all the benefit despite a $5k investment.

I'm also not sure if there is a compelling argument for one of the competitors. For example, this site has 5 alternatives (none quite with same amount of power), and seems to criticize Yeti because they describe battery wear after ONLY 500 cycles https://shopsolarkits.com/blogs/learnin ... 00x-review . I realize this could be an issue for solar, but it seems that as backup power source only, 500 cycles is quite a bit? Or am I misunderstanding (if we're not using the battery and just keep the Yeti plugged in as recommended by the manufacturer, is it still cycling the battery)?

Thanks so much!
I really doubt that a standby (aka 'whole house') generator will be feasible in a townhouse with an HOA.

The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)

A portable inverter generator sounds like just what you need. Something in the 2-3 kW range could easily run everything you've mentioned (i.e., refrigerator, small appliances, laptops, window unit AC, fan) and still have power left over.

And no matter what, I would definitely recommend that you get the Bestek 1,000 watt inverter (available on Amazon for $160, but I think there's an 8% coupon on it right now). You can just clamp on to your vehicle's battery, start the engine, and then run an extension cord into your house through a window. You can only draw about 400 watts continuously, but that would at least be enough for your refrigerator, a laptop, and some lights. Many in Texas would have loved to have had that much power.

Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.

Do you have a garage?
I see, thanks for the advice and for the recommendation re the inverter that can be used to get power from my car.

I do have a garage, although it is part of the townhouse (part of 1st story of a 3 story townhouse).

Why do you ask?
A garage is the best place to store gas cans for an inverter generator, though when we briefly lived in an apartment, I stored several gas cans in a outdoor 'closet' accessible from our outdoor balcony.

A Honda 2200i generator will run about 8 hours on 1 gallon of gasoline at half load, maybe 6 hours at full load, so that means that a 5 gallon can would allow you to run such a generator for 30-40 hours. And you shouldn't be running your generator 24 hours a day anyway.
Got it, thanks so much for the advice. Will do more research and then discuss with DW.
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Larry3862
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by Larry3862 »

iamlucky13 wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 7:56 pm
indexfundfan wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 6:27 pm If you have power tools like Ego or Ryobi, they make small inverters for you to utilize the power of the batteries. I find it very convenient since I have a couple of batteries lying around.
Plan on very limited runtimes from these, so limit their use to plug-in applications that are important to you. If they can even give clean enough power to start a fridge, you might get a couple hours from one of the larger Ego batteries. You might get the better part of a day running a modem to keep the internet going for your laptop.

You could light up a room for potentially several days using a single bulb table lamp with an LED bulb.
This is what I do with my Ego inverter. I also keep 2-25W LED bulbs on hand to get extended lighting time from the inverter during a storm. System worked well to keep my wifi going during 5 hour planned outage late last year. We are in the middle of a battery revolution and can't wait to see what happens in the next 2-3 years.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
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Thranduil
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by Thranduil »

willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 9:05 pm

A garage is the best place to store gas cans for an inverter generator, though when we briefly lived in an apartment, I stored several gas cans in a outdoor 'closet' accessible from our outdoor balcony.

A Honda 2200i generator will run about 8 hours on 1 gallon of gasoline at half load, maybe 6 hours at full load, so that means that a 5 gallon can would allow you to run such a generator for 30-40 hours. And you shouldn't be running your generator 24 hours a day anyway.
I have two Honda 2200i, but my (I admit somewhat irrational) fear is storing the gasoline. I bought some what I think are nice, tough plastic storage "cans" and used the gas additive for longer term storage. Then I put the "cans" up in my garden shed, away from our house. Not sure why the gas scares me so much....I don't recall stories of gas cans suddenly lighting up....but it is something I think about a lot! :oops:
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

Thranduil wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:52 am
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 9:05 pm A garage is the best place to store gas cans for an inverter generator, though when we briefly lived in an apartment, I stored several gas cans in a outdoor 'closet' accessible from our outdoor balcony.

A Honda 2200i generator will run about 8 hours on 1 gallon of gasoline at half load, maybe 6 hours at full load, so that means that a 5 gallon can would allow you to run such a generator for 30-40 hours. And you shouldn't be running your generator 24 hours a day anyway.
I have two Honda 2200i, but my (I admit somewhat irrational) fear is storing the gasoline. I bought some what I think are nice, tough plastic storage "cans" and used the gas additive for longer term storage. Then I put the "cans" up in my garden shed, away from our house. Not sure why the gas scares me so much....I don't recall stories of gas cans suddenly lighting up....but it is something I think about a lot! :oops:
You're not alone. But the more you work with gas cans and such and become familiar with them, the less you will fear them. People tend to have irrationally big fears of things that they aren't familiar with and which can be harmful if misused (e.g., electricity, gasoline, guns). We don't think anything about riding around at 70 mph while carrying 20-30 gallons of gasoline with us, and that's a far higher risk than gasoline stored in a tightly sealed, stationary, approved container with no spark or heat source nearby.

Unless the gas cans are compromised and there is a spark, it's physically impossible for anything to 'light up'.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by smitcat »

Thranduil wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:52 am
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 9:05 pm

A garage is the best place to store gas cans for an inverter generator, though when we briefly lived in an apartment, I stored several gas cans in a outdoor 'closet' accessible from our outdoor balcony.

A Honda 2200i generator will run about 8 hours on 1 gallon of gasoline at half load, maybe 6 hours at full load, so that means that a 5 gallon can would allow you to run such a generator for 30-40 hours. And you shouldn't be running your generator 24 hours a day anyway.
I have two Honda 2200i, but my (I admit somewhat irrational) fear is storing the gasoline. I bought some what I think are nice, tough plastic storage "cans" and used the gas additive for longer term storage. Then I put the "cans" up in my garden shed, away from our house. Not sure why the gas scares me so much....I don't recall stories of gas cans suddenly lighting up....but it is something I think about a lot! :oops:
It is a good practive to keep flammables away from an attached garage or home space.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by clip651 »

willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:06 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
Yes, closing windows is a good common sense precaution. But as long as that's done, it doesn't matter very much if the generator is on the porch.

And while it's a good idea to keep the generator some distance from your home, don't let the inability to do that prevent you from buying one.

It sounds like your neighbor's generator had some issues. I never smell any exhaust from mine, even when running it on the edge of our open garage.

