Mep-803a as whole house generator

[Gene Logan]

Hello everyone. I’m posting here to hopefully help anyone trying to make a decision as if the MEP-803 generator is big enough to run a whole house. I will tell you from MY experience less than a month ago when our town was hit by an F-1 tornado.
Like most of you, I tried to do as much research as I possibly could to find out what all the MEP-803A would truly run in the house and if the Genset generator would be a better option. I read everything from each end of the spectrum. I read lots and lots of people posting data jargon that I couldn’t begin to understand. I ended up purchasing an MEP-002 and played with it but wanted more so I traded up to the quite MEP-803A. WOW!!!! All I can say is I am
impressed.
My house is just over 2000 square feet and We live in the country. We have a well and a septic tank among other things. When an F-1 tornado tore thru our county ( a couple actually ) we lost power for over 5 days. I have my generator mounted in a shed some 40’ from the house just to protect it and give me a little shelter when starting the generator should it be raining or in-climate weather. I ran wire to my main power box and it has its own breaker.
Yes I had to physically turn off my “MAIN” breaker and flip on the “generator breaker “ manually but I have no problem doing that. My neighbor across the road was backed up by a propane Genset with automatic switch, but more about that later. This meant that my power was off about 20 min before I ventured out to start the generator. I did have to wait for weather to slack up enough to venture out BUT this also allowed me to call up power company outage map on my phone to see if it was gonna be a suggested hour outage or longer. In my case there were over 27 power poles down so I knew it would be days.
I fired the generator up and warmed it up a few minutes then flipped on the power to the house. Here’s the kicker..........we ran our whole house living as normal with literally No, let me repeat that, WITH NO change in our lives or normal routines. Her is what was running all day every day with out any issues.

-An electric hot water heater with 2 - 4500 watt elements
-A deep well pump 125’ 1 hp pump
-4 ton propane heater unit (new a/c unit without a soft start)
-3- infrared heaters 1500 watts each. The main 4 ton kicked in when it dropped below 30 at night
-4 ceiling fans and lights
-all lights in house
-internet and satellite
-washer and electric dryer
-dishwasher
-refrigerator and freezer
-microwave
-hair dryers
-heated floors in bathrooms

We LITERALLY changed our life in NO WAY!!!! And as far as how much fuel we burned.......... well a true and honest amount was this. We burned just slightly over 50 gallons for over 5 days and nights Running 24 hours a day non stop. It handles all loads without the first puff of smoke. The only concern I had was the possibility of “wet stacking” at night from having too little of a load on it as only the heaters and ceiling fans ran at night.
As far as my neighbors Genset, well it performed perfectly. He has the automatic transfer switch and his power came on within 7 seconds. I understand it pulled his house flawlessly as well. I believe he told me he has a 20k. He has it mounted behind his house and a separate 250 gal propane tank. No complaints there, except, they were turning their generator off at night after the first two nights because it was using so much propane!! Both generators served their purpose well but I would recommend the MEP-803A any day, any night!!!
If you are curious as to my set up or have any questions please feel free to contact me. I can tell you what I did and about my experience and research. I know I was sooooo confused after researching everything and I’m sure others out there are too. I’ll leave my email address. And for anyone curious, NO I am not selling anything or promoting anything for anyone. This is just MY personal experience and wanted others who may have questions to have a place to go and can talk in layman’s tongue. Lol.

Gene Logan
Genelogan09@aol.com

 

[robson1015]

Thanks for sharing... Everything I know about the MEP-803A I have learned on this forum. Thanx to all of you on here that share their vast knowledge (You know who you are). Love my MEP...

 

[csheath]

I'd say you have been lucky so far. BUT maybe I'm wrong.

My house is a little smaller than yours but it's ALL electric. I will leave any two 240 breakers on. I have never attempted to run my 803 without ANY load management.

I'm pretty sure if my water heater was on at the same time my well was running it wouldn't start my AC.

 

[Gene Logan]

I'd say you have been lucky so far. BUT maybe I'm wrong.

My house is a little smaller than yours but it's ALL electric. I will leave any two 240 breakers on. I have never attempted to run my 803 without ANY load management.

I'm pretty sure if my water heater was on at the same time my well was running it wouldn't start my AC.

 

[Gene Logan]

I understand. Keep in mind my understanding is that although the hot water heater has 2 heater elements, only one runs at a time. But we literally, when testing to see what all it would run, added breaker by breaker and checked usage. We did, over the summer, run the 4 ton AC with well running and hot water heater running and all lights and fans on in house. It pulled it flawlessly. I just posted MY experience to maybe help someone that was as lost as I was trying to read all of the diff stories and charts and stuff. I’m sure all loads and houses are different but for me it worked very well. I DO load test mine monthly and I use 3 -240volt heaters and well as a squirrel cage fan and a couple smaller heaters for one hour each month and the load is over 110%.

