[RE-wrenches] Gen preheat in cold climates

Dana dana at solarwork.com
Fri Apr 3 16:03:29 PDT 2015


My apologies for the brief response I was on the road.
There are two options I have done.
I normally try to get batteries stored in a heated room, so adding the gen
if there is room there is an initial easy fix.
We vent the exhaust air with a motorized louvered damper  controlled by a
room thermostat( located up high in the room opening around 90 deg F. Until
the air is dumped outdoors it outdoors there is a spring loaded bypass door
to dump the heated cooling air in the room. Most decent sheet metal shop can
assist you in this setup.
I have also tapped the glycol coolant on the gen and via a heat exchanger
run heat thru the radiant floor slab to heat the entire room and again this
was  controlled for overheat. We did not use the gen heat till the unit was
up to temp and then the floor pump cycled on and off till the return water
was stable. A 4-6 hour run can totally heat a decent sized shed with an
insulated concrete 6" slab. Rodents like this one best!

__________________________________________________________
Dana Orzel 
Great Solar Works, Inc -  NABCEP # 051112-136
dana at solarwork.com  - www.solarwork.com 
O - 970.626.5253    F - 970.626.4140   c - 208.721.7003
"Responsible Technologies for Responsible People since 1988"  

-----Original Message-----
From: RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On
Behalf Of Benn Kilburn
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2015 2:23 PM
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Gen preheat in cold climates

Hi Dana, 
I have an off-grid client (central/northern Alberta) who tried this but the
heat from the gen would shut down the magnum inverter due to over temp. This
was in an enclosed room (~15'x15') in a much larger shop. 
The gen was being exhausted outside but it was an air-cooled unit, so blew a
lot of heat.  He ended up modifying it so the hot air was blown "up" thru
the gens enclosure cover (rather than down) and from the ceiling he hung a
heavy duty tarp/welding blanket around the gen with an exhaust fan above on
the ceiling that operated on a thermostat. 
Was a great work-around to the overheating issue of having the gen inside. 

Benn Kilburn
SkyFire Energy Inc. 
780-906-7807


> On Apr 3, 2015, at 9:11 AM, "dana at solarwork.com" <dana at solarwork.com>
wrote:
> 
> At our high elevation installs the generator gets installed indoors with
the balance of the offgrid system we utilize the heat for the room  
> 
> Dana Orzel 208.721.7003
> Encourage Free Thinking Self Responsible Free Range Children
> 
> On Apr 2, 2015, at 8:47 PM, Gary Higbee <gary at windstreamsolar.com> wrote:
> 
> Wrenches,
> 
> I'm curious what strategies you use to preheat a propane gen in cold
climates. This is a large off-grid design in a sub-zero winter climate and
ideal would be to turn on a block heater an hour or two in advance, then run
the gen cycle. We plan to use either a Schneider XW or Outback Radian
configuration (still very interested in which you'd use and why). We could
set up a logic/relay system to first send the gen request to the heater for
a while and then turn off and initiate a gen cycle but that would eliminate
the ability for autostart on short notice. I've read of heat lamps on a
thermostat, just wondering if you have seen other solutions.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Gary
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