BlackhawkMTP
Member
- 43
- 8
- 8
- Location
- KY
Hello everyone,
Newbie here. I recently found this site after doing a little research on military generators. I must admit that since I have started researching these gensets, I have been fascinated by their capabilities when you compare what they cost to their civilian equivalent generators. I would like to thank the contributing members here for sharing their knowledge to people like me that really aren't that smart when it comes to this stuff. I have learned a lot by looking through the threads here on this site on my quest to gain the knowledge required to set up a standby generator at my house. I hope to do things right the first time.
I recently have purchased a MEP-802a that I found which I thought was a great deal. It appears to have 9 original hours on the clock so I decided to pull the trigger and purchase this unit. Before purchasing this unit I called my local electric company to track my usage and they stated that at peak usage since I have been in my house was under 8KW (7300) on a certain day when they said that I was running my heat pump and dryer at the same time. I figured I would be able to get away with the MEP-802a 5kw generator so that is why I purchased it. I don't feel like I would have to use my dryer in a power outage and I believe that I could turn off everything in the house or run my heat in emergency mode which is when it switches over to propane and run my dryer if necessary. I recently had my electrician install a plug (after looking through the recommendations on this forum I went with a 30 amp weather tight SCAME Connector) so that I could run my generator through the transfer switch that I had previously installed when I built the house. This house is about 1600 square foot but was built and designed by me to be very energy efficient. I have a propane on demand hot water heater, propane rangetop, a hybrid heat pump that uses electricity until it gets below 35 degrees outside then switches to propane, and an efficient AC unit.On my initial test run, I was running the A/C unit, refrigerator, 2 freezers some lights (all lights are LED in this house) and I was pulling about 20% power according to the gauge on the generator.
After I told my neighbor (retired military) about my generator and showed it to him, he liked it and the idea of having a military generator so much he purchased a MEP-803a. He has all electric appliances including furnace, water heater stove ect. His house is only 800 square foot. I am making recommendations to him on how he should set it up so I obviously I don't want to steer him in the wrong direction. He recently got a quote for an install on a propane generator which was 14k and a diesel which was 20k. He thought this was a better solution after he seen what I was doing.
After doing a little more research, I found out that it's possible to hook these generators up with aftermarket kits that will let them monitor utility power and start automatically using a transfer switch control board and talking with the autostart that has been installed on the generator. I am wondering if I might have messed up and should have purchased a MEP-803a so that I won't have to do any load shedding?
I want to make sure that I am doing this the right way so my question is this. Would it be best to install another electrical panel beside the existing one in my house that acts as a generator break out panel when emergency power is applied and only lets certain things run just in case the autostart is tripped and I'm not at the house to manually do the load shedding? I obviously want to do everything safe and I will be having an electrician do the electrical work. I'm no electrician but I'm trying to understand what needs to be done so that it's done right.
Also, Is this connector in the attached picture acceptable for my neighbors MEP-803a? He wants a weather tight connector like the one I have. It's a SCAME 60 Amp 4 wire Pin and Sleeve connector.
Thanks again!
Newbie here. I recently found this site after doing a little research on military generators. I must admit that since I have started researching these gensets, I have been fascinated by their capabilities when you compare what they cost to their civilian equivalent generators. I would like to thank the contributing members here for sharing their knowledge to people like me that really aren't that smart when it comes to this stuff. I have learned a lot by looking through the threads here on this site on my quest to gain the knowledge required to set up a standby generator at my house. I hope to do things right the first time.
I recently have purchased a MEP-802a that I found which I thought was a great deal. It appears to have 9 original hours on the clock so I decided to pull the trigger and purchase this unit. Before purchasing this unit I called my local electric company to track my usage and they stated that at peak usage since I have been in my house was under 8KW (7300) on a certain day when they said that I was running my heat pump and dryer at the same time. I figured I would be able to get away with the MEP-802a 5kw generator so that is why I purchased it. I don't feel like I would have to use my dryer in a power outage and I believe that I could turn off everything in the house or run my heat in emergency mode which is when it switches over to propane and run my dryer if necessary. I recently had my electrician install a plug (after looking through the recommendations on this forum I went with a 30 amp weather tight SCAME Connector) so that I could run my generator through the transfer switch that I had previously installed when I built the house. This house is about 1600 square foot but was built and designed by me to be very energy efficient. I have a propane on demand hot water heater, propane rangetop, a hybrid heat pump that uses electricity until it gets below 35 degrees outside then switches to propane, and an efficient AC unit.On my initial test run, I was running the A/C unit, refrigerator, 2 freezers some lights (all lights are LED in this house) and I was pulling about 20% power according to the gauge on the generator.
After I told my neighbor (retired military) about my generator and showed it to him, he liked it and the idea of having a military generator so much he purchased a MEP-803a. He has all electric appliances including furnace, water heater stove ect. His house is only 800 square foot. I am making recommendations to him on how he should set it up so I obviously I don't want to steer him in the wrong direction. He recently got a quote for an install on a propane generator which was 14k and a diesel which was 20k. He thought this was a better solution after he seen what I was doing.
After doing a little more research, I found out that it's possible to hook these generators up with aftermarket kits that will let them monitor utility power and start automatically using a transfer switch control board and talking with the autostart that has been installed on the generator. I am wondering if I might have messed up and should have purchased a MEP-803a so that I won't have to do any load shedding?
I want to make sure that I am doing this the right way so my question is this. Would it be best to install another electrical panel beside the existing one in my house that acts as a generator break out panel when emergency power is applied and only lets certain things run just in case the autostart is tripped and I'm not at the house to manually do the load shedding? I obviously want to do everything safe and I will be having an electrician do the electrical work. I'm no electrician but I'm trying to understand what needs to be done so that it's done right.
Also, Is this connector in the attached picture acceptable for my neighbors MEP-803a? He wants a weather tight connector like the one I have. It's a SCAME 60 Amp 4 wire Pin and Sleeve connector.
Thanks again!
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