The Goat Pen

I want a Generac with an automatic transfer switch, but I need to get the house painted, the overhangs redone, my power lines buried, a new split unit for the basement, and the irrigation system replaced in the next year or so. I will need (probably) a new roof in the next few years, and I need to have the master bath ripped up and redone all of the way from the studs and flooring. So, the generator will fall behind those in terms of importance.

the joys of home ownership

What the fuck did you buy?

"and the NG orifice is larger due to the pressure difference"

There's a joke in there somewhere...

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 2:33 am

eCat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:31 pm I didn't get a Generac model, I wanted a portable model because I plan on selling my house

because I have natural gas furnace, hot water heater and stove - my electrical demands in winter will be pretty low and if I were to lose power in the summer, while capable of running a window unit, I would not try to run our 3 ton unit.

So I have a 4500w dual fuel inverter generator - a Champion model. I could actually run it on my little 2000w if I made sure the I didn't run everything at once.

I got it for $800. At 50% load you get about an hour from each pound of propane. I'm going to see if I can get a couple of 110 pound tanks this summer and store them outside. I'm also going to see if I can convert it to natural gas and just have a hook up outside. Propane is easier to keep long term so that will be easier to have than trying to keep gas around, especially if we have a power outage around here. I can run to home depot and pick up 4-5 2# cylinders if necessary and that will give me more than a week of heat and lights. If I can convert to natural gas, I won't have to worry about it at all.

To get a 14kw generac installed its about $5500. My setup should be less than $1500

Natural gas is clean but doesn't burn as clean as propane, and the NG orifice is larger due to the pressure difference. There are different regulators because of the pressure differences. Given the fact that so many folks switch between the two, I would imagine that there are parts for this or at least some folks have found an effective secondary market option.

Speaking of gas, Hedge, have you turned that propane field torch into a flame thrower yet?

there are a couple of tri fuel generators out there , which would really be the shit - but neither of them are inverters and since I have a circuit board that runs my furnace, I need to have less than 5% HD - which no construction generator is going to support. They do make conversion kits but its brand specific and from what I can tell, model specific, so its really limiting to what you can do. I'm actually surprised there isn't a $1200 natural gas generator out there given the market. You can buy natural gas weber grills all day long and they require the same hook up as a portable generator would. I decided to get the duel fuel generator I wanted and try to find a way to convert it to natural gas down the road.

The last major ice storm we had I fried a capacitor in my refrigerator and the circuit board on my furnace using a construction generator.

Jungle Rat wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 8:49 am What the fuck did you buy?

The house in which my wife was raised and which was built by my wife's great grandfather in 1946/7. He built several houses in the neighborhood in conjunction with the two men who helped develop the area. At the time, it was the edge of town, and now it is considered being in the middle of town next to downtown...

Was it a post war neighborhood?

That's a lot of work but fun if you're into it.

eCat wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 10:58 am

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 2:33 am

eCat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:31 pm I didn't get a Generac model, I wanted a portable model because I plan on selling my house

because I have natural gas furnace, hot water heater and stove - my electrical demands in winter will be pretty low and if I were to lose power in the summer, while capable of running a window unit, I would not try to run our 3 ton unit.

So I have a 4500w dual fuel inverter generator - a Champion model. I could actually run it on my little 2000w if I made sure the I didn't run everything at once.

I got it for $800. At 50% load you get about an hour from each pound of propane. I'm going to see if I can get a couple of 110 pound tanks this summer and store them outside. I'm also going to see if I can convert it to natural gas and just have a hook up outside. Propane is easier to keep long term so that will be easier to have than trying to keep gas around, especially if we have a power outage around here. I can run to home depot and pick up 4-5 2# cylinders if necessary and that will give me more than a week of heat and lights. If I can convert to natural gas, I won't have to worry about it at all.

To get a 14kw generac installed its about $5500. My setup should be less than $1500

Natural gas is clean but doesn't burn as clean as propane, and the NG orifice is larger due to the pressure difference. There are different regulators because of the pressure differences. Given the fact that so many folks switch between the two, I would imagine that there are parts for this or at least some folks have found an effective secondary market option.

Speaking of gas, Hedge, have you turned that propane field torch into a flame thrower yet?

there are a couple of tri fuel generators out there , which would really be the shit - but neither of them are inverters and since I have a circuit board that runs my furnace, I need to have less than 5% HD - which no construction generator is going to support. They do make conversion kits but its brand specific and from what I can tell, model specific, so its really limiting to what you can do. I'm actually surprised there isn't a $1200 natural gas generator out there given the market. You can buy natural gas weber grills all day long and they require the same hook up as a portable generator would. I decided to get the duel fuel generator I wanted and try to find a way to convert it to natural gas down the road.

The last major ice storm we had I fried a capacitor in my refrigerator and the circuit board on my furnace using a construction generator.

