From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: alt.home.repair,alt.energy.homepower
Subject: Re: Honda (and Yamaha) generators
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:22:02 -0400
Message-ID: <u9q8d4ta63jmpj0i9d7509od9mstrod9st@4ax.com>

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:12:13 -0500, zxcvbob <zxcvbob@charter.net> wrote:


>IIRC it's about 20 x 25 feet, with a high "ceiling" and open rafters.
>Couple of small windows in the back, and a double garage door that could
>be left cracked open an inch.  It's about 20' from the house.
>
>I use an unvented forced-air [kerosene] heater in there sometimes with
>no problems.  I would probably add a 1600 cfm electric gable vent at the
>back, but that would be really handy anyway in the summer.
>
>Bob

Power failures up here in the mountains are practically a weekly affair so my
generators get quite a workout.  I roll my big one (either 5.5 kW Generac
Quiet Pack or 10kW homemade diesel, depending on which fuel is the least cost
at the moment) out 50 ft away from my cabin and I STILL get CO build-up in the
cabin when the outside air is still.

I use a NightHawk CO detector, the rectangular one with the digital readout.
It only takes a couple of hours sometimes to register >50 ppm in the cabin.  I
have a whole-house fan that I can run periodically to clear the air (windows
on the other end of the cabin open) but that's a pain, especially in hot
weather.

I'm going to have to do something to address this problem, as I can't go to
sleep with the generator running for fear the house will load up with CO and I
won't wake up.  I'll probably make a vertical stack taller than my cabin that
connects to the generator's exhaust.

I'd be VERY wary of running a generator inside any type of closed building
absent the exhaust being plumbed outside and verified air-tight.  I'd much
rather roll the genny away from the house and sling a chain around it and a
tree if you're afraid of it growing legs.

John