50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Topic: 50A outlet in the generator compartment? (Read 2725 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #50 – February 05, 2022, 09:12:02 pm

We have the same problem as our well is down 160 feet and is 220V. I replaced it a few months ago with another 220V pump with the help of some kid I hired to help me. But, I discovered a new generation of 110V deep well pumps is now available with excellent GPM at deep depths. https://www.homedepot.com/p/XtremepowerUS-1-HP-Submersible-2-Wire-Deep-Well-Water-Pump-115-Volt-209-ft-33-GPM-75149/308973597 We also bought a 3000 gallon storage tank to store water above the house to tide us over when we have our frequent high wind or snow blackouts. Our tank is one of the brands used throughout Latin America and has distributors in the U.S. The stateside headquarters is not in California so even though the tank storage facility is, there was no sales tax and we just took a trailer and turned it on it's side for the 2 hour trip home. Several hundered $$ cheaper than HD or other suppliers.

I just bought a small Farymann 41E437 sailboat diesel for $150 and am restoring it to spin a 5500 watt 110/220 generator head for our well and home during our outages. Had to buy a new starter and will add one of my Bosch alternators as they are plug and play for this engine.

Pierce

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #51 – February 05, 2022, 10:06:16 pm

What David said about the two legs need to be balanced to run the generator
on 240 is what the tech told me as balancing the load would be almost impossible
so I gave up the idea of 240 volts. Now remembering that I will give up on making
a plug for the house.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #52 – February 05, 2022, 10:09:51 pm

Quote from: oldguy – February 05, 2022, 10:06:16 pm

What David said about the two legs need to be balanced to run the generator
on 240 is what the tech told me as balancing the load would be almost impossible
so I gave up the idea of 240 volts. Now remembering that I will give up on making
a plug for the house.

If you don't need 240 in the house you can put a plug in and supply both circuits in the house separately. The same way we supply a receptacle for the coach. Mine works fine for outages.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #53 – February 05, 2022, 10:29:59 pm

Well, thanks for some very interesting comments. Hope they are helpful to all members who might be contemplating this project.

From 2 members (D.J. & David) comes the suggestion for a standby generator. We have considered this solution but never really looked into it seriously. One impediment to us having a Generac is the lack of a suitable fuel source. Our house is 100% electric. We do not have natural gas pipelines in our neighborhood, and we do not have a big residential propane tank sitting outside our house like some of our neighbors. I know they sell diesel powered units, but then we would need a big ugly diesel storage tank and have the "stale fuel" hassles.

Jason mentions the possibility of a PTO generator. Sorry - we don't have a tractor.

Pierce brought up a very interesting bit of news (to me): the availability of a 115V down-hole water well pump. Our present pump is getting near end-of-life, based on prior experience. Well pumps only last about 6-8 years around Midland due to high mineral content of the water and sand being ingested. Next time we need a new pump I will definitely ask about the 115V model.

Keep the ideas coming! As usual, I am learning a great deal from this discussion.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #54 – February 05, 2022, 10:53:40 pm

Chuck, we are all electric as well. How deep is your well? Here in Central Texas, mine goes to 560 ft so 115v is not an option. If/when the pump goes, I may look at a solar pump. I do have a 2500 gallon cistern adjacent to my well, the transfer pump is on a 20A double pole breaker. Have you considered putting a cistern in? Maybe there is a way to start this on a 120?? This would provide plenty of water if used sparingly.

I have also considered a large petrol generator to run the well. But this is not my favorite option. And propane consumes too much to be viable for an entire house IMO. If the power is out for an extended period, getting a propane truck to fill up a stationary tank could be difficult. Not to mention, you have to pay for the 300-500 gallons at a time I believe. A hit on the wallet at about $3/gal currently.

The other option I do like - which is pricey - is solar with batteries like the Tesla Powerwalls. I plan on putting solar at my house sometime in the next 1-2 years, I just built a house so I need a year of data to know what size I truly need. But this may not be for everyone.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #55 – February 05, 2022, 11:09:51 pm

Jason,

Our well pump is only 90' deep here in Midland. The bottom of our well is at 120' so considerably more shallow than your location. We have been drawing out of the same well for over 40 years. Other than replacing worn out pumps, the well has been totally reliable. Our water quality is very hard, and like I said we do suck some sand up in the pump, but it's pretty good tasting water.

