Anyone using an MEP-803a as a whole house backup?

[Glockfan]

I have a 2100 square foot total electric home. It is well insulated, 2007 construction. I have a heat pump for heat. Will the 803a be a fairly reliable whole house generator with my home being total electric? I had an 802a at my previous house but we had natural gas heat. The little 802a performed like a champ with gas heat. Has anyone had any experience with running these sets slightly overloaded? As a proactive measure, I have already installed a hard start kit on my heat pump/AC compressor. Any other advice or tips?

 

[rustystud]

From what I've read about the MEP-803A it will not be able to go over the rated power (10KW) . The MEP-003A will go over almost 30% before it has trouble. For me the MEP-003A is too much generator, so I have gone to the MEP-002A as my "go-to" unit for my whole house. My house uses gas for heating water and the furnace and dryer and stove. You on the other hand with an ALL electric home would be better served with a MEP-003A especially if you have a well. Do you have an air-conditioner ? You must factor that in also. If you live in a suburban setting then the noise reduction of the MEP-803A would be the biggest factor, but you will have to shut-off some appliances as the draw will be to great for this unit. Modern electronics doesn't take kindly to fluctuating frequencies (60HZ) as would happen when heat pumps kick on and off.

 

[Glockfan]

I'm in a VERY suburban area so one of those loud ass 003's is out of the question for me. I do not have a well pump. I'm on city water. If I have to manually manage my loads by flipping breakers as I need hot water, the stove, the AC (or heat), etc. then I'm prepared to do so. I have a 13 SEER efficient hvac unit so hopefully the draw won't be that great. As far as starting the motor goes, I'm hoping the hard start kit that I installed will further smooth over that load spike.

 

[ctfjr]

I'm in a VERY suburban area so one of those loud ass 003's is out of the question for me. I do not have a well pump. I'm on city water. If I have to manually manage my loads by flipping breakers as I need hot water, the stove, the AC (or heat), etc. then I'm prepared to do so. I have a 13 SEER efficient hvac unit so hopefully the draw won't be that great. As far as starting the motor goes, I'm hoping the hard start kit that I installed will further smooth over that load spike.

I think you will find 'manually flipping' breakers is going to be a necessity. The most common electric water heaters use 4500 watt elements (non simultaneously, so they present a 4.5KW load by themselves). You might also look into 'load control' modules. They will do this function for you automatically. I'm guessing, you being in Georgia, that the AC unit is 4 or 5 tons - another huge startup issue.

 

[3dAngus]

I'm all electric in my house.
One A/C for upstairs, one for down.
The hot water heater is a hog and if I ever go propane it is the first to go.
I need a 10kw, have two 5kw units, and am looking to upgrade.
In my case, a 5 kW is good for lights and fridge. I wouldn't try to run any heat off of it.
In emergencies. Yes, I would try throwing breakers off and on but would rather not have to worry about it.

Your 10kw should be fine, but I would check all the UL labels on all appliances and add them up rather then ask folks here because no one really knows the bottom line of your max current draw with appliances supplied.

For rough estimates, google home appliance power use age, and you might get some wild deviations, like on AC units or hot water heaters which might run from 400 watts to 4000, so it's best to get the final info off the unit itself, then allow for compressor hard starts, which is another issue with these military generators all together.

 

[Glockfan]

I have a Fluke 43B power quality analyzer. I guess I'm going to set it up to record average hourly power consumption as well as spikes and see just how much current I'm using daily at the new house both in the summer and in the winter. I'm inclined to believe the 10kW will get me by. I really wish I had natural gas at this house. My 802a carried the entire house we were renting back during the ice storm and I averaged six gallons of diesel or less per 24 hours! Most of the time it loafed along at 15% load. I ran my 802a for a solid week non-stop and never shut it down once. I am a TQG fan. In the new neighborhood where I live, there is no way in **** I can run one of those loud 003's and keep my neighbors as friends. If the 803a does not suffice then I guess my option would be to look for an 804b but I'm partial to the Lister Petter engines.

