L1/L2 Balanced

sam am I

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Had every 120V load in the house on, bathroom fans, range hood lights and fan, furnace, squirrel heater, had everything on. (Not sure if the deep freezer or either refridge were cycling on thou, oh well) Had to move a few wires around BUT, I somehow feel better now, not so lopsided (electrically) ....Ready for heavy snow/ice storm and major power outages.

Amazing how switching to LED everything lighting can sooooooooo drop the over all wattage. Got rid of the power pig 220V range top and oven and went to gas during kitchen during previous re-mod. Seems now even my lil backup-backup 3.3K Generac will be able to power the house.....Less the Water heater.
 
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bigdee

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Yeah its amazing how much LED bulbs reduce the lighting load,especially on those 150 watt flood lamps. I dropped from a 6500 watt generator to 3600 watt. During hurricane Florence I ran it for 23 hours on only 9 gallons of gas.
 

sam am I

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Yes and what really amazed me during one particular outage (Ice Storm) we had was how all those little things add up.

So only having just 3.3K Watt Generac at that time and needing to more or less survive electrically, every little watt counts when you're this limited and in survival mode.

So much so, I became a Shiite Watt Nazi!! (Insert dramatic music here), I don't have a cape though, just a dang fast fluke amp clamp. Probably fastest in the west......:yo:

When you need to keep your food from spoiling, keep the house warm, heat some water for coffee/clean dishes, have just some light and this goes on for days on end, almost two weeks.......Wall transformers, door bell transformers, standby current on TV's, game consoles and even wall plug-in air fresheners are the enemy!! I was even hunting down power strips that had light indicators in the switches :nono:

When you're scraping watts at this level, you learn fast what is a waste of power and whats not.
 
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bigdee

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When you need to keep your food from spoiling, keep the house warm, heat some water for coffee/clean dishes, have just some light and this goes on for days on end, almost two weeks.......Wall transformers, door bell transformers, standby current on TV's, game consoles and even wall plug-in air fresheners are the enemy!! I was even hunting down power strips that had light indicators in the switches :nono:

When you're scraping watts at this level, you learn fast what is a waste of power and whats not.

Yes I know exactly. I prefer the survival mode because fuel consumption goes a long way. I feel like Apollo 13 during an outage but the challenge is fun! Another cool thing is those LED bulbs with the battery backup. I can give the generator a rest at night and still have lights and they even turn on and off from the wall switches.
 

harringtondav

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It is amazing what 3K running will support. I've got my critical panel breakers marked with stick-on red dots. Usual stuff, fridges, gas furnace, one TV room, etc. I haven't found the limit, but it seems to also handle most of the rest of the lighting. Microwave, toaster and hair dryers are off limits.

I learned the hard way the key is to close these breakers one at a time. I ran out of gas once. Refilled the gen. opened it's breaker, restarted, and closed it's breaker. I forgot to open all panel breakers. The gen. coughed, danced 180 deg, and died. Oops, two refidg. compressors and the furnace blower were a bit too much all at once. Individually, no prob.

We had a 1.5 day summer storm outage. I brewed three pots of coffee and shared with the neighbors. With this and free cell phone charging service, I was their hero. I loaned the gen. to a neighbor whose flooded crawl space was about to breach his basement. A 45 min sump pump out was all he needed before the power came back on. One neighbor bought a little 1.2K portable after that. Sump pumps are storm critical in our neighborhood. I can't believe everyone hasn't invested in a little portable gen. Much cheaper than repeat vacuum cleaning truck services.
 

sam am I

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LED bulbs with the battery backup. I can give the generator a rest at night and still have lights and they even turn on and off from the wall switches.

Seen those, those are pretty cool. I have just those wall outlet plug in LED backups types from Costco. They work pretty well, they even double as motion detect night lights during normal run time BUT, they are all put then in strategic places so when and if its dark and I lose power, I at least have lit paths to and inside the generator shed and down to and at the transfer/breaker box.
 
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sam am I

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It is amazing what 3K running will support. I've got my critical panel breakers marked with stick-on red dots. Usual stuff, fridges, gas furnace, one TV room, etc. I haven't found the limit, but it seems to also handle most of the rest of the lighting. Microwave, toaster and hair dryers are off limits.

I learned the hard way the key is to close these breakers one at a time. I ran out of gas once. Refilled the gen. opened it's breaker, restarted, and closed it's breaker. I forgot to open all panel breakers. The gen. coughed, danced 180 deg, and died. Oops, two refidg. compressors and the furnace blower were a bit too much all at once. Individually, no prob.

We had a 1.5 day summer storm outage. I brewed three pots of coffee and shared with the neighbors. With this and free cell phone charging service, I was their hero. I loaned the gen. to a neighbor whose flooded crawl space was about to breach his basement. A 45 min sump pump out was all he needed before the power came back on. One neighbor bought a little 1.2K portable after that. Sump pumps are storm critical in our neighborhood. I can't believe everyone hasn't invested in a little portable gen. Much cheaper than repeat vacuum cleaning truck services.

Yup, ya can get by with 3K but, I broke down and up-sized when the 50 gals of hot water in the tank ran out and the shower got coooold. Probably should get a gas water heater eh?

And yes, inrush from those motor definitely bogs them down.

I'm all for helping anyone who needs it, I enjoy helping people and animals but, sometimes I also get a little paranoid if my place is YELLING with lights on and seen for blocks when its a total black out.

After several several days in survival mode, your head starts thinking too much maybe, thinking I'm going to get whacked on the head by someone who thinks they need my generator more then i do.........So I try to keep a low tone, turn OFF the porch lights and close the curtains...Its just another part of survival mode I reckon in the big city.
 