 

[glcaines]

I understand. Keep in mind my understanding is that although the hot water heater has 2 heater elements, only one runs at a time. But we literally, when testing to see what all it would run, added breaker by breaker and checked usage. We did, over the summer, run the 4 ton AC with well running and hot water heater running and all lights and fans on in house. It pulled it flawlessly. I just posted MY experience to maybe help someone that was as lost as I was trying to read all of the diff stories and charts and stuff. I’m sure all loads and houses are different but for me it worked very well. I DO load test mine monthly and I use 3 -240volt heaters and well as a squirrel cage fan and a couple smaller heaters for one hour each month and the load is over 110%.

I believe you when you said you run the whole house without difficulty. I have an MEP003A which is 10KW and air cooled diesel. I have run my entire house on many occasions for many days at a time. My house is larger than yours. When I first received my MEP, I turned everything I could think of on in the house, including the geothermal heat pump, dryer, both ovens and all lights. No problem at all. At max load, you could hear the engine straining, but it never faltered. As you mentioned, running off of the MEP is life as normal, except for the sound. My MEP003A is not noise reduced and is located in a garage next to the house, so you can hear it clearly. However, when you need power, that noise sounds good! I burn about 1 gallon per hour under maximum house loading and much less under minimal loading. I never load test the MEP, but I do test run it for approximately 15 - 30 minutes each month. I live on 40 acres in a remote area surrounded by National Forest and I routinely lose EMC power, so basically my MEP gets load tested every time I lose power. I have never experienced wet stacking with this unit.

 

[csheath]

Yes the water heater only runs one element at the time. Top element warms the surface then it cuts off and the bottom element brings the rest up to temp.

The 803 may well do it but I didn't want to chance burning up a compressor or well motor at start up. I have loaded mine to 13,500 watt resistive load for testing and I run it at 10,800 watts for an hour or so every month. It does both without complaining. The 13,500 watt load will read 52 amps on my meter. It would be 56.25 by the math but you get some loss.

Both my 1.5 HP well or 3.5 ton AC will draw in excess of 70 amps on start up. On the outside chance they both tried to start at the same time I'm pretty sure something would not be happy so I prefer to live on the side of caution.

 

[Gene Logan]

Yes the water heater only runs one element at the time. Top element warms the surface then it cuts off and the bottom element brings the rest up to temp.

The 803 may well do it but I didn't want to chance burning up a compressor or well motor at start up. I have loaded mine to 13,500 watt resistive load for testing and I run it at 10,800 watts for an hour or so every month. It does both without complaining. The 13,500 watt load will read 52 amps on my meter. It would be 56.25 by the math but you get some loss.

Both my 1.5 HP well or 3.5 ton AC will draw in excess of 70 amps on start up. On the outside chance they both tried to start at the same time I'm pretty sure something would not be happy so I prefer to live on the side of caution.

That certainly makes since. It is good to know however that should you need one or the other at any time you have that option without worry. I love the comfort knowing that standby power is there for us and at a minimum cost (fuel burn).

 

[dav5]

I have similar experiences with my 803A. I found the only time it struggled was when the the oven and dryer were on in addition to the rest of the house [gas furnace, electric water heater]. This only happened once when I was seeing what the 803A could do and I shut the oven down as soon as it started to struggle. I agree with csheath. I would load manage just to make sure an overload didn't happen and cause damage

 

[Coug]

The comparison between your fuel usage and your neighbor sounds like a math problem

Diesel has just under 140k BTUs per gallon.
Liquid Propane has just over 90k BTUs per gallon

If both houses are using the same amount of electricity, their house will burn 3 gallons of fuel to every 2 of yours (in theory).

Now, if they are running at 12kw they need at least 190k BTUs of fuel per hour (average generator uses about 16k BTU per kilowatt for propane gens) so they're consuming 2.2 gallons per hour. Their 250 gallon tank is really only usable between 10 and 90% full at best, so about 80%. I know my parents tank is a 500 gallon and the most I've ever seen them fill it is about 350 gallons, so halve that and 175 gallons usable on a 250.

If the tank was full up when they started they only have about 80 hours of run time on it at half load with the 250 gallon tank.

In comparison these military gens seem to produce 1kw per 14k BTUs fuel. Max it at 10kw for the 803 just to keep the math simple.
1 gallon fuel per hour of full load.

so if you were both running similar loads the entire time, in the time you burned 100 gallons of diesel, your neighbor would burn about 200 gallons of propane.

