Generator Bad Weather

[ken_burke]

All. . . . . Can portable generators be used during rain/snow storms? Do they have to be protected from the elements?
thanks . . . ken

[pnichols]

Mex,

Your winds aren't all that bad - probably including Patricia's winds happening now.

Try the tropical cyclone Olivia 254 MPH winds recorded at Barrow Island off the coast of Western Australia on April 10, 1996. 😉

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I am holed-up in Baja California, for access to medical in San Diego. Lost contact with the family at 0316.

[KendallP]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
...hurricanes have a nasty habit of making things in "weatherproof" structures, sopping wet...

Glad to see you're still online... for the moment.

Well, since many of us post in these Tech forums, primarily... I'll repost this here...

Thinking of you, gramps. Hoping you're ok and not gonna' have to bear much of this. And hope your... near dial-up-speed internet connection doesn't get much worse.

I have a good friend on vacation in Yelapa... at the south end of La Bahia de Banderas. No roads in. Only accessed by boat and no cell service or contact capabilities of any kind.

Prayers and best wishes

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Fifteen inch thick steel reinforced 6-sack concrete walls and roof.

I don't think so. hurricanes have a nasty habit of making things in "weatherproof" structures, sopping wet. The sheet with the tarp over-top is to deflect this moisture. The Rolls batteries just sit there and yawn. It's the 400 amp ferroresonant charger I worry about. They are all wrapped, even the 4024 Trace. Jesus knows exactly what needs to be done including stowing all loose gear into a chest bolted to the deck. The KATO will dry out then the heat from the prime mover will bake everything (ventilation intake shutters modulated). This will bring the inside of the gen shed up to 135F or so. I have a 36" 240ac 3 phase fan that dries stuff out quickly.

I lost contact at 0316 this morning. The power or celltower went offline.

Hurricanes, bad ones, have tornadoes in them. A cell passed over, and shook the dwelling and took the patio roof around 0130.

This is the strongest hurricane in recorded history for the entire world. It may well exceed the record for the strongest typhoon.

Here are some descriptions for TORNADOES. How would you like an F4 sitting atop you for a few hours?

SCALE WIND ESTIMATE *** (MPH) TYPICAL DAMAGE
F0 < 73 Light damage. Some damage to chimneys; branches broken off trees; shallow-rooted trees pushed over; sign boards damaged.
F1 73-112 Moderate damage. Peels surface off roofs; mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned; moving autos blown off roads.


F2 113-157 Considerable damage. Roofs torn off frame houses; mobile homes demolished; boxcars overturned; large trees snapped or uprooted; light-object missiles generated; cars lifted off ground.


F3 158-206 Severe damage. Roofs and some walls torn off well-constructed houses; trains overturned; most trees in forest uprooted; heavy cars lifted off the ground and thrown.


F4 207-260 Devastating damage. Well-constructed houses leveled; structures with weak foundations blown away some distance; cars thrown and large missiles generated.


The above is not to scare or for entertainment. It is to educate and translate meteorological terminology to descriptions people can understand. Hurricane Patricia has at the point generated winds in excess of two hundred miles per hour velocity.

The southeastern USA is vulnerable so please don't criticize this.

[time2roll]

MX, Looks like Patricia might give your weather resistant generator a test very soon.

[austinjenna]

I dont know how we went from rain to hurricanes. Regardless though I have a folding dog cage and throw a tarp over that if it gets to bad. The nice part is the dog cage folds flat.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Florida is no better off than I am. Get a hurricane warning and 100,000,000,000 vehicles (it seems that way) clog the arterial's fleeing the nasty storm.

So ya drive 500 miles getting out of harm's way...

"We have no more room sorry"
(repeat 500-times)
add an s to room for motels

Stores shelves look like Iranian wheat fields after a biblical-grade passage of locusts.

It just may be easier to weather a hurricane down here. I went through Gilberto in 1988 category 5

And Camille the asskicker in Mississippi.

Job 1, is to keep the generator dry so it will work after the storm passes. Ask HONDA or YAMAHA about their recommendation about generator + wet, not your gardener or a bookkeeper's online opinion. When a part blows up, they are nowhere to be found, amigo.

LO SIENTO. SU PLACA de REGULADOR ESTA QUEMADO (roto, jodido)
Rotor, estator, you name it. I'm the guy who troubleshoots this stuff down here and wet and generators do not get along. Honda, Yamaha, Kubota, Caterpillar, Kato, LIMA, Pielstik, steam turbine Westinghouse, they all hate water.

[djousma]

I too worry about water getting into the electric panel, not so much the engine side. I purchased a "tent" from this company and have been pretty happy with it. A little pricy, but is portable. I use it with my little champion 3100watt inverter. Been in a couple of heavy downpours with it, everything stays dry.

[pnichols]

I wouldn't be much concerned with running the generator part of a portable generator out in the wet.

What I WOULD BE concerned with letting it's 120V AC outlet getting all wet. Have you ever noticed that 120V AC outlets on the sides of buildings and (some) RV's are shielded so as to keep water out while an extension cord is plugged into them? The same thing goes for a portable generator - keep it's outlet and the area around the outlet dry no matter how wet the rest of the generator's case is getting.

