Renting a large generator for a village?

[msenard]

Playa Brothers and Sisters,
We have 3 camp teaming up together this year for the first time to share a (large) generator, so we are looking for a company that services this type of things on playa. Ideally, a company that delivers the generator, maintains it during the week and then picks it up. I heard some camps are doing that, does anyone have any contacts for such companies?
Dusty Hugs!
Bubbles

[trilobyte]

What kind of wattage are you talking?

[lemur]

whatever large generator you rent... make sure to cover up the logo.

well.. unless you rent it from these guys:

[lemur]

burning man uses, KOHLER at least in the past.. dunno about this year..

id imagine that theres someone you can talk to within the LLC or KOHLER to get a generator out there for your camp utilizing the resources that might already be in place for the burning man LLC rentals

[lemur]

Kohler rental - Contact Don Gray at don (dot) gray (at) kohler (dot) com for biodiesel generators for large theme camps, 50 kW and up.

http://www.burningman.com/environment/r ... nergy.html

[Father_Burn]

Dustworks is an approved vendor. Have never used them before.

http://www.dustworks.org/survey.html

[DragginLady]

Last year we were across the street from a block full of RV's and they had a HUGE generator. It was on the street directly across from us, to their backs, and was on 24/7.
I have no issue with these giant generators, but if you want one, put it in the middle of your camp. Be aware of your neighbors. This year, my camp will be pro-active about getting it out of our faces, should it happen again!

[jkisha]

Kohler rental - Contact Don Gray at don (dot) gray (at) kohler (dot) com for biodiesel generators for large theme camps, 50 kW and up.

http://www.burningman.com/environment/r ... nergy.html

This email address is no longer valid. (at least it was returned to me as undeliverable.)

[trilobyte]

Last year we were across the street from a block full of RV's and they had a HUGE generator. It was on the street directly across from us, to their backs, and was on 24/7.
I have no issue with these giant generators, but if you want one, put it in the middle of your camp. Be aware of your neighbors. This year, my camp will be pro-active about getting it out of our faces, should it happen again!

And by pro-active I hope you mean you'll engage your neighbor in a friendly conversation or get a ranger involved.

[some seeing eye]

Large genies have to be placed for fueling by the roads. For placed camps maybe there is coordination for facing noisy backsides. Each camp submits a plan. How can frontsites/backsides be coordinated? I know, weird Burning Man problem. Maybe fueling vendors could have a back in fueling lane kept clear. Fire concerns also need consideration.

There are medium size genies designed for quiet film shoots. Not sure if the BM vendors have.

[gyre]

Huge ones, maybe.

An access road at most is adequate for most of them.

[DragginLady]

By pro-active I mean the first step is to talk with the camp people first. They may not have thought it out all the way. They perhaps just thought that the generator being on the street edge would be ok, not thinking about all of us on the other side. Then, if that did not work, we would have to have an intervention.
I can see wherre having it run 24/7 is the only way to insure all their campers needs were met, but it was pretty intrusive for us.
There was no attempt to build any baffling around the generator. Not sure how that really works, but that's something to consider.
and, yes, of course, nasty ideas also run through the mind, but that's just tequila talk!!

[#john408]

Looking to collaborate with several camps on selecting a generator vendor. Silicon Village email: John.Lovejoy at earthlink dot net
By having 5+ camps buy from same vendor:
1. Better pricing
2. They can afford to have on-site spares...very important - in 9 years I have had 2 generators fail during the event.
3. They can significantly reduce the price of on site delivery
4. Likely have on-site tech to assist
5. Generator size from 20Kilowatts to 1000 kilowatts. We are getting a 225-250 KW generator. Also need to rent spider boxes, cables and distribution panel.
I have done RFP's (Request for Proposal) to many potential rental place and have dealt with 3 over the years.
Please email me if you want to collaborate on a vendor. I have two in mind- neither Kohler.
You would think it would be very useful to use the same vendor as BM Org....not so in the past . BMOrg has not made final decision until very late...leaving us in the lurch. When I used Kohler, I could not find the on-site tech. I went to BM Org DPW - and the told me to get lost - no help, nadda. When I finally found the rep, by accident, he told me BMOrg did not allow him to spend time helping camps.
Other stuff-
I have been running the generator for our camp since 2004 and would be glad to share experience....summary here:
1. Did Kohler the year of Greening man- tried to do Bio Diesel. Worked with Blue from BM org... When they (Bmorg) initially put in BioDiesel- it clogged the filter (as the genies previously ran regular diesel- bio acts as cleaner...clogging the filters). When clogged, the gennie doesn't run at all. Need to replace filters. Kohler was totally unresponsive, could not find rep; was told that BM org had not only top priority but we, as a camp, had no priority at all. I elected to not run Biodiesel - if we clogged the filter- how could we find another filter. Not happy at all with Kohler....would not use them again.
2. I had wonderful experience with Cashman's and their rep. They absolutely did back flips including replacing generator when the fuel pump failed- did so in 4 hours. That rep has since left and current rep is not as responsive. Will run an RFP to them however.
3. This last year we went with GenTech- Paul Perry. I talked with him about a month ago. He did not think he would participate this year unless he got something like 4-5 generator contracts. His pricing was the absolute best and he was very easy to work with. This is why I want find other camps to collaborate.
4. Noise....something like 55 decibels at 20 feet. No one has ever complained about noise in our camp. We run the gennie 11 days, 24hrs per day.
5. By way of reference - our camp has been between 150 and 250 peeps- likely near 300 this year. Have support 30 RV's- we don't let them run their RV generator in camp, must connect to the gennie. We also support what we call supper tent - tent/trucks with airconditioners...or other high wattage devices.
6. We park the generator in the exact middle of the camp- put in a "road" to allow fuel truck refuel. Give Sierra Fuels a credit card and ask them to keep it full.
7. From the middle we figure max 200 feet from the generator - 100 foot huge cable to spider box. All who need to connect need 100 foot extension cord. RV's must bring a 10 gage cord.
8. Our lead power ranger MacGyver is conducting Power Ranger class for generator support at his house in Mt. View, CA on June 9th - all welcome. Please let me if you want me to connect you.
*****again please contact me to organized collaboration on getting a vendor. *****

