Back-up generators, game changer
 

Been reported in villages news that Back-up generators have been approved. I am neutral on this but we all need to understand the game changing potential dynamics in TV due to close proximity of homes. The most significant one being noise, as they are noisy often at 90+ decibels. If your neighbor has a unit outside of your bedroom window you will need to find a place to sleep in the other side of the home. If you village has natural gas you can connect to that, otherwise gasoline will be the fuel. Hopefully the restrictions will not allow propane tanks. Perhaps someone can clarify that. All units require maintenance runs, units i am familiar with are weekly. Hopefully your neighbor will program to run mid day during the week as opposed to evening.

We have been here ten years and have only had electricity out for enough time to need a back up generator once in that time and it was during the very rare occurance of a hurricane.

What a waste of money !!!!!

Without natural gas or propane-- a standby generator is worthless-- gasoline is not a reliable fuel for standby generators and if there is a wide spread power outage, gasoline will not be available

I don’t think it’s worth the cost. We have been here (Duval ) ten years and have had only a few , short outages. Even Irma didn’t knock our power out.
But , if it gives you peace of mind.....get one.

You are at least six years late. When we bought in 2012 I asked about bringing my generator with me. I was told that was fine. We didn’t have natural gas in our neighborhood so I left it in NC.

However, while others may think they are a waste of money, when you get right down to it, the matter isn’t up to the nay sayers. There are personal and medical reasons why a generator might be considered necessary. Propane tanks are acceptable for use with generators, just as they are with summer kitchens and pool heaters.

I have a whole house generator that is fueled by a 250 gallon underground propane tank. It works like a charm, and is less noisy than the 4 motorcycles in my neighborhood. (And I’m jealous that I don’t have on of those as well. I gave my last one up in 1997.)


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But a large enough propane tank buried underground is just perfect.


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Generators can be a real touchy subject in a neighborhood. At my WA home the HOA requires one to get permission from his neighbor. I gave my neighbor permission, to be neighborly, but when the unit (natural gas) runs for its weekly test cycle I can hear it from in my home. AND that exterior wall is framed with 2x10s. The HOA recognizes the noise intrusion as our homes are only 50 ft apart. In TV the houses are even closer to each other.

I prefer to go with 2 Tesla Powerwalls. They are installed inside the garage and can run your air conditioning for at least 7 days, or so I'm told.

You probably mean hours and not days. A Powerwall can store about 14 kWh. Your central AC probably draws about 2 kW. You can run your central AC for about 7 hours on 1 Powerwall. In the summer, we use about 40 kWh per day for the whole house. If you are referring to a small window unit AC then that is different.

The only time noise would be an issue is when power is out. Probably wouldn't be sleeping then anyway. :)

The generators usually run on a regular schedule as a test. That could be weekly. Most folks are considerate and run the test during the day for the least disruption. There is nothing worse than having a power outage and the generator won't run...the test is important.

Well said. Propane is the next best thing to Natural Gas for fueling a backup generator.

There are some very simple ways to mitigate some of the noise from a gasoline generator.....for those interested, just google how to quiet a gasoline generator....some very clever/simple ideas.

Using the Tesla website calculator and my own SECO bills it would take between 3 and 4 PowerWall batteries to power my designer house for 1 day. The cost would be between $17,000 and $23,000.

The 7 day estimate is only valid for a house that also has solar power installed and assumes that system can, on average, generate enough energy to provide a days worth of electricity.

Powerwall | The Tesla Home Battery

:jester::jester:With all the hot air in the Villages I would look into wind energy