Ralph Mowery wrote
wrote
That 5KW disappears pretty fast when you turn on the oven,
start up the dryer or the water heater kicks on, even if the A/C
is off. I ran my house on 5.5kw for 8 days but no dryer, no hot
water and everything was cooked on the gas grille. Fortunately
it was warm enough that we didn't need heat.
Sure the 5 kw is just barely enough.
I don't buy that. When I built my very large house on a bare
block of land, I chose to move in as soon as it was physically
possible to stop paying rent on the flat I was renting. The
whole house was wired up completely but I hasn't got
around to doing the meter box and fuse box etc. So I
powered the whole house from the builder's temporary
supply over a long extension cord which could only deliver
2.5KW using a Jesus adapter, plug on each end of the
stub of extension cord. That powered the purely electrical
cooking and hot water and fridge and 2 freezers fine. You
just had ton be careful to only have the big wall oven and
not the grill on at the same time. Microwave was fine with
the oven or grill.
Because I relaxed a bit after moving in, I didn't get around
to doing the meter box and fuse box for a year or so until
the electricity supply operation chucked a tantrum about
the house being powered from the builders temporary
supply and I did the meter box and fuse box and had it
connected properly.
I had the extension cord up in the air from the pole
the builders temporary supply meter box was on
to the eaves of the flat roofed house auto 15' away
with a knot in the extension cord to keep it there.
That knot was a big blob of melted and solidified plastic
when I stopped using it but it was still working fine.
You have to do like the old show Green Acres did with
their electrical supply. Just turn on a few things at a time.
Yep.
You could cut off most everything but a few lights
and run the water heater to get hot water. Then
cut off a lot for the stove, or just use the microwave.
I could run the big wall oven or the grill in it and
the big full sized microwave fine. But not all 3
at once. But I never do that anyway even now.
The cost is another factor. Just looking at a 7.5 kw and running at
half load the company says about 18 gal per 24 hours on gas and 5 hours
on 20 lb of propane. That is going to be around $ 45 per 24 hours of
run time. The inverter type will cut back under light loads, but the
ones without will consume about that much even without much of a load a
load.
My small 3500 kw will run for about $ 25 per day at half power. I can't
run as much ,but can burn a few lights and watch TV and heat some things
in the microwave. If I want more power, I can fire up the 5 kw unit.
People have to realize that this is a temporary emergency situation.
They will not be able to run the whole house unless very rich.
The larger diesel generators seem to be a lot more econimical to run
from what I have heard.