Mep-803a as whole house generator

[Bill Nutting]

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.

Thanks for clearing that up. The wealth of knowledge on this site never ceases to amaze me!

 

[impi]

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.

I drive a 5 ton and a 2 ton AC unit of mine. With most everything else in the house pretty much unaffected - I switch of the pool pump and the irrigation well but the rest stays on. The internet service and network and wifi are all on UPS units with long enough carry time to do a manual switch over without having to reboot. I installed a Micro-air Easy Start on the 5 ton unit in order to get it to spin up, otherwise it would trip the breaker on the 803. Once the 5 ton is up the 2 ton comes up easy - not really concerned that the two would fire at exactly the same time to spin up. Did the portable generator thing once through hurricane season - figured the investment in a MEP and wiring to the house with manual transfer is a hell of a lot better of an option.

 

[3gunguy]

Hey All!

I am bumping this post because I am just buying one of these and had this exact same question. The thread is about three years old but has some awesome information. I would also love to chat with IMPI about this because I am down in coral springs and have some additional questions....great to be back into steel soldiers again!

 

[lonesouth]

Post your questions, someone will chime in. I was able to run a 5-ton without the softstart. Same experience as OP running the 803 on the whole house without load management.