Someone had a trailer mounted, water-cooled, 10kw natural gas generator on CL when dad was alive (but not too terribly long before he passed) for $1,000.00 with low hours and swore up and down it worked fine. If it was, it had to be stolen. That seemed insanely cheap. Dad called about it but it was already sold.

the electrician just left

because I don't have a 240v generator nor do I need to run any 240v appliance, then I don't need a transfer switch, I just need a lockout breaker box.

What that is is a box with 4 or 6 circuits and I pick the ones from my house that I want feeding into it, then if I lose power, I come out and flip a switch, plug in the generator and those circuits I selected will be fed power.

He said that was $400 and it came with the cord, plugs, everything but the generator. I'm still thinking I might get out for a grand.

Jungle Rat wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 11:09 am Was it a post war neighborhood?

It wasn't a Levittown type neighborhood, but it was post war. I like our lot (it's actually two lots) and aspects of the house, but I wish I was on the other side of the lake by the golf course (which would add $350-$500k to the price/value...so, that's not happening right now) because those homes are newer and have been updated more by previous owners as a general rule.

The state is building a $35-40m Civil War and Reconstruction Museum (with backing from the local HBCU) 7-8 blocks away, and developers have been buying up a few blocks of the run down rentals / shotgun houses outside of the neighborhood, tearing them down and have put up 27 single family homes so far. The new homes are nothing fancy per se ($250k-$400k homes), but they're driving up our home values even more. So, God bless them.

The pain in the ass is that the restrictive covenants were more concerned about keeping the neighborhood white and Christian (no Greeks, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Asians or Arab's) instead of creating size and appearance requirements. So, there are some houses that stand out for not being like the rest, and I would love to see those developers (most of whom live in the neighborhood) take them out and build spec houses on those lots.

However, the lake is a pain for those who live on it. The city uses it as part of the storm water system but refuses to pay for dredging or upkeep of the dam (the optics of spending money on a lake in a predominately white, traditional upper middle class neighborhood are not politically appealing...). So those who live on the lake raised millions amongst themselves to have the lake dredged and dam redone, and given that the issues will only continue since the city will not address the other issues upstream in the storm water system, the problems will come back. I suspect there will be a special tax zone introduced for the lake area with said zone encompassing more than those houses on the lake. I'm five houses down from the lake, and it wouldn't bother me to pay a little extra in taxes to ensure the lake is in good working order because that affects the values of those houses on the lake which trickles down to my home value.

Thanks!

lol. I was on the phone call from hell and tired of everyone else kvetching.

Yeah, the lunatic wanted to use nukes.

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 11:36 am The pain in the ass is that the restrictive covenants were more concerned about keeping the neighborhood white and Christian (no Greeks, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Asians or Arab's) instead of creating size and appearance requirements. So, there are some houses that stand out for not being like the rest, and I would love to see those developers (most of whom live in the neighborhood) take them out and build spec houses on those lots.

How could any "covenant" lawfully prevent any Greek, Arab, Jew, Muslim, Black, Asian, or Arab from buying real-estate? A little help here counsellor.

Keep up idiot

rat I asked a perfectly valid question. How does a "covenant" keep these people out of a neighborhood?

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 1:20 pm

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 11:36 am The pain in the ass is that the restrictive covenants were more concerned about keeping the neighborhood white and Christian (no Greeks, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Asians or Arab's) instead of creating size and appearance requirements. So, there are some houses that stand out for not being like the rest, and I would love to see those developers (most of whom live in the neighborhood) take them out and build spec houses on those lots.

How could any "covenant" lawfully prevent any Greek, Arab, Jew, Muslim, Black, Asian, or Arab from buying real-estate? A little help here counsellor.

They were done in 1945/6. SCOTUS made them illegal in 1947/8.

I was hoping he would figure that out. Of course I was wrong.

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:22 am

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 1:20 pm

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 11:36 am The pain in the ass is that the restrictive covenants were more concerned about keeping the neighborhood white and Christian (no Greeks, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Asians or Arab's) instead of creating size and appearance requirements. So, there are some houses that stand out for not being like the rest, and I would love to see those developers (most of whom live in the neighborhood) take them out and build spec houses on those lots.

How could any "covenant" lawfully prevent any Greek, Arab, Jew, Muslim, Black, Asian, or Arab from buying real-estate? A little help here counsellor.

They were done in 1945/6. SCOTUS made them illegal in 1947/8.

Thank you DS. But that means now that "covenant" is now unlawful and (therefore) no longer enforced? How could they enforce something that is illegal?

Although the Supreme Court ruled the covenants unenforceable in 1948 and although the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed them, the hurtful, offensive language still exists — an ugly reminder of the country's racist past.

I mean, that's it DS. I don't care if a neighborhood prohibited a black to buy in a neighborhood back in 1946. I don't care if the "covenant" still exists. I care that the so called 1946 "covenant" is now worth less than the paper it was originally printed on. Which is the case (at least in this country.)

So sorry that there aren't any "covenants" that restrict size and appearance.