Any reliable back-up systems

[Ryan S.]

A lot of brands to look at. You probably need to speak to a local electrican to install them. I know at our local Sam's Club the Centurian brand's smallest unit would put out 7000watts on LP, and cost ~$1993 delivered to continental US. Larger units are more popular to hold hold houses, other brands may be cheaper on these largers sizes. You usually set them to cut on once a week automatically, usually a short time during the night to keep them fresh. I think they are usually installed outdoors on a concrete pad, although the specs for the brand mentioned here include a "composite pad".

[Rich L]

Some time ago The power failed on my 16,000 gallon lightly stocked pond. I was on vacation and told my friend, who was watching the pond not to feed the fish until I returned. Two weeks later I washed the filters and dumped the stagnent water in the lines. Restarted and had no further problems.

Since then I've used a battery backup for several years. The first was a home built that worked finr for a couple of years powering an air pump.

Now I have several commercial UPS units lying around and like everything but the batteries to be self contained.

An excellent UPS can be purchased from Allied radio www.alliedelec.com at a competative price. Be certain you select a battery backup unit with automatic switchover and battery recharge.

[joe bauer]

how many hours can you run a generator like that before you have to change the oil?

seems like a 2 pole generator would have to run 3600 rpm to produce 60 hz. that is running pretty hard.

[junglegeorge12]

Natural gas is rising in price and may be a source of agony later, as well many feel they are not so safe.

Batteries is the most reliable way and they can power your whole home for up to several days depending on the number and size you buy. You can use marine batteries (good for storms) and then buy a converter (alot of yachting, rv, and house boat suppliers have them) to power your home. You can charge the batteries when the power is on. For longer outages, a system to recharge them has to be in place. Solar is one option, deisel generators are the cheaper up front and cheaper of the fuels to use, gas generators are noisy, use alot of fuel, and cause alot of fires and explosions.

Personally, with what I think is coming for oil/power situations in the next 5-10 years, a solar and wind turbine battery recharging system is a wiser investment. Mike is right about being able to sell back to the power company and winding up with no or very little power bill. But, getting it installed, metered, and inspected is not so easy and cheap. It is much cheaper to just get alot of batteries and a converter, then recharge with either a large solar panel or deisel generator, wind turbines can be added to help reduce fuel use and as a backup, but is not a way to produce enough to run things long term on. For you middle income guys, stockpiling marine batteries and converters is a great idea. One day you might be able to power your home, and sell them for $500 each. We are siting on the edge of the biggest price hikes for oil the world has ever seen. As supplies diminish it is going to get way, way worse. Luke's prop pump might save the hobby, literally. Wind turbine and solar charged battery prop pumps!

The largest oil reserves in the world have yet to be tapped (under the polar ice cap and in the gulf), but when they do get tapped it is estimated we have less than 25 yrs of supply left with current population increase. Oil will then be valued more than gold. Then it will be gone. It will take 75-100 years to build sufficient fusion and nuke plants to meet the demand. So you tell me where that will leave the average joe in the meantime. I am sure hydrogen and other options will spring up, and better reactors and other energy sources will be developed, but with what pricetag?

I would like to know more about the vertical turbines you mentioned, where can we find out more info about that?

[junglegeorge12]

Joe, you do not have to run it at 3600 rpm if you use a belt and pulley to run the actual generator. A small deisel has enough torque to keep a 12,000 watt generator running at 6-700rpm if it is pulleyed and belted right. I personally have a Mercedes 5 cylinder deisel run to a 8000 watt generator via pulleys, it runs like a champ and has never failed me. I have had it for two years and it has not yet used one tank of fuel, and we have power outages every week here. The marine batteries and converter are next on the 'to do' list.To get a truly efficient deisel generator you have to DIY. The commercial ones are designed to use lots of fuel, run at high rpms(noisy as he##), and break down. A belted deisel system will have to have maintenance(checking the belt and tension every three-six months, etc.) but the engine should go forever and the fuel use should be miniscule. Just remember to fire it up once a month to keep the batteries charged so it will start when the power fails! (I have worked with many emergency power management schemes and cannot tell you how many times I have seen $150k commercial systmes fail to start due to not being used for years and the startup battery being dead) Belted systems to recharge a battery system are much more reliable long term. The generator only runs a couple hours a day to recharge the batteries.