Quote:
Originally Posted by camp guy
I was the poster who mentioned the generator, and you are correct about a generator equating to a fuel source. Propane is a very popular generator fuel, and my thinking is that if a house has a generator, and the fuel is propane, then I would have that be a stand alone system, not providing fuel to any other system in the house. Most fuel providers offer automatic fill programs, some with pre-buy options, some not, but in order to accurately calculate the automatic fill delivery cycle, there has to be a reasonably consistent usage curve based on house size, season, weather (temperature), and family dynamic. Since it is not really possible to calculate usage for a generator , and since you certainly do not want to run out of fuel for your generator, I would keep the generator on its own system, not associated with the main propane supply for household use. Maybe somebody who has a generator for standby purposes and also uses propane for household purposes can comment on this situation.
|
I think that depends on how often you generally lose electric. In our former home we had oil heat and a whole house generator with its own propane tanks. We lost electricity quite a lot but the propane lasted for at least a good 3 years, except for for whenever we lost power for a week or so. And we had the room on our property for the 250 gallon stand up oil tank and the 2 /100 gallon propane tanks.
Here in our current home we have a teeny, tiny lot with 2 /100 gallon propane tanks - propane heat and for the generator, though we do have room for another tank. We did consider getting a separate propane tank for the generator, but considering power rarely goes out here, and we are living in a small, 1100 foot new build cottage which is energy efficient, we figured it might be overkill. I must confess, though, that we revisited that decision recently when it seemed our propane company was having a hard time getting deliveries out and our tanks were getting lower than we were comfortable with in the brutal temperatures we’ve been having.