On Sat, 6 Jan 2018 16:44:58 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/6/2018 4:38 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 6 Jan 2018 11:40:51 -0800 (PST), True North
wrote:


That was my general emergency plan. A small space heater and if needed something to keep the sump pump working.

It seems ironic to use a generator to make electric heat when you are
usually throwing away more heat from the engine than the generator can
produce. That is why I was thinking about scavenging some of that
waste heat to heat water. If you had a bigger, water cooled gen set
that would be trivial to do.



Maybe but conservation of energy isn't exactly the primary concern when
you only have to use a back up system once every five or six years or so
and only for a few days.


In my case it was that my generator would not even run the water
heater with everything else off. It was just frustrating that I was
wasting all of this heat when I had the perfect place to use it.
If I ever have to do this again I think I would wire my elements in
series and let it just loaf along at ~1.1 KW until the tank was hot.
I am still not sure why it would not work wired normally. It is only
supposed to be 4.3KW. I must have still had something going.