I agree that everyone needs carbon monoxide detectors in their home, no matter what.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by need403bhelp »

willthrill81 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:44 pm
clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:06 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
Yes, closing windows is a good common sense precaution. But as long as that's done, it doesn't matter very much if the generator is on the porch.

And while it's a good idea to keep the generator some distance from your home, don't let the inability to do that prevent you from buying one.

It sounds like your neighbor's generator had some issues. I never smell any exhaust from mine, even when running it on the edge of our open garage.

I agree that everyone needs carbon monoxide detectors in their home, no matter what.
Somewhat related question - can a generator be close to an outside AC unit?

I saw some sites advise to avoid this, but I thought the outside AC unit just cools refrigerant that is circulated back to the attic compressor and doesn’t actually circulate any air from outside to inside? As such, is the carbon monoxide somehow transferred indoors via the coolant and then to inside air to cause risk in this situation ?

Thanks!
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by clip651 »

willthrill81 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:44 pm
clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:06 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
Yes, closing windows is a good common sense precaution. But as long as that's done, it doesn't matter very much if the generator is on the porch.

And while it's a good idea to keep the generator some distance from your home, don't let the inability to do that prevent you from buying one.

It sounds like your neighbor's generator had some issues. I never smell any exhaust from mine, even when running it on the edge of our open garage.

I agree that everyone needs carbon monoxide detectors in their home, no matter what.
Well, we weren't running a generator. So our neighbor's use of one inhibited us from cooling our house through opening all our windows and getting a cross breeze.

So I stand by my statement to consider not just how close the generator is to your own house, but also to your neighbors. I wouldn't have wanted to have to breathe the fumes from a more finely tuned generator for multiple days, either. And we needed to continue to use our house during the outage.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by need403bhelp »

clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:30 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:44 pm
clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:06 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
Yes, closing windows is a good common sense precaution. But as long as that's done, it doesn't matter very much if the generator is on the porch.

And while it's a good idea to keep the generator some distance from your home, don't let the inability to do that prevent you from buying one.

It sounds like your neighbor's generator had some issues. I never smell any exhaust from mine, even when running it on the edge of our open garage.

I agree that everyone needs carbon monoxide detectors in their home, no matter what.
Well, we weren't running a generator. So our neighbor's use of one inhibited us from cooling our house through opening all our windows and getting a cross breeze.

So I stand by my statement to consider not just how close the generator is to your own house, but also to your neighbors. I wouldn't have wanted to have to breathe the fumes from a more finely tuned generator for multiple days, either. And we needed to continue to use our house during the outage.
For the record, we are a corner unit in our complex. We have a whole edge of the building that only faces the street, not any neighbors. We are also not in a super pedestrian friendly city, so although there are occasional persons on the sidewalk (especially to get mail from the common mailbox which is on that side), I don't think it would impact anyone's living space.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by jharkin »

clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:30 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:44 pm
clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:06 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
Yes, closing windows is a good common sense precaution. But as long as that's done, it doesn't matter very much if the generator is on the porch.

And while it's a good idea to keep the generator some distance from your home, don't let the inability to do that prevent you from buying one.

It sounds like your neighbor's generator had some issues. I never smell any exhaust from mine, even when running it on the edge of our open garage.

I agree that everyone needs carbon monoxide detectors in their home, no matter what.
Well, we weren't running a generator. So our neighbor's use of one inhibited us from cooling our house through opening all our windows and getting a cross breeze.

So I stand by my statement to consider not just how close the generator is to your own house, but also to your neighbors. I wouldn't have wanted to have to breathe the fumes from a more finely tuned generator for multiple days, either. And we needed to continue to use our house during the outage.
+1 to will - if you could smell it, something was wrong with it.

Most generators make no more emissions than the average lawn mower. I couldn't smell mine either standing 5 feet from it, and the exhaust gets diluted in the open air... All the cars driving by your house are probably putting a LOT more CO2 into the air you are berating than generators and lawn tools....
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

need403bhelp wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:44 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:44 pm
clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:06 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
Yes, closing windows is a good common sense precaution. But as long as that's done, it doesn't matter very much if the generator is on the porch.

And while it's a good idea to keep the generator some distance from your home, don't let the inability to do that prevent you from buying one.

It sounds like your neighbor's generator had some issues. I never smell any exhaust from mine, even when running it on the edge of our open garage.

I agree that everyone needs carbon monoxide detectors in their home, no matter what.
Somewhat related question - can a generator be close to an outside AC unit?

I saw some sites advise to avoid this, but I thought the outside AC unit just cools refrigerant that is circulated back to the attic compressor and doesn’t actually circulate any air from outside to inside? As such, is the carbon monoxide somehow transferred indoors via the coolant and then to inside air to cause risk in this situation ?

Thanks!
Yes, a generator can be placed close to an AC since the AC is not bringing outside air inside.
Does my air conditioner take in outside air?

In short, no. Though in split system air conditioners design, commonly heat pumps, part of your system is located outside your home, it does not take in outside air. Its main operational purpose of cooling the air in your home is not achieved by moving cool air inside, but by moving unwanted heat out.
https://www.delcohvac.com/blog/do-air-c ... tside-air/
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by clip651 »

jharkin wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:48 pm
clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:30 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:44 pm
clip651 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:06 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm
Don't worry about the 20 ft. distance. If you have a balcony or patio, you can run it there. If it's outdoors, there's no way for the exhaust to represent any meaningful health hazard.
We had a multiple day power outage last summer. Our neighbor ran a portable gas powered generator on his patio, close to his house. The generator sat about 20 feet from our house. I strongly disagree that no meaningful health hazard is possible. We had to keep all our windows closed in the side of our house facing his (in the summer, in a power outage!) to keep the fumes from his generator out of our house. It certainly would have been very unpleasant to breathe the air in our house otherwise, and exposure would have lasted for days. Meaningful health hazard extends beyond dying vs not dying of carbon monoxide exposure. He ran his generator about 20 hours a day. If a generator had been closer to our house, the potential hazard would have been worse.

So, in a townhouse, with no detachment between neighbors, and with many neighbors nearby, definitely consider your neighbors as well as yourself. Weather conditions (wind direction, etc), may determine how much of an exhaust issue a portable generator could cause. But I certainly wouldn't just say "don't worry about the 20 foot distance". Further from houses is better. It was bad enough I was tempted to buy him a new, quieter generator with hopefully less of an exhaust issue.

