Generators at GL ?

[Jboulay]

Hi All, I'm new here and I know little about equipment like gensets that I need. ..it drove me crazy before everyone keep saying GL but I didn't know what it stands ...I know now its gov liquidation. Lol .. I need help selecting a 15k w old military used diesel genset for home backup use. It has to be able to handle electronics like pcs/tvs. Any idea?

 

[simp5782]

Hi All, I'm new here and I know little about equipment like gensets that I need. ..it drove me crazy before everyone keep saying GL but I didn't know what it stands ...I know now its gov liquidation. Lol .. I need help selecting a 15k w old military used diesel genset for home backup use. It has to be able to handle electronics like pcs/tvs. Any idea?

GovPlanet sells a lot of the bigger gen sets.

 

[Light in the Dark]

Hi All, I'm new here and I know little about equipment like gensets that I need. ..it drove me crazy before everyone keep saying GL but I didn't know what it stands ...I know now its gov liquidation. Lol .. I need help selecting a 15k w old military used diesel genset for home backup use. It has to be able to handle electronics like pcs/tvs. Any idea?

Well welcome. 15kw is much bigger than MOST folks will ever need. Also with the military units, at the 15kw level you are looking at three phase power only (where 10kw and under are single or three phase). You will want single phase if you aren't specifically running 3 phase equipment. Do you have any idea what your actual current power requirements are today (grid power)? What are you willing to give up when the power is down (length of time doesn't matter)? These machines should be sized to what you will ACTUALLY use (they aren't big fans of running at low outputs compared to their peak).

Plenty of real knowledgeable folks here. Look forward to helping how we can.

 

[simp5782]

Well welcome. 15kw is much bigger than MOST folks will ever need. Also with the military units, at the 15kw level you are looking at three phase power only (where 10kw and under are single or three phase). You will want single phase if you aren't specifically running 3 phase equipment. Do you have any idea what your actual current power requirements are today (grid power)? What are you willing to give up when the power is down (length of time doesn't matter)? These machines should be sized to what you will ACTUALLY use (they aren't big fans of running at low outputs compared to their peak).

Plenty of real knowledgeable folks here. Look forward to helping how we can.

It does not take much to convert it to single phase. A 30kw I had I changed it over to single.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmF4Awr3uc4

 

[jamawieb]

Welcome. What you want to look for is a 004a as you can convert successfully to single phase only. You will have to complete the sewerzuk conversion, which is located on a thread here or youtube. But the downside is, the 004a use around 2 gallons per hour and a fully loaded 003a (10kw) or 803a (10kw) only burns 1 gallon fully loaded. I personally load test the 003a and 803a to 13kw with a commercial load bank and they will go to 15kw without a problem.

 

[155mm]

If you do want to do the sewerzuk mod, just make sure you get an 004 or an 005, this mod WILL NOT WORK for an 804, 805, 806.

I second the 'knowing what you consume' so that you can get the correct sized, if you are sizing to a MEP guess low, if you are sizing to a comm'l available guess big. (ie buying MEP's, i guess i use 14kw, buying a generac, I guess I use 17kw)

MEP's are power plants, so when it says 15kw, that is operating watts. Now on cheap china crap, those are standby's, it says 15kw, that is peak and you might get a solid 12kw if you hold your mouth right, use leaded gas, and have a unicorn that drops rainbows from its backside.

 

[Chainbreaker]

You gotta determine how you want to operate during an extended outage. Do you want to run as if still on utility power or are you willing to compromise somewhat by not using luxury items (unplugging items or turning off breakers). You need to add up loads of everything you want to run. I put them in 3 columns: Critical, nice to have and luxury items.

More generator capacity means you are going to need more fuel to carry you through an extended outage. If you had a 600 gallon fuel oil tank onsite no worries. If your going to have to store just generator fuel via 55 gal fuel drums, aux fuel tank or jerry cans you really need to consider genset fuel consumption.

Unless you have a very large house with big loads (2 ac units, home theater, walk in fridge...etc.) you should be able to get by easily with a MEP-803 or MEP-003a or...

