New England has been hammered by a fairly vicious rain/wind storm over the last couple of days. In spite of that, I had been working an event all day and maybe 15 minutes after finally getting in from it and expecting a quiet evening at home catching up, I got this call from a friend. The gist was, "I've been notified that my basement is flooding and the power is out so the sump pump can't run, and I'm still on my two week vacay in ... Scotland." A tree had apparently come down across a bunch of wires up the street, and power had been out for over a day since the power company has been going *nuts* trying to fix the widespread damage from last night. . The person caretaking for the house wasn't sure what to do, and there was no prognosis on when the power was going to be restored. The owner had a "crazy idea" that if there were any charged UPSes kicking around the house that weren't running computers [and thus already long since discharged], they might be enough to power the pump for a while. "Yeah, for about ten minutes, maybe" I said, envisioning your typical sump pump with a fairly massive 120VAC motor atop a pipe and float valve assembly. Not enough to pump down the likely four or more inches of water that had already accumulated, and this house does *not* have a small footprint. . In further discussion all he could remember about the pump was a slightly odd mode of operation and the number "1800", but upon plugging "sump pump" and "1800" into google, the first hit was the Rule 1800 submersible marine/utility pump. "That's it!" he said, and a little more link-chasing revealed that this little fella only draws 100 watts when running. It doesn't have a float valve, it simply tries pumping every 2 minutes or so and if it detects that there is no water load, shuts down again. I realized that my big ol' UPS, the one that can also plug into the car's 12V system, shown at http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/prius-ferrups.jpg could probably hold up that load. This UPS is only good for about 400 watts -- built for long runtime, not high power. It has 66 amp- hours of 12V lead-acid goodness inside, as well as being able to either be maintained off the Prius or *jump* the car if its aux battery was down. So I coordinated with the caretaking person, loaded up the UPS and a bunch of power hose, and tooled off into the gathering night. . I backed the car up to the door and left it powered on, fired up the UPS and went inside trailing a long AC cord with a CF-lamped clip light plugged in as worklight in the basement. The water level was more like six or eight inches by now especially over near where the sump hole is, and was just about to kiss the bottom of the oil burner motor on the boiler. Pulled the power cord over near the pump and plugged it in; the pump gave a little kick and started up. We went outside to check the outflow; it looked fairly anemic and didn't seem promising to get the basement emptied in a reasonable timeframe or even hold its own against any more water coming in through the natural fieldstone foundation. But said friend had a couple of larger pumps, model 2800 [which, in the meantime, we had found indicates gallons per hour capacity] sitting around down there that he hadn't adapted to the system yet. These only claim to pull 1.6 amps apiece, or about 200 watts. We fooled around with the hose fittings and couldn't quite see how to connect things, but then I realized that the right-angle output elbow comes completely off leaving a stub that only needed a few wraps of tape to fit inside the hose perfectly, totally leakproof after the clamp was tightened down. So we fed the hose out the basement window and away from the foundation, and I dropped this additional pump down into the icky, oil-slicked swill and plugged it in, fully expecting it to overload the UPS and for both pumps and my light to go off within about 20 seconds. So I waited for that. . And waited. . And waited. And it didn't happen. The UPS was holding up the whole schlemiel, and the car was in turn holding the UPS up and simply running intermittently to keep the HV level just above the usual two-pink-bars when you're sitting in Park for a long time. And this new pump was *way* better than the first one. Pretty impressive, actually, that either one of them could push a fairly hefty volume of water up against eight feet of pressure on only that much power. So now all we had to do was wait for the level to drop, if it would. There was a visible difference about 20 minutes later, and in maybe another hour and a half [punctuated by more phone calls and a food break], the water level was down to the sump well and I could go around the foundation and try to see where it was coming in and how badly. A little trickle down the wall under where the water main comes in, and a small upwelling over in another corner ... but nothing huge, and at this point we were back to only the smaller pump which could hold its own against that small continuing influx. It would run long enough to empty the sump well, detect that it was sucking air and shut off, and then come back on for another run about two minutes later. . But now the problem was how to maintain this state. It's not like I really wanted to leave my car powered up in his driveway all night. But after a little amp-hour math I realized that the UPS could probably run that pump continuously on its own internal batteries for six or seven hours, and at the 25 or 30% duty cycle it was now running at to empty the sump well and shut down again that would easily last overnight. [There's a reason this thing weighs about 100 pounds... it's full of lead and iron!] So I lugged the UPS out of the car into his kitchen and left the pump plugged into it, and headed home. Hopefully that will keep the water from rising. The UPS is plugged into the wall, so if power comes back it will simply feed through and continue powering the pump while recharging the internal batteries. . On the way out I observed that the power guys were up the street working on the downed tree, so power might actually be back tonight. It's just started raining again, though, with another two days of this crap predicted, so this might be, uh, interesting. . Regardless, there's probably a fairly nice bottle of single-malt with my name on it now. . _H*
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Apr 17 2007, 12:50 AM) [snapback]424482[/snapback]</div> There should be TWO bottles of single-malt. One to do the job and one for backup if things get to deep.