And get battery powered carbon monoxide detectors ahead of time. It's a good idea to have them regardless.
Yes, closing windows is a good common sense precaution. But as long as that's done, it doesn't matter very much if the generator is on the porch.

And while it's a good idea to keep the generator some distance from your home, don't let the inability to do that prevent you from buying one.

It sounds like your neighbor's generator had some issues. I never smell any exhaust from mine, even when running it on the edge of our open garage.

I agree that everyone needs carbon monoxide detectors in their home, no matter what.
Well, we weren't running a generator. So our neighbor's use of one inhibited us from cooling our house through opening all our windows and getting a cross breeze.

So I stand by my statement to consider not just how close the generator is to your own house, but also to your neighbors. I wouldn't have wanted to have to breathe the fumes from a more finely tuned generator for multiple days, either. And we needed to continue to use our house during the outage.
+1 to will - if you could smell it, something was wrong with it.

Most generators make no more emissions than the average lawn mower. I couldn't smell mine either standing 5 feet from it, and the exhaust gets diluted in the open air... All the cars driving by your house are probably putting a LOT more CO2 into the air you are berating than generators and lawn tools....
Y'all live in neighborhoods with much better tuned generators and lawn tools than I do. But they aren't my gas powered tools, so I don't get to choose when to replace them or how they're maintained (or when they're run).

I frequently smell lawn mower, leaf blower, or snow blower engines from a yard or two over, depending on the season. And I'm not in a townhouse. I don't smell the passing cars, unless it's one of those that obviously is overdue for a new muffler. And the cars go by quickly. The other engines will run for 30 minutes to an hour (or longer for a generator).

The poster above with the townhouse on the corner lot sounds like they'll be fine, though. But maybe my neighbors are reading along and will get clued in to upgrade their various gas powered tools. :D
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by whomever »

A thought for people concerned about carbon monoxide: we got one of the very first monoxide alarms, which was the size of a brick. It had a meter that read from 0 PPM on up. It alarmed at 50PPM, which I think is the OSHA 8 hour exposure label. It was fascinating to watch, i.e. you could plug it in the garage, pull a car in, and immediately shut the door. It would read 1 or 2 PPM for a half hour or so until the air in the closed garage changed.

Alas, we bought a second, apparently identical one a few years later, but they had changed the software so the display read 0 until it hit 50 and alarmed (then it would display 54 or 63 or whatever). I think this behavior is the norm today for some reason.

In any event, if you are concerned that the neighbor's generator/mower/idling car is sending CO into your house, get a meter that reads down to zero. Not recommending this one, just the first hit on my search:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/SMART-SENSOR ... /588365850

Then you will know, and won't have to guess. From my playing around with our original meter, I don't thing motors in the yard are likely to be a factor, any more than a charcoal BBQ in the backyard, but this way you can know for sure.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by clip651 »

Interesting info about carbon monoxide (CO) meters, thanks.

Just to clarify (and then I'll bow out, as I think I've made my points and don't want to sidetrack the thread), my posts above weren't only about CO. If I can smell stinky exhaust from a distance, I consider that a health hazard, too. Anyone with asthma or other respiratory issues can be affected even if there is no CO issue. I don't have asthma, and such exhaust has been enough to make me start coughing, or get my eyes burning and watering, and then I close our windows, and then air the house out after the neighbor or their lawn service are done mowing and leaf blowing. I've experienced a similar exhaust smell from the neighbor's generator, and to some degree from every other generator I've been around. But I will admit to not having experience with the newest generators out there, which may be a lot better.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

To bring the thread back on topic, an advantage of battery systems over other means of getting electricity is that they produce no odor, fumes, or sound.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

While it's generally a bad idea to try to generate heat from batteries due to the high wattage requirements of heating elements, an exception to this is modern electric blankets (which are much safer than the old electric blankets). If you keep an electric blanket close to you and then pile other blankets on top of it in order to add to the insulation and retain the heat for yourself, an electric blanket sized for one person may consume 350 watt hours or fewer over an 8 hour period. I know a guy who has done this and slept very comfortably despite his bedroom temperature dropping into the mid-30s F. Powering two such blankets is within the capabilities of even a modest battery system (e.g., two golf-cart batteries).

So in a power outage, you might want to run a generator in the evening to power your furnace and warm your home up to a comfortable temperature, then stop the generator and run your electric blanket from battery power in the evening. This conserves potentially limited fuel and can be done in total silence. Then in the morning, you can use the generator (or your vehicle) to recharge your battery system.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by need403bhelp »

willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)
So in addition to the Honda EU2200i generator you suggested, I am also still investigating battery backup systems (at least to investigate them thoroughly), whether "all-in-one" or otherwise.

Do you have a good example of a "good charger" and "good inverter" for the above? What about a good marine battery? Any website/forum where I could read further?

Thanks so much!
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:05 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)
So in addition to the Honda EU2200i generator you suggested, I am also still investigating battery backup systems (at least to investigate them thoroughly), whether "all-in-one" or otherwise.

Do you have a good example of a "good charger" and "good inverter" for the above? What about a good marine battery? Any website/forum where I could read further?

Thanks so much!
The size of the charger you need depends on both the capacity of your battery system and how much you're willing to spend. In general, you want a battery charger to be rated for at least 15% of the battery system's capacity, and 30-40% is better. Since a group (aka size) 27 marine battery should have close to 90 amp hours, this works out to about a 15-30 amp charger. For a pair of golf cart batteries, which will have about 150 amp hours, you need a 25-60 amp charger.

Stanley's 15 amp battery charger, available at Walmart here, is $46 and gets good reviews. Schumacher has this 30 amp charger on Amazon for $72 that's good as well. If you need a bigger charger, Schumacher's 50 amp charger, available on Amazon here is $166 and should work well.

Any of the marine batteries available at Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club, Batteries Plus, or an RV store will be fine. There aren't many manufacturers out there, so the brand doesn't really matter much. The capacity of the battery is what's important.

As far as inverters go, I really like Bestek's 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter. It's available on Amazon here for $160 but currently has an 8% coupon as well. You really shouldn't need an inverter larger than that. It would also be a good idea to get a small inverter (150 watts or so) like this one that can plug into a 12 volt socket as a backup. You can also take this with you on road trips to provide power to a laptop and other small 120 volt devices.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by whomever »

One word of caution - if you're trying to milk your battery for all it's worth in an outage, some of the small inverters are pretty inefficient. I have a 150 watt one with a no-load draw of 15 watts. That compares poorly with a couple of 1000W inverters that draw 5-7 no-load watts.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by need403bhelp »

willthrill81 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:40 pm
need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:05 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)
So in addition to the Honda EU2200i generator you suggested, I am also still investigating battery backup systems (at least to investigate them thoroughly), whether "all-in-one" or otherwise.