 

[Glockfan]

...then allow for compressor hard starts, which is another issue with these military generators all together.

So have any of you guys tried the "hard start kits" to see if they alleviate any of the issues starting compressors on generator power? We were having "brown outs" and my A/C compressor started chattering and not wanting to start so I ordered the kit and installed it. It was less than $15 delivered. The claim is that the capacitor stores enough energy to increase motor starting torque by 500%.

 

[3dAngus]

So have any of you guys tried the "hard start kits" to see if they alleviate any of the issues starting compressors on generator power? We were having "brown outs" and my A/C compressor started chattering and not wanting to start so I ordered the kit and installed it. It was less than $15 delivered. The claim is that the capacitor stores enough energy to increase motor starting torque by 500%.

You have the fluke 43b and are asking us???
Now that's funny.

Yes, I had the hard start capacitor installed in my A/C unit when it started "acting up" on the start. They can help. Not sure why they don't just come stock that way. Saved me a ton of money on repairs, or replacing, the compressor.

I would love to hook up the 43b to my house for about a week or so, but they cost about what I paid for my last deuce before I reworked it into the deuce buggy, which tripled the price. Great tool if you're into electrical or facility maintenance.

 

[steelandcanvas]

In the new neighborhood where I live, there is no way in **** I can run one of those loud 003's and keep my neighbors as friends.

You'd be surprised what the neighbors can't hear when you run a cord over to their place during an outage.

 

[kungfu dave]

Newbie here just offering my . I do not know anything about the generators you guys are discussing but I can help with the HVAC questions. The amps for the compressor in question can be determined from the data plate. L.R.A. is locked rotor amps and is the max the motor is rated for. While typically a high number, depending on the size of the system, it is only applicable for a fraction of a second. The more important number, IMHO, is the R.L.A. or run load amps. This is what the system should draw when it is running normally. As for the hard start questions; after 13 yrs I have still yet to understand the theory of why units have or don't have one. I do know that they help significantly when a compressor starts. It is my opinion that is if a compressor truly "needs" a hard start then it already has a foot in the box so to speak. I have never seen a compressor that was damaged enough internally to require one that lasted long after it was put on. Damage already done sort of thing. Now as for the heat pump. (basically just an a/c that is able to shift the direction of the refrigerant to blow the hot air inside rather than out) The area that will provide the most problems is the heat side. Much like an elec. water heater, the aux. heat strips that are used to supplement the heat pump in the winter will pull the most. While used less, typically, they are more like the R.L.A.s of the compressor and can be on for an extended period of time. (not sure how cold it gets in your part of Ga. but up here in Charlotte we get fairly cold) Nothing like up north of course but that is why most of the guys up there are wondering what a heat pump is lol. Their rating should be located on the blower panel of the air handler. IMHO the best way to prevent unwanted issues with the a/c pulling too many amps, use good filters and change regularly, have the outside unit cleaned and inspected bi-annually (since it is a heat pump) and maintain the duct work for air leaks and insulation quality. Hope this helps.

 

[Glockfan]

You have the fluke 43b and are asking us???
Now that's funny.

Yes, I had the hard start capacitor installed in my A/C unit when it started "acting up" on the start. They can help. Not sure why they don't just come stock that way. Saved me a ton of money on repairs, or replacing, the compressor.

I would love to hook up the 43b to my house for about a week or so, but they cost about what I paid for my last deuce before I reworked it into the deuce buggy, which tripled the price. Great tool if you're into electrical or facility maintenance.

Man, next time I'm in Macon, if you want to drive up from Perry, I'll loan it to you for a couple of weeks...