Edit: If you don't have electric hot water or electric cook top (runs on NG or propane) you might be able to get by with a MEP-802 or MEP-002a by using good load management practices (I don't run hot tub or electric dryer during outage, but I could if I managed breakers so other high current appliances did not kick on while using dryer or cycling hot tub as necessary so it does not freeze up during a long duration cold winter pwr outage). I was extremely pleased with running my MEP-002a during a week long power outage last winter. I never ran out of fuel since they are pretty frugal fuel-wise. For us, life inside our house was pretty much normal routine while on generator with only having 5-7.5 kW genset output available. An added plus is that most of the smaller MEP's are easy keepers as far as routine maintenance goes. Another thought...stocking critical spares...don't end up with a "good deal MEP model" that were in low numbers and not surplused into mainstream civilian circulation that much. If you end up with one of those it will make it difficult to find spares and get much help in troubleshooting.

 

[Jboulay]

Well welcome. 15kw is much bigger than MOST folks will ever need. Also with the military units, at the 15kw level you are looking at three phase power only (where 10kw and under are single or three phase). You will want single phase if you aren't specifically running 3 phase equipment. Do you have any idea what your actual current power requirements are today (grid power)? What are you willing to give up when the power is down (length of time doesn't matter)? These machines should be sized to what you will ACTUALLY use (they aren't big fans of running at low outputs compared to their peak).

Plenty of real knowledgeable folks here. Look forward to helping how we can.

Thanks Light.
I have a regular 1500 square-foot 4bed rooms home with 120volts appliances (fridge, fans, washing machines, lights, microware,etc) and 240 volts central Ac, pool /pump sprinkler pump,etc) but not all will run at same time.
So the 10kwatts unit should be fine right?

 

[Floridianson]

I could with load management run my home on 10k. I know everyone here loves there military units but I looked at different direction when I was setting up my parents place. Since it had to be hands free because of there age I thought natural gas and a self maintaining unit. We had NG piped into the development and in most cases even with power out the NG still flows. For me it was piece of mind for mom and dad also if no NG then LPG will store for long periods with no problems. The last big storm here all the diesel was sold out and I had to run two towns over to find it. I bet if you shopped around you will find that it's not going to cost that much more but for me it's piece of mind not money.

 

[coxju04]

I had a 2200 Square-foot house with 3 fridges 2 freezers 4 ton A/C unit, LED lights fans and the whole nine yards. My 003 would run about 60% So yes they are power houses!!!

 

[Zed254]

You might want to do an actual tally of the amps you use at your home then consider when they come on line. Each appliance will have a listed amperage. I'm in Virginia Beach so the highest probability of power outage is during a hurricane or freak winter snow storm where everyone jumps in the car for some milk and hits the brakes.....straight into a power pole. My amps total looks like this. I've highlighted stuff that I need to watch and may not be used. As Chainbreaker says you need to manage your load:

Household Amperage of various appliances on 4/17:

MEP-803A is rated at 52 Amps at 120/240 volts.

Kitchen refrigerator: 11.6 amps
Garage refrigerator: 6.5 amps x 2 = 13 amps
Garage freezer: 5.0 amps


Maytag Electric Dryer: 23.3 amps
Whirlpool Washing Machine: 10 amps
Toaster Oven: 9.6 amps
Coffee Pot: 7.5 amps
Coffee Grinder: 1.0 amp
Microwave oven: 11.25 amps
Kitchen Laptop charger: 1.6 amps
Laptop monitor: 1.8 amps (consider using laptop's screen)

Top Floor Emerg. Elect.
Heater in HVAC 39 amps
Gas Furnace blower 9 amps (estimated)
Gas Furnace condensate
pump 1.5 amps
Upstairs A/C compressor 18.3 amps
Downstairs A/C compressor 16.4 amps
Gas Hot Water Heater
Blower 1.75 amps

WiFi transmitter 3 amps
Phone charger 0.15 amps
TV Down 1.6 amps
TV Receiver 2.2 amps

 

[DieselAddict]

Here are my thoughts.