Do you have a good example of a "good charger" and "good inverter" for the above? What about a good marine battery? Any website/forum where I could read further?

Thanks so much!
The size of the charger you need depends on both the capacity of your battery system and how much you're willing to spend. In general, you want a battery charger to be rated for at least 15% of the battery system's capacity, and 30-40% is better. Since a group (aka size) 27 marine battery should have close to 90 amp hours, this works out to about a 15-30 amp charger. For a pair of golf cart batteries, which will have about 150 amp hours, you need a 25-60 amp charger.

Stanley's 15 amp battery charger, available at Walmart here, is $46 and gets good reviews. Schumacher has this 30 amp charger on Amazon for $72 that's good as well. If you need a bigger charger, Schumacher's 50 amp charger, available on Amazon here is $166 and should work well.

Any of the marine batteries available at Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club, Batteries Plus, or an RV store will be fine. There aren't many manufacturers out there, so the brand doesn't really matter much. The capacity of the battery is what's important.

As far as inverters go, I really like Bestek's 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter. It's available on Amazon here for $160 but currently has an 8% coupon as well. You really shouldn't need an inverter larger than that. It would also be a good idea to get a small inverter (150 watts or so) like this one that can plug into a 12 volt socket as a backup. You can also take this with you on road trips to provide power to a laptop and other small 120 volt devices.
Thanks so much, this is very helpful.

Two follow up questions.

1. For my kitchen refrigerator, I can only find the Energy Star label, but not any other documentation of peak/average wattage. Is there a good way to test this? I've looked at the Kill A Watt ( https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electri ... rg-20&th=1 ), but it seems this will only tell me the current wattage of the appliance, and not the peak wattage. Is this correct? My understanding is that refrigerators/freezers don't use a lot of energy normally, but will use it when the compressor turns on (is this just standing there waiting for it to make noise, and then looking at the display to see if this is the "peak" value?)

2. Our last power outage lasted 2 days, but power turned on for a few hours in the middle of the night. For such a situation, would we need a combo charger-inverter to be able to re-charge during this time? (Obviously, I could also wake up and switch the two).

Thanks!
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by whomever »

"For my kitchen refrigerator, I can only find the Energy Star label, but not any other documentation of peak/average wattage. Is there a good way to test this? I've looked at the Kill A Watt ( https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electri ... rg-20&th=1 ), but it seems this will only tell me the current wattage of the appliance, and not the peak wattage. Is this correct? My understanding is that refrigerators/freezers don't use a lot of energy normally, but will use it when the compressor turns on (is this just standing there waiting for it to make noise, and then looking at the display to see if this is the "peak" value?)"

FWIW: I happen to have our newish freezer plugged into a Kill-a-watt, set to display watts. It was displaying 0.3 watts. I opened the door, and the wattage jumped to 3 watts (that's the light). I turned the dial to the coldest setting while watching the meter ... when the compressor came on the wattage jumped to 155 for a couple of seconds, then went to 90 some for the rest of the cycle. The actual peak wattage was probably slightly higher, because the kill-a-watt only updates the display every half second or so, but then inverters have a surge capacity, too)

(this freezer has a energy label of 461 kwh/yr. It uses less than that, perhaps because it's in a fairly cool basement)

"Our last power outage lasted 2 days, but power turned on for a few hours in the middle of the night. For such a situation, would we need a combo charger-inverter to be able to re-charge during this time?"

The inverter chargers I'm familiar with are hundreds of dollars.

I don't see why you couldn't have the charger plugged in and connected to the battery, and also have the inverter connected; if the power comes on, then the charger would start charging.

One caveat, though ... most automotive type battery chargers don't push a lot of current. For example, the freezer above uses about 750 wh/day, or
roughly 30 watts if it ran continuously. A 10 amp charger is pushing 10*12=120 watts (although there are some inefficiencies, so the practical value will be less). So 1 hour of charging will run the freezer for 3.something hours - it's not like the power coming on for a brief interval will charge a beefy battery back to full in a couple of hours.

Also, specifically related to the 30 amp charger mentioned upthread, I thought 'that's pretty cheap for a 30 amp charger', but the manual is a little confusing. The 30 amp rate is in 'boost mode' From my reading of the manual, it wasn't clear if it would do that indefinitely; the 'charge' current was 10 or 12 amps. And apropos the power coming on in the middle of the night, it sounded like you had to manually select the 'boost' mode; by default you got the lower current.

There are chargers intended for using generators to charge off grid battery banks that will push high currents - 30 to 100 amps. 'Iota' is one brand. But they aren't all that cheap. Here is one for $130:

https://www.solar-electric.com/iota-eng ... ls-30.html

(not a recommendation, just an example)
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by mervinj7 »

need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:34 pm 2. Our last power outage lasted 2 days, but power turned on for a few hours in the middle of the night. For such a situation, would we need a combo charger-inverter to be able to re-charge during this time? (Obviously, I could also wake up and switch the two).

Thanks!
If money is no object, you could use something like this. It has a built in auto transfer switch and can charge up to 65A.
https://www.renogy.com/2000w-12v-pure-s ... d-display/
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by whomever »

As a followup, this illustrates why the question 'what's the most economical way to I keep my fridge/furnace running during a few day's outage' usually comes around to 'with a generator'.

For five or six hundred bucks you can get a 2000ish watt inverter generator and a 5 gallon can of gas that will keep a fridge cold, and run a furnace blower as a bonus, for a week plus (running it for a few hours a day).

Let's spec out a battery based system to do the same ... a 100AH deep cycle battery will be maybe $200. A 1000W pure sine inverter is maybe $150. Forget the furnace, and just look at a fridge that averages 30 watts. That will take a fully charged battery to 50% charge in 20 hours (drawing a lead acid battery lower than 50% dramatically lowers the battery life). So at that point you are charging the battery with a charger driven by a generator, or solar, or something, and if you bought the generator anyway...

FWIW, we have a 50W solar panel connected to a 33AH gel battery just for fun. The whole cost was maybe $150 or so. It is nice in an outage because we can use it to charge phones or whatever without the generator running. It's great for light loads like that. But by the time you get up to furnaces and fridges, generators start to make a lot of sense.

