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Gas/hot water Heating battery backup

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edgreenberg
edgreenberg Member Posts: 2
in Gas Heating
We have natural gas, hot water heat in our 1500 sqft ranch home in upstate New York.  We have two zones and two circulators.   We don't have a generator.  Last night, the power went out for a few hours, and while it was out I was thinking of how I could battery back up the furnace.



I would need to run two circulator pumps, the furnace itself, and optionally, the (gas) hot water heater.   My expectation is that all the furnace needs electricity for is ignition and a pump, not a fan.  Then two circulator pumps.   I really don't (yet) know how much power we're talking about, but I think it lives on one 15 amp breaker.



I envision a bank of RV batteries and a UPS charger/inverter.



I also wonder how reliable the gas supply is when the power is out.  I have a question in to my gas/power company, National Grid.



Am I out of my mind?



Thanks,



Ed Greenberg

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  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,323
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    Not out of your mind

    but you will need a pretty decent sized inverter to supply the power required, and it probably will need to be one which gives good clean power (not all of them do).  I believe that UPS devices which can supply that kind of load do exist, and might be the way to go -- although most of them are designed to give you enough time to gracefully shut down your system, rather than power it for any length of time.



    Do your wiring carefully -- if you don't use a UPS which floats on the system all the time, you will need a changeover switch just like any other backup power system.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • edgreenberg
    edgreenberg Member Posts: 2
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    Maybe an RV converter/inverter

    Once I calculate the power load, I was thinking of an RV style battery charger/inverter.  



    As far as wiring is concerned, that's why they make electricians :)



    Thanks,



    Ed

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