Daniel Who Wants to Know said:
The gen head and engine both produce heat that must be dissipated.
An EU2000 generator head that's 90% efficient would produce 160 watts,
ie 546 Btu/h, which would only raise the temperature of an 8' R1 cube
by 546xR1/(6x8'x8') = 1.4 degrees F.
Even if the engine is liquid cooled and the cooling loop extends outside
the shed the block, exhaust manifold, and gen head will still heat up
the air inside the shed so it still must have some ventilation.
If it burns 1.08 gallons of gas with a high heating value of 135K Btu
in 4 hours at the 1600 W rated load and makes 6.4 kWh (21.8K Btu) of
electricity and 113.2K Btu of heat (another 33.2 kWh, ie 39.6 kWh total),
it's only 16% efficient, ie the heat output is 6 times the electrical
output, ie 28.3K Btu/h. Why waste it?
An EU2000 might depressurize a plastic film room in a basement with
the exhaust bubbling through some water, then leaving the house. If
a 1000 Btu/h-F auto radiator and its 20 watt series-connected fans
remove 15K Btu/h, the room will be 15 F warmer than the basement.
Can we plug the EU2000 into an active wall socket and make the meter
go backwards? This doesn't seem economical compared to grid power,
with $4/gallon gasoline. If the EU2000 lasts 10,000 hours, it costs
about $0.09/hour to run, with a combined energy output costing about
16 cents/kWh, or 11 cents, with natural gas at $1.50/therm.
Nick