Mep803a questions

My first question is what is the price range I should pay for one?

#2 Would this unit be sufficient to power small home for two during emergency situations?

1. It's what you are willing to pay for it. Right now prices are high. There are several current threads here where you can find much good info about prices. It might be a good idea to look at them.
1a. Are you willing to buy only something already worked over and is a "finished product", or are you willing to do that yourself?

2. Unless you are running an underground mining operation, yes. It's more then enough.

What do you have for power needs? Are you looking for 'life uninterrupted' power or something to reliably keep the lights on, the fridge going, and most basic appliances on? Many folks overlook the MEP-802A... but its a fuel sipping gem. It will produce a max of 7.5kw. They can typically be sourced at a much better price compared to the 10kw equivalent (which will produce up to 15kw).

You should figure out your realistic needs first.... then we talk turkey.

I am a new owner of a MEP803A and these guys here know their stuff! Listen to them and heed their advice! Whatever you decide with regards to owning a generator, you need to be prepared to do maintenance. You will want to come up with an exercise regimen and stick to it as well as being prepared to maintain any unit you may have, change oil, filters, etc. With the MEP's (Diesel powered) sets you will want to also come up with a way of load banking (I am told) at least annually since these generators 'like' to run at 100% periodically and that prevents something called wet stacking which is unburned fuel accumulated in the exhaust. by running at 100%, it will burn that excess out of the exhaust. Somebody can correct me if I am wrong on that description. I am building my own simple load bank and when completed I will post a new thread presenting what I came up with. I own four generators including my new (to me) MEP803A. I also have a small 900 watt generator and I have a 7kw generator and on my RV is a 5500 watt generator and all of them need maintenance and exercise.

My questions are as follows:

1) Do you have any experience with generators?
2) Do you intend on setting-up a transfer panel to power your house should you get a generator?

I am not trying to scare you and in fact I would tell anybody they should prepare for the worse and have the ability to protect themselves and their families from many untold events and power outages, especially for long periods and/or in cold weather which can be very dangerous so being prepared is smart!

My MEP803A is on a trailer and it seems that you might be able to get one at auction a bit cheaper than one that is not. My understanding is that the trailer mounted ones cost much more to ship and many people are not willing to trek out and pick one up (which is what I did). You can go to GovPlanet and look at their sale history and get an idea of what they have been going for.

Here's a link to my thread for when I bought and brought mine home: https://www.steelsoldiers.com/showt...nk-I-got-lucky-buying-a-Mep803A-form-auction!

This is a link to a thread where a member did a fantastic job of installing his MEP803A at his house: https://www.steelsoldiers.com/showt...way-as-my-home-standby-generator-Install-pics

Good luck on your quest and I hope to see a new thread from you with a new set!

Panama City.....Florida? If so, you are close to Albany, GA: here are recent sales at Albany for the MEP-803A.....a 60 Hz generator (very important point).... http://www.govplanet.com/jsp/s/sear...d=MEP-803A+10kW|MEP-803A&sm=1&k=mep-803a&mf=1 . Lot's of good price info there as they have been moving a lot of units. There should be around a year's worth of pricing data. Note condition of units: they are not all alike. Search GovPlanet for MEP-802A for the smaller unit and different locations. There were several nice 802s recently sold in FL.

You will need to do an amp tally for your house to decide which one is best for your application. I suspect you will want to load the machine to approx 75% continuous load. A lot of our home electrical appliances are intermittent or discretionary loads. I don't do laundry during a power outage but I do like heat in the winter and AC in the summer.

On top of the great info above I'll add my opinion on pricing. This is only my opinion based on what I see them selling for here in central NC. The markets in your area may be very different.

If you want to buy one that is in known working condition with low hours and is ready to go you should expect to pay between $4k and $5.5k. There is one on CL now in my area for $4.5k. I haven't seen it in person nor do I know the seller. Based on reading the listing it hasn't been properly load tested.

A unit in unknown condition should sell for no more than $2.5k.

If you haven't worked on diesels before and/or you don't change the oil in your own car I would suggest going the Propane/NG route.

my advice is. don't buy more generator than you need. i can run my whole ranch on one MEP 002a 5KW while my moms house alone requires an MEP 003a 10KW. buying to much generator just wastes fuel and is hard on the generator itself.

