My view is unless you are in earthshake territory; natural gas is highly dependable. Diesel is a PITA to store in quantity; and in large enough volumes you have to deal with EPA/local equivalents.
300 gal of diesel in your basement is very, very normal. 600 gal is the max per fire rated space. 300 will give you a two week generator fuel supply, 600 a month, and that is 24hr operation, far longer if you economize.
BUT unless you USE it; it grows bugs, you gotta slosh it, add stuph, and THEN its lifetime is ~2 years.
While #2 Heat & #2 Diesel are the same re: flashpoint etc. I wonder how anal code inspectors feel about indoor storage? Buried is an EPA quagmire; many rules in a watershed, etc.
You can even bury propane tanks and at least CalFire & Bay Area local-EPA forks are OK with even 1000gal of that. No way it will get into water table.
Everything is a compromise.
Biocide and diesel tank tampons take care of those issues just fine.
#2 is #2, and the only difference between the two is red dye and transportation fuel taxes. Off road diesel a.k.a. heating oil isn't even high sulfur anymore. I've not ever heard of any sort of permit for a heating oil tank either. Anything under 1,000 gal and not underground is most likely exempt from everything.
You can bury diesel tanks as well, but they have to be double wall with monitoring.
Yep, you can always sit in the dark with a refrigerator full of rotted food...
EPA is not some kind of a gestapo, it will not know and will not care about a few cans of diesel fuel.
i
Want to bet on that? Check you're local laws and fire laws and you will usually find set limits WRT on site fuel storage limits. Even more on transport limits.
That said I have 9 different units that I deal with. 4 are mine , one
4200 portable Generac, one 15 K unit with a tri-fuel GM on it an Onan propane/gasoline unit in the camper and a small Honda 1000 watt suitcase unit.The others are various units for the FD.
For a built in stand-by unit that could handle almost anything get a tri-fuel unit, those can run on Propane, Natural gas or Gasoline with a simple twist of a few knobs. You do lose a bit with the gases but not enough to make a big difference. The ability to use the different fuels though means you have multiple options.
DIY is possible and if you want to make it much easier don't design for AC output. Go with DC and an inverter output section.
And we are not talking "a few cans of Diesel"....but many gallons. But to be sure; that will be a Fire Marshal issue, not US EPA.
BTW, someone said a buried Diesel tank is no problem if monitored/double-shell. I agree the tanks not a problem; the problem is the permits to allow same, at least in a NorCal riparian watershed. (I asked...)
You're wrong, as usual. They threw a hissy fit when they found TV coax in a store that wasn't in EMT and fined the owners. We had to rip out the wiring and run EMT, then reinstall the coax for them.
The EPA knows nothing and couldn't care less about coax or EMT. A local building inspector or fire marshall perhaps, but not the EPA.
What has that have to do with the EPA?
"Michael A. Terrell" fired this volley in news:3KadnYNPH9clXJ3NnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
What interest would EPA have in coax, fire codes, or electrical wiring?
I'm confused. Last time I looked, "EPA" stood for "Environmental Protection Agency".
They're the guys who wanted to fine me because I was weed-whacking in a ditch _I_ dug (with a frikin shovel) to drain a corner of my yard, and they decided it was a natural body of water, and I was killing "water plants".
FWIW, when I produced actual documentation showing that I had dug it, they backed off. But, DAMN! If I hadn't had the pictures, they'd have fined me something around $5000!
LLoyd
I was thinking of OSHA, the other pinko meat.
Really, EPA did this?
iYou also need a very good governor in addition to a voltage regulator. I'd only focus on 1800 rpm systems, if I were you. If you do some shopping, you should be able to find a complete used Onan (my preference) or Kohler for a couple grand or less in the 15KW range. And if you can get by with 6.5 Kw or so, there are plenty of good used Onan ex RV gensets out there. I have 3 of those myself. (plus a 30KW genset just because I can). See:
Pete Stanaitis
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"Michael A. Terrell" fired this volley in news:fOGdnUTm4PfyUZ3NnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
Why would OSHA care about un-piped coax? It doesn't carry hazardous voltages.
Or was it run across the floor in an active work area?
Lloyd
It really is getting toward time to water the tree.
It was a hazard to the environment, ergo, they say they can regulate it.
Like carbon dioxide.
The idiot OSHA inspector claimed that TV coax carried 240 VAC. This was in the early days when they were allowed to write new regulations in the field. You would get one inspector who would do something stupid, then another inspector would follow up and make you do it another way.
I sold one for $1,400, IIRC
Same in NY. Plus with the new regs you will be digging it up every few years and replacing it, even if there is nothing wrong with it.
The bigger problem with a diesel back up in this area is the winter cold. Unless you take a lot of precautions and run only winter fuel year around you could easily end up without a back-up.
One item I was thinking about was either a heat exchanger or going low tech and installing a second cooling system on the beast. Plumb that into heating system and you have a second back-up system as well.
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