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Old 05-08-2017, 06:20 PM   #9
DickR
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ITD View Post
Makes sense, any idea on how long 500 gallons would run it?
The manufacturers typically have technical info on their web sites that show consumption vs generator size at 25, 50, 75, 100% of full capacity. For a 14-20 KW unit, consumption averaged over time could be up to 2-3 gallons/hr. There will be a small amount used for periodic auto-test. For my 14KW Kohler, that is 20 minutes once per week, at low % of full power, whatever that comes out to.

Our 500 gallon tank started out at 80-85% full in March of 2016. A few short-duration outages and weekly testing had brought it down to around 80% on the little gauge by this winter. After the March 14 storm outage of about 30 hours, it was down to around 70%. Those are very crude estimates, as I wasn't really concerned about levels. I think that if we expected a really lengthy outage, then we'd start doing things like shutting it down overnight and watching our electrical usage more, to make the tank last longer.
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