What a bad generator install looks like

brantmacga

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
Another EC sold this customer a 22kw air cooled standby generator 2/yrs ago. He called me a little over a year ago stating that every time the power went out, the generator breaker would trip.

Load calc came in at 50kw. They provided no load shedding at all. The wiring is pretty terrible as well. The lugs in the generator had no torque; I was able to pull the cables directly out of the lugs. The battery cables were the same way and completely corroded.

I sold him a 60kw, ordered in June 2022, it came in Monday this week. Removed the old generator yesterday and poured the pad for the 60kw today. I did offer to install enough load shedding devices to keep the 22kw, he insisted he wanted the whole house on at all times. He now needs a larger LP tank and fuel line as well.

I assume also this was inspected as the power company would’ve required it to re-energize the service. That inspector was fired a few months ago for letting stuff like this go.

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K

kec

Senior Member
Location
CT
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Looks like they have 2 wires under one lug on the emergency side, right transfer switch.

URD feeder from generator.
 
Joethemechanic

Joethemechanic

Senior Member
Location
Hazleton Pa
Occupation
Electro-Mechanical Technician. Industrial machinery
Gaffen99 said:
The 2 switches is for individual panels in a house. When we bring in a 300 amp service we split it to 2 panels and install a switch for each. I install a trough and make all the splices in it though.
Click to expand...
I really have only done commercial/industrial where we use one ATS for the whole load. Is it cheaper to use two smaller switches?
 
W

winnie

Senior Member
Location
Springfield, MA, USA
Occupation
Electric motor research
An NEC load calc at 50 kW would likely be supported by a 22 kW generator. My _guess_ is that the breaker was actually tripping because of heat from the loose connections....but when you have so much bad in one place sometimes you just have to rip it all out...

Jon
 
brantmacga

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
winnie said:
An NEC load calc at 50 kW would likely be supported by a 22 kW generator. My _guess_ is that the breaker was actually tripping because of heat from the loose connections....but when you have so much bad in one place sometimes you just have to rip it all out...

Jon
Click to expand...

The majority of their load is the 5 HVAC systems. As I said in the original post the customer did not want any load shedding.


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Joethemechanic

Joethemechanic

Senior Member
Location
Hazleton Pa
Occupation
Electro-Mechanical Technician. Industrial machinery
I had a 45 KW Kohler 3 phase with a Hercules 6 cylinder on it. Propane fuel. Boy that thing would power my whole house, my shop, machine tools , welder and all and never break a sweat. I never used it though, power never went out. It only had 65 hours on it when I bought it. I don't think I even put 10 hours on it. Then some mortician from South Jersey offered me a whole lot of money for it so he could run his refrigeration in case the power went out and I sold it to him.

What are you doing with the old 22kw air cooled generac?
 
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