I am aware my windshield wipers squeaked in this video it is not a normal problem they are less than a year old. And the generator does not power the house for several reasons I have a video on that ruclips.net/video/0EXjqxSqpiY/видео.htmlsi=N4WMLsAmVIQ3Y15x
Just a tip, the wipers may well be due to some coating on the window (do you guys have Rainex or something over there?) once it coats the wipers they're almost worse than useless. Having done a LOT of night time commutes on rural winding roads, I would recommend a completely clear windscreen with high quality wipers - let the wipers do what they're meant to. Snow foam melts right through unwanted windscreen coatings. You will probably need new wipers or to give them a snowfoam bath.
You might get some neighbors enquiring about how you had power. Back in 2013 after a big thunderstorm we lost power from 7PM till midnight. I ran my entire home off of my 6000 watt diesel generator. That night my mom lay on the couch the whole time watching her favorite cooking shows like nothing was going on! The next day I had several neighbors come over asking about the generator. One of them seemed a little pissed that I was also running my Christmas lights too. he said to me "We sat in the dark for 5 hours looking at your Christmas lights" I actually had them on as extra resistive load to help stabilize the generators AVR. Since then I sold the diesel and now have a propane inverter generator which is much cleaner to run.
That's awesome lol. I had problems with my last non-inverter generator was putting out two dirty of power led lights did not like it. The neighbours you'd think would get their own set up if they were that upset about it. But then I guess they'd actually have to spend money so that's not as easy as complaining about your neighbors…
@@nics-systems-electric That was the problem with the diesel, the power was dirty and my UPS's didn't like being powered by it during the power outage and kept switching on and off running their batteries down. I also heard that the control boards running your furnace HVAC system can be damaged by dirty generators. Another things you might want to consider is backup communications. In a wide spread outage the outside plant equipment run by the Telco's will be powered by battery backups in the cabinets. Some key cell sites will have generators but you'll likely start to see a degraded cell service as the outage continues and sites die off. This is why I keep a Starlink satellite system as backup communications as it's not dependent on anything locally. Use WiFi calling on your cell phone or also have a VoIP account. You also live in a earthquake zone so being prepared can be lifesaving. You might also want to consider getting into HAM radio, I think a guy like you would love it.
I work in IT and I configured the UPS's for our server rooms at two buildings. As someone whose been through outages, it's pretty cool to see your setup in action in a real utility power loss situation. Your generator setup is rad, ditto for the annunciator panel setup in the house.
Congratulations! Aint nothing like finally getting a successful start after all the work and lessons learned. That’s the beauty of engineering. Failures are like milestones to the sweet feeling of success which is more satisfying the longer it takes to get to the success and the more the failures.
You should definitely implement some delays in your generator setup. For example a first delay after generator started before switching to generator, to give it some time to warm up or your generator may have a short live. And then a second delay when utility power comes back, before stopping the generator for two reasons: first, what if power goes out again and second, to let the generator cool down without load. I would suggest for the second delay around 5 min and for the first delay at least one minute
There is a delay for cool down time but a delay on start up would slow down response time that's why you don't see generators with that and that's why there's a block heater on it to keep the engine warm and to keep the oil viscous
There are plenty of generators around with delayed startup. I work in radio comms, most of our sites have battery backup/UPS to maintain the equipment supplies for an hour or two, so the generators are set to start after about a minute. No point in starting up every time the lights flicker, particularly as the sites are all unmanned. I’d also be worried about the instantaneous switch back to utility with no break. If you have any reactive loads, they’re going to take a pretty hard hit if the generator is way out of phase with the utility. It either needs a break of a couple of seconds or sync the generator to in incoming supply before switching.
@@petesmith2234 the switch over is fast but that's the same as many of the generator I've seen so I'm not sure what it's going to hurt. There's nothing I can do to change that operation of the transfer switch. And mine doesn't start every time the lights flicker the power has to be off for 10 seconds which is actually faster than most that are 3 seconds that I've seen.
I think you’ll find that any decent system will either back sync the generator to the incoming supply and then do a make before break switchover once in sync or at least wait until the generator is naturally close to sync before doing a break before make, they don’t just switch when the contacters feel like it. Any reactive loads will suffer massive inrush and potential damage. Spinning machinery (I.e. motors) will suffer a massive torque spike and potential damage. If you’re not understanding this, maybe a bit of research on reactive loads and spinning machinery is in order. I’m not trying to be an a-hole, but it is a thing. Regarding start times, don’t rush if it’s not safety of life. Much of what I work on is, but it has at least an hour of battery. I have witnessed a generator at a transmission site repeatedly starting and stopping when the utility supply was being provided by a temporary generator which couldn’t cope. The starter motor was smoking and the batteries could barely crank the engine. If only the delays had been set a bit longer it either wouldn’t have tried to start or would have kept running. Either would have been better. Just saying, I love your enthusiasm, but not all is what it seems at first sight.
@@petesmith2234 yeah I get what you're saying I just don't think I have any equipment that would be hurt from it no big motor loads. All the really sensitive stuff is on UPS. I think the only way I could have a delay transfer back would be to install a time delay relay on the contactors coil. I can't find any schematics for my transfer switch so not sure how it's wired. It's a go power TS-50 and it doesn't make it obvious how it's working.
Great Job Nic. Your generator starts and restores power beautifully fast. About 6 seconds FASTER then my Generac 24kW on my house. That is absolutely incredible!