Using you car to run an inverter might also work, and be cheap. I looked at it once years ago, and the alternator of the car we had at the time was marginal for that. But if your vehicle has a big enough alternator (and I think the trend is toward bigger alternators) that might be the absolute cheapest way.

(this is all talking about the occasional outage ... a solar system for an off grid cabin is a different thing)

====================
"If money is no object, you could use something like this. It has a built in auto transfer switch and can charge up to 65A.
https://www.renogy.com/2000w-12v-pure-s ... d-display/"

That's more than a generator costs ... and doesn't help if the power just stays off for a week.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:34 pm Thanks so much, this is very helpful.

Two follow up questions.

1. For my kitchen refrigerator, I can only find the Energy Star label, but not any other documentation of peak/average wattage. Is there a good way to test this? I've looked at the Kill A Watt ( https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electri ... rg-20&th=1 ), but it seems this will only tell me the current wattage of the appliance, and not the peak wattage. Is this correct? My understanding is that refrigerators/freezers don't use a lot of energy normally, but will use it when the compressor turns on (is this just standing there waiting for it to make noise, and then looking at the display to see if this is the "peak" value?)
The compressors used in modern refrigerators are much smaller than they were in the old refrigerators. They don't consume much while running (150-200 watts are normal) but run more often than the old ones did. The startup load on these small compressors isn't very high. The 1,000 watt inverter that I linked to above has started both my refrigerator and upright freezer with no problems at all. Also, virtually every inverter out there can very briefly handle more than its rated wattage to help with these startup loads.

Keep in mind that a refrigerator only will drain a 90 amp hour battery in about 12-24 hours. The best strategy, as noted in the second post of the OP, is to run the refrigerator from a generator (or via an inverter connected to a vehicle's battery and the vehicle kept idling) 2-3 times a day for an hour or so each time, at least until the compressor in the refrigerator stops. While you're running the generator (or vehicle), you also recharge your battery. When you're not using the generator, you power small items like lights, a AA/AAA battery charger, a phone or tablet, a modem/router, a small TV, or maybe a small laptop from your battery. If you don't want to run a generator that often, you probably need to build a battery system with at least 4 golf cart batteries (i.e., 3000 watt hours of capacity), which would run a refrigerator alone for 36-72 hours.
need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:34 pm 2. Our last power outage lasted 2 days, but power turned on for a few hours in the middle of the night. For such a situation, would we need a combo charger-inverter to be able to re-charge during this time? (Obviously, I could also wake up and switch the two).
No, you don't need anything special. Just leave your charger connected to the wall outlet and your battery. If power is restored, the charger will begin charging your battery. The inverter will still draw power from the battery.

Note that you shouldn't be powering much in the way of loads from an inverter while you're sleeping at night unless you know that your battery system's capacity can handle it comfortably.
need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:34 pm Thanks!
My pleasure. :beer
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by iamlucky13 »

whomever wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 1:14 pm One word of caution - if you're trying to milk your battery for all it's worth in an outage, some of the small inverters are pretty inefficient. I have a 150 watt one with a no-load draw of 15 watts. That compares poorly with a couple of 1000W inverters that draw 5-7 no-load watts.
Keep in mind that a 5W draw will consume about 10% of a Group 27 battery's capacity per day. Someone on Amazon claimed they measured 1.2A no-load battery draw from their Bestek 1000W.

The point is, if you need to maximize what you get out of your battery, plan your use and shut down the inverter when done. And obviously, don't leave the inverter hooked up drawing a phantom load in between outages.
need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:34 pm 1. For my kitchen refrigerator, I can only find the Energy Star label, but not any other documentation of peak/average wattage. Is there a good way to test this? I've looked at the Kill A Watt, but it seems this will only tell me the current wattage of the appliance, and not the peak wattage. Is this correct?
That is correct. The peak happens faster than a Kill-A-Watt updates.

Looking online, it seems like there is a lot of inconsistency with experiences running refrigerators on inverters. I know they can be trouble on modified sine wave inverters, but some users report issues even on pure sine wave inverters rated for several times the measured continuous wattage of the refrigerator. Some of these may be older refrigerators. Some may also have undersized the wiring or used excessive lengths between the battery and the inverter
Last edited by iamlucky13 on Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

mervinj7 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:02 pm
need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:34 pm 2. Our last power outage lasted 2 days, but power turned on for a few hours in the middle of the night. For such a situation, would we need a combo charger-inverter to be able to re-charge during this time? (Obviously, I could also wake up and switch the two).

Thanks!
If money is no object, you could use something like this. It has a built in auto transfer switch and can charge up to 65A.
https://www.renogy.com/2000w-12v-pure-s ... d-display/
There are situations where an inverter with an automatic transfer switch like that is needed (e.g., critical device that cannot be stopped in the event of a power outage), but not in this case. In a blackout situation, a refrigerator can easily go overnight without power. Just throw blankets, quilts, sleeping bags, etc. over it to help it stay cool, being sure to remove them when you're powering the refrigerator.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

iamlucky13 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:15 pm
whomever wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 1:14 pm One word of caution - if you're trying to milk your battery for all it's worth in an outage, some of the small inverters are pretty inefficient. I have a 150 watt one with a no-load draw of 15 watts. That compares poorly with a couple of 1000W inverters that draw 5-7 no-load watts.
Keep in mind that a 5W draw will consume about 10% of a Group 27 battery's capacity per day. Someone on Amazon claimed they measured 1.2A no-load battery draw from their Bestek 1000W.

The point is, if you need to maximize what you get out of your battery, plan your use and shut down the inverter when done. And obviously, don't leave the inverter hooked up drawing a phantom load in between outages.
This made me curious, so I just went out and tested the load on my Bestek 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter, and it was 1.46 amps with no load (about 17.5 watts).

Yes, the rule of thumb is that you use small inverters for small loads and larger inverters for bigger loads. That's why I think that a 150 watt inverter (close to the most that can be reliably pulled through a 12 volt socket) is a must for anyone with a backup power system such as described in the OP. The no-load draw on these inverters is very small, a fraction of an amp.

