Does anyone know this ??
 

Hello there

Does anyone know if you can buy a 240 volt petrol generator in Canada and if so, do you have any website links to help me out?

Thanks

Gaynor

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Yup. We have a Coleman gasoline generator. On the generator there is a label with some specifications -- wattage, voltage, etc. It states 120 / 240 Volts. When my husband tested it, he plugged it into the wall socket for our electric clothes dryer, which is 240 V. I can't remember where he bought it -- Home Depot or some such.

If you're doing a Google search, you need to search for a GASOLINE generator.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

As usual Judy - you come up trumps again !!!!!

Thanks very much hun.

All the very best for 2007

Gaynor
x

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Hi BB,

Be careful what you are running of the genny....

I have bought a cheap 800w genny to run my central heating in case the power goes out over the winter (-20'c isnt unusual for us in the middle of a winters night :scared: )

The output is very "rough" electrically and I will need to add something to smooth it out before running any electronics of it.

If its just for lights or maybe a freezer etc then you should be ok.

Obviously if you buy an expensive one check its suitable for what you want ;)

HTH

Adbru

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Thanks Adbru

Think Hubby wants one to run his Uk Power tools off in Canada and the lawn mower. Any ideas ?

Gaynor

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

A gasoline generator is a useful thing to have in the event of a power failure.

In theory it would be okay to use power tools and a lawn mower off a generator. But it's quite a cumbersome thing, and it's bloody noisy. You'll drive your neighbours and yourselves crazy if you use it every week, which you'll have to do if you use it for mowing.

Also, you cannot run a gasoline generator indoors, because the fumes would kill you. But it's cold enough in winter that, if your husband wanted to use his power tools, he would have to do so in a heated garage, with the doors closed. My husband drilled a hole in our garage door and then covered it with a movable flap so that, if we had to use the generator, we could pull the generator's chord through that hole in the garage door and into the house. (We would use the generator only during a power failure.)

If your husband wants to use his UK power tools in Canada, he might consider using them with a transformer. That's what my husband did when he brought his power tools from South Africa to Canada. Also, when we went on an expat assignment from North America to Australia, we used most of our North American appliances with transformers in Australia. (But that was for two and a half years. I don't know that we would have done that if we'd moved to Australia permanently.)

I don't like an electric lawn mower. I find the chord cumbersome. I much preferred it when our electric lawn mower bit the dust and we bought a gasoline mower. Unless you have some very fancy mower whose virtues I'm unaware of, I'd ditch that mower in the UK and buy another one in Canada.

Edited to add this: I've just realized that the comment about the noisiness of the gasoline generator makes little sense, because a gasoline mower also is a pretty noisy thing. At least mowing one's lawn is a fairly short job. Unless you live on an acreage, you should be able to do it in half an hour.

But the noise concern still is valid in connection with power tools, I think. When my husband uses power tools, he doesn't use them continuously. He saws a piece of wood. Then he stops, measures another piece of wood, marks it up, saws it, and so on. There are lots of stops and starts. But, if he ran the tools off a generator, the generator would be running and continuing to make a noise all through his stops and starts.

And there's also the element of inconvenience that I mentioned before. Our generator is fairly compact, and it's on wheels, which makes it relatively convenient to move into place. Still, if my husband wanted to use it, he would have to wheel it outside the garage, turn it on, and then wheel it back into its home in the garage when he was finished with it.

This is in contrast to our transformer that lives on his work counter permanently. If he wants to use the transformer, he just plugs the relevant tool into it, as if it was a regular power outlet.

This may seem like a minor difference, but even a small amount of inconvenience can discourage one from using tools and appliances as often as one might do if the arrangements were more convenient. The hassle is okay the first couple of times, but it soon gets old.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Honda makes some generator models that are relatively quiet.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Just remember the 240V AC from a generator is "floating ground". It the two out of phase 120V cycles, so unlike uk 240V, where one line is hot and one neutral ("SPN", single phase plus neutral), both lines are hot in this configuration. 240V plugs here are different for a reason!

