alt.energy.homepower

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:24:43 GMT, "no spam" wrote:

>
>> I'm in a semi-rural area, and there isn't any natural gas
>> piped in. So I was thinking of getting a whole house sized
>> generator (has to manage the well pump as well as whatever
>> else is considered 'critical'). My thought was to get a
>> propane powered unit, rather than gas or diesel, as delivery
>> and storage of propane seems a lot more straight-forward than
>> bulk storing gas or diesel. Tied in to this is my wife's
>> preference for a gas cooker over electric, and maybe using
>> propane for water heating.
>>
>> I know that I'd have to carefully look at the cost of kw per lb of
>> propane vs kw per gallon of gas/diesel - but are there any other
>> gotchas in a propane gennie I should look out for?
>>
>> No model in mind - I'm in the info gathering (aka 'dreaming') stage
>> of planning, as we have only been in the house for 3 months and
>> there are other more pressing concerns before I get to this
>> project.
>
>I'm in the same spot and I'm going with propane. Mainly because of fuel
>storage. Gasoline and diesel have a fairly short 'shelf life' whereas LP
>can be stored for almost forever.

So can diesel, if you keep water out of it and use biocide. I think
propane is still likely the way to go, just be sure of what you'll
have to pay for propane before you commit. Also be aware that a
gallon of propane has about 92K btu where Diesel is over 140K and
gasoline is about 122K.