(but there is something to be said for the convenience of not having to go outside during a storm, manually flip breakers and fire up a generator in the dark in the middle of the night)

 

[Guyfang]

Gene,

Dont worry about night runs and wet stacking. It sounds like you are running a good load durring the day, so no problemo. Read the TM's, perform the PMCS, service it, and it will be good to you. Even servicing it can be delayed, if you have to stay on TAC Power. I would feel ok with running an Military gen set 2-3 weeks without a problem. Glad you like your set!

 

[Gene Logan]

The comparison between your fuel usage and your neighbor sounds like a math problem

Diesel has just under 140k BTUs per gallon.
Liquid Propane has just over 90k BTUs per gallon

If both houses are using the same amount of electricity, their house will burn 3 gallons of fuel to every 2 of yours (in theory).

Now, if they are running at 12kw they need at least 190k BTUs of fuel per hour (average generator uses about 16k BTU per kilowatt for propane gens) so they're consuming 2.2 gallons per hour. Their 250 gallon tank is really only usable between 10 and 90% full at best, so about 80%. I know my parents tank is a 500 gallon and the most I've ever seen them fill it is about 350 gallons, so halve that and 175 gallons usable on a 250.

If the tank was full up when they started they only have about 80 hours of run time on it at half load with the 250 gallon tank.

In comparison these military gens seem to produce 1kw per 14k BTUs fuel. Max it at 10kw for the 803 just to keep the math simple.
1 gallon fuel per hour of full load.

so if you were both running similar loads the entire time, in the time you burned 100 gallons of diesel, your neighbor would burn about 200 gallons of propane.

(but there is something to be said for the convenience of not having to go outside during a storm, manually flip breakers and fire up a generator in the dark in the middle of the night)

Wow!! That’s way over my head. Lol. Thank you. I do understand the last couple lines. The neighbor burned waaaaaayyyy more fuel. Lol. Thank you

 

[Gene Logan]

T

Gene,

Dont worry about night runs and wet stacking. It sounds like you are running a good load durring the day, so no problemo. Read the TM's, perform the PMCS, service it, and it will be good to you. Even servicing it can be delayed, if you have to stay on TAC Power. I would feel ok with running an Military gen set 2-3 weeks without a problem. Glad you like your set!

Thank you!!! That makes me feel a lot better. I was concerned at how well it was performing for me and by not loading it at night was gonna mess up the Mep. I like the MEP-803a so much that I bought another one, The MEP-802a (5w) that I carry with me to work and it runs all of my tools and everyone else’s tools all day. I have a separate hook up on my power pole that is a plug in on a separate breaker and I considered hooking it up and run it at night and the 803 during the day. But I decided to run the 803 full time since it was doing so well. Just a side note to everyone, the insurance company wrote me a check for the fuel we burned because I had receipts and it ran the freezers and refrigerator saving hundreds of dollars of meat and food. So my insurance company was kind enough to pay me for not loosing the food. Again I hope my post may help someone. Thank you all for your comments and replies.

 

[jamawieb]

Gene,
Great write up and so happy you joined the site! Like Guyfang said, don't worry about wet stacking with your set-up and load testing monthly. It takes many hours of light loads to have problems. Glad you've been happy with the units.
Jimmy Wieber

 

[Bill Nutting]

Is “wet stacking” running the generator with a light load?

 

[Zed254]

Is “wet stacking” running the generator with a light load?

Wet stacking is the condition that results from running a diesel engine under light load for long periods of time.

Wet stacking - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My 802 was showing evidence of wet stacking (a thin puddle of diesel on the top) after running at less than 30% load for 65 hours. I think a lot of the time it was around 25%. I ran it at 65% for a few hours and it clean up nicely.

 

[98G]

Is “wet stacking” running the generator with a light load?

Running any diesel engine lightly loaded results in unburned fuel in the exhaust, causing an accumulation of a gooey wet substance. This reduces the ability for the engine to make the rated power and also causes accelerated wear.

The treatment once it has happened is gradual loading of the engine up to the rated output, burning off the nastiness.

The best solution is prevention, which is to make sure the engine is regularly ran at a reasonable proportion of rated load.

This is why sizing a genset to the anticipated load is important, and why generally smaller is better.

 

[Gene Logan]

Gene,
Great write up and so happy you joined the site! Like Guyfang said, don't worry about wet stacking with your set-up and load testing monthly. It takes many hours of light loads to have problems. Glad you've been happy with the units.
Jimmy Wieber

I’m still learning and fortunately I’ve had YOU to rely on and now I feel like I have hundreds of helpful people in my corner now!!

 

[Finallygotone]

I bought my Onan 37.5 KW off ebay, the fellow raved how great and he would deliver for that price, 1,800 dollars so I told him if it did not look as the said and ran so he would be leaving with it, it was all that he said it was, runs the complete house, all electric, go it 150' away from the house and you can hear that big boy, having it 12 years and still going good.

 

[Guyfang]

Onan makes generators. And more then that needs not to be said.