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I love my Generator
Ken, I'm in about the same position as Mark is, big open spaces, 2 storey high, and a lot of space to heat.
I have a single mid-sized airtight insert in the front of the house, fairly central, and can keep the house warm enough with just a moderate fire burning that the furnace will not cycle on regardless of the weather outside.
However, I also find a HUGE difference depending on what I'm burning too.
I have an endless supply of softwood, mostly hemlock, which is the slabs off our sawmill, well seasoned and in fairly small pieces, most of it is about 3" square after splitting, lots of it is smaller than that even, like burning kindling almost. If that's what I'm burning I stay warm just fetching wood and shovelling it in the firebox non-stop. Burning it the house will stay warm, but just.
If I start burning the dry (2+ year old) hardwood you can get a tan standing across the room from the stove, and an arm full of wood will last many hours. Two good-sized blocks piled onto a bed of coals at at midninght will burn long enough that there's still lots of visible coals and you can feel the heat coming off the stove at 7am when I go to put the coffee on.
Best of luck.
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Our house is three stories, 3600 sf with an insulated but unfinished basement. The fireplaces are in the basement and main floor great room. A real hot woodstove would drive us out of the great room. If I replace the basement fireplace with a woodstove insert maybe it will pump out enough heat to help warm the rest of the house, especially if I get the heat pump fan operating off the generator to circulate the air. Sounds like a good idea to check in to. I wish there was an easy way to start the main heat pump - our genset could probably run it but it could never provide the startup juice.
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Well, that is the neat thing about wood stoves.... you can put less wood in them.
Also keep in mind that if it gets too hot you can turn the circulation fan down or even off and let the majority of the heat escape up the chimney.
When all else fails, open a window and mix hot and cold air just like your car heater does.
I might get up on a winter morning when it is +10 outside and the inside is 64 degrees. If if turn the propane forced air thermostat to 70 it might take 4 hours to get there.
If I fire up the wood stove I will have 70 degrees within the hour.
I think you might have a perfect set-up with the house structured as it is and a wood stove insert in the lowest section.
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Oh.... one other thing. We have talked a lot about sizing generators to start motors and you just mentioned having enough juice to run the heat-pump but not enough to start it.
I just replaced my well pump last week after 25 years down the hole. I bought a computerized motor control system that gives me a "soft start" and provides a continuously variable speed to the pump.
My water pressure is set at 65 pounds and the pump will now keep it at that preset pressure within 3 psi. That, instead of cycling between 40 and 60 psi with an abrupt full power start and a "slam shut" at the end.
The side benifit.... it actually takes less power to start the pump than it does to run it, and requires a lot less generator wattage.
So I wonder if there is a similar system for heat pumps????
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My understanding of it is, based on my system, that the big problem with heat pumps is that they always start under full load because the pump is mounted directly on the motor's output shaft.
In ourcase the starting load wasn't an issue, but I was told there is a 'soft start' system available which basically consists of a pair of "Y" valves, one on each of the input and output of the circulation pump. For a 'soft start' a solenoid moves the valves so that the pump is only recirculating a couple fo gallons of liquid, then after the pump is up and running, the valves slowly move back to the original position and slowly start moving the entire body of liquid around.
I'm sure a person could rig up their own manual version pretty easy since it would only be needed on a very infrequent basis.
As for the woodstove option, you could likely rig up a furnace blower in the attic, if you have one, which would force the warmest air at the top of the house back down to the lowest point. A simple 1/2hp motor wouldn't draw a lot of power while running, but would make a huge difference in blending the air. As Mark mentioned, the woodstove heats up an area faster because of the higher temperature differential between the fire and the room air temperature.
In my house it makes about 5° diference in the upstairs bedrooms temperature whether I just have the ceiling fan on the cathedral ceiling running or not.
Air circulation is the key, all the hot air in the world won't do you any good at ceiling level, you have to keep it from stratifying.
Best of luck.
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DRankin; This summer I'm working on installing a permanent generator system to take over during outages. Your comment on a computerized soft start system for your well pump caught my eye. I've totally forgotten the size or horsepower of our well pump, but I do remember it hangs at like around 350-400 ft., so it seems it would take lots of starting amps to get the water started up the plastic form that depth. Just wondered where you got the system. Thanks. Frank.
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I love my generator - since I bought it I have not had to use it - I guess that's Murphy's Law for you. In any case I did build my own mobile power quality monitoring device for when the tractor is powering the PTO driven generator. The idiot guage on the generator was hopeless. I now monitor voltage and frequency (it has the capacity to do amperage but I wanted to keep it mobile and ampacity measurements required using a CT on each line which would have been in a fixed position). I can now adjust the throttle on the tractor precisely to get the required frequency and then take the unit back inside and plug it into 2 separate outlets to monitor how things go while I am in the house making dinner etc. Without it my generator needle was in the "green" zone at about 125 volts and 67Hz, dropping it to where it was needed put it barely on the line for "OK". Did measure utility power and Hz was firmly on 60.00 without movement.
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I'm liking the idea of replacing the basement fireplace with a woodstove. Even though the basement is unfinished the masonry guys did a river stone surround, but it's smaller and easier to deal with than the one on the main floor. We have about a dozen air returns throughout the house, more than half on the the top floor and a couple in the basement, so hooking the HVAC fan up to the generator would allow the fan to draw air from the warmest parts of the house and recirculate it throughout. Plus we can stack a couple of cords of wood right outside the basement door under the deck where it will stay dry in the winter. This is sounding good. Now I just need a day off to go visit a couple of woodstove dealers with our info to see what's available. Thanks for the pointer Mark!
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Ken..... glad to help!
Frank.... the pump/controller system was provided by the pump and well service. Here is the link:
Link:
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DRankin; Thanks, I brought up the Goulds web page. Frank.
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05-14-2007, 09:41 
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