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bigdee

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After several several days in survival mode, your head starts thinking too much maybe, thinking I'm going to get whacked on the head by someone who thinks they need my generator more then i do.........So I try to keep a low tone, turn OFF the porch lights and close the curtains...Its just another part of survival mode I reckon in the big city.

I feel guilty when I'm the only house full of lights.....kinda looks like I'm showing off to neighbors. I also don't want neighbors getting the idea they can run extension cords to their house/houses. I make it obvious that I have limited capacity....and I do.
 

harringtondav

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Yup, ya can get by with 3K but, I broke down and up-sized when the 50 gals of hot water in the tank ran out and the shower got coooold. Probably should get a gas water heater eh?

And yes, inrush from those motor definitely bogs them down.

I'm all for helping anyone who needs it, I enjoy helping people and animals but, sometimes I also get a little paranoid if my place is YELLING with lights on and seen for blocks when its a total black out.

After several several days in survival mode, your head starts thinking too much maybe, thinking I'm going to get whacked on the head by someone who thinks they need my generator more then i do.........So I try to keep a low tone, turn OFF the porch lights and close the curtains...Its just another part of survival mode I reckon in the big city.

Yea. I'm about to pull the trigger on an 8750/7000 Harbor Freight gen for our Miss. river house. We are at the end of our REC's line, and outages are regular. We are 100% elect. Like my neighbor, I could turn off the well pump, heat up the water, turn off the heater and turn the well back on for a shower or two. Then keep two window A/C units plus two refridges running.

A/C and a cold beer referidge is all it takes to keep me happy.
 

Redfred1

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I feel guilty when I'm the only house full of lights.....kinda looks like I'm showing off to neighbors. I also don't want neighbors getting the idea they can run extension cords to their house/houses. I make it obvious that I have limited capacity....and I do.

Don't!! After our experience with IKE; we learned. A backup power source has become a necessity for most lifestyles. I consider it like house and car insurance..Have had to use it maybe 3 or 4 times; and it has been trouble free. Gets maintenance yearly; Runs on Propane; sits in the pump house; don;t even know it's there.
After our thing with the CO-OP; no problems.
We have been having a lot of new houses coming in; hope they have them.
 

redneck joe

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We rarely have outages here and usually few hours. But I'm in TN.

We are all gas Where we can except the clothes dryer but if that ever happens I'll prob switch.


My brother told me about a genny that runs off the NG. Might do that someday.
 

jakedaawg

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Is it important to have the different legs balanced? I have never heard of checking this...

I assume that L1 and L2 are the two 120v lines that come into the fuse panel?
 

dwco5051

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Is it important to have the different legs balanced? I have never heard of checking this...

I assume that L1 and L2 are the two 120v lines that come into the fuse panel?

Not that important if all your power is single phase coming off the utility pole as their transformers are usually able to handle fairly large variations between legs. It can be a problem if you are running off a generator at a draw close to the limit of the generator set. Commercial or industrial users with three phase service have to pay more attention as 3 phase motors need more balance to run efficiently
 

sam am I

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Is it important to have the different legs balanced? I have never heard of checking this...

I assume that L1 and L2 are the two 120v lines that come into the fuse panel?

Yes, out on the pole is a transformer, it has a primary winding (city side) and a secondary winding (house side), the secondary winding is center tapped to earth(imagine a 240 inch 2x4 marked at the center, say the 120 inches above the center mark is the L1 phase and the 120 inches below the center mark is L2 phase) Each phase has a limited amount of current it can supply.

Generator (240/120) has same thing more or less transformer but even more current limited, say a 7KW gen. So each 120VAC phase (L1/L2) is then 3.5KW, 30 amps/120VAC phase or 30 amps at 240VAC ........

If your house uses 7KW. Say you have a 240VAC water heater takes 4KW(17 amps) This then says the combined L1/L2 120VAC (L1/L2) loads must be around.....3KW/120VAC = 25 amps

And COULD be around 12.5 amps for each phase, no sure yet ........L1 has approx 1.5KW (12.5 amps @120VAC) available and L2 will have 1.5KW (12.5 amps @ 120VAC) available.

What if though, your 120VAC things (L1/L2) aren't balance? Say of that 3KW, L1 is 2.5KW and L2 is 500W?

Again, L1 (and L2) sees from the water heater load is 4KW/240VAC = 17 amps and in our example, then L1 = 2.5KW/120VAC = 21 amps. So 17 (water heater) + 21 = 38 amps! L1 is overloaded!! The breaker will be popping off.....

But, If you "balance" (move) the 120VAC loads around such that 1KW goes over to L2 from L1 so each phase is now around 1.5KW , then 17 (water heater) + 12.5 = 29.5 amps.
 
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sam am I

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Sure, my house wasn't that bad but close.....It's old and things had been moved here and there over many years. The generator wattage meter I installed next to the breaker box I guess sorta made me take notice..........
 

bigdee

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Thanks for the explanations. Knowledge is good to have...

In simple terms divide your generators rated KW by 2 and that is the amount of KW available for each half of your panel. On a vertical panel breakers across from each other are on the same leg. Breakers adjacent to each other are on alternate legs. This is for single pole breaker spaces in the panel.
 

Redfred1

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It's funny; I worked for a electric company 10 years; and learned a lot of the basic stuff; but the L1-L2 came from the CO-OP. Didn't know what a balanced panel meant; plus other stuff.

Thanks Sam; Good post.
 
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