Cleidus said:

My first question is what is the price range I should pay for one?

#2 Would this unit be sufficient to power small home for two during emergency situations?

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Got to tell you, those 6 postings are in fact, just the beginnings. If you are smart, you will get smart on generators on the whole, and your requirements before buying. Or, you can jump in over your head, and wind up selling it a few years in the future, feeling like you been robbed. Its not rocket science, but if you don't get smart, you will have to pay someone to do it all for you. If you don't get smart, you will not have the generator that's right for you.

We will do all we can to help you, no matter which way you go, but its better to know, and not need, then to need, and not know.

Cleidus said:

My first question is what is the price range I should pay for one?

#2 Would this unit be sufficient to power small home for two during emergency situations?

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Cleidus, to answer your question you need to know what your house requires (in amps) to run everything you want to run after a power outage. In general terms I've found than an MEP-002A or MEP-802A will easily handle a typical 2 or 3 BR house with NG or propane heat, dryer, stove & HW heater. For all electric houses the larger 003A or 803A will be needed. For those with larger homes 3000 sq-ft+, all electric, plus they want to run a shop, the 15KW model usually fits the bill.

All of the above is based on typical installations that I've done between TX & FL along the gulf coast. Each situation is different and all can vary based on the individual's preferences for economy with power management or at other extreme--no concern for economy and the desire to run everything as if on the grid.

Take your time and as others have mentioned, learn as much as you can about the various models and their pros and cons. Under no circumstances would I consider any gas generator; diesel is the way to go.

To add to the current pricing situation, I watched a sale yesterday on an 803A that looked like it fell out of a two-story building (with the housing crushed in on one corner) and it was at $2600 with 20 minutes before closing. Missed the closing so it may have sold for more. The description said that the engine turned over but what they didn't say was that the fan blades were dog-eared and possibly the radiator was damaged as well.

I saw that set 1800... GL has been pushing a lot of beat up dogs out. I still can't believe what people are paying for them (especially GL can't be bothered to provide run videos like GP).

Oh wow, I just moved my trailered gens from my brother's in Panama City to my place in St Pete... Had I known you could have bought one off of me but right now the only thing that is at my brother's property are the trailers I left behind because I cant store them locally. If you want one of mine after I go through all the fluids belts hoses and load bank them just let me know. It just might take me a few weeks to going through them because this is a hobby for me.

Just for reference even though I have a bunch of 803s and a few 802s, my 1200sq ft house with 2 or 2.5 ton older heatpump (R22) will start and run on my 802a. Amps spike well past the capabilities of the gauge, volt drop and over compensation is noticeable (down to 180 and up to 280) and HZ down to 57 from 60.5 (I havent adjusted droop yet)... all of this is within 1/4 of a second. After that 1/4 second the volts and HZ are back to normal, and load is roughly 40% of rated on the gauge running my unit. That inrush is what you might be forced to size your generator off of instead of your actual load. If I attempt to start the AC when the water heater happens to be on forget it.

My water heater is 2400 watts (some idiot wired the elements in series) but for generator purposes I am leaving it since its easier to work with. I only take 1 sometimes 2 showers a day so slow heat is fine with me.

If you are energy conscious at all, then normally you could get away with a 5kw. I have a heatpump water heater I am installing and also putting in a multizone inverter drive ductless system to replace my energy hog heat pump. After we did this to my friend's house and he has a bigger house and a sub $100 electric bill during summer I cant wait to get mine completed.. I doubt the 5kw will start my 5hp single phase air compressor though.

For the heatpump if you don't have a hard starting kit on it now I would recommend installing one if you are running on generator much. It will soften the compressor inrush significantly.

Also on my heatpump I moved the heat strips onto their own circuit, separating them from the circuit that runs the fan. This allows me to turn them off when I'm on generator. To be honest they are turned off all the time. The heat strips get used when the HP goes into defrost in addition to when you are below the balance point. In my case I have 15kw of heat strips. That would be a problem even for the 803. If you can't put them on their own circuit there is a generator bypass kit you can get which includes a relay and a switch to interrupt the control power going to the heat strip contactors. It makes having a heatpump much more livable when on generator. A 5kw starts and runs my 3T unit just fine.

Light in the Dark said:

I saw that set 1800... GL has been pushing a lot of beat up dogs out. I still can't believe what people are paying for them (especially GL can't be bothered to provide run videos like GP).

