"jon_banquer" wrote in message
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On Jan 9, 1:34 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

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On Jan 9, 11:33 am, harry wrote:









On Jan 9, 1:41 pm, "
wrote:

On Jan 8, 10:37 pm, "NotMe" wrote:

"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda
GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that
attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some
distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know,
chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow
id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how
much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of
negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of
the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as
many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50
ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I
ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but
the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have
provided.

Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

15Kw is the output.
Probably needs around 50Kw or 60Kw gas input on full load- Hide quoted
text -

- Show quoted text -

No **** harry? You figure that out? That it takes more
energy in than out?

What a maroon. Has nothing to do with the fact that a
typical house has a gas line from the utility more than
adequate to run his genset.

harry, what happens when a typical house wants to
add a swimming pool? The heater for a swimming pool
is 200K to 400K BTUS? You think they have to run
a new gas line to the street? Here's a clue. The gas is
under higher pressure until it gets to the regulator at the
house. It can supply plenty of gas.
================================================== ==

I see I'm not the only one you give a hard time to..... LOL

To be fair, not everyone is aware of those kinds of efficiency issues,
either, so it was a fair reminder. In fact, most people are not aware of
the drastic thermodynamic inefficiencies of heat engines. Makes you wonder
about God....

Regarding that residential restriction, yeah, it proly is a rare thing,
but
it WAS a very inneresting factoid -- unfortunately for the guy who built
the
furnace.

BUT, it also remains to be seen if my gas service (and piping) can support
a
gas-fired furnace, kitchen stuff, hot water heater, AND a genset going
full
tilt -- poss. not at all a moot point during a deep-winter outage.
But still, proly not a biggie even if there is a bottleneck somewhere --
things just won't be going 100%.

Also, in my neck of the woods, there is no gas regulator in the house. I
don't know if that's good or bad. Mebbe there's one streetside. In fact, I
don't ever recall seeing one in the NYC, Westch area -- not that I was
looking, but that is something I woulda noticed, house-hunting etc..
Unique to NJ? I know some places have very high water pressure (100 psi),
that needs a regulator house-side. That pressure can vary with where you
physically are relative to the municipal water pumps.
--
EA

Besides natural gas are you planning on having other ways you can run
it such as having a propane tank installed or something else?
================================================== =====

Proly just some BBQ type bottles hanging around, more for if for some reason
I load the thing onto m'truck.
But since I'm now an Oh-ficial Doomsday Prepper (thanks to fuknSandy), I got
like 50 gals of gasoline tucked away, so I can always use that. This genset
has a separate gas line/filter that you just drop in a gas can -- really
nice, as you can set up multiple gas cans siphon-style, for really big
capacity.
Might also be able to just drop the hose into the gas tank of m'truck!!
I'll have to check that out.

Another thing I wanted to do was put a spigot on my gas tank, so I could
fill cans right from the truck.
Heh, and pray that none of the neighborhood hoodlums know about my gas-tank
spigot..... LOL
Or, perhaps plumb sumpn in under the hood in the fuel pump line, and just
let the fuel pump do the pumping??
I'll have to explore that, see how complicated the wiring would be for that.

Let's put it this way: If an outtage is so bad, so broad that you lose nat
gas pressure, we are in *deep *****. Nat gas almost never goes out. But if
it does, that's the neat thing about tri-fuel.

Remember that hyooge blackout, that hit like 1/4 of the US/Northeast?? I
wonder if nat gas was lost in that thing.... Fortunately, since it wadn't
really storm/disaster related, power came back in about 24 hrs. I think nat
gas pressure WAS lost, bec I seem to remember some issues in some buildings,
restarting pilots and alladat.
Mebbe someone here knows f'sure.
--
EA