And yes, you don't just leave an inverter running in a power outage if you're not actively using it. But if the power is running, it's fine to leave the inverter on. I've had a 150 watt inverter connected to my backup battery running for years, and it powers a strand of LED Christmas lights. That way, at a glance, I know that the inverter and the battery are working (unless something very recently happened). I also keep a voltmeter that plugs into a 12 volt socket, which is connected to the battery, running 24/7, so I can see the exact voltage that my battery charger is maintaining the battery at.
iamlucky13 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:15 pm
need403bhelp wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:34 pm 1. For my kitchen refrigerator, I can only find the Energy Star label, but not any other documentation of peak/average wattage. Is there a good way to test this? I've looked at the Kill A Watt, but it seems this will only tell me the current wattage of the appliance, and not the peak wattage. Is this correct?
That is correct. The peak happens faster than a Kill-A-Watt updates.

Looking online, it seems like there is a lot of inconsistency with experiences running refrigerators on inverters. I know they can be trouble on modified sine wave inverters, but some users report issues even on pure sine wave inverters rated for several times the measured continuous wattage of the refrigerator. Some of these may be older refrigerators. Some may also have undersized the wiring or used excessive lengths between the battery and the inverter
Yes, a Kill-a-Watt doesn't measure peak loads that only last for a fraction of a second.

You're right that many of the problems that people report with inverters are the result of poor connections. You want the most solid connection you can get between the inverter and the battery, and you want cables of appropriate gauge. Generally, the cables provided by inverter manufacturers are fine.

I had a 2,000 watt modified sine wave inverter that wouldn't power any refrigerator or freezer I tried to use it with. But my Bestek 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter has run my refrigerator and freezer with no problems whatsoever. Perhaps it was a fluke that my modified sine wave inverter wouldn't run it as nearly everyone I know who has tried it has had success, but perhaps it was the pure sine wave of my Bestek that did the trick. Either way, I definitely wouldn't buy a smaller sized inverter if I wanted to run a refrigerator or freezer with it.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

whomever wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:11 pm As a followup, this illustrates why the question 'what's the most economical way to I keep my fridge/furnace running during a few day's outage' usually comes around to 'with a generator'.

For five or six hundred bucks you can get a 2000ish watt inverter generator and a 5 gallon can of gas that will keep a fridge cold, and run a furnace blower as a bonus, for a week plus (running it for a few hours a day).

Let's spec out a battery based system to do the same ... a 100AH deep cycle battery will be maybe $200. A 1000W pure sine inverter is maybe $150. Forget the furnace, and just look at a fridge that averages 30 watts. That will take a fully charged battery to 50% charge in 20 hours (drawing a lead acid battery lower than 50% dramatically lowers the battery life). So at that point you are charging the battery with a charger driven by a generator, or solar, or something, and if you bought the generator anyway...

FWIW, we have a 50W solar panel connected to a 33AH gel battery just for fun. The whole cost was maybe $150 or so. It is nice in an outage because we can use it to charge phones or whatever without the generator running. It's great for light loads like that. But by the time you get up to furnaces and fridges, generators start to make a lot of sense.

Using you car to run an inverter might also work, and be cheap. I looked at it once years ago, and the alternator of the car we had at the time was marginal for that. But if your vehicle has a big enough alternator (and I think the trend is toward bigger alternators) that might be the absolute cheapest way.

(this is all talking about the occasional outage ... a solar system for an off grid cabin is a different thing)
Good advice. The first thing that people want to power in an outage is their refrigerator, but it's just not economically realistic to do so from a battery system. The most economical method, as you pointed out, is to get a $150 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter, connect it to your vehicle, and idle the vehicle while powering the refrigerator.

Backup battery systems are useful in that they provide you with power for small loads such as lights, a small TV, a laptop, phone, tablet, etc. so that you don't have to waste fuel running a generator 24 hours a day, which is usually a big waste of fuel.

Regarding vehicle alternators, AFAIK, it generally works out that most of them will output 30-40 amps while idling, which works out to 360-480 watts. You can draw more power than that, but the additional power will come out of the battery and would eventually deplete it.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

whomever wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 8:34 pm Also, specifically related to the 30 amp charger mentioned upthread, I thought 'that's pretty cheap for a 30 amp charger', but the manual is a little confusing. The 30 amp rate is in 'boost mode' From my reading of the manual, it wasn't clear if it would do that indefinitely; the 'charge' current was 10 or 12 amps. And apropos the power coming on in the middle of the night, it sounded like you had to manually select the 'boost' mode; by default you got the lower current.
Good catch. I didn't realize that the 30 amp rating for that model was only for boosting.

This 25 amp charger by Stanley is definitely designed to output up to 25 amps for regular charging and gets good ratings. It's only $58.
whomever wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 8:34 pm There are chargers intended for using generators to charge off grid battery banks that will push high currents - 30 to 100 amps. 'Iota' is one brand. But they aren't all that cheap. Here is one for $130:

https://www.solar-electric.com/iota-eng ... ls-30.html

(not a recommendation, just an example)
Yes, Iota makes some of the best chargers out there, but IMHO, they're overkill for use in a residential backup battery system.

Those who want larger battery systems and need chargers larger than about 50 amps or so should consider getting a charger designed for RVs, which often have larger battery systems on board. For instance, Powermax has a 100 amp charger for $200 on Amazon. If you had a battery system with 6 or 8 golf cart batteries, you'd want a charger of that size or larger (or better yet, two such chargers for redundancy).

With regard to chargers, the critical factor is that you get a charger with at least 3-stages to its charging and leave the charger connected to the battery and running all the time (outside of a power outage).
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by nigel_ht »

indexfundfan wrote: Tue Aug 18, 2020 6:27 pm If you have power tools like Ego or Ryobi, they make small inverters for you to utilize the power of the batteries. I find it very convenient since I have a couple of batteries lying around.
EGO Power+ Nexus Power Station - comes with 2 7.5Ah batteries but can use 4 (total 1680 wH). $1200 so not as cost effective as a jackery 1000 but I wanted the batteries anyway to run my leaf blower which already had one 7.5Ah battery. There are some limitations like you can't charge while using, etc but if you already bought into a battery system being able to dual use expensive batteries is a real plus.

I also have a Jackery 160 ($150) and a 100W Renology panel ($125 with a gray bull adapter). The bare panel is a little more ghetto than a portable panel but cheaper and more powerful. For under $300 I have a no fuss solar solution that I can throw in the car and use while camping too.

The nice thing in having a couple of these things vs one larger setup is redundancy. The downside is you can't power any single large item for very long or sometimes at all. Which is what the Ego power station is for...but used at full output (2000W continuous, 3000W surge) it lasts...around 50 minutes.

