What would you do? 5kw Gen w/ATS and as stubborn customer

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
Ok, we're moving a small 5kw gen and ATS for a lady who is moving. It used to be her mothers and she claims it ran the whole house.......haha. So we disconected it for her at her old house and moved to her new location. She had the A/C condenser, furnace blower, frig, and bathroom all on it...:roll: The husband said it never ran in the summer so the generator never experiencedthe A/C load. I told the customers that it is overloaded, and it wont caryy the load and that's that.

The customers wants it hooked up just the way I took it out.....I've tried putting my foot down and Im getting nowhere. So now the husband wants to be able to choose, if he wants the A/C, or the other loads mentioned in the case of loss of power, thus keeping it from overloading....I said "what are you going to do, if your not home?"

The previous electrician ran a 40amp 2 pole cir to the utility side of the ATS and the load panel had the breakers that I mentioned above, a 230, and three 120s. The A/C at the new location is only 2ton, but still we are overloaded....

Is it permissable by code to do this? It's protected and will kick a breaker. thus not hurting anything, but I think its crazy, and I dont want to do it.....I cant shut off or LOTO some breakers to unload it for the Home owners selection , as it has to be able to run everything on the utility side of the switch back through the load panel in normal operation.

Trying to make my customer happy, but loosing ground, I told them they need somewhere around a 14-15kw unit, but they want to use what they have obviously....:rolleyes:
 

ultramegabob

Senior Member
Location
Indiana
install normally closed relays and feed the coils from the line side of the transfer switch, when you lose power the transfer swith engauges, it turns off those loads, when the utilties power come back on, it turns them back on automatically....
 
Last edited:

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
I had problems with the big box salesmen and even Generac reps telling the customers that they could run their whole house too. When I would go out to do the install survey, the customer would jump up and down saying that they were told it would run everything! A couple of them would still insist that their new genset would run everything they wanted, so I would hook them up and watch their jaw drop when I did the load test and the generator stalled down from the overload. Sometimes it takes just showing them it's not going to work to change their minds! (And charge accordingly)
 

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
Also explain to them with the automatic transfer switch, if their not home, it will try to pick up whatever is running, and without automatic load shedding could possible damage the a/c compressor or anything else that can be damaged by undervoltage.
 

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
Start at 702.5.(B)(2).

That pretty well prevents it:D Thanks I need to leave the A/C out of the equation for sure. This is one of the ladies who doesnt listen to anyone....She's a friend, and I dont want to make her mad, but the truth is the truth...
 

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
install normally closed relays and feed the coils from the line side of the transfer switch, when you lose power the transfer swith engauges, it turns off those loads, when the utilties power come back on, it turns them back on automatically....

Yes, I thought about some sort of shedding circuit,I could hook this up and have a key switch selecting which loads to select? The relay contacts would have to be HP rated for the A/C............
 

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
How about shunt breakers and small ice cube relays and a key switch driving the breakers?

On second thought my guess is,
5kw wont run the the condenser and furnace blower motor together, she has to have both to get air conditioning......duh
 
Last edited:

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
shunt breakers would have to be manually reset.

I did a edit on my last post......too much load with the condenser and furnace motor both.....SHE JUST CANT DO IT....haha


On another note we installed a some what simular installation at a museum where the emg lighting is currently the only load, so we wired the ATS where is doest flip back to utility, only on back up. Now they want to include some lighting that needs to work on utility and gen both....so we've got to do something creative....
 

ultramegabob

Senior Member
Location
Indiana
I did a edit on my last post......too much load with the condenser and furnace motor both.....SHE JUST CANT DO IT....haha


On another note we installed a some what simular installation at a museum where the emg lighting is currently the only load, so we wired the ATS where is doest flip back to utility, only on back up. Now they want to include some lighting that needs to work on utility and gen both....so we've got to do something creative....

generator power is for emergencies, just control the condenser make it shut off during back up power, I would leave the furnace on with the generator, I feel it is more important to have heat, A/C is a luxury.... of course if they want everything on, sell them a bigger generator...
 

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
generator power is for emergencies, just control the condenser make it shut off during back up power, I would leave the furnace on with the generator, I feel it is more important to have heat, A/C is a luxury.... of course if they want everything on, sell them a bigger generator...

Yep, Need to keep the condenser circuit out of the gen panel for sure. We built her a new service on the house, now we're getting ready tie this all in....she's like talking to a brick wall....
 

ultramegabob

Senior Member
Location
Indiana
run some bell wire from transfer switch to either the thermostat or the condenser and break (I think the yellow wire) that controlls the condeser.
 

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
run some bell wire from transfer switch to either the thermostat or the condenser and break (I think the yellow wire) that controlls the condeser.

Do I really need to do that? If the stat energizes the condenser coil, it just wont have any line power because it wont be included in the gen load panel, and nothing will happen, until it flips back to utility......Is that ok,?
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top