I work in the field for the electrical utility in my state. The power lines usually have 2 shots to restore power when it trips off. 1st shot is immediately after tripping it closes back. If it trips again, it waits 20 seconds then closes again. If it trips a 3rd time it locks the breaker out and personnel have to physically check out the reason for the trip and manually reset the lockout switch. Me personally, I would wait 21+ seconds before starting the generator, if immediate power is not a necessity... Also the 20 seconds is what the huge electrical utility i work for uses for their relay settings recloser shots and may be different in other areas. If anyone is wondering why we reclose the breaker on a possible fault... The explanation I've been given is that lots of squirrels birds snakes etc will get across the lines and cause a fault... Usually they will have fallen off by the 1st or 2nd shot.
Wow! That was pretty cool to see everything turn the second the power went out. Impressive how fast the Generator restored power. Also I've never seen a Traffic Light flash green before.
See, this is almost exactly what I want in my house, just with a 4010 classic and probably 4903s.... it's lit finally seeing videos of someone who's done it correctly with the exit signs, annunciators, backup generators, flush mounted devices, etc. cheers
Nice set up! Interesting how you managed to turn a portable generator into a home standby generator. One of my more recent power outages occured when a severe storm (which triggered a few tornado warnings which almost made it to my location) knocked out our power for the rest of that night into half of next day. We had our generator out which we brought so quickly during another power outage a while ago. I was biking around our neighborhood and saw generators both portable and standby all running almost left and right of me. It was an interesting day for me.
My dad works at BC Hydro and it is both a private and government company. I love the setup with your generator and all the cool emergency lights, I dont know much about that stuff but we just have one of those Generac's which is an automatic generator but its more suited for powering entire homes during a long power outage, they come in different wattages, I believe 18KW and 22KW, Im pretty sure the one we have is a 18KW. And as it is its overkill, Im starting to see almost the whole neighborhood with these generators ever since my dad got it installed. before we'd have to go to the gas station in town buy 2 gallons then return and bring out the old generator that can only run for about 12 hours and its only suposed to power lights and nothing else. When I lived in a small village a long time ago the power was once out for a week and 3 days, because someone hyrdroplanned and hit a pole. I love your content man, keep up good work :)
That's awesome! I remember when I first installed emergency lights at my house, and they hit the pole outside making our power go out, I was so excited to see all my lights turn on, and surprisingly, they stayed on for 14 hours! And nice Guns n Roses in the background by the way.
How much load does the garage put on the generator? Could you also wire some circuits from the main house onto the generator too? I'm sure your family will be enquiring about now!
That would require another automatic transfer switch in the house so it would need a emergency source ran to the house and then an automatic transfer switch and then circuits separated into a separate emergency panel circuits moved from entirely different locations of the house and separated as there are mixed circuits it would be a very expensive project and very challenging with a lot of work that would be damaging to the house trying to move circuits from entirely separate locations so it's not really possible
@@nics-systems-electric You could always run just a 15 amp circuit to the house and install some of the orange emergency power outlets thought the house. This way your family will have access to power to run devices in an emergency and it would be convenient for them in bad weather not to have to go outside to the garage. Also if you have a forced air gas heating system you could keep it going too.
@@peterfairlie2296 it's possible but not easy it would require excavation and pipe to be buried and ran into the house. And since I would never make money back on that project nor would it be used enough it's not worth it for the small amount of time that the power is out they can use power from buildings fed off the generator with extension cords if they need. Mitigating the risk of having two different power sources in a residential building where it may not be obvious to the next person where a splice combining sources could be very dangerous
Watching this makes me miss a good ol West Coast storm! Its sure changed there since I was a kid. Even since I moved away in 2019, its changed so much!
The only downside is that during a grid down situation, your house is like a light house to everyone else without power. Granted you have exceptional puppies for personal protection.
@@nics-systems-electric the problem is, when you have power and all the others don't, you might get some not so friendly visitors...that's why I prefer a solar system with batteries attached...silent and nearly invisible...solar on the roof and batteries in the basement...no one can see it, unless you switch on lights and music and throw a party 😂
@@westallgaeuereisenbahnen you must be in a very sketchy area. Someone could also just go to the fire department up the road that has power during a power outage I'm not the only one
Nic I think it's time to get some new wiper blades for your car my friend. Looks like they were skipping a bit during the video. Just looking out for ya.
Amazing setup! I particularly love the exhaust fan you have going for the generator. We have a lot of those twin lamps in places now here in the U.K. and my personal system is now 5 flashlights that sit in a holder in the power outlet, and they all come on if the power goes. I also have a big energizer battery with a 300 w inverter that also has a good light on it as well as USB's. and a bunch of power banks too.
it is what it is mate. that sounded very Australian. as of i like watching full videos with your friends it shows you funny side. as of in illinois it is usually very short about 10 seconds outages in winter
@@nics-systems-electric Actually 200 watts consumption or 200 watts equivalent? Regular LED street lights are only around 50 watts so your light must be really bright.
@@eDoc2020 200 W consumed. 50 W would be a quite small street light never worked on one that small as far as any type of HID lamp 50 W is usually only for small wall packs
A lot going on in this video. First off, I have a 20kw Cummins with an ATS so I've been through similar situations but you've got some commercial items installed that I found interesting. Exit lights and emergency lighting. The insulated generator cover was a nice touch. Interesting fire alarm system and UPS system. I have 15 exterior lights on my house and when the power goes out, my house is lit up way too much.
I was thinking more of portable propane/butane tanks with the generator to give longer run time than the built in gas tank does, but whatever works best for you.@@nics-systems-electric
Hi Nike how are u ok today am big supporter of u do a rally good job on here keep up the good work on here keep up there good work on here my name see Greg
Hey Nic how are ya doing my friend? I have to say everything is running perfectly im very impressed, i like the emergency lights in the house they look great nice and bright, do they last longer than 90 minutes being led?
