Run Whole House on Wimpy Generator?
 

I've been seeing "deals" on "power stations" lately; battery plus inverter combos in one. My natural reaction to "all in one" things is that it limits usefulness by locking you into several parameters, and doesn't allow selectively choosing each component for quality, performance, etc.

This got me to thinking I could build my own "power station" using a 12v pure sine wave inverter and battery of my choosing. Once down that rabbit hole, that got me to thinking I could select an inverter sufficiently powerful to run all 120v circuits in my house. The only 240v things I run are the AC, and the oven (range is gas). So, I could switch off my 240v breakers and the mains in a power outage, and wire an inverter directly into the panel (not recommending anyone do this).

I had impulse bought an 800 watt Sportsman GEN1000i generator for $159. This got me to thinking that since my average household load is 600 watts, I should be able to run off my generator if there was a buffer to handle peak loads.

So, my idea is to run generator > 12v battery charger > 12v battery > inverter > breaker panel.

Does this seem feasible? If so, I could potentially run my whole house on 2 gallons of gas per day on a quiet and efficient generator during outages.

Generator
https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/...SPw/s-l300.jpg

Battery charger TBD. Dad has a 40 amp charger to test the theory with.

Battery... whatever is laying around

Inverter- torn between the $50 cheaper 2500 watt unit that has an LCD screen

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ3WYBZL...g_paid-20&th=1

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...AC_SL1500_.jpg

and the 2500 watt more expensive unit that has AC out terminals instead of just outlets.



https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...AC_SL1500_.jpg

Anyhow, that's the silly project I've been pondering. The advantage of such a system is it can be portable for camping if I wanted to.

Your 120v circuits are going to be wired to one or the other of the 2 phases of the 240v service entrance voltage.

You will have to take that into consideration and jumper the two 120v together. Not a good thing if you forget to un jumper and go back to grid power.

I think you are going to pop something when trying to hook the inverter and generator power together.

Power line workers have been killed by back fed home generated power that reaches the transformer and then gets 'stepped up' to 12k or so volts on the grid that they know is turned off.

Welcome to the forum.

One of the inverters I'm considering doesn't have AC power blocks, so if I were to power both legs of my panel with the full output capability, I think I'd need to use 2 outlets and make sure the hot and the neutrals are sorted out properly.

Sounds like you want at least a 24v system.

Thought about it, then thought 12v is more versatile. Worst case, I run the inverter and a car to charge the battery.

So you see no fundamental flaws with the concept?

12v is for when you are experiencing to use about 2kwh per day or less. For backup power for a refrigerator and a few small items or camping because of the 12v.
Cars only have about 10 amps available for charging with everything off, idling. Burning a L of gas per hour or more for 10 amps sucks.
A 24v alternator strapped to a 3hp predator engine can do better than that, a lot better.

I'm following all that logic, but I'm suggesting a compromise that is versatile in the extremes of powering a house, and a more minimal camping application that supplies lighting and cell phone charging.

12v has the versatility advantage, not efficiency.

I might build this just as a proof or denial of concept because I don't see any info. It would set me back $260 or less, and I'd have an awesome inverter at the end of the day.

A good 24v inverter will cost more than that.

Do you have a well? I sized our original backup generator to handle the surge current needed to start our 240V well pump. I'd turn off the rest of the 240V stuff when we were on generator. It was adequate, but the lights would dim when the well pump kicked on and the microwave was distinctly weird sounding when it was consuming generator juice.

We've since installed a whole house unit because we added an outbuilding and the old generator just couldn't cope anymore.

City water, no well.

Only 240v appliance I run is the oven. Range is gas. AC is only run 2 months of the year, so it's normally off.