Yes, we are looking seriously at solar. Some of the deals being offered these days sound very enticing. Also the "power wall" type products from different makers are coming down in price. I think we will eventually spring for some type of solar setup with battery storage.. With the high number of annual sunny days we have in Midland...might as well use it for something worthwhile.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #56 – February 05, 2022, 11:33:24 pm

As far as diesel getting stale, it may get out of spec for emissions but our 500 gallon tank was last filled many years ago and still runs the tractor fine. Some of our diesel is going on 20 years now but still looks the same, smells the same and the tractor starts and runs fine. We heated the house with a Toyo OM22 but farm diesel is really expensive now and with propane under $1 in summer several years ago, the propane became the secondary behind the wood stove. Unfortunately, winter propane is now $2.80/gallon delivered. With the thousands of trees down, everyone is giving away the oak now where it was like gold last year so the big snowstorm had a silver lining in it for us.

Pierce

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #57 – February 06, 2022, 12:11:32 am

My service truck for the Cat loaders I used to own has been parked in my back yard since I went in the crane business in '93 and the Lincoln welder has the fuel in it from the last fill up. It still runs the Perkins diesel engine just fine. When it runs out I will have to use fuel cans to fill it up as it is no longer registered and the tires are now 30 years old and still holding air but would shred if they were driven.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #58 – February 06, 2022, 12:19:46 am

When I was working with equipment they would be parked for years until they were needed
and then we would get batteries out to them and they usually would start up.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #59 – February 06, 2022, 08:01:42 am

What about condensation building up in the long-term diesel storage tanks? Does it stay on the bottom of the tank and cause no problem? Or do you need a water separator on the storage tank outlet connection?

Just asking out of curiosity. I'm fairly certain I would choose solar+batteries over a diesel powered Generac.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #60 – February 06, 2022, 11:10:48 am

Chuck,

I made the mistake of not having the water separator and got water/algae in a car. A filter was installed at the outlet and all has been fine since then.

The little 12.5 hp diesel I have now is supposed to use well under a half pint per hour at partial load and not much more than that with a larger load.

Typical house will probably use more than a battery/solar/inverter can provide at night and during winter bad weather. I can power our house with the inverters in daylight hours but go to the PowerTech at night until we go to bed and then have a bag of ice from the freezer for the fridge. Unless the temp gets down to 25, I don't touch the U300. We get a lot of sun in the daytime so the coach warms and never freezes inside or in the bays.

Pierce

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #61 – February 06, 2022, 12:52:13 pm

Getting back to the original subject: installing a auxiliary power outlet in generator compartment.

As you can tell from my questions below, I need to educate myself on this subject. Make any answers simple enough for a neophyte.

I'm still trying to understand exactly what I could do with a "fake" 240 volt socket powered by my generator.

The cable running from my generator to my manual AC power source select switch has 4 wires: Black, white, red and bare copper. We have ascertained (Reply #41) that my generator puts out 120 volt power.

Say, just for discussion, that I disconnected the generator input cable from my selector switch, and connected the 4 wires to a simple RV power socket as shown in the photos below.

Then, I make up a "jumper" cord to go from the RV power socket over to my garage - about 25-30 feet. The jumper cord is made from a standard 50A RV power extension cord, constructed with 6/3 + 8/1 gauge wires. I cut the female end off and leave the wires loose. Plug the cord into my new generator power supply socket.

Here is where I'm not clear. Say the loose wires on my jumper cord are connected to a simple electrical sub panel in my garage. If I connected the black wire to one circuit breaker, the red wire to a second breaker, and the white wire to "common", would I have two 120 volt circuits available? How much of a load (how big a breaker) could I put on each circuit?

Is this what Barry was talking about in Reply #49 where he said I would need to limit the load to 50-60 amps? Is that the total combined load on both breakers? Is that because the "common" white wire in the jumper cord would be carrying the total amp load on both circuits? If so, even 50 amps at 120 volts is 6000 watts split between two circuits, which seems pretty useful...