Hey I'm good, hope you're doing good. Can't speak for the new one as it only went for the 20 minutes or so the power was out. But the old one will go for three or four hours usually.
@@nics-systems-electric That's cool I've been thinking about installing emergency lights in my house, I just have the small plug in emergency lights that are night lights when the electricity is on, You definitely have a special talent your very intelligent that's totally awesome I learn something cool from all your videos 😎
A benifit to working in IT and communications is I can get ahold of all sorts of things that are / were used in varuous comms tower sites, generators being one of those things. I have an LPG 12Kw generator with the auto changeover system from a retired AT&T wireless building that has very low hours on it and powers my whole house.
Theres not a much better feeling than having power while everyone else has to sit around in the dark. lol. I lose power quite frequently so I finally set up a whole house generator last year. No one else around me has a gen set so Ill sit all warm and cozy watching movies while my neighbors enviously wait for the grid to come back.
Really cool to see man, im from the UK and that is like rain that we get every day but we rarely have this sort of impact from it, nice to see how other coutnries react 🤣
We had a short four hour outage yesterday, snowed heavy snow, and then the temperature went above freezing and trees started to fall on power lines. I have a 1600W UPS with 4x12V80Ah batteries, runs most in my house. I bought a second hand three phase (since I live in northern Europe we all have three phase service, even domestic) generator rated for 28kW/35kvA/50A. My main fuses are 3x25A so it's a bit oversized but got it cheap. I'm still in the process of hooking it up to the house, it's gonna be controlled by a Deep Sea Electronics DSE 7230 control panel with autostart and ATS. The generator engine is an old Ford four cylinder, somewhat around 80HP maybe. Oh and I'm a licensed electrician so I can do all the wiring and stuff myself
I WOULD not belive if you created it there would be doubt it works you really do seem like you know what you are doing! if you were in the US I would probably hire you as my electricIan or something
This is so cool, really need one of these at my place. Power in Hawaii is not super reliable, had a outage last night. The local grocery store lost like 50k USD of frozen food because the generator wasn't powering all the freezers properly.
Thats feels great. Especially if you have it online with batteries and generators. I remember when snowstorm damaged the lines and the whole village gone out except the shop and our house. Mainly thanks to the fact that we still had natural gas, and our emergency generator ran on it. Without the working supply we would have had about 12-16 hours, but we were fine for over two days, until the fixed up the lane and evryone else finally had propper toilet XD (cause around third of the houses had their own water supply, and the other ones got it from the water tower, wich worked on electricity)
GREAT VIDEO OF THE OUTAGE AND THE GENERATOR TAKING OVER . 🤗BUT WHY POWER THE GARAGE ONLY BUT NOT THE HOUSE ? I'M PRETTY SURE YOUR NEXT VIDEO WILL HAVE A SOLUTION FOR BOTH DURING THE NEXT OUTAGE . 🤔
Glad you enjoyed. Generator doesn't power the house for several reasons it would require excavation additional transfer switch and emergency panel and would require damage to the building and would be too much load
Question for you @nics-system-electric, why only a generator for the garage only? I don't know your situation but at my house I could care less about my garage having no power during an outage I would rather my home have power for myself and my family. You could hook up a 30/50 amp generator inlet box on the side of your house and run a large Generator to power most circuits or a smaller one for critical loads. It just doesn't make sense to me to only have power for your garage and not your main living space but then again I don't know your situation just curious.
We had problems with them they did not offer what I needed problems with false alarms and reliability and no customization options and no low frequency devices
There are very few things as satisfying as hitting a big puddle in a car and watching the water go everywhere. There's a couple spots on my commute where the water pools, and it's always fun watching them. (Doubly fun when you hit it just right to get it to come up over the windshield!) PS: Spray some water repellent on that windshield!
When you finished the generator project you second guessed if would ever be needed.. now the family will be sleeping in the garage for a night where the heat is!
If u get a enough money u should buy three generators because at my 5M mansion where I live we have a generator that they use over at the hotels and it’s massive ALL replay if u agree and like also our generator test itself even when the power isn’t out ur welcome for our information
so you have power for cameras in a generator room and floodlights that you dont need but the house is not connected? priority's need to be be assessed i think,
If you are interested you can check out my video explaining why the house isn't powered. You need to understand the situation and then it will make sense.
Can i suggest you to put your house working on EG (Emergency Generator) when power went out? With system monitoring yre fuel capacity and monitoring temperature of the EG? And my sugestion are she legal? (maybe is stupid my sugestion but say it honestly 😅☺️)
Too much load and you would need to excavate for underground emergency power to go to a automatic transfer switch and then install an emergency panel it would be thousands of thousands of dollars and a lot of work and the generator can't run it anyway
There are electromagnets holding the door open. When there is a fire alarm (drills don't count) the magnets lose power, closing the door. Ofc the magnets need power to run, so a power outage would close the door
Really awesome set up! we have a blue diamond relatively generic diesel generator for our entire home. Good generator as we can run both AC systems which are built into the house, which use quite a bit of power. Also where did you get that IKEA looking arrow sticker?
Thanks, if you are referring to the arrow on the floor that one was from Covid that came from a school district and for whatever reason I wanted to put it there lol
Do your neighbours have any issues with that street light in the backyard? Personally I love the even and useful illumination it’s providing for you but would barn doors or similar help shape the light?
This system looks quite good, but I have an idea that would make it slightly better... ... Add a hair-trigger electrical 'deadman-switch' that would cause the generator to start up MUCH faster after grid-power disruption. Like starer motor running as the lights are dimming instant. Would this system occasionally cause 'false starts' every so often from grid ripple? Perhaps...
