Engine life expectancy? Hours....Do it even exist?

[The patriot]

I'm thinking about building a diesel powered generator set for my house.

On one of the engine manufacturers pages was the life expectancy (in hours) for their engine. Think it was Yanmar.

Such a page probibally dont exist, but is there a page where I can have several engines up on to compare engine life?

It took a lot of digging to find the page on the Yanmar.

Any help is appreciated.

Eric

PS this would be small engines. I'd say 20 to 40 HP.

 

[illflem]

Eric, if you wait till this fall the new Cummins A series will be out, 18 - 60 hp. Then you won't have worry about comparing. I'm sort of surprised that any manufacturer would publish engine hours, just too many variables due to maintenance and application. Sure the hour rating you found was for the genset not just the engine?

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

ACTUALLY - *I* would think engine HOURS is service like generators, where load and RPM are pretty steady and predictable, would be EASIER than in vehicle service where there are FAR more variables involved! After all, recommended and proper servicing is ASSUMED and clearly specified as a condition of warranty coverage - just as it is in vehicle operation.



Then too, hours in operation is what's used in rating aircraft engine life between O'haul, as well as MANY commercial/industrial/construction applications...

 

[The patriot]

Bill, yes it was on the engine. It was from the Yanmar page (if memory serves me) besides, this was before I was even looking at the generator heads.

I WAS thinking on getting the engine, then the gen head, and putting it together myself.

Now that I'm looking at all that's involved, maybe I'd just get a gen set.

I still would like to know the life expectancy, either way.

I'm thinking the Yanmar's life was 12,000 hours, but other sources say the diesels typically last 20K hours???

This is just an idea right now, in it's infancy.

Eric

PS does anyone have any experience with these small engines?

Yanmar, listner-petter, Hatz (the only one that's air cooled) Mitsubishi, Isuzu, etc, etc,.

 

[LarryB]

Eric

A friend of mine has a small watercooled diesel generator for his house. Yamaha I think. He has the gen in the garage in a insulated enclosure with an auxiliary radiator plumbed into the basement of his house. In the winter he valves the engine cooling water to the basement radiator to use the waste heat for warming the house. I'ts amazing how easy that thing heats the house. We've been talking about running it on waste cooking oil but he hasn't got to that yet. With the constant increase in electric rates I may have to consider a "co-gen" setup like that for my place soon.

 

[stevek]

We have some portable light towers at work that we use to light up our a/c ramp at night. We got new ones a little over a year ago and decided to go with Kabota. Most now have over 3000hrs with only oil changes. They replaced some older Yanmar and Lambordini towers that all had over 17000hrs on them with no major engine work required. I don't think you can go wrong with any small diesel that stays at a pretty much constant speed.

 

[The patriot]

Larry the waste cooking oil may not turn out too well if you have cool winters.

One of the down sides to veggie oil as fuel is a cloud point much higher than #2 fuel. If he "cuts it" with #2 he should be OK unless it gets really cold. I'd start with 50/50.

I've been tinkering with the idea of bio-diesel for a while now, but just never got around to it. Maybe one of these days... ...

Eric