You can but as John said, you'll only get about 1/4th the heat output at 120v vs 240, not just half like you might think.LeftieBiker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 11:58 amI've been told that you can run one element of a water heater by powering it at 120 volts. I wish I'd known that during the 3 day outage of 2006...
At 1000 watts you will be lucky to to get 2 miles per hour of generator time.jp54 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 12:27 pmHi,I'm newbie to the message board and to ev ownership.
Just bought used 2011 leaf with partially depleted battery. Does anybody know what is the amperage when charging the car with small portable generator? Is the amperage constant or fluctuating?
Trying to decide whether 1250W generator is sufficient.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge
John
jjeff wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 1:27 pmYou can but as John said, you'll only get about 1/4th the heat output at 120v vs 240, not just half like you might think.LeftieBiker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 11:58 amI've been told that you can run one element of a water heater by powering it at 120 volts. I wish I'd known that during the 3 day outage of 2006...
It will work but It will heat the tank much slower. On the other hand, a couple of quick showers twice a day should be possible. Your recovery rate will be down to 10-12 g/h so even with the generator running full time, it will take 6-8 hours to heat a cold tank back up.LeftieBiker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:35 pmjjeff wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 1:27 pmYou can but as John said, you'll only get about 1/4th the heat output at 120v vs 240, not just half like you might think.LeftieBiker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 11:58 amI've been told that you can run one element of a water heater by powering it at 120 volts. I wish I'd known that during the 3 day outage of 2006...
Believe me, that would have been utter bliss compared to the showers I was taking on days two and three...