That is something you don't want generally you want at least 3 seconds and that is for emergency generators that's life safety dependent. For something like this that is non-life safety even longer is better like 10 seconds which is what I have mine set to otherwise it would be instant which then puts a a lot more wear on your starter if it's trying to turn the engine over every time the lights flicker and will then throw an error when it's trying to start the engine when power isn't actually out
You have a negative coefficient of airflow through your generator box, you can see as soon as you open the doors that the shutters are fully engaged as the fan forces air through, but as soon as you closed the door you lost a huge significant amount of airflow. I recommend a passthrough hole on the other side of the box to allow clean air through. Otherwise awesome video.
There is a large damper on the other side of that automatically opens supplying sufficient airflow they're always will be a slight reduction in flow when door is shut due to a less direct path
When you spent thousands and been waiting years for your equipment you've designed and programmed and installed it's nice when it actually gets a chance to work
Seeing stuff like this is cool! I tried to to a system test but it failed😅. But I’ve been really interested in alarms and power stuff! If you have tips on how to get a fire alarm I would appreciate it! - Explosive
I put some emergency lights in my home. one in the living room, one in the hallway and one in the dining room facing the kitchen. everytime we have bad weather that knocks power out we always fumbling in the dark trying to find flashlights. no longer we have to do that. We are in the process of installing a Generator lockout so when power does go out we can have power abit at a limited capacity.
I used to do work experience in a private school setting.....and one time our generator (some cheap Kohler copy) actually EXPLODED because it couldn't handle the sudden influx ot load (bear in mind we use 240v 50Hz in this country) So we ran off full UPS power as long as we could until the Batteries expired in them.... The server room being deathly silent was probably one of the most terrifying things ive encountered. Supply was down for about 5 hours and when it tried coming back it blew again....which sadly killed one of our Liebert UPSes
I am aware my windshield wipers squeaked in this video it is not a normal problem they are less than a year old. And the generator does not power the house for several reasons I have a video on that ruclips.net/video/0EXjqxSqpiY/видео.htmlsi=N4WMLsAmVIQ3Y15x
Let me guess load or a safety reason or some code?
how cares if ppl say anything about that tell them to F-off lol
@@Casonplayz I would say the load + the way you would have to back feed the house.
Just a tip, the wipers may well be due to some coating on the window (do you guys have Rainex or something over there?) once it coats the wipers they're almost worse than useless. Having done a LOT of night time commutes on rural winding roads, I would recommend a completely clear windscreen with high quality wipers - let the wipers do what they're meant to. Snow foam melts right through unwanted windscreen coatings. You will probably need new wipers or to give them a snowfoam bath.
@stampynate007 emergency lights come on when the power goes out to provide instant illumination
You might get some neighbors enquiring about how you had power. Back in 2013 after a big thunderstorm we lost power from 7PM till midnight. I ran my entire home off of my 6000 watt diesel generator. That night my mom lay on the couch the whole time watching her favorite cooking shows like nothing was going on! The next day I had several neighbors come over asking about the generator. One of them seemed a little pissed that I was also running my Christmas lights too. he said to me "We sat in the dark for 5 hours looking at your Christmas lights" I actually had them on as extra resistive load to help stabilize the generators AVR. Since then I sold the diesel and now have a propane inverter generator which is much cleaner to run.
That's awesome lol. I had problems with my last non-inverter generator was putting out two dirty of power led lights did not like it. The neighbours you'd think would get their own set up if they were that upset about it. But then I guess they'd actually have to spend money so that's not as easy as complaining about your neighbors…
How can someone be angry at the fact that you were more prepared than they were? lmao
@@nics-systems-electric That was the problem with the diesel, the power was dirty and my UPS's didn't like being powered by it during the power outage and kept switching on and off running their batteries down. I also heard that the control boards running your furnace HVAC system can be damaged by dirty generators. Another things you might want to consider is backup communications. In a wide spread outage the outside plant equipment run by the Telco's will be powered by battery backups in the cabinets. Some key cell sites will have generators but you'll likely start to see a degraded cell service as the outage continues and sites die off. This is why I keep a Starlink satellite system as backup communications as it's not dependent on anything locally. Use WiFi calling on your cell phone or also have a VoIP account. You also live in a earthquake zone so being prepared can be lifesaving. You might also want to consider getting into HAM radio, I think a guy like you would love it.
@@allenesibe9842 They think we're crazy being preppers then they are jealous haters when they $hit hits the fan!
@@peterfairlie2296 hey you got a ham license? We can do make shift RUclips qsl! Fr :)
I work in IT and I configured the UPS's for our server rooms at two buildings. As someone whose been through outages, it's pretty cool to see your setup in action in a real utility power loss situation. Your generator setup is rad, ditto for the annunciator panel setup in the house.
Yeah it's definitely nice to see all your work doing as it's supposed to
I love your generator status light on the outside of the generator shack! Such a great way to make sure it turned on as it should!
I think you can hear if it’s running
@@Obnoxiouswolf2not if you’re inside, find someone else to hate on 😂
I would only worry if the light on the generator house is on, but the "rest" is still dark...
Congratulations! Aint nothing like finally getting a successful start after all the work and lessons learned. That’s the beauty of engineering. Failures are like milestones to the sweet feeling of success which is more satisfying the longer it takes to get to the success and the more the failures.
Absolutely it's definitely really nice to see your work actually doing what it's supposed to. Even more so when it doesn't happen every day.