A 150W refrigerator will run around 10 hours. Enough for you to get through the night and run the generator in the morning or for apartment/condo owners who can't run a generator.

I think for most folks a $1000 jackery will be lots better than a DIY $400 lead acid setup. There is essentially zero maintenance. And lets be honest, while expensive the Goal Zero type solutions are selling this:

Image

instead of this:

Image

Sure, there may be a $$$ difference but my dad once told me that if your wife likes it better that's worth a whole lot of $$$ right there...
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by nigel_ht »

willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm I really doubt that a standby (aka 'whole house') generator will be feasible in a townhouse with an HOA.

The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)

A portable inverter generator sounds like just what you need. Something in the 2-3 kW range could easily run everything you've mentioned (i.e., refrigerator, small appliances, laptops, window unit AC, fan) and still have power left over.
Personally if I wanted to do Goal Zero I'd go with the 1500X + transfer switch for $2250 and then add a $1000 champion generator. If it's nasty outside just use the yeti until it gets better. Then set up the generator outside. The 1500X is portable enough to put in your car and take with you if you want. And it's built to take solar charging out of the box.

https://www.goalzero.com/shop/kits/15-k ... orage-kit/

The Champion is dual fuel and not as nice as the Hondas but it is also only a grand.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/CHAMPION-PO ... z0m0SkO040

Yes, you can get a better transfer switch for the $300 they charge you. Possibly they might require it for warranty purposes so make sure if you decide to swap it for something else and its not terribly overpriced compared to their other stuff. You can find the same Reliance transfer switch for $250 on amazon.

While the DIY route is cheaper it costs more time to build, more time to maintain, takes more space and isn't dual purpose.

If you want to tinker you can add AGM batteries to the yeti if you buy a module. They do charge $450 for their AGM batteries so I would youtube and DIY this portion but for basic home battery backup by throwing a few switches in the basement $3200 + installation of the transfer switch isn't terrible.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

nigel_ht wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:06 am Sure, there may be a $$$ difference but my dad once told me that if your wife likes it better that's worth a whole lot of $$$ right there...
Another advantage of the DIY setup is that if an inverter or charger goes bad, you can quickly and easily swap it out for another one. That's not possible with the all-in-one power stations, which have multiple single points of failure. And you aren't limited to a 1,000 watt inverter either; much larger inverters are out there, though as noted in the OP, they will quickly drain even a large battery system if the loads are maintained for long.

That said, I definitely see why many find units like the Jackery appealing. They are definitely more plug-and-play, and many are willing to pay multiples more for that feature alone.
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willthrill81
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

nigel_ht wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 10:40 am
willthrill81 wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:32 pm I really doubt that a standby (aka 'whole house') generator will be feasible in a townhouse with an HOA.

The Yeti 6000x has 6,000 watt hours of capacity. A typical residential refrigerator alone will drain that in 3-5 days. If you're running the other items you mention, 3 days is likely to be your maximum run time, and 2 days is more realistic. For $5k, that's ridiculously expensive 'food insurance'. You almost certainly didn't even pay $5k for the refrigerator and everything in it. I know that the all-in-one units like those are attractive, but they are almost universally far too expensive compared to the alternatives. For instance, you could buy six marine batteries with that much capacity, get a good charger and an inverter, and the total cost would be a little over $1k. (I would actually recommend two chargers and two inverters in that situation as backups and to avoid single-points-of-failure, which the Yeti is rife with.)

A portable inverter generator sounds like just what you need. Something in the 2-3 kW range could easily run everything you've mentioned (i.e., refrigerator, small appliances, laptops, window unit AC, fan) and still have power left over.
Personally if I wanted to do Goal Zero I'd go with the 1500X + transfer switch for $2250 and then add a $1000 champion generator. If it's nasty outside just use the yeti until it gets better. Then set up the generator outside. The 1500X is portable enough to put in your car and take with you if you want. And it's built to take solar charging out of the box.

https://www.goalzero.com/shop/kits/15-k ... orage-kit/

The Champion is dual fuel and not as nice as the Hondas but it is also only a grand.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/CHAMPION-PO ... z0m0SkO040

Yes, you can get a better transfer switch for the $300 they charge you. Possibly they might require it for warranty purposes so make sure if you decide to swap it for something else and its not terribly overpriced compared to their other stuff. You can find the same Reliance transfer switch for $250 on amazon.

While the DIY route is cheaper it costs more time to build, more time to maintain, takes more space and isn't dual purpose.

If you want to tinker you can add AGM batteries to the yeti if you buy a module. They do charge $450 for their AGM batteries so I would youtube and DIY this portion but for basic home battery backup by throwing a few switches in the basement $3200 + installation of the transfer switch isn't terrible.
It depends heavily on several factors, including the price one is willing to pay, the amount of backup power desired, the desired ease of getting the system operational, the desired ease of use.

As far as price goes, a $150 inverter that can be clamped on to a vehicle's battery and power one's refrigerator and some small items is pretty much impossible to beat; the kickers there are that you're limited to about 400 watts of continuous power, and that requires that your vehicle be kept idling, and most vehicles will burn about .5 gallon of fuel per hour of idling, which is much less efficient than a generator.

The next step up from there in terms of price is a small generator combined with a battery system (as noted in the OP). It's far more involved than the inverter and vehicle option above but can provide much more power and is far more fuel efficient.

Whether to use extension cords or a transfer switch really depends on the price you're willing to pay and the desired ease of use. But unless you have a backup power system capable of powering your 240 volt appliances, I don't personally find a transfer switch very compelling. It's just too inexpensive and simple to use extension cords, especially as seldom as most people lose power.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by whomever »

In the interest of science, I plugged the freezer mentioned above into our Jackery 240, which has an inverter rated at 200 watts continuous, 400 surge - it was a no-go.

When the compressor tried to start the Jackery didn't complain, but the freezer would give its 'I have been powered on' beep and the kill-a-watt would reset from watts display to voltage, so I expect the voltage sagged, maybe all the way to zero if the Jackery inverter reset itself. Then it would sit with the freezer control drawing its 0.3 watt idle until it decided to start the compressor, rinse and repeat.

As mentioned above, what will/won't work with fridges and inverters can be variable. It's probably smart to test one's emergency equipment before the emergency :-)
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

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whomever wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 11:51 am In the interest of science, I plugged the freezer mentioned above into our Jackery 240, which has an inverter rated at 200 watts continuous, 400 surge - it was a no-go.

