On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 12:44:22 -0500, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 07:26:27 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 05:51:11 +0000 (UTC), danny burstein
wrote:

In writes:

[snip]

The water heater, all by itself tripped the breaker on the generator
(5500w). Same with the dryer. I can run the oven but that is 97% of
the output.

I take it you've got an electric water heater. It should be
possible to rewire the connections so that instead of 240V it
gets 120V. This will reduce the amperage by half, and with
the similar voltage cutdown, means the watts it pulls will
be only 1/4 of the original number [a].

(Natch, this also means a _lot_ longer to heat up waer
from a, so to speak, cold start)

I did this type of rewiring in areas where the electrical
utility hit the user with "peak demand charges".

Oh, in regards to getting diesel fuel when the gas stations
are closed...

Quite often it's a "ran out of gasoline from the tanks" deal,
but they often (if they stock it, of course) will still
have diesel fuel.

(Natch, this only works if they have electric power
themselves. More and more gas stations are putting
in their own backup generators...)

Sure if in all of the other things you are doing after a hurricane,
you want to screw with rewiring a water heater. It also puts that 1.14
KW on one leg of your generator. Bear in mind, if either leg draws
much more than 2.2 KW it will trip, even if there is nothing on the
other side. Load balancing is a lot easier if all your big loads are
240v.
better to just connect upper and lower elements in series - achieves
the same result and balances the load

Half the same result but yes, if I get in that situation and they tell
me the power will be out for an indefinite time, I thought about that.
Putting them in series cuts the watts in half, running them at half
voltage cuts it to 25%.