You should definitely implement some delays in your generator setup. For example a first delay after generator started before switching to generator, to give it some time to warm up or your generator may have a short live. And then a second delay when utility power comes back, before stopping the generator for two reasons: first, what if power goes out again and second, to let the generator cool down without load. I would suggest for the second delay around 5 min and for the first delay at least one minute
There is a delay for cool down time but a delay on start up would slow down response time that's why you don't see generators with that and that's why there's a block heater on it to keep the engine warm and to keep the oil viscous
There are plenty of generators around with delayed startup. I work in radio comms, most of our sites have battery backup/UPS to maintain the equipment supplies for an hour or two, so the generators are set to start after about a minute. No point in starting up every time the lights flicker, particularly as the sites are all unmanned.
I’d also be worried about the instantaneous switch back to utility with no break. If you have any reactive loads, they’re going to take a pretty hard hit if the generator is way out of phase with the utility. It either needs a break of a couple of seconds or sync the generator to in incoming supply before switching.
@@petesmith2234 the switch over is fast but that's the same as many of the generator I've seen so I'm not sure what it's going to hurt. There's nothing I can do to change that operation of the transfer switch. And mine doesn't start every time the lights flicker the power has to be off for 10 seconds which is actually faster than most that are 3 seconds that I've seen.
I think you’ll find that any decent system will either back sync the generator to the incoming supply and then do a make before break switchover once in sync or at least wait until the generator is naturally close to sync before doing a break before make, they don’t just switch when the contacters feel like it. Any reactive loads will suffer massive inrush and potential damage. Spinning machinery (I.e. motors) will suffer a massive torque spike and potential damage. If you’re not understanding this, maybe a bit of research on reactive loads and spinning machinery is in order. I’m not trying to be an a-hole, but it is a thing.
Regarding start times, don’t rush if it’s not safety of life. Much of what I work on is, but it has at least an hour of battery. I have witnessed a generator at a transmission site repeatedly starting and stopping when the utility supply was being provided by a temporary generator which couldn’t cope. The starter motor was smoking and the batteries could barely crank the engine. If only the delays had been set a bit longer it either wouldn’t have tried to start or would have kept running. Either would have been better.
Just saying, I love your enthusiasm, but not all is what it seems at first sight.
@@petesmith2234 yeah I get what you're saying I just don't think I have any equipment that would be hurt from it no big motor loads. All the really sensitive stuff is on UPS. I think the only way I could have a delay transfer back would be to install a time delay relay on the contactors coil. I can't find any schematics for my transfer switch so not sure how it's wired. It's a go power TS-50 and it doesn't make it obvious how it's working.
Great Job Nic. Your generator starts and restores power beautifully fast. About 6 seconds FASTER then my Generac 24kW on my house. That is absolutely incredible!
Thank you. There is a 10 second utility loss delay and it usually starts within about 8 seconds so 18 seconds in total is usual delay
@@nics-systems-electric yes. My Generator take 24 to 30 seconds to restore power. Yours is much faster
I work in the field for the electrical utility in my state. The power lines usually have 2 shots to restore power when it trips off. 1st shot is immediately after tripping it closes back. If it trips again, it waits 20 seconds then closes again. If it trips a 3rd time it locks the breaker out and personnel have to physically check out the reason for the trip and manually reset the lockout switch. Me personally, I would wait 21+ seconds before starting the generator, if immediate power is not a necessity... Also the 20 seconds is what the huge electrical utility i work for uses for their relay settings recloser shots and may be different in other areas. If anyone is wondering why we reclose the breaker on a possible fault... The explanation I've been given is that lots of squirrels birds snakes etc will get across the lines and cause a fault... Usually they will have fallen off by the 1st or 2nd shot.
Wow! That was pretty cool to see everything turn the second the power went out. Impressive how fast the Generator restored power. Also I've never seen a Traffic Light flash green before.
Flashing green is a pedestrian controlled intersection
@@nics-systems-electric Ah ok, Thanks for the Clarification. I never knew that
Bro has excellent music taste. Super cool to see that the system is working!
Congratulations! There's nothing more satisfying than a system that works perfectly
Thank you absolutely
Just painting enjoying some guns n roses when BAM, IT ALL HIT lol
Nice to see the generator setup is working for you.
Also, that German Shepard of yours is absolutely adorable! Is the doggo playful and friendly?
Also, also, that was perfect timing on the generator's part for starting up the moment you stepped outside.
See, this is almost exactly what I want in my house, just with a 4010 classic and probably 4903s.... it's lit finally seeing videos of someone who's done it correctly with the exit signs, annunciators, backup generators, flush mounted devices, etc. cheers
Nice set up! Interesting how you managed to turn a portable generator into a home standby generator. One of my more recent power outages occured when a severe storm (which triggered a few tornado warnings which almost made it to my location) knocked out our power for the rest of that night into half of next day. We had our generator out which we brought so quickly during another power outage a while ago. I was biking around our neighborhood and saw generators both portable and standby all running almost left and right of me. It was an interesting day for me.
Brother you are the best engineer ❤😊love from India🇮🇳
My dad works at BC Hydro and it is both a private and government company. I love the setup with your generator and all the cool emergency lights, I dont know much about that stuff but we just have one of those Generac's which is an automatic generator but its more suited for powering entire homes during a long power outage, they come in different wattages, I believe 18KW and 22KW, Im pretty sure the one we have is a 18KW. And as it is its overkill, Im starting to see almost the whole neighborhood with these generators ever since my dad got it installed. before we'd have to go to the gas station in town buy 2 gallons then return and bring out the old generator that can only run for about 12 hours and its only suposed to power lights and nothing else. When I lived in a small village a long time ago the power was once out for a week and 3 days, because someone hyrdroplanned and hit a pole. I love your content man, keep up good work :)
That's awesome! I remember when I first installed emergency lights at my house, and they hit the pole outside making our power go out, I was so excited to see all my lights turn on, and surprisingly, they stayed on for 14 hours! And nice Guns n Roses in the background by the way.