You won't know the answer to your question without taking inventory of your loads on paper and adding them up. Secondly - how much effort are you wanting to put into this? These are not set-and-forget machines.

As mentioned above once you have your inventory you need to look at what your priority loads are.. Things like the fridge. What can you live without? Do you really think you'll need to run an electric dryer while on emergency power or bake a birthday cake?

In my case I can get by on a MEP-831 (3kw) generator. That gets me lights, water (well pump), TV, and a microwave/convection oven. I cook on gas and my hot water is solar. In this mode I can easily survive on 1-2 gallons of diesel fuel per day. Fuel burn average will be around 0.25 gph.

If I want to run the AC in the summer I would need a MEP802. That will handle the 3T heatpump I have. Fuel burn goes up to an average of about 0.4 gph.

If I want to run the AC, bake a cake, and dry some clothes my MEP803 will do all that at once. Fuel burn will average 0.8 gph.

Where I live when the power goes out for any kind of a weather related event it stays out for 3-4 days. Each of the scenarios above require differing amounts of fuel storage and effort. If I want to fire up the 803 and pretend that nothing happened in relation to my lifestyle in the house that will cost me $30-$40 a day in fuel. I have about 100 gallons for the generators plus the 40 gallons in the truck's tank so I can certainly do that if I want. Not my first choice for sure.

If the weather is nice and I don't need AC I can live very comfortably on $6 a day in fuel running the 831. That minimizes the amount I have to mess around with fuel.

So.. You may say you want all those options but only want to buy one generator.. If thats the case I would recommend that you buy a LP/NG generator. Diesels in comparison don't scale well that way and its not good for them to run lightly loaded for long periods of time. You increase your maintenance costs if you don't run diesel generators loaded. Its best to size the unit for the expected load and keep the load on it the best you can. The way around that issue is to have a load bank and if you run your machine 15-20 hours lightly loaded you would put it on a load bank for an hour or two and run the snot out of it. This adds to the amount of work YOU have to do (and extra stuff such as a load bank) to keep the equipment in good running condition.

For many of us this is a hobby with the practical side of having a reliable source of electricity in virtually any scenario.

 

[Jboulay]

I had a 2200 Square-foot house with 3 fridges 2 freezers 4 ton A/C unit, LED lights fans and the whole nine yards. My 003 would run about 60% So yes they are power houses!!!

Hi what a an 003?

 

[Jboulay]

Welcome. What you want to look for is a 004a as you can convert successfully to single phase only. You will have to complete the sewerzuk conversion, which is located on a thread here or youtube. But the downside is, the 004a use around 2 gallons per hour and a fully loaded 003a (10kw) or 803a (10kw) only burns 1 gallon fully loaded. I personally load test the 003a and 803a to 13kw with a commercial load bank and they will go to 15kw without a problem.

I'll stick with a 10kwatt but which one is easy to find parts for?

 

[DieselAddict]

MEP003. It's the previous generation of military generators. The 003 is a 10kw air cooled machine. The 803 is a 10kw water cooled machine.

 

[155mm]

MEP 003a= 10kw

 

[DieselAddict]

I'll stick with a 10kwatt but which one is easy to find parts for?

The 803 is a more current model and many of the parts are readily available. That doesn't mean cheap. Look around on auction sites and search for parts. You'll get a feel for what it costs if you break something. On the plus side it's not to likely you will break something if you treat them with some modest care. Good fuel, clean air, and an oil change now and again can offer you an engine that will outlast you. Electrical switches and relays need to be exercised to stay in good working order. Leaving them sit for a year with zero attention will lead to dark places.

 

[155mm]

barn rot is worse on green iron than using them everyday

 

[Bmxenbrett]

If you can cut back on A/C useage u might beable to get away with a 5kw unit.

 

[Jboulay]

MEP003. It's the previous generation of military generators. The 003 is a 10kw air cooled machine. The 803 is a 10kw water cooled machine.

I'm sure both the MEP003 and MEP803
Are great but Can anyone admit that one is more reliable than the other? As far as parts which one is easier to get parts for and where to get parts?