[Shop-talk] diesel fuel question

[Eric Russell]

Since we've drifted a little bit off-topic (and we likely have too much 
free time now), here's my story about emergency generators. At the time 
I was working (RN) night shift in a hospital ICU. Every Tuesday about 
6am the hospital would test their emergency generator. It was supposed 
to be a quick blink from regular power to emergency power. Except in our 
ICU (and only the ICU) the power would be off for 3-5 minutes! Not fun 
when you have patients on ventilators that did not have battery back-up. 
It got so bad I would remind my staff to stand by with flashlights and 
manual Ambu bags every Tuesday morning.

I complained to the engineering department but they insisted the power 
would only be off for a few seconds at most. I finally convinced the 
chief engineer to come sit in our unit on a Tuesday morning. He did, the 
power went off for a full 5 minutes and the color drained from his face. 
Whatever was the problem finally got fixed.

Eric Russell
Mebane, NC

On 4/24/2020 10:30 AM, Al Fuller via Shop-talk wrote:
> As regards the comment you made below that the generators get 
> exercised 30 minutes a week: Please keep in mind that its sounds like 
> you meant to say the diesel engines get exercised [as opposed to the 
> generators].
>
> The difference is the generator set also includes the transfer switch, 
> wiring and other components. I had one client that fired up the diesel 
> weekly, but when a wind storm blew down the power lines, the facility 
> was down for a week while they tried to locate a new transfer switch. 
> It turned out the building housed a lot more people and equipment than 
> when the generator set was first specified and the switch set couldn’t 
> support the load.  It was very frustrating to have a working diesel 
> generator, but unable to power the building!
>
>

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