Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

On Jul 29, 4:55*pm, Wayne.B wrote:
Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. * This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. *After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. * I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

One good thing about 'natural' or 'propane' is that it doesn't spoil.
My Honda is readily to hook up to a 500 gal. propane tank in
necessary.

Power outages in my area are not often and only momentarily for a
couple hrs at the usual. But you never know. Especially in the winter
if a good ice storm comes along. Some rural people have been out of
electricity for two weeks in freezing temps.

changing over a small gas engine to propane is easy and well worth
it.

Thanks for the post, Wayne.

On 7/29/12 5:55 PM, Wayne.B wrote:
Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/


If you don't have natural gas available, LP Gas is a fine alternative.
Burns clean, too...no stinky gasoline/diesel exhaust smells.

I think ours burns the equivalent of 1.6 gallons of LP gas an hour on
half-load. That's close to what the spec sheet says, if memory serves.
If we're not running one of the heat pumps, we're probably running at
one-eighth load.

The plumber used something he called a "bullet borer"
to push long sections of pipe about 80' underground on the horizontal
plane from our LP tank to the generator. No trenching.

On 7/29/12 6:54 PM, Tim wrote:
On Jul 29, 4:55 pm, Wayne.B wrote:
Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

One good thing about 'natural' or 'propane' is that it doesn't spoil.
My Honda is readily to hook up to a 500 gal. propane tank in
necessary.

Power outages in my area are not often and only momentarily for a
couple hrs at the usual. But you never know. Especially in the winter
if a good ice storm comes along. Some rural people have been out of
electricity for two weeks in freezing temps.

changing over a small gas engine to propane is easy and well worth
it.

Thanks for the post, Wayne.



We get three or four "serious" power outages a year here, ranging from a
day to nearly a week. Outages of an hour or two are not uncommon,
especially during and after light summer thunderbumpers. Some people in
this area have suffered outages of up to two weeks in recent storms.

The worst part of no power is...no water from the well. No water, no
toilet flushing. We've had a couple of five gallon water jugs around but
with the generator, our well pump works nominally.

I think there are 14 houses in our little neighborhood. During the last
storm, nine houses were powered up with generators.

On 7/30/12 11:03 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:55:38 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

I have a kit on my 5.5kw generator.
We really have not had a power outage since I bought it, a few years
ago so I am not sure how well it works.
The lights blink now and then but I have so much UPS powered equipment
I hardly notice. The other night the lights went out but the TV, sat
box, DVR, and the computer I was typing on were still humming away.
The only thing that went off was the lamp behind my chair.



I don't feel as if I got my money's worth if we don't have a few
long-lasting power outages a year. A few days, ok...a week or more,
fantastic. (No, not really, because I know many folks really suffer
during these outages, but I surely do enjoy hearing the genny start up
automatically and the stuff we need to be "on"...on.

--
I'm a liberal because militant fundamentalist ignorant science-denying
religious xenophobic corporate oligarchy just doesn't work for me.

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:55:38 -0400, Wayne.B wrote:

Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

Cool! I'd never thought about that, but it makes good sense for the little Generac I use with the
camper. Then I wouldn't have to carry three fuels, diesel, propane, and gasoline. Will definitely
look into that.

On 7/30/12 2:44 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:20:26 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:55:38 -0400, Wayne.B wrote:

Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

Cool! I'd never thought about that, but it makes good sense for the little Generac I use with the
camper. Then I wouldn't have to carry three fuels, diesel, propane, and gasoline. Will definitely
look into that.

Propane is only attractive if you have a bulk tank in the yard.

Those 20 and 30 pound tanks are pretty expensive to fill.

The perfect system is natural gas if you can get it.



Natural gas for the genny in his camper? That's going to require a hell
of a long supply pipe.

--
I'm a liberal because militant fundamentalist ignorant science-denying
religious xenophobic corporate oligarchy just doesn't work for me.

On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:44:01 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:20:26 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:55:38 -0400, Wayne.B wrote:

Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

Cool! I'd never thought about that, but it makes good sense for the little Generac I use with the
camper. Then I wouldn't have to carry three fuels, diesel, propane, and gasoline. Will definitely
look into that.

Propane is only attractive if you have a bulk tank in the yard.

Those 20 and 30 pound tanks are pretty expensive to fill.

The perfect system is natural gas if you can get it.

Well, I'm already carrying four 20lb tanks on the fiver, Not having to carry gasoline may make it
worthwhile. The tanks run me $17 or so to fill. Don't know how long one of those would last on the
generator. But, we'd be using it only when roughing it somewhere, like on the side of a rode while
riding to Alaska.

On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 15:01:20 -0400, John H.
wrote:

Well, I'm already carrying four 20lb tanks on the fiver, Not having to carry gasoline may make it
worthwhile. The tanks run me $17 or so to fill. Don't know how long one of those would last on the
generator. But, we'd be using it only when roughing it somewhere, like on the side of a rode while
riding to Alaska.

===

Are there any opportunities for renting an RV in Alaska or up in
Canada? I'd like to spend more time in Alaska but don't really want
to make a big investment in tow vehicles/campers.

On 7/30/12 3:01 PM, John H. wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:44:01 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:20:26 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:55:38 -0400, Wayne.B wrote:

Any of you who have ever depended on a small home generator during an
extended power outage will appreciate the fact that gasoline can
become difficult to obtain. This is further compounded by the
problems of storing ethanol gas for any length of time. After
hurricane Charlie here in SW Florida my neighbor and I took turns
driving 50 miles round trip every night for over a week to buy
generator gas.

I just found a web site selling propane and natural gas conversion
kits for small gasoline generators if anyone is interested. I have
no personal interest (or experience) with their products.

http://www.propane-generators.com/

Cool! I'd never thought about that, but it makes good sense for the little Generac I use with the
camper. Then I wouldn't have to carry three fuels, diesel, propane, and gasoline. Will definitely
look into that.

Propane is only attractive if you have a bulk tank in the yard.

Those 20 and 30 pound tanks are pretty expensive to fill.

The perfect system is natural gas if you can get it.

Well, I'm already carrying four 20lb tanks on the fiver, Not having to carry gasoline may make it
worthwhile. The tanks run me $17 or so to fill. Don't know how long one of those would last on the
generator. But, we'd be using it only when roughing it somewhere, like on the side of a rode while
riding to Alaska.

You can play the guitar while Mrs. H. drives the 4500 miles to Alaska,
burning what, about 350 gallons of diesel each way. And with that new
..45ACP, you can shoot at the attacking bears. Not likely to stop them,
though.

About 80 hours of driving each way.

Joy.



--
I'm a liberal because militant fundamentalist ignorant science-denying
religious xenophobic corporate oligarchy just doesn't work for me.