2008-04-24

How to hookup a generator to a home

I got lots of traffic on my YouTube videos on Earth Day - lots of comments and emails too.

The most popular question was "How do you hook that up to a home?" Well, here's a diagram showing how.



Notice that I didn't mention anything about feeding back to the grid. Doing that is can make you some small money, but it's expensive to setup. In place of the DPDT (double pole double throw) switch you have a synchronizer to maintain freqency and phase alignment between your generator and the grid. Usually involves converting from AC to DC then back to AC at a loss of power and money from your pocket.

Message to Mark Rodriguez

Tried to email you Mark, but Yahoo said you didn't exist.




Hello,
my question is probably the same as everyone else's. What are you getting on your miles per gallon? The way i understand it is that you start your car on regular desiel gas and then you swith to veg. after it heats up. And then before you turn off your car you switch back to desiel gas right. So i guess i was wondering how much you have been saving now compared to before? Also I was wondering if you can give me ball park figures for before and after. As before you used veg and how much the cost is before and after using the vegetable oil to.

I only ask because im very interested in jumping on the band wagon. I believe right now i spend 190 dollars a month on gas. So thats not that bad, but it would be better if I only had to pay a 3rd of that.

well thank you for your time, and hopefully you can write me back...

Mark




Mark,

The miles-per-gallon (or litres-per-100km as we do in Canada) is identical as far as I can tell. I don't measure out fuel to the same precision as the diesel pumps of course. But I get roughly the same distance from the same volume of fuel.

How much you save depends on how much you use the veggie oil. And indirectly - how careful you are to only switch over to Veggie once the engine is up to temp - saving on repairs.

I've gone through about 700L (roughly 14,000 km) of veggie fuel so far. But I only fill up 2-4 times per month. If you're spending $190/mo on diesel (which is 20-30% cheaper in the US vs Canada by the way) then you're going to pay off the conversion very quickly.

The most expensive part is installing the kit. Filtering and collecting and dewatering is dirt cheap. My setup cost $100 plus filter bags ($3 each). My GreaseCar kit cost $1500 at the time and I paid another $1500 to have it installed. You may find better prices these days.

Cheers,