We use four of those pumps (slightly different model) as the electric bilge pumps on our boat. They are backed up by an electric diaphragm pump, a fixed 18" manual diaphragm pump, and a portable 8" manual diaphragm pump. Then there is always a bucket...can't have too many pumps when the water starts rising. Great story. Tom
That sounds like a story for your local newspaper. You should submit it with the following headline (and maybe the subhead too): Single-Malt Scotch Saves Prius Owner
As I suspected, the power's back on this morning, but we're going to leave the UPS in place for another day or so just in case. The heat came back on without incident. We've warned the owner that everything in the fridge is probably gonzo by now, but if that and minor remaining sogginess in the basement is all they have to worry about on return, then I guess we did the right thing. There isn't much stored in the basement since it does tend to be wet anyways, and he's had prior incidents which *did* require disassembly and drying-out of the furnace parts. But not this time. . _H*
110 vac-equipped Prius are awfully handy when the house power fails, and it can be set up even by people who are not electrical experts (as Hobbit is). Each of these success stories probably gets a few more folks doing it. A parked Prius has about the same fuel consumption as those dandy little Honda 1 KW gasoline-fired generators (I guesstimated once in a campground, while both were in service). Both are admirably quiet. The Honda gen lacks a catalytic converter though, and we know what that means... Even using a pure sine wave inverter, the Prius kilowatt costs less to set up.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tochatihu @ Apr 17 2007, 09:43 AM) [snapback]424608[/snapback]</div> Got any suggestions on what parts to get and instructions on how one would install this...you know, for us non-electrical experts? And would a 2.5kw inverter like this one work too? http://www.theinverterstore.com/the-invert...model=2500gp01# Here's a 1kw for $79...good deal or would you recommend something else...if so, what and why? http://www.theinverterstore.com/the-invert...?model=pwrb1000 What amperage limits, where/how do you connect? (ie direct to 12v or via the power outlets?)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Apr 17 2007, 08:58 AM) [snapback]424610[/snapback]</div> I'm with Evan; I'd like to know. I read that there's a 100 amp system limit for the Prius. Is this true and does it apply to the 12V battery tree? Evan, if this is correct, then we'd roughly be limited to a 1,200 watt max output inverter, plus I would guess we would want around 20% safety factor cushion so we never approach the 100 amp limit, leaving us with a 1,000 watt inverter. I hate asking for this info if it's already been covered, but I'm having difficulty finding details with site searches. So, please forgive us.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Apr 17 2007, 07:21 AM) [snapback]424559[/snapback]</div> Hi Ichabod: ___Hobbit's story made the news this morning in at least one "outlet" with some nice pics of Hobbit, his Prius II and his UPS Home Page News or more specifically One of our own - Prius saves the planet. One house at a time? ___Good Luck ___Wayne
One ties heavy cable into the line near the 12 volt battery. Here I use a 60 amp ANL fuse as 'sacrificial' before the Prius' main fuse. In other installations (like Bob Wilson's), full trust is placed in the added inverter's own fusing. Given the above concern, any inverter much larger than 1 KW represents extra expense for capacity one cannot access. Our departed friend Andy Roberts held that with a larger 12 volt battery, a larger inverter could be safely supported, but I do not understand that well enough to have an opinion. In modified sine wave inverters, a kilowatt is going to cost about $100. That increases to $300 at least, for pure sine wave inverters. Sometimes refurbished Xantrex inverters show up on ebay, and I fight the temptation to upgrade. But ebay is a good place to find ANL (fuse) hardware for cheap. For more flexibility, get one with remote control option and rig up a dashboard switch. For fun, install a 110vac outlet on the backside of the center console, under the cupholders. Cook a crockpot meal on your next long trip. In at least one 'outlet' - good pun, Xcel.