[some seeing eye]

Thanks for the thorough writeup. You probably know http://www.hughstonengineering.com/ who did the power grid for several years. So they are experienced with the special conditions of the event and the special demands on the cables and spider boxes. Good people.

[Dustdevil]

John is spot on in his reply. I must again suggest that you do NOT use biodiesel. I maintain a fleet of generators that our camp and several other camps use. Without exception, the Bio has caused problems on our units. Nothing in the way of permanent damage, but the last thing I wish to do is field repairs that could have been prevented. Also, before you call for a price quote, create a camp/village map with a power grid layout. You need to be realistic in where the power will be going and how much. With good distro gear you can power up more than you realize. In 2010 we ran four camps from our MQ70. That included over 25 RV's. It was running at its' limit, but we had no issues. This year we will use an MQ125. It is all in the distro.

[john408]

In response to dustdevil, we have determined (we think correctly) that we want at about 20 over capacity on our generator so that it does not run at 100%. We researched the fuel consumption table on gennies and found that a slightly more expensive/powerful gennie would just loaf along using less fuel and pay off in the end, especially with these fuel prices. I have wanted to use red fuel, but have not been able to get it from Sierra. Will try again this year. (Red Diesel is red dyed diesel that is for off road use only, and has ?? virtually no tax on it, making it significantly cheaper. Our gennies qualify for its use and the dye does not hurt the engine. ) Anyone else with red fuel experience on playa? Our fuel consumption has been around 600 gallon per year.
Again, pls a call for collaboration where we can collectively request from Sierra Fuels a tanker with red fuel. See my contact info above. I am ready to submit an Request for Quote now, but would like to do so with several other camps.

[john408]

One more thought...just as the default world grid can have a brown out, we have experience individual line brown outs (not the gennie) when the weather is really hot and the there is a windstorm during the day. Everyone is using max A/C...max power. Power is about some collective power max...which is never as much as using all outlets to their max...so we just let it happen. Fortunately this situation has only happen a few times, for a couple hours, in 8 years.

[Dustdevil]

That happens because you are using spider boxes. They are not made for long runs. We run cable well over 400' to run the RV's at the camp on the back side of us. No power loss at all. Spider boxes are designed more for construction sites. Not everyone is using all their power tools at the same time.....

[john408]

Nice chat with Dustdevil...oh my, he is way beyond our grid capability with super technology.

I have just put out 3 RFP's for power equipment.
Would love to have others collectively go with a single vendor. See rationale above and my contact info.
It is now time to start locking in equipment!

[msenard]

Thanks for the answers everyone, very helpful!

[Dustdevil]

By pro-active I mean the first step is to talk with the camp people first. They may not have thought it out all the way. They perhaps just thought that the generator being on the street edge would be ok, not thinking about all of us on the other side. Then, if that did not work, we would have to have an intervention.
I can see wherre having it run 24/7 is the only way to insure all their campers needs were met, but it was pretty intrusive for us.
There was no attempt to build any baffling around the generator. Not sure how that really works, but that's something to consider.
and, yes, of course, nasty ideas also run through the mind, but that's just tequila talk!!

This sounds as though the genny your neighbors had was not one of the Whisperwatt series. You can stand next to a Whisperwatt at 80% load and carry on a normal conversation. From 50' away you cannot hear the genny over the normal dim of BM. There would never be a reason to build a baffle around such a unit. Most of these units only produce a maximum of 65db at 23'.

[john408]

I am still looking for other camps to pursue a single vendor for gennie from 20 - 2000kw. There are super inexpensive, excellent vendor, but out of Las Vegas. Transportation is the killer, but can be very reasonable if ~ 5 camps rent from them. Please let me know. Will put you in touch.

[Dustdevil]

John, I suggest you get a price schedule. It is OK to say inexpensive, but that is really a relative statement. Find out the prices based on several units and lets see if we can get some people on board. We also need to do this off of this forum.

Jack

[john408]

Good Idea Jack...thanks.

[jkisha]

John, I suggest you get a price schedule. It is OK to say inexpensive, but that is really a relative statement. Find out the prices based on several units and lets see if we can get some people on board. We also need to do this off of this forum.

Jack

Why not keep it on the forum? I, for one, would be interested to know the pricing available for these units.

[Ugly Dougly]

What are you doing, where you need so much juice?

[john408]

I am looking for a way to attach an Excel File, which has all the pricing details....other wise I will transcribe to the narrative box. I don't see a way to attach....any help?

[Ugly Dougly]

Save as gif.

[trilobyte]

Please keep pricing details to PM or host it on a different site.

[john408]

OK...forgot about ad info. What is PM?