HVAC advice - 10kw Heater kits and MEP803

[spotrep]

Howdy gents!

I want to prod the clever guys on this forum for advice.

I have an 803 im using for home backup. Im in Texas, and like many we suffered through the terrible winter storm in 2021 that led to the death of people and caused 195 billion + in property damage.

Because of this experience (and 2 young children and a wife in my house) I decided to ensure that my family would be comfortable while the world around burned (of froze).

The MEP is all ready to go an powered the home for 12 hours after a bad wind storm already (wife was happy).

HOWEVER, my concern is winter and how im going to keep the home cooled. The generator runs the heatpump with no problems, but im sure the 10kw heat strips, on top of other household loads will be difficult for the MEP.

Do any of your have a solution to this problem? Of course i could run a few space heaters. But id like a more permanent solution. The home is 2400 sqft. I considered reducing the size of my heat kit to an 8 or 5kw kit, i considered a 2 stage heatkit (running on 5kw while on gen and 10kw on grid), or have an appropriately sized additional heat kit and design the system to switch over seamlessly.

Let me know what yall think!

 

[spotrep]

also for those interested here is the heatkit i have installed now: https://www.grainger.com/product/CA...suggestConfigId=7&ts_optout=false&tier=Tier+6


the air handler is: pf1mna048 Im unable to find info on it online

 

[LuckeyD]

Good Day: Not intelligent, but here are a few tips. MEP803 is just a 10KW gen. If everything is 120/240 in your house, set it on that. You get the full 10KW but be careful not to load only one hot too much. Causes many things to occur that are not good. A MEP-1041 is an AMMPS gen. It is rated at 10KW but it uses the same main gen as a 15KW. During a class and after we built it back up from the skid, we put a 12.5 KW on that main gen and engine at it held for 45 minutes before we cooled it down to shut down. A 10 Gal bucket holds 10 Gallons. May want to look into solar panels and battery storage with inverters for a lot of small stuff while the 10K gen runs the heavy stuff. A 15KW will do all of it, but you got to budget.

 

[spotrep]

Good Day: Not intelligent, but here are a few tips. MEP803 is just a 10KW gen. If everything is 120/240 in your house, set it on that. You get the full 10KW but be careful not to load only one hot too much. Causes many things to occur that are not good. A MEP-1041 is an AMMPS gen. It is rated at 10KW but it uses the same main gen as a 15KW. During a class and after we built it back up from the skid, we put a 12.5 KW on that main gen and engine at it held for 45 minutes before we cooled it down to shut down. A 10 Gal bucket holds 10 Gallons. May want to look into solar panels and battery storage with inverters for a lot of small stuff while the 10K gen runs the heavy stuff. A 15KW will do all of it, but you got to budget.

thanks for the reply!

I’ve since discovered diesel heaters, commonly referred to as parking heaters. I’ve fashioned 2 to enable me to deploy them outside and have flexible ducting for the return and supply pipes through a window. I think those along with load balanced space heaters will enable me to keep the home at a safe temperature. Luckily I haven’t needed to use any this winter!

however, batteries are in the future. I’m liking all the eg4 stuff right now. Just not ready to spend money on it yet

 

[swbradley1]

MEP803 is just a 10KW gen. If everything is 120/240 in your house, set it on that. You get the full 10KW but be careful not to load only one hot too much. Causes many things to occur that are not good.

Not sure how they do it in Germany but every panel I have worked on as an adult splits the load for you. The lines come into the panel at the top and get distributed via the metal tab bars coming out the bottom of the top breaker.

You can see it in the pic below. The breaker at the bottom is plugged in and pulls from each side of the line. That being said I guess it would be possible to use every other breaker slot going down and unbalance the load. Not likely though.

They way they are setup you can put breakers all the way down one side and the load would still be balanced for the most part. Elegant design to prevent people like me from screwing it up.