[EAS] [BC] a note of interest

[Mike McCarthy]

I would leave tank heaters as a last resort given they're self 
consuming. The more tank heating, the more fuel will be used to heat 
them alone and not power equipment. Granted while there are places where 
no options exist but to use heaters, it looks like your place may have 
some.

Look at placing some sort of temperature sensor or regulator inside the 
interior space and then modulate the fresh air supply point to maintain 
a 50 deg. minimum ambient along with a set temperature point of the 
engine return coolant. Say 150 deg for example. Diesel genny's don't 
like super cold air either. They don't run as efficiently when the 
coolant is excessively cold and it's just hard on the engine.

Keep in mind, waste heat is spec'd in BTU. Not CFM. CFM is temperature 
driven. High default CFM is necessary to insure the heat is removed when 
the general ambient is high. By calculating the BTU/CFM at 90, you can 
determine just how much less air is needed at 20 deg. to maintain the 
same engine operating parameters.

So by managing engine waste heat dissipation/removal, the goals of 
tempering the space temperature and preventing fuel gel are accomplished 
with no added energy demand.

MM

On 1/12/2013 10:27 PM, Dale Lamm wrote:
>
> Now, for a potential trouble situation that concerns me, although we
> have never experienced it. Am open to comments. 100 KW Cat diesel is in
> the shack's garage, a separate room from where the XMTRs sit. There's a
> 275 gallon main tank and a 25 gallon day tank in the same garage. The
> garage is heated to 50 degrees F in the winter. When the gen runs,
> louvers open to allow outside air to swirl into the garage, through the
> radiator and out a big opening in the wall. Say the gen runs when it is
> 10 degrees F outside, or colder. Freezing air is now circulated over
> both storage tanks. In an extended outage, will the tanks cool down and
> allow the fuel to gel? Should I think about some type of tank heater for
> the diesel fuel? Should I ask my supplier to sell me a chemical
> treatment to prevent the wax coming out of solution?
>