When the compressor tried to start the Jackery didn't complain, but the freezer would give its 'I have been powered on' beep and the kill-a-watt would reset from watts display to voltage, so I expect the voltage sagged, maybe all the way to zero if the Jackery inverter reset itself. Then it would sit with the freezer control drawing its 0.3 watt idle until it decided to start the compressor, rinse and repeat.

As mentioned above, what will/won't work with fridges and inverters can be variable. It's probably smart to test one's emergency equipment before the emergency :-)
Yes, I wouldn't even try to power a refrigerator or freezer with anything smaller than a 1,000 watt inverter. The running watts aren't the problem; it's the starting watts.

You're absolutely right that it's vital to thoroughly test such things before an outage.

"Amateurs practice until they can get it right; professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong."
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by random_walker_77 »

willthrill81 wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 10:56 am As far as price goes, a $150 inverter that can be clamped on to a vehicle's battery and power one's refrigerator and some small items is pretty much impossible to beat; the kickers there are that you're limited to about 400 watts of continuous power, and that requires that your vehicle be kept idling, and most vehicles will burn about .5 gallon of fuel per hour of idling, which is much less efficient than a generator.

The next step up from there in terms of price is a small generator combined with a battery system (as noted in the OP). It's far more involved than the inverter and vehicle option above but can provide much more power and is far more fuel efficient.
I've got a small 300w inverter, and luckily didn't need to use it this past week. I've been thinking about getting a larger one, and this experience makes it easier to justify, especially since we already have a hybrid car.

It's worth pointing out that if you own a hybrid, you are even better suited to use the car to power an inverter. From what I've read, most Toyota hybrids have a dc-dc converter that can put out 100A at 12V. At that point, you have a quiet, efficient generator, a large gas tank, and a moderately-large traction battery acting as a reserve. Just add a steering wheel lock to make sure your car doesn't leave your driveway.

It'd be even better to get a 2KW inverter, but at that point, I'd probably want a bigger battery to handle surge demand, and would need some way to guarantee that demand from the car's dc-dc inverter doesn't exceed ~80A (don't want to blow the car's fuse!)
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by creant »

willthrill81 wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 10:43 am That said, I definitely see why many find units like the Jackery appealing. They are definitely more plug-and-play, and many are willing to pay multiples more for that feature alone.
In order to do your strategy of "generator on for a few hours a few times a day", what size battery is appropriate to power modem/WiFi, lights, misc small stuff? Jackary 1000 Wh, two 500's, one 500, 300?
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

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creant wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 1:36 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 10:43 am That said, I definitely see why many find units like the Jackery appealing. They are definitely more plug-and-play, and many are willing to pay multiples more for that feature alone.
In order to do your strategy of "generator on for a few hours a few times a day", what size battery is appropriate to power modem/WiFi, lights, misc small stuff? Jackary 1000 Wh, two 500's, one 500, 300?
A modem/router consumes around 10 watts, and most residential LED lights vary from around 2 to 10 watts each. It takes around 5-7 watts to charge a phone, 10-15 to charge a tablet, and only a few watts to charge a AA or AAA battery. So a 300 watt hour unit would likely be enough for such things, but I would probably opt for a 500 given the relatively small cost difference ($300 vs. $420).
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

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Sorry if this is off topic, but I have an anecdote that illustrates that the startup requirements for a motor can be greater than the motor's specs suggest. I apologize if this topic is already covered in this thread. To willthrill81: is this an important consideration when designing an electrical back up plan?

We had just begun a 10 day hotel stay with a 10 day supply of food we brought with us filling up the approx 2 cu ft hotel mini-fridge, when the power went out. The good news: I had with me a fully charged jump starter for the car (the kind that's about 20 pounds, not the mini ones), and I was close to a truck stop. I checked the specs for the fridge and bought the largest inverter they had at the truck stop - the specs suggested it would work but just barely. The specs of the jump starter seemed to be adequate as well.
I correctly predicted it wouldn't work because I assumed the energy to get fridge's compressor to turn on was more than the energy to keep it running once started. Anyway, it wouldn't get the refrigerator to turn on but the power came back on a few hours later.
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Re: A primer on backup battery systems for power outages

Post by willthrill81 »

GrowthSeeker wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:57 pm Sorry if this is off topic, but I have an anecdote that illustrates that the startup requirements for a motor can be greater than the motor's specs suggest. I apologize if this topic is already covered in this thread. To willthrill81: is this an important consideration when designing an electrical back up plan?

We had just begun a 10 day hotel stay with a 10 day supply of food we brought with us filling up the approx 2 cu ft hotel mini-fridge, when the power went out. The good news: I had with me a fully charged jump starter for the car (the kind that's about 20 pounds, not the mini ones), and I was close to a truck stop. I checked the specs for the fridge and bought the largest inverter they had at the truck stop - the specs suggested it would work but just barely. The specs of the jump starter seemed to be adequate as well.
I correctly predicted it wouldn't work because I assumed the energy to get fridge's compressor to turn on was more than the energy to keep it running once started. Anyway, it wouldn't get the refrigerator to turn on but the power came back on a few hours later.
Yes, startup loads are a very important consideration when buying an inverter or a generator. For motors, it's not uncommon for the startup watts to be 2-4 times what the running watts are. As such, a refrigerator that draws 150 watts while running may need 600 watts (maybe even more) to start. Also, most refrigerators have an auto-defrost mechanism to remove any frost that builds up on the evaporator coils, and that's typically 600-800 watts, but there is no startup load on that type of draw. Taken together, this is why I've said that I wouldn't try to power a refrigerator or freezer with anything smaller than a 1,000 watt inverter or generator.

Another possible reason why your inverter couldn't start the refrigerator was because it didn't have an adequate electrical connection with your jump starter. Normally, you would need at least moderately sizable alligator clamps in order to have a good enough connection from the inverter to the battery. Larger inverters have very thick cables with ring eyelets that are attached to a battery with washers, lock washers, and nuts. There's no way that a regular 12 volt socket would work for a refrigerator as those sockets can only provide 15 amps of power (180 watts) before you'll blow a fuse.

Those jump starters actually have surprisingly small batteries in them. For instance, Duracell's 750 amp portable jump starter only has a capacity of 9 amp hours. A refrigerator would drain that in no more than a couple of hours.
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