Generator recommendation

[BoeingDiesel]

My brother is an eye doc' and his practice in northern Ca. is about to lose power for up to five days. It's too late to do anything about it now but for future he wants to add a backup generator to his building. Would that be a specialized type of electrical contractor? He has ten treatment rooms, a lab, and four bathrooms with twelve employees and two additional suites of the same size for the two other practices. With my [extreme] limited knowledge of electrical I have no clue nor any contractor contacts in his area. Any thoughts, recommendations on the type of contractor or any other considerations are really appreciated.

thanks gregg

 

[RBeard]

That's gonna be a big honkin' gen-set. 100kw or more, multiple gallons of diesel per hr. mega $$$$$

 

[DavidC]

Any COMPIDENT Electrician should be able to do it. Stress on Compident

 

[DavidC]

That's gonna be a big honkin' gen-set. 100kw or more, multiple gallons of diesel per hr. mega $$$$$

Maybe Natural gas, now the plumber is involved.

 

[DavidC]

It may require at least 3 if all the suites are seperately metered.

 

[SnoKing]

Plug the building into his Tesla!

 

[jgillott]

A friend of mine just had a Generac power system installed at his house. I'm assuming that they would have something large enough to meet his needs. It was turnkey. Whoever the Generac dealer was arranged for all of the instillation.

 

[jhenderson]

Nix on natural gas. Any natural disaster is liable to cause disruption either by broken lines or preemptive shut off for safety. I’d be talking to Cat and Kohler to begin with. Either one is a good choice and they’ll have have contacts for qualified electricians. For the record the sawmill I deal with most is loyal to Cat.

 

[Deleted member 995608]

To run that building full scale, he's gonna shell out some serious cash $$$$

I'm guessing he's on 3 ph power as well but I could be wrong. In addition to the generator, he may or may not have to upgrade the service panel. The county will verify that. Also will have to have a gen trans switch of some sort. Basically, this will cut off the incoming service line from PG&E and transfer over to generator power without causing a big KABOOM when power is restored.

Some people make a male to male cord. One end gets plugged to the generator, the other simply plugs into a receptacle in the house to run the fridge, etc. This is fine and dandy as long as the main breaker to the building is DC'd. If main line power is restored and the geny is back feeding the house,.....Look the F out!

 

[Wiredawg]

My BIL configures GENSETS for a large grocery store chain and their distribution centers here in TX, Million Watt plus GENSETS. No, I don't believe just any electrician can configure and install a GENSET. It requires engineering, design, special permits, and possibly construction. My BIL sold me a John Deere 25KW turbo diesel genset with 250 gallon tank. It interfaces with my shore power and solar power. We have a smart automatic transfer switch that exercises the genset. I used to be a Communications and Information Technology project manager in the military, and many health, command and control, and air traffic control and landings systems require continuous power. Although I didn't configure the power systems, I gathered the power requirements and processed them to the electrical engineers.

Anyhoo, there is no short easy answer to this question. He needs to contact one of the backup power companies that specialize in this area.

Good luck with this, Ron

 

[Tuesdak]

Maybe he just waits out this new "experiment" and sees if the Communist State of California allows this dangerous and stupid expensive blackout policy to continue before spending big bucks that may not be justified.

When the generator and install estimate shows up plus the cost per hour of fuel to generate your own power, frankly, CA has had power problems before and he did without a genset keeping him open then. It's likely cheaper to simply shut the doors and wait it out.

Fuel is a problem: as in who is going to drive to a eye doctor during a 5 day outage and good luck getting vehicles fueled up to get employees there. If the station is open, well, the lines are long and adding to it: people filling up little cans for the little screamer gensets.

Then every GD traffic light is now a 4 way stop.

Maybe he stays open, but, who would come during an emergency like this?

 

[BoeingDiesel]

Any COMPIDENT Electrician should be able to do it. Stress on Compident

Competence is a key issue as others have commented. The last thing he needs is for the genset running but not configured properly and with a building full of medicare,medicaid etc. patients with a catastrophic event.

 

[BoeingDiesel]

Plug the building into his Tesla!

