10 Tips For Backup Power For Your Home Pt.1

10 Tips For Backup Power For Your Home Pt.1
You rely on many appliances and systems in your home for your health, comfort and security. Most depend completely on utility supplied electricity. It makes sense to have a backup system that will keep your family comfortable and your home safe in a power failure.

1. Plan
Careful preparation is essential to select, buy and install a backup system. Don’t leave it to the last minute—your household should have time to learn how to use the system in advance. And during a power failure, you may not be able to find suitable, reasonably priced equipment, fuel, and/or installation help. Keep the system simple, so you and your family can operate and maintain it. Your emergency system must work reliably when needed.

2. Depending on the season, Keep the Heat In (or Out)
During winter months, the main purpose of a backup system is to keep the house warm (and sometimes to keep the basement dry). You have to be able to keep the heat in, prevent unnecessary air infiltration and prevent pipes from freezing. The starting point is proper insulation and air sealing, before you consider your backup power needs.

In summer months, the main purpose of a backup system for Canadians is to keep the house from becoming too warm. People who have difficulties with extreme heat (seniors, asthmatics, and so on) especially need an alternative plan to power their homes. The starting point is proper insulation and shading. External blinds or shutters can help.

3. Change to Energy-Efficient Appliances
Your backup system will do the most good if it is powering efficient appliances. Check if
there is an EnerGuide label to determine each appliance’s power consumption, or use an electrician’s ammeter to find out how much power each appliance uses—its current draw in amps. Ammeters can be purchased in a hardware or electrical supply store.

The energy requirements of some appliances will surprise you. Replace the inefficient appliances with efficient models. Change to energy efficient light bulbs like compact fluorescents. When buying new equipment, get the most efficient possible—for example, an ENERGY STAR® qualified refrigerator or a lower-volume, smaller horsepower well pump or sump pump.

Make sure your furnace-fan motor is the most efficient available. If you are replacing your heating system, choose a furnace with a variable speed motor and an AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) rating of 90 or more.

Consider switching your water heater to gas or propane. Add a solar water heater to your existing fossil-fuelled or electric water heating system. A solar heater works in tandem with your conventional system to reduce your daily energy consumption. Some solar water heating systems make use of a small 15–20 watt photovoltaic (PV) solar panel to power the circulating pump, so they will operate normally in a power outage. A properly sized solar water heater can provide about 50 per cent of your annual water heating load; and 80–100 per cent of your load in the summer months ($3,000–$4,000 installed cost). Remember: when you use a backup system you must manage your electrical load.

You will have to operate even your most efficient appliances wisely, so that you have essential power as long as possible. You may wish to purchase good quality surge protection devices for your consumer electronics. This isn’t simply a power bar, but units designed to absorb a surge. The newer models are improved over older models; however, you should have a good ground and manage your phantom loads—such as standby mode to your electronics.

4. If Your House is All-Electric…
Don’t use a backup generator to heat your house if it is all-electric, or to power resistance heaters, such as baseboards and fan heaters (a very poor choice—gas-powered generators are only 20 per cent efficient).

Install a wood, oil, natural gas or propane stove that uses a chimney; or install a pellet, oil, natural gas or propane stove that vents through the wall. Fan-assisted air circulation makes auxiliary heating devices more effective. You may need backup power for a fan, stove motors, and pumps.

Consider installing a “high efficiency” wood or wall-venting stove. They burn more efficiently and cleaner. If you have a pellet stove, you will need additional backup power; however, a pellet stove uses a less-costly through the- wall chimney. Propane, natural gas heaters and oil heaters use through-the-wall chimneys and need a reliable fuel source.

Check delivery with your local fuel supplier. Some oil-fired furnaces and space heaters can provide both hot water and space heat. Some of these appliances are suitable for cooking and keeping food warm.

Most fireplaces are not very effective. They may heat you and one room. However, they draw air from other rooms and actually cool the rest of the house. Many fireplaces are not built for continuous use or are in poor condition, creating a real fire hazard. Direct-vent gas fireplaces are a better option because they are sealed combustion units and don’t use the chimney for venting. If your home has a chimney, be sure to have it cleaned annually.

You can also consider an advanced combustion wood stove.

5. Decide What Needs Power
Your backup system must provide power for the circuits you depend on for comfort, safety and security. Decide what is essential and should be running in a power outage.

You may find you don’t need an elaborate backup.

If you only need your sump pump, a small gasoline-powered pump could be simpler and cheaper than a full backup system. Critical loads are the essential loads. They might include lights, refrigerator-freezer, microwave, sump pump, furnace, well pump, medical equipment, garage door opener and the home office.

Your backup power system’s capacity is the maximum power draw (in kilowatts) of all the fixtures and appliances that have to be served at one time, including higher startup loads. A startup load is the energy required when an appliance is first turned on. Remember: ventilation and fresh-air supply can also be important loads.

To determine the size of your backup power system:

• Identify the critical loads that you really need, and check whether they can be safely served by alternatives that don’t require electricity. For example, a properly vented stove fuelled by wood, oil or gas could substitute for your furnace.
• Total the wattage of the lights and appliances on the circuits you’d like to power.
• Check the labels or owner’s manuals for each appliance’s rating.
• Add about 25 per cent as a reserve for the startup power needed for most electrical devices. This may not be enough for some furnaces and well pumps. Motor startups can draw as much as three to five times more power, especially from a cold start, making a 2,500-watt generator borderline for starting an 800-watt furnace motor. (When purchasing a new furnace, ask your furnace sales and service specialist about “slow start” motor options that draw less startup current. If you are designing a house around a backup power system, ask the electrician/designer about energy efficient furnace fans.) The total will probably be between 1,500 and 5,000 watts. However a basic system for efficient lights and a radio will require much less, say 100–300 watts.
• Some utilities have online calculators to figure out wholehouse electrical use.

Contact your REALTOR at Coldwell Banker Vantage Realty for more tips and advice and stay tuned for more tips on Backup Power for your home.

Reference