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JosephKK

On Mon, 23 Sep 2013 13:15:41 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Sunday, September 22, 2013 1:18:13 PM UTC-4, wrote:
My son has a pellet stove, and it is great except for when they lose power. This sometimes is for days, and when it happens during the Winter we can usually count on seeing them over here for the duration of the outage. It's always nice to have them visit but I would like to help them to be more self sufficient if possible.

He tells me that during startup the ignitor requires 500watts, but once the thing is cranking, the blower and auger take about 250watts. If this were to run off an inverter though I don't know what the 12volt side would require. I have a 2000VA UPS that is not being used right now. It uses 5 12volt 7AH batteries. If I used 5 sealed group 24 or larger automotive type batteries and except for the initial 500watt startup demand I am drawing approximately one quarter maximum continuous load, the inverter shouldn't overheat and therefore should be able to run continuously. Given this scenario, can anyone venture a guess as to how long he'll be able to run the stove before the batteries drop to the point that the inverter shuts down? Thanks, Lenny

Not sure about the bigger batteries. But 5 x 12V @ 7AH is
5*12 = 60 V * 7 A *3600 seconds ~ 1.5 x10^6 joules. Divided by 250 watts is about 6000 seconds, a little less than two hours, (assuming 100% efficiency)

As Mike said, get a generator.

George H.

Feeding the generator with fuel for 4 days is no joke either. Even at a
hopelessly low fuel consumption of 1 gal/Hr that is about 100 gallon of
fuel. Decently useful size backup generators require huge fuel tanks for
a few days of continuous operation.

?-)