 

[steelypip]

...<snip>I have never seen a compressor that was damaged enough internally to require one that lasted long after it was put on. Damage already done sort of thing. Now as for the heat pump. (basically just an a/c that is able to shift the direction of the refrigerant to blow the hot air inside rather than out) The area that will provide the most problems is the heat side. Much like an elec. water heater, the aux. heat strips that are used to supplement the heat pump in the winter will pull the most. While used less, typically, they are more like the R.L.A.s of the compressor and can be on for an extended period of time. <snip>

Lots of good stuff in that paragraph. Please try breaking them up with 2x enters between major ideas - not everybody is as fast a reader as I am...

Anyway, first, thanks for that note on the value of a hard start capacitor. The only time I ever put one on was years ago on a 12 KW window unit that was a little tough on the 1953 rental house wiring during the start up surge. It did seem to spread the starting load out some, which was all the computer on the same circuit needed. I still have that AC unit in my garage window, and it still works well, so I guess no harm done by the hard start. But I can see that if the starting effort goes up on an old unit it's probably because the internal friction has increased, and yes, the thing is probably dying.

Keep in mind, though, that we're trying to be nice to our generators here, which have a limited surge capacity. It's not that the starting surge is too big, but because it may be too big relative to the generator in the back yard. I'd like to see some actual surge current curves recorded by that Flue 43b on a known-healthy AC or heat pump with and without a hard start capacitor. If we can just cut the top off the peak inrush current curve that might be a very useful thing.

Strip heaters: Our modern, high-tech heat pumps (3 year old installation) have them, but they don't draw all that much relative to the size of the unit - certainly a lot less than the older heat pumps I've had over the years. My SOP for winter and a snow/ice storm induced outage is not to run the downstairs heat pump at all - do it with the wood insert and an optional kerosene space heater. If I get the insert really going on a warmish (~30+ F) day we can get an overheat condition, which I fix by turning on the downstairs air handler and running the blower to move the hot air around to even out the temperature all over the downstairs. I don't think I've ever run the downstairs heat pump in heat mode on the generator.

The upstairs pump is sized for 1000 SF so is really small, and neither the heat pump nor the strip heater present much of a load to the MEP. We do indeed use it to warm up the upstairs before bedtime on really cold nights. With the wood heat downstairs we've never needed to run the MEP overnight, so I switch to a little 450 Watt Kawasaki-Onan to run the insert blower and let that run through the night. I'll do a lot to avoid humping 5 gallon pails of diesel fuel up my hill if the road is closed.

I've run this way on an MEP-002A for about 15 outage days now over three years, some with nights around zero F, and things have gone pretty well.

I know what you mean, though, about adding the running load of the strip heaters to the running load of the compressor. It's certainly worth considering if you have a big heat pump, or an older, less efficient one.

 

[Glockfan]

Just a follow-up to my original post folks... I finally made the final connection from my DPDT transfer switch to my meter base and tested my MEP-803A. After bringing the generator up to operating temp, I switched the whole house over to generator and began manually transferring loads to the generator. First, all of my normal lighting, and 115v circuits didn't even register on the meter and the generator appeared to have no load on it. Next I flipped on my central A/C which is about 3.5 tons (SEER 13) with a hard start kit. The needle raised slightly. Flipping on my water heater that had been off for six hours raised the load to about 35%. The electricians that made the high voltage connection between the transfer switch and the meter base were amazed and the power and efficiency of the 10 kW TQG. Just for kicks, while everything else was on, we turned on the oven and was able to get a puff of black smoke and a 78% load out of most circuits that I would be using in my house. So, it is my opinion that we are going to be good with exactly what we have for quite some time if we can keep it in good running condition. Now I am going to work on building a diesel storage option for a couple of drums and never worry about another ice storm again...

 

[F18hornetM]

It snows in GA ???? LOL

 

[Glockfan]

Last year's ice storm wasn't much to "LOL" about... I lived in Maine for 2 years and Michigan for nearly 8 years and we never lost power and had as much storm damage as we had last year in Augusta. It took literally MONTHS to clean up all the damage.