I realize there would need to be some kind of safety lock-out system in place before my small sub panel could be connected to my main household panel. I'm not worrying about that right now. I just want to know how much 120 volt load in our house could be supported by the "fake" 240V outlet on the generator, running through a 30' 50A jumper cord.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #62 – February 06, 2022, 05:21:18 pm

Quote from: Chuck & Jeannie – February 06, 2022, 12:52:13 pm

Here is where I'm not clear. Say the loose wires on my jumper cord are connected to a simple electrical sub panel in my garage. If I connected the black wire to one circuit breaker, the red wire to a second breaker, and the white wire to "common", would I have two 120 volt circuits available? How much of a load (how big a breaker) could I put on each circuit?

Is this what Barry was talking about in Reply #49 where he said I would need to limit the load to 50-60 amps? Is that the total combined load on both breakers. Is that because the "common" white wire in the jumper cord would be carrying the total amp load on both circuits? If so, even 50 amps at 120 volts is 6000 watts split between two circuits, which seems pretty useful...

I realize there would need to be some kind of safety lock-out system in place before my small sub panel could be connected to my main household panel. I'm not worrying about that right now. I just want to know how much 120 volt load in our house could be supported by the "fake" 240V outlet on the generator, running through a 30' 50A jumper cord.

You have the right idea. You could do as you have described and put two 20 Amp breakers in the sub-panel and have plenty of safety margin. You could probably install one 30 Amp breaker and one 20 Amp (and perhaps even two 30 Amp) and be just fine.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #63 – February 07, 2022, 06:56:59 pm

With all the discussion of backup power I thought this may be interesting to understand what typical power your home would need during a power outage, to plan your backup system requirements.

If you have the old fashioned electric meter with the spinning disc you can measure the seconds for 1 revolution and calculate the power in watts being consumed at that point in time.

I checked earlier today and the disc rotated once in 25 seconds - house was using about 1000 watts. We have 3 working at home with computers, router, modem and cpl TV's, a few lights and a fridge running, seems about right.

Meter may say Kh 7.2 on the faceplate which is the most common value for watts / revolution. See formula under the operation section in this link:

Electricity meter - Wikipedia

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #64 – February 07, 2022, 08:03:58 pm

^^ Interesting.

My electric company's portal allows me to slice n' dice my usage in various ways. I can see MoM, YoY, unbilled, hourly, daily and average usage to name a few on both web and mobile platforms. I suspect others have the same.

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #65 – February 08, 2022, 09:11:40 am

Quote from: Chuck & Jeannie – February 06, 2022, 12:52:13 pm

Getting back to the original subject: installing a auxiliary power outlet in generator compartment.

As you can tell from my questions below, I need to educate myself on this subject. Make any answers simple enough for a neophyte.

I'm still trying to understand exactly what I could do with a "fake" 240 volt socket powered by my generator.

You can convert your 120V into 20Phase 240V for your well pump with a "T" transformer.

SCOTT T TRANSFORMERS | L/C Magnetics

When I had my Linotype shop I also had Mohr saw that required 240V. I used a T transformer and 120 from two breakers to power the saw.

Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 09, 2025 ...

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #50 – February 05, 2022, 09:12:02 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #51 – February 05, 2022, 10:06:16 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #52 – February 05, 2022, 10:09:51 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #53 – February 05, 2022, 10:29:59 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #54 – February 05, 2022, 10:53:40 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #55 – February 05, 2022, 11:09:51 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #56 – February 05, 2022, 11:33:24 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #57 – February 06, 2022, 12:11:32 am

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #58 – February 06, 2022, 12:19:46 am

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #59 – February 06, 2022, 08:01:42 am

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #60 – February 06, 2022, 11:10:48 am

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #61 – February 06, 2022, 12:52:13 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #62 – February 06, 2022, 05:21:18 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #63 – February 07, 2022, 06:56:59 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #64 – February 07, 2022, 08:03:58 pm

Re: 50A outlet in the generator compartment?

Reply #65 – February 08, 2022, 09:11:40 am

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