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For unknown reasons, the units GP gets still have oil, fuel and coolant in them but the ones GL gets are generally 100% drained. Therefore GL can't really start one up, though I have noticed they'll sometimes report "units spins over but won't crank up" or something similar. I always cringe when I see that knowing most of the sets they get in have no oil....

GP has a budget to put oil, coolant and fuel in them. Plus an amount of time to try and get it running.

I forgot how the local GP rep put it, but it was something like "Oh, that must have been back before I had a mechanic." when discussing a generator I'd gotten as "Cranks, won't start" that just had a fuel filter full of water.

1800 Diesel said:

For unknown reasons, the units GP gets still have oil, fuel and coolant in them but the ones GL gets are generally 100% drained. Therefore GL can't really start one up, though I have noticed they'll sometimes report "units spins over but won't crank up" or something similar. I always cringe when I see that knowing most of the sets they get in have no oil....

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I took that to mean they turned by hand.

Not only are the units drained but most have been sitting dry for years. You often see the date drained stenciled on them.

I didn't look to see what that crushed set finally sold for in Albany but it was double what I paid for my unit last year.

csheath said:

I took that to mean they turned by hand.

Not only are the units drained but most have been sitting dry for years. You often see the date drained stenciled on them.

I didn't look to see what that crushed set finally sold for in Albany but it was double what I paid for my unit last year.

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I have understood it to mean they plugged the slave, and hit the dead crank to make sure it wasn't seized up. All the same...

DieselAddict said:

For the heatpump if you don't have a hard starting kit on it now I would recommend installing one if you are running on generator much. It will soften the compressor inrush significantly.

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For my case this is with a new fan/compressor capacitor and a hardstart. Id hate to see what this unit does without it on generator.

FWIW I was forced to replace them when I was trying to start the HP on my old 5500w (6275 surge) HD special screamer unit. On that unit I converted to propane and had to go full choke before turning the AC on for it to not instantly shut off.

rhurey said:

GP has a budget to put oil, coolant and fuel in them. Plus an amount of time to try and get it running.

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Yep, When I was in Albany the last 2 times they had barrels of diesel, lube oil, and coolant in the back of a HMMWV and they would line generators up, fill them up, then start working on their evaluation of the units and videos. It was quite interesting watching the HMMWV fly down a bumpy gravel road in front of the fire marshall when I was there. The same HMMWV also backed into a generator trying to make a U turn in the yard. My last trip to albany was quite interesting.

Howdy,
GovPlanet made the realization that a picture + video of a running unit more than paid for any oil, filter, coolant, fuel, and or whatever time to start and run a unit.
The same thing with oil analysis.

A non-running unit can get $1,000-2,000. a Running unit can get $2,000-6,000

You will also notice that some GovPlanet picture and video folks are better at some locations than others.

Any generator is usually started and run via 24v slave port.

The only problem with the AOAP, (Army Oil Analyses Program) is you need a baseline to tell if anything has changed. I loved the AOAP when I was on active. But without a baseline, you have nothing to judge against. Once they put oil in the set, they have to run it at least several hours to even begin to get any meaningful data. And 20-30 hours is best. Nobody is doing that. If you have fleet maintenance, and run lots of hours, AOAP can save you BIG money. But what Gov Planet is doing is questionable at best. Eyewash. Now if they were supplying the AOAP records for the last year, or two, that is an altogether different deal.

Guyfang said:

The only problem with the AOAP, (Army Oil Analyses Program) is you need a baseline to tell if anything has changed. I loved the AOAP when I was on active. But without a baseline, you have nothing to judge against. Once they put oil in the set, they have to run it at least several hours to even begin to get any meaningful data. And 20-30 hours is best. Nobody is doing that. If you have fleet maintenance, and run lots of hours, AOAP can save you BIG money. But what Gov Planet is doing is questionable at best. Eyewash. Now if they were supplying the AOAP records for the last year, or two, that is an altogether different deal.

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Agreed. you really need historical data to see whats going on in a set. If applied correctly out in the real world it works great. Oh this oil analysis has unusually high silicon levels... better check the air filter... oh thats interesting, a rat made a nest in the airbox (and thats how I got oil sample of the month at blackstone...)