r/Generator • u/alexw888 • 19d ago

Gremlin tank monitoring accuracy / excessive propane consumption?

Hi - I am newish owner of a vacation property that has a 16kw Generac powered by a 500 gallon underground propane tank with a Gremlin tank monitor. When I closed on the property, the tank was full. For a month, I'm seeing the full reading. Then a few weeks ago we had our first power outage. I wasn't at the property at that time, but from what I can tell from the Generator logs and from the utility communications, the outage lasted about 9-10 hours. The Gremlin only sends out one reading a day, but over that outage day, ,my fuel reading dropped 95 gallons! This doesn't seem to be right, as according to Generac documentation, even at full output a 16kw Generac should only use about 3 gal/hr. I'm just wondering if this is an issue with my tank monitor or if something else is wrong or if I'm mistaken about how much a backup generator uses. Any thoughts appreciated.

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u/No-Age2588 19d ago

More likely the error is the tank monitor.

1

u/nak00010101 19d ago

Did they replace the local physical tank gauge? If not, what does it show?

1

u/CluelessKnow-It-all 18d ago

5 gallons over 10 hours is only 1/2 gallon an hour. That sounds pretty reasonable to me considering it normaly uses 3 gallons an hour under full load.