P.S. I wouldn't camp out in a horizontal droplet hurricane regardless of whether or not I had my generator covered. I much prefer to live in an earthquake area where things only tip over and camp in a drought area where nothing gets wet. 😉

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Reiteration, yeah yeah yeah

"The gen shed is concrete with a K-monel door."

Bury 1000X20" concrete filled tires until only a bit of the top arc shows. Painted white for walking safety.

Chains with hooks -chain binders- four of them. Attached directly to the 3/8" steel frame which is fish plated. Quicksilver is bulletproof.I have a month's worth of drinking water and a quarter ton of food in the freezers and refrigerators. It might be expensive but I have AC (after the storm). The new Lifeline is going to allow me to live normally during the storm, lights, fans, etc. When the gen shed was built, I bought a lot of 1/2" rebar and slipped bundles the three down the cement blocks. Then six-sack concrete was poured, bucket by bucket down the holes. I used ground marmol, onyx instead of sand and a finer grade crush of gravel. Basalt, not granite. Jesus made the blocks in his former. They are not the crumbly krappola normally found. They are six sack cement with marmol filler. Take a cold chisel and a drilling hammer and smack a block. It will notch a Proto cold chisel. Drilling it takes a high amp SAS drill, water cooling and a lot of patience. it took Jesus four hours to drill 8 1-1/8" holes to make a 4" knockout for a drain pipehe forgot. The deck is not that same level of strength but is 10" depth poured over rebar. it took 1/4 big rig load of rebar to build this stuff. The steel mill is 40 km away in Lazaro. I helped a resident wire his elaborate vacation home. I got an outstanding deal on the rebar. He is or was the superintendent of Las Truchas steel mill. When you drive across a salt water bridge in the USA the light piers, sidewalks, whatever is exactly the formula I used. The Mexicans screamed but I sprinkled marmol on top of the slabs and had them trowel it in for wet slip resistance. They prefer a leg breaking mirror teflon finish. They also screamed at my hot tar and pea gravel house roof. The one that heals leaks every single hot afternoon. And the two inches of firm foam insulating the walls and ceiling. Americans plan, Mexicans improvise.

After a category four, I frequently have to move into Quicksilver for a few days and let the casa dry out. 101% relative humidity is the only way I can explain it.

Where ya gonna run when a storm the size of Texas is bearing down? Somewhere where instead of lots of rain they have flash floods? RVs do not move quickly in Mexico. The family moves out of their place and into mine if the going gets tough. Thankfully almost all big ones bypass this section of the coast. But Jesus still drags his "lancha" to 70' above sea level. My p;ace is 300' above sea level.

[ktmrfs]

gatorcq wrote:
Ouch I got electrocuted - because I run my Yamaha in the rain. Never been hurt yet.
I have let the generator run even when it is raining. If it is a hard rain, I slide it under 1 of my slides

I'd suggest not putting it under a slide, or for that matter anywere close to the trailer (at least 10 ft clearance, 20 preferably) to much danger from possible CO poisoning. I've had generators from other campers near our trailer with exhaust pointed at the trailer trigger our CO monitor in the trailer. And no, they weren't cheap open frames, they were hondas/yamahas. Carburerated engines w/o catalyst often have pretty high CO levels.

[time2roll]

5mm plastic and a truckers' tarp holds good at 140? Never would have guessed that.

Not even sure I would trust the RV at that speed. Better to roll out, that is why it has wheels.

[gatorcq]

Ouch I got electrocuted - because I run my Yamaha in the rain. Never been hurt yet.
I have let the generator run even when it is raining. If it is a hard rain, I slide it under 1 of my slides

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Nice stuff until a Category IV hurricane comes along. Seen everything from Hondas to Onans with connecting rods bent sticking through the crankcase because the engine chug-a-lugged enough water to raise the compression ratio to infinity.

Common (or is it Uncommon?) sense should be used. Electrical does not like water.

Send that home builder down here with his Honda 2000 and if it stays running 10-seconds after sticking it out in the eyewall I'll kiss his *** Bring the dog. Ever see a dog pass by a window doing a hundred and forty? Vertical 5 mph rain is one thing horizontal 140 mph rain quite another.

The Kubota gets a 5mm plastic sheet first layer then a trucker's cargo grade tarp over top. Then a 4" wide ratchet cinch trucker's cargo strap gets sucked around the oval generator concrete base. Same for the Trace 4024. if the storm can carry the Rolls 2-volt cells away it can have them. Hurricanes are murder. Stuff that stays bone dry during torrential tropical storm downpours, become sopping wet swamps in a +2 or stronger hurricane. Windows get inch and an eighth subfloor plywood. Doors are 1/8" steel with four hinges and four latches floor to ceiling. This is on the casa. The gen shed is concrete with a K-monel door. Quicksilver is bullet-proof.

All that is needed is common sense. I knew people who bought a new car and NEVER serviced it then traded it in every 5-years. They were always glad to sit someone down and bend their elbow convincing them of how much money they saved. One of the loudest had a carburetor fire in his '55 Buick, which burned the car to the ground and started a 100-acre range fire. He has saved uncounted dollars carrying only liability insurance which refused to pay a seventeen thousand dollar BLM fine for putting out the fire. Pretty fartsmeller.