How much load does the garage put on the generator? Could you also wire some circuits from the main house onto the generator too? I'm sure your family will be enquiring about now!
That would require another automatic transfer switch in the house so it would need a emergency source ran to the house and then an automatic transfer switch and then circuits separated into a separate emergency panel circuits moved from entirely different locations of the house and separated as there are mixed circuits it would be a very expensive project and very challenging with a lot of work that would be damaging to the house trying to move circuits from entirely separate locations so it's not really possible
@@nics-systems-electric You could always run just a 15 amp circuit to the house and install some of the orange emergency power outlets thought the house. This way your family will have access to power to run devices in an emergency and it would be convenient for them in bad weather not to have to go outside to the garage. Also if you have a forced air gas heating system you could keep it going too.
@@peterfairlie2296 it's possible but not easy it would require excavation and pipe to be buried and ran into the house. And since I would never make money back on that project nor would it be used enough it's not worth it for the small amount of time that the power is out they can use power from buildings fed off the generator with extension cords if they need. Mitigating the risk of having two different power sources in a residential building where it may not be obvious to the next person where a splice combining sources could be very dangerous
Well, at least have the fridge and freezer on an emergency circuit.
@@Game_Blox9999 do you realize what that would involve?
You parents are lucky that you like fire alarms and emergency light systems because it just saved them stress of trying to power the house. Nice job!
Also check with neighbours if they are reliant on electricity for health reasons- you could be a life saver
Indeed!
Watching this makes me miss a good ol West Coast storm! Its sure changed there since I was a kid. Even since I moved away in 2019, its changed so much!
The only downside is that during a grid down situation, your house is like a light house to everyone else without power. Granted you have exceptional puppies for personal protection.
I don't know how that would be any problem
@@nics-systems-electric the problem is, when you have power and all the others don't, you might get some not so friendly visitors...that's why I prefer a solar system with batteries attached...silent and nearly invisible...solar on the roof and batteries in the basement...no one can see it, unless you switch on lights and music and throw a party 😂
@@westallgaeuereisenbahnen you must be in a very sketchy area. Someone could also just go to the fire department up the road that has power during a power outage I'm not the only one
Ok that was quite comical! And how everyone in the house was acting just made me laugh! Thank you I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time!
Wow that’s cool but also crazy, nice to see your system in action!
Great Video Nick And Setup
Thanks!
@@nics-systems-electric Anytime
0:29 "Oh my gosh, turn on the generator!"
Ah yes the friendly mocking of family.
Nic I think it's time to get some new wiper blades for your car my friend. Looks like they were skipping a bit during the video. Just looking out for ya.
It's strange they are less then a year old and usually they're just fine
Just out of curiosity why would you have the garage on a generator and not the house 🤔.
Im new to the channel so im not up to speed on things.
The pinned comment link is talking all about that. That the house is too large of a load to have generator back up
Amazing setup! I particularly love the exhaust fan you have going for the generator. We have a lot of those twin lamps in places now here in the U.K. and my personal system is now 5 flashlights that sit in a holder in the power outlet, and they all come on if the power goes. I also have a big energizer battery with a 300 w inverter that also has a good light on it as well as USB's. and a bunch of power banks too.
it is what it is mate. that sounded very Australian. as of i like watching full videos with your friends it shows you funny side. as of in illinois it is usually very short about 10 seconds outages in winter
Dude that’s awesome. Ngl makes me wish I had a generator. The whole backup power thing is so cool to me
Hi Nick, what happens if the generator floods whilst trying to start? Love the vids and keep up the good work
It doesn't flood the choke shuts off once started and in between starting attempts
@@nics-systems-electric legend for replying thanks for letting me know
That's sweet! So satisfying to see all your hard work perform perfectly. How many watts is your LED backyard pole/street light?
Thanks, it is definitely nice to see it all working. It's a 200 w led
@@nics-systems-electric Actually 200 watts consumption or 200 watts equivalent? Regular LED street lights are only around 50 watts so your light must be really bright.
@@eDoc2020 200 W consumed. 50 W would be a quite small street light never worked on one that small as far as any type of HID lamp 50 W is usually only for small wall packs
A lot going on in this video. First off, I have a 20kw Cummins with an ATS so I've been through similar situations but you've got some commercial items installed that I found interesting. Exit lights and emergency lighting. The insulated generator cover was a nice touch. Interesting fire alarm system and UPS system. I have 15 exterior lights on my house and when the power goes out, my house is lit up way too much.
Your friendship with the young neighbour is so wholesome!
Really cool with the generator automatically switching itself on and off!!
Great set-up Nick, how long will the generator supply power for ?
For as long as it has fuel so probably about 12h in the tank and I can add more if needed
Do you think you would ever do a propane/butane conversion on your generator?@@nics-systems-electric
@@ElliottVeares wouldn't think so as we don't have either
I was thinking more of portable propane/butane tanks with the generator to give longer run time than the built in gas tank does, but whatever works best for you.@@nics-systems-electric
That's pretty cool to see that in action...
That's quite the mancave you built on your property, I like!!
Awesome…the best test of all. A real world scenario.
Absolutely
Congratulations on your system/setup i remember when it was a very small system
Hi Nike how are u ok today am big supporter of u do a rally good job on here keep up the good work on here keep up there good work on here my name see Greg
Hey Nic how are ya doing my friend? I have to say everything is running perfectly im very impressed, i like the emergency lights in the house they look great nice and bright, do they last longer than 90 minutes being led?
