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Anyone know the name of a reputable Home Generator Maintenance Company on STX that does on-site work?
Currently renting here on STX, the landlord lives off island and takes the attitude of "call around, get an estimate and just fix it". The house has a generator in the utility room, its a 5k Diesel. I cleaned it, changed the fluids, charged the battery and fired it up last year, a couple of weeks before Omar.... but of course, the morning after... it just sat there and looked at me and refused to start.
Would really not like to get caught in the same situation again this year.
I have 3 generators under my responsibility. The diesel I have a quarertly maintenance done which consists of a yearly oil and air filter change and an external radiator cleaning (salt air ). The battery and cables are checked as well as the fuel system and fuel and water separator. The others are propane and they get an oil change, a battery check, a spark plug and a cleaning.Then top up the tank and you are ready for the windstorm season.
I`d suggest a float charger for the battery as many chargers such as cheap Ferro-Resonant chargers will over charge(13.8 VDC) continuous, which will eventually cook the battery.
The Float charger maintains full charge w/o boiling the acid.
I also like the generator/inverter system much better than just a generator, as you can still have many items operation w/o the generator running.
Since we are on the topic and there are some knowledge folk posting, I have a UPS for my electronics which has an automatic voltage regulator, I was wondering if I should have something similar between my portable generator and the fridge or are they not designed to handle those types of loads
Q:Does the generator / inverter system involve a battery bank - how big?
Yes, you need a battery bank.
The size of the inverter depends on what you will run, the size of the battery bank, is for how long.
Q: I have a UPS for my electronics which has an automatic voltage regulator, I was wondering if I should have something similar between my portable generator and the fridge or are they not designed to handle those types of loads
Here`s one possible setup. a 2.5 KW inverter w/ a 4 stage 125 amp charger, connected to a 600 AH battery bank.
You could run the gen say 8hrs(during the highest AC load times such as during breakfast,and/or dinner(I assume you would have coffee makers/toasters/microwaves/toaster ovens on at this time).
You can leave such things as the fridge And/or freezer, a lamp w/ a 25 watt bulb, the LCD, cable box TV, radio & computer on the inverter bank, high end inverters have internal transfer switches that seamlessly(some computers will crash, many won`t hiccup like a UPS) transfer between WAPA/Generator & the inverter.
A AGS module also would sense the battery bank voltage & automatically fire the generator up before the battery's were dead.
The 2.5 KW inverter could also run MOST 120 VAC water pumps, but a axillary 12 DC pump run off the same battery bank would be much more efficient(water output would be less)..
Modified sine wave inverters are less expensive, but don`t run many loads perfectly(most people would`t notice) some battery chargers such as cordless drills will fry with this type.
Cheap, Chinese inverters dont have chargers or transfer switches, & have been known to screw up what they run if kept connected(items that use transformers & battery's such as a laptop, generally won`t be hurt by such devices until they fry & send several 100 volts though it.
A pure sine wave inverter has very clean power
So, you could reduce your generator run time, wear & tear, & fuel consumption by 33% in this example,and the inverter run time would be silent.
