Back up Generator

[PaulB]

Dear Fonts of all Knowledge!

I have searched and found some good articles on Generators but I am very confused about what size I need. I am looking to buy and pay for all the big ticket items before I retire (54) next Sept to my home in the Philippines. I feel I have bought the expensive items such as:

(In expense order!)

1. Wife 
2. House 
3. Kotse 
4. Business 
5. Home Bar 

 

I feel the next big thing is the Back up generator  so I was hoping someone out there might have more electrical knowledge then me, who can barely put the plug in,  to tell me what size generator I need to power a fridge freezer, 3 AC units, 12 lights, CCTV system, TV and decoder and Internet? Also is it a job a local electrician could do to connect an Automatic transfer switch so it comes online when Brown out kicks in? Also is there a Wattage issue?

Any help appreciated.

 

Paul (sorry loved the emotions tonight as it is EMP Light Night here!! Abu Dhabi Thursday is Friday if that makes sense)

Edited March 15, 2018 by PaulB
Stupid!

[Dr. Shiva]

Calculate all wattage from all appliances, electronics, cooking range, light and so on together. Then add 20% to this sum. This is the VA (Voltampere) the generator have to provide at minimum. Example your sum would be 5000 Watt. Then add 20% to this sum will give totally 6000 VA. This would means that your generator have to provide at least 6000 VA. This is because electrical motors creates a power spike at power on. And the generator should be strong enough to compensate this.

Edited March 15, 2018 by Dr. Shiva

[PaulB]

Dr.

Thank you for your reply. Problem is I am lazy!! I can't turn all appliances upside down for that data. I am hoping someone can just tell me! Oh and I am in Abu Dhabi so is a bit of an issue!

Thank you anyway and by the way i respect your answers in all posts. Learning a lot from listening (reading) to you.

 

Paul

[Dr. Shiva]

Yeah sorry to tell you, but you will have to go thru it. We don't know which appliances and other electrical units you are using.

[Old55]

Jake and I are willing to check all that stuff for you no problem.

PM us details for our airline ticket expenses, pocket money handling charges overhead costs incidental coverage beverages surcharge meals and “other”.

Don't expect any alcohol in your house leftover just sayin.

[PaulB]

Old 55

Sounds Like a Plan!!

I will have to be there to ensure your beer is cold and the pool  and women hot. I am afraid it could take at least a week but I will take care of all expenses as long as we end up with the right generator!

Paul

[Huggybearman]

It depends on the size of your A/C units which will probably be your biggest draw. A 1hp unit will draw around 1kw whilst running and possibly up to three times that on start up. So you would need around 5kw just for those. (Assuming you are not going to start all the A/C units at the same time). Or more if they are more than 1hp.  Another 1kw should cover the rest as you are not cooking by electric. As Doc suggests, you really need to do a power audit to be sure. 

Do you really need such a large generator? How often do you suffer brownouts? How long do they last on average. Large generators are expensive to buy and expensive to run. Especially if you want one that will come on line automatically. Will it produce a pure sinewave output or a quazi or modified one? A lot of electrical items do not like modified sinewave output. To say nothing about the noise. How will your neighbours react to your generator?  Another alternative if brownouts are not that common is a much smaller generator to power just the essentials. Here is CDO we tend to suffer brownouts about once a month, generally for around an hour. For that we have a small Honda invertor generator (Honda eu10i) which powers everything we NEED except A/C. It outputs a very stable pure sinewave form which will run any type of sensitive equipment up to its rated output of 900 watts.  It will run several fans as well as things like TV, internet and lights. It will also run the fridge freezer as well if the outage is going to be prolonged. What more do you need?  It is exceptionally quiet and economical and the neighbours won't even know its running! It will run for about seven hours on just two litres of unleaded petrol. Just a thought!

Ken

Edited March 15, 2018 by Huggybearman

[Dave Hounddriver]

7 hours ago, PaulB said:

Problem is I am lazy!! I can't turn all appliances upside down for that data.

All generators are not created equal.   Within the conditions you mention, (meaning you want a guestimate rather than an exact), you have a couple of options.

Option one is to go for a quality generator to supply most of your needs and buy a good quality, Honda Inverter Generator that puts out 6500 W (enough to power at least 1 or 2 of the aircons you mentioned (depending on their size) but not likely to power all 3 plus the rest of your appliances).  Here is a link. Suggested Retail Price 210,000 pesos

Option two is to go for the same thing in a cheap Chinese generator which is much cheaper, louder less reliable, and usually more expensive for fuel such as the one in this link for only 43,500 pesos

Option three is to go with a basic Honda Inverter generator which will do everything but the aircons and is more efficient for about 46,000 pesos such as in this link.

Option 4 is to go Overkill and buy a huge mother of an generator because you want all the power to cover all the things plus maybe allow the relatives to plug into it or run a business that requires large amounts of power.  Businesses who want to do that usually go with the huge diesel gennies that require constant maintenance and are expensive to run but when there is a brown out, we all go to their shops 

EDIT:  Forgot to give my opinion,  From what you describe, if it were me on my budget I'd be wavering between options 2 and 3.

That option 2 is a nice looking gennie but would probably require more maintenance and fuel than I'd want to pay for.  The smaller Honda in option 3 is cheap to run and reliable but you could forget about running any air conditioners.

Yes you can get a local guy to wire it up so you can flip a switch and get the whole house to go on generator power but no, it will not be an automatic switch over.  

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Dave Hounddriver

[GeoffH]

Honda make 2 hand carry inverter Generators, the EU10iS and the EU22i (you may still see the earlier EU20 ).

If it was me, and you're going for a smaller inverter generator then I'd also consider the 22i model which has more than twice the capacity of the 10is for only about 50% more cost. 

It has been my experience that both of these generators are reliable and should provide years of reliable operation with only basic servicing.

I have no experience with larger generators sorry.

[Dave Hounddriver]

6 hours ago, Huggybearman said:

A 1hp unit will draw around 1kw whilst running and possibly up to three times that on start up. So you would need around 5kw just for those. (Assuming you are not going to start all the A/C units at the same time). Or more if they are more than 1hp.

I agree with you on the assumption that PaulB has purchased new, energy efficient, inverter type aircons and will buy a nice new, efficient generator.

My experience with an older 6.5 KW Chinese generator and older window units is that the generator would not power up the 1 hp when anything else was running.  Every time the old type aircon compressor stopped and restarted it drew all the power the generator could produce to start it up again.