Same as the 240V coming into all canadian homes. 240V runs the dryer, water heater in some cases, and the stove, but its center tapped to provide the 120 that everything else runs on, so the 240 is really 120-0-120. Within your dryer or stove, some circuits are operating on 120, like the lights or the timer, but the heat is coming from the 240.

There, clear as mud.

Living in the country where power outages are not infrequent, we have a noisy coleman generator as a back up. No electricity here means no heating (oil fired forced air, so we need electricity for the blower and burner), and also no water after the pressure tank for the well runs down, plus no UV sterilisation of our drinking water supply. So its not good to be without a "Plan B"

We simply kill the main breaker (Very important to remember to do this as the power will come back on at some point!) and then back feed the 240V output from the generator into the distribution panel through the dryer circuit. Its not "to code", but it works, and it doesnt cost thousands to do, which code would!

PS, my 10HP generator is FAR louder than my 20HP mower, but there are quieter ones out there, they just cost a lot more to buy. If you dont like the cord, there are battery pack rechargable electric mowers out there, but if you have a large yard, then a gas riding mower is the way to go:)

I would ditch the mower in the UK and buy new here, and power tools would very much depend what they are.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

All excellent points there iaink, so I just wanted to add one more thing. If you don't kill the main breaker (i.e. cut your home off from the main power line) before starting your generator, you could also electrocute anyone working on your powerline.

I have a gas 2.8 kw Yamaha generator on my roof here in Mexico. I have it wired directly into my circuit panel. The unit can power everything in my home - except air conditioning - but I have propane appliances and water heater.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Does this mean that you have a wire from the generator ending in a dryer type plug or that you have a wire from the breaker for the dryer? More generally, if I have a generator outside and want to power the house, what's the easiest way to do it?

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Yes, youve got the idea. Initially I had a heavy guage wire with two regular 120V plugs on one end with the neutral terminals joined together for the common neutral (using the ground conductor of the three wire cable), and a dryer type plug the other that I plugged into the dryer outlet. That worked fine, but was a long snakey cable running through the garage and across the basement.

Later I drilled a hole in the wall and added an extra breaker box and wired it permanently into the dryer circuit. the other end still has the dual 120V plugs (my generator does not have 240V output, just twin 120V ones)

The breaker is there mainly to prevent the twin plugs being live when the power is on normally...dont want to electrocute myself by accident in the garage.

TBH the biggest pain in the a$$ about the whole deal is opening the garage door manually to wheel the generator outside when there is no power to run the opener, and the terrific amount of noise the generator makes.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Yes, I loath people who run generators in campsites because they're so noisy. Still, we'll need some arrangement of that sort.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Out of curiosity, why do you have to produce/route 240v into the house to power well pump and furnace? Wouldn't 120v suffice? And isn't it all a bit dodgy just to feed into a circuit without a 'proper' install from an "insurance payout if your house burns down due to an electrical fault" sorta perspective?!

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Im pretty sure the well pump is 240, but as in really the 240 is 120-0-120, I need to feed both halfs for the 120 curcuits in the house. Half the circuits run off one half, and the others half on the other, so I need both to be sure all things will work. Feeding 240 into the dryer circuit is a convenient way to acheive that without paying $7k+ for a professional generator/ auto switching breaker system. This is strictly for emergency Plan B purposes...not grizly adams "life of the grid" stuff. Bare in mind the dryer circuit is rated for more amps than the generator can provide...so its *should* be safe enough (I hope)

Yes its dodgy from an insurance perspective I suspect, but if there is a prolonged winter outage I will take heat and water over the risk something catastrophic happens, and its not like it is left running unattended. The only time we really ran it in anger it was run for a few minutes every hour to pump some heat around the house, keep the fridge and freezer cold and to provide water to the tank. The noise level was too high to want to run it much more than that!

If you have an electric water heat you might want to disconnect / unplug/ defuse it otherwise the generator will really struggle with the heavy load. I wouldnt try running the stove either, although the microwave would probably work OK.

Re: Does anyone know this ??
 

Why not just post the link:rolleyes:


http://www.smps.us/home-generators.html