Portable Battery as Alternative to Gas Generator

I’ve had my eye on these for a bit and am pretty impressed with the price and performance. Gas generators are great but have some pretty serious drawbacks. Of course, gas as a fuel is fairly easy to transport so it’s definitely a game of pros/cons.

Here’s one a saw at Costco today as a great example:

The main usage would be for my mom (2500 miles away from me) during a storm-related power outage which is somewhat common where she lives. The million dollar question that I still have to determine is how many watts her gas furnace uses and just how long 3600Wh would last (2005 Trane XV90… couldn’t ask mom to actually get #s off the data plate for the exact model - likely smaller BTU as it’s only an 1100sf house). From looking around online it looks like 200-300 watts but it’s hard to say. Assuming 250 watts, it could run for 14 hours which would be great and long enough to wait for power to be restored most times.

Most of this is just in case some of you aren’t aware of how far these things have come lately. But, I do have a question. Is this power “clean” enough to run the furnace. I’m thinking yes but did run into an issue at my house when I lived in Oregon and tried to power my gas furnace off a Honda 2000i generator. Basically, the power didn’t jive with my furnace. I thought I was going to be the envy of my neighbors but just ended up screwing around for a few hours and ending up with cold hands :slight_smile:

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So if you’ve ever watched Casey LaDelle on Youtube, you’d be familiar with these. He’s a tow truck/heavy haul/off road wrecker guy and he’s in Eastern Oregon with a ton of wilderness. He’s fun to watch and doesn’t bombard you with ads and such. Good dude.

He’s been using those EcoFlows for a while and he does a number of videos but occasionally mentions the latest ecoflow that he’s got.

It’s made me want to get one for a while.

The power that comes off those generators is super clean but if you needed 240v, it’s not the right genset.

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Grab the folding solar panel for recharging, makes it a better choice for longer outages.

Hey, matt.I just got the older version of the ecoflow delta pro about a month ago.It had no problem running my refrigerator, high efficiency gas furnace, Wi-Fi and house lights for approximately 8 hours. You’ll need a NEMA TT-30 connection. If you want 240V, then you need to purchase another of the same unit, along with a special adapter made by ecoflow. I also have a 400W and 200 W solar panel, When connected in series, I have generated a solar output of 530W so far.

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Typical furnace blower motor uses 400 Watts per hour. Blower won’t run at 100% duty cycle depending on how cold it is and the house insulation. Needs power to run the control board that keeps the burners lit (gas valve open). It would still require someone to hook it up and turn it on when needed.

Pay attention! The inverter he is using is a PURE SINE wave inverter. Modified sine wave inverters lack the filters to provide clean enough power for your furnace electronics.

I used one of my battery backup units to keep our refrigeration going during the peak of Ian without having to go outside. Once the storm passed I switched to the gas generator. The Honda’s are great for powering the office equipment (found out first hand during almost 2 weeks of outage following Irma).

Update - Bought the unit and got it up and running and it works great. I swapped out the furnace service disconnect switch for an outlet and wired a plug onto the furnace instead of the hardwiring.

The Ecoflow unit is pretty nice… shows hours/mins until charged, current watts as charging and the reverse - current power draw and time until dead at current usage. The furnace draws right around 250 watts which is on the good end of what I was estimating. At that rate it should run the furnace around 13 hours which is fantastic.

The Ecoflow also has an app and remote but am not sure I’ll do much with those. Reminder from my OP - this is for my 85 year old mom.

Anyway, so far I highly recommend the Ecoflow and the concept of a battery in general.

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Overnight update - used 27% of the battery keeping the house around 65. Overnight low was 40, 1100sf house, built mid-80s. R19 attic insulation, R11 walls, crawl w/o insulation.

For some reason today the furnace is pulling 350 watts. I guess last night it wasn’t running at the highest stage so the total run time might not be quite as long as I thought. I’m thinking at least a couple days though. Still very happy with it overall.

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