He doesn't have a Tesla. 2015 Ram Cummins and Jeep Cherokee. Graduated from Ohio State with over 150K student debt (paid off), interned at the VA and is one of the kind of docs' I like to sit in front of. No silver spoons in this family.

 

[BoeingDiesel]

A friend of mine just had a Generac power system installed at his house. I'm assuming that they would have something large enough to meet his needs. It was turnkey. Whoever the Generac dealer was arranged for all of the instillation.

That's the manf. I was thinking of and I'm sure they have a contractor base for referrals.

To run that building full scale, he's gonna shell out some serious cash $$$$

I'm guessing he's on 3 ph power as well but I could be wrong. In addition to the generator, he may or may not have to upgrade the service panel. The county will verify that. Also will have to have a gen trans switch of some sort. Basically, this will cut off the incoming service line from PG&E and transfer over to generator power without causing a big KABOOM when power is restored.

Some people make a male to male cord. One end gets plugged to the generator, the other simply plugs into a receptacle in the house to run the fridge, etc. This is fine and dandy as long as the main breaker to the building is DC'd. If main line power is restored and the geny is back feeding the house,.....Look the F out!

No 3-phase on the building but there are three panels and a main incoming panel. He took pictures of the panels and each panel did have one 240-V breaker which I'm guessing is for the X-ray rooms.

 

[BoeingDiesel]

Maybe he just waits out this new "experiment" and sees if the Communist State of California allows this dangerous and stupid expensive blackout policy to continue before spending big bucks that may not be justified.

When the generator and install estimate shows up plus the cost per hour of fuel to generate your own power, frankly, CA has had power problems before and he did without a genset keeping him open then. It's likely cheaper to simply shut the doors and wait it out.

Fuel is a problem: as in who is going to drive to a eye doctor during a 5 day outage and good luck getting vehicles fueled up to get employees there. If the station is open, well, the lines are long and adding to it: people filling up little cans for the little screamer gensets.

Then every GD traffic light is now a 4 way stop.

Maybe he stays open, but, who would come during an emergency like this?

California?...you've got that right. I said the same as you. Just shut down and ride it out but he see's it differently.

 

[RVTRKN]

CARB will charge a hefty price to run that Genset on top of the costs. Then the montly inspections, load testing and annual service required. Clark County Nevada requires monthly testing to make sure the opaque test is performed. I'm sure Comifornia, espeacily the Bay area, will be even worse. I guess all those Greenies there, will get a dose of their own medicine.

 

[BoeingDiesel]

CARB will charge a hefty price to run that Genset on top of the costs. Then the montly inspections, load testing and annual service required. Clark County Nevada requires monthly testing to make sure the opaque test is performed. I'm sure Comifornia, espeacily the Bay area, will be even worse. I guess all those Greenies there, will get a dose of their own medicine.

Good point RV. He needs to talk to someone that is knowledgeable for CA. use. Just my opinion...on the surface cost vs. return doesn't pan out.

 

[RVTRKN]

Another downside to electric cars, and the Bay Area probably has the largest population of those.

 

[Terry Jay]

About 40 years ago Anchorage had a program to install a natural gas generator for your home as winter electrical power had outages due to transmission lines and storms. It had the transfer switch to cover the safety issues. It may make sense as wind is not usually a factor for gas lines.

One gas station/C-store in Forks, WA has a standby generator as the area get frequent wind caused outages. The design wind load is 125mph.

Likely the first step is contacting Generac for a proposal. Real numbers.

 

[SnoKing]

About 40 years ago Anchorage had a program to install a natural gas generator for your home as winter electrical power had outages due to transmission lines and storms. It had the transfer switch to cover the safety issues. It may make sense as wind is not usually a factor for gas lines.

One gas station/C-store in Forks, WA has a standby generator as the area get frequent wind caused outages. The design wind load is 125mph.

Likely the first step is contacting Generac for a proposal. Real numbers.

I delivered gas to the Texaco in Forks, Wa from Sept 1976 to Sept 1979. Right hand photo is at Forks, left one is in Port Angeles tank farm. BIG Chevy truck. 350 Detroit and 13 speed roadranger. It had been a Stroh's Beer truck/tractor! SnoKing