Hey I'm good, hope you're doing good. Can't speak for the new one as it only went for the 20 minutes or so the power was out. But the old one will go for three or four hours usually.
@@nics-systems-electric That's cool I've been thinking about installing emergency lights in my house, I just have the small plug in emergency lights that are night lights when the electricity is on, You definitely have a special talent your very intelligent that's totally awesome I learn something cool from all your videos 😎
A benifit to working in IT and communications is I can get ahold of all sorts of things that are / were used in varuous comms tower sites, generators being one of those things. I have an LPG 12Kw generator with the auto changeover system from a retired AT&T wireless building that has very low hours on it and powers my whole house.
Theres not a much better feeling than having power while everyone else has to sit around in the dark. lol. I lose power quite frequently so I finally set up a whole house generator last year. No one else around me has a gen set so Ill sit all warm and cozy watching movies while my neighbors enviously wait for the grid to come back.
Really cool to see man, im from the UK and that is like rain that we get every day but we rarely have this sort of impact from it, nice to see how other coutnries react 🤣
Yeah unfortunately I didn't get the heavy rain on camera
It’s exciting to see it work like it should in a real test. But I hope u got your power back.
HI Nick congratulations of making great video hope to see more !
Now you just need a generater/hookup for the main house.
Unfortunately not practically possible
@@nics-systems-electricdoes a 10k watt generator exist? or 28k watts
@@henrydoesstuff213 yes there are generators that are over 1,000,000 W
what song were you playing in the garage? it sounds like something id like
Sweet child O' mine by guns N' roses
That has to be nice. Going to have to search your channel for a tech tour of your setup.
We had a short four hour outage yesterday, snowed heavy snow, and then the temperature went above freezing and trees started to fall on power lines. I have a 1600W UPS with 4x12V80Ah batteries, runs most in my house. I bought a second hand three phase (since I live in northern Europe we all have three phase service, even domestic) generator rated for 28kW/35kvA/50A. My main fuses are 3x25A so it's a bit oversized but got it cheap. I'm still in the process of hooking it up to the house, it's gonna be controlled by a Deep Sea Electronics DSE 7230 control panel with autostart and ATS. The generator engine is an old Ford four cylinder, somewhat around 80HP maybe. Oh and I'm a licensed electrician so I can do all the wiring and stuff myself
I WOULD not belive if you created it there would be doubt it works you really do seem like you know what you are doing! if you were in the US I would probably hire you as my electricIan or something
BC Hydro is (in my experience) very efficient and quick with restoring power. You are lucky to have such an effective system.
They do seem to be pretty quick
This is so cool, really need one of these at my place. Power in Hawaii is not super reliable, had a outage last night. The local grocery store lost like 50k USD of frozen food because the generator wasn't powering all the freezers properly.
Stupid generator lmao 😂
Awesome to see everything working!
Yes for sure
Keep up there good work on here am a big supporter and all of are videos on here are amazing too paly on keep up there good work on here
Bros was just vibing to Guns N’ Roses 😭
Thats feels great. Especially if you have it online with batteries and generators. I remember when snowstorm damaged the lines and the whole village gone out except the shop and our house. Mainly thanks to the fact that we still had natural gas, and our emergency generator ran on it. Without the working supply we would have had about 12-16 hours, but we were fine for over two days, until the fixed up the lane and evryone else finally had propper toilet XD (cause around third of the houses had their own water supply, and the other ones got it from the water tower, wich worked on electricity)
Weird question but dose hadon have a key fob
really cool unexpected test of the generator. i don't know if i missed something but is your generator a gas or propane?
Gas, we don't have propane or natural gas so it Hass to be a diesel or gasoline generator
There's no better method of testing than experiencing the actual scenario you're preparing for.
4:16 Why did your emergency light turn off before ac lights coming on?
It didn't, lights are delayed turning on.
WOW, you were freaking out like a bomb was coming 😂 glad your happy with your system 😊. Great job on the generator.
Just trying to get things to stop beeping stresses out the dog
GREAT VIDEO OF THE OUTAGE AND THE GENERATOR TAKING OVER . 🤗BUT WHY POWER THE GARAGE ONLY BUT NOT THE HOUSE ? I'M PRETTY SURE YOUR NEXT VIDEO WILL HAVE A SOLUTION FOR BOTH DURING THE NEXT OUTAGE . 🤔
Glad you enjoyed. Generator doesn't power the house for several reasons it would require excavation additional transfer switch and emergency panel and would require damage to the building and would be too much load
Someone: So how many backup lights for the backup lights you want to put out there?
NIC: Yes
😂
3:24what music is that I kinda like it
I don't know this song too
I don't know this song too
Question for you @nics-system-electric, why only a generator for the garage only? I don't know your situation but at my house I could care less about my garage having no power during an outage I would rather my home have power for myself and my family. You could hook up a 30/50 amp generator inlet box on the side of your house and run a large Generator to power most circuits or a smaller one for critical loads. It just doesn't make sense to me to only have power for your garage and not your main living space but then again I don't know your situation just curious.
ruclips.net/video/0EXjqxSqpiY/видео.htmlsi=LLhkjt8Dp35Ey0YR
@@nics-systems-electric Thanks for the reply and your detailed explanation. Your reasoning makes total sense in your situation.
Why do you have an industrial fire alarm system in your house? Isn't smoke detectors sufficient enough for a house?
We had problems with them they did not offer what I needed problems with false alarms and reliability and no customization options and no low frequency devices
Great videos bro. Keep up the safety stuff!!
