I was thinking about your generator and auto-failover need. I saw a couple of years back at Sears, and a couple of months ago if I remember right at Rural King, a 'backup generator' sized for a house. Probably enough to keep a small server room (a full rack, and a room type HVAC unit) running. It was only a couple of grand - pretty cheap in the world of backup power equipment. Good UPSes for your systems will cost that much or more.
Anyway, I saw they had tripple fuel models. Gas, propane, natural gas. If I had the choice, I would plumb it into natural gas as a primary fuel, and gasoline or propane as secondary. Gasoline probably since it is pretty ubiquitous. You install it on a pad outside, wire it into an automatic crossover switch, and you are pretty well done. The crossover switch, would switch a sub-panel of breakers from commercial to generated power within a minute or so and have the generator start automatically. Again, only put your UPSes and critical loads on this, including your HVAC. If the HVAC needs are big enough, you might want one generator for HVAC and another for everything else, depending on running the numbers of course! Just add to that some good UPSes that are good for 10 minutes or more, and you should be good for cheaper than my initial gut feel was thinking. Not bad for a small shop. Let us know what you decide. ... Jack --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to nlug-talk@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to nlug-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