How convinient. Youre prepared for anything
There are very few things as satisfying as hitting a big puddle in a car and watching the water go everywhere. There's a couple spots on my commute where the water pools, and it's always fun watching them. (Doubly fun when you hit it just right to get it to come up over the windshield!)
PS: Spray some water repellent on that windshield!
Not me watching this & my power goes out:
"Well thats some good timing!"
When you finished the generator project you second guessed if would ever be needed.. now the family will be sleeping in the garage for a night where the heat is!
what is the song that you wear playing when you were paying
Sweet child O' mine by guns N' roses
i’m glad you are fine with your emergency generator start until power outrage
That's great, quite impressive actually, I like it.
If u get a enough money u should buy three generators because at my 5M mansion where I live we have a generator that they use over at the hotels and it’s massive ALL replay if u agree and like also our generator test itself even when the power isn’t out ur welcome for our information
If you had three separate transfer switches otherwise you have to have them synchronized
have there been any other power outage videos filmed recent lee
Yes one at the new elementary and middle school school around a week before this one
so you have power for cameras in a generator room and floodlights that you dont need but the house is not connected? priority's need to be be assessed i think,
If you are interested you can check out my video explaining why the house isn't powered. You need to understand the situation and then it will make sense.
Can i suggest you to put your house working on EG (Emergency Generator) when power went out? With system monitoring yre fuel capacity and monitoring temperature of the EG? And my sugestion are she legal? (maybe is stupid my sugestion but say it honestly 😅☺️)
Too much load and you would need to excavate for underground emergency power to go to a automatic transfer switch and then install an emergency panel it would be thousands of thousands of dollars and a lot of work and the generator can't run it anyway
@@nics-systems-electric im thinking too is a bad idea and yes im right bad idea of mine...sorry 😅☺️😔
2:44 WHY IS THE DOOR CLOSING ON ITS OWN
There are electromagnets holding the door open. When there is a fire alarm (drills don't count) the magnets lose power, closing the door. Ofc the magnets need power to run, so a power outage would close the door
What did you think win the power wint out
Really awesome set up! we have a blue diamond relatively generic diesel generator for our entire home. Good generator as we can run both AC systems which are built into the house, which use quite a bit of power. Also where did you get that IKEA looking arrow sticker?
Thanks, if you are referring to the arrow on the floor that one was from Covid that came from a school district and for whatever reason I wanted to put it there lol
@@nics-systems-electric Ahh that makes a lot of sense, thanks for replying!
That's a nice generator i must say!
Thank you I get very few positive comments on my homemade set up I appreciate it
@@nics-systems-electric no problem man..
Do your neighbours have any issues with that street light in the backyard? Personally I love the even and useful illumination it’s providing for you but would barn doors or similar help shape the light?
No it doesn't bother them any it doesn't seem to get any in their yard anyways but they are OK with it
Great you have good neighbours. Super impressed with your setup especially the logic behind it all!
i remember when it happened to me due to power overload from HVAC that my DIY emergency light kicked on
This system looks quite good, but I have an idea that would make it slightly better...
...
Add a hair-trigger electrical 'deadman-switch' that would cause the generator to start up MUCH faster after grid-power disruption.
Like starer motor running as the lights are dimming instant. Would this system occasionally cause 'false starts' every so often from grid ripple? Perhaps...
That is something you don't want generally you want at least 3 seconds and that is for emergency generators that's life safety dependent. For something like this that is non-life safety even longer is better like 10 seconds which is what I have mine set to otherwise it would be instant which then puts a a lot more wear on your starter if it's trying to turn the engine over every time the lights flicker and will then throw an error when it's trying to start the engine when power isn't actually out
You have a negative coefficient of airflow through your generator box, you can see as soon as you open the doors that the shutters are fully engaged as the fan forces air through, but as soon as you closed the door you lost a huge significant amount of airflow. I recommend a passthrough hole on the other side of the box to allow clean air through. Otherwise awesome video.
There is a large damper on the other side of that automatically opens supplying sufficient airflow they're always will be a slight reduction in flow when door is shut due to a less direct path
Never seen so much excitement over a power cut
When you spent thousands and been waiting years for your equipment you've designed and programmed and installed it's nice when it actually gets a chance to work
Seeing stuff like this is cool! I tried to to a system test but it failed😅. But I’ve been really interested in alarms and power stuff! If you have tips on how to get a fire alarm I would appreciate it! - Explosive
that's cool but just imagine when shtf and this is a beacon that says i'm here.....
Hope to look forward to more videos!
I love how the first thing you do when the power goes out is start recording.
is that your brother?
No as I said in the video it's Hayden's younger brother my neighbour
I put some emergency lights in my home. one in the living room, one in the hallway and one in the dining room facing the kitchen. everytime we have bad weather that knocks power out we always fumbling in the dark trying to find flashlights. no longer we have to do that.
We are in the process of installing a Generator lockout so when power does go out we can have power abit at a limited capacity.
Nice im probably due for a power outage hasnt gone out since April and hadn't had a interruption or 5 second outage since September
us too!
how long can the generator last on a single tank of gas
16 hours at 25% load
I used to do work experience in a private school setting.....and one time our generator (some cheap Kohler copy) actually EXPLODED because it couldn't handle the sudden influx ot load (bear in mind we use 240v 50Hz in this country)
So we ran off full UPS power as long as we could until the Batteries expired in them.... The server room being deathly silent was probably one of the most terrifying things ive encountered.
Supply was down for about 5 hours and when it tried coming back it blew again....which sadly killed one of our Liebert UPSes
i love how he started to record almost immediately
why are there so many industrial things at your house? like the fire pull switch, etc.
Because there are commercial fire alarm systems because the residential smoke alarms were not doing the job and did not do what I needed