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Fuelmaker Phill |
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My life with Phill: A user's perspective
| We bought our Honda Civic GX in March 2005. The inconvenience of
having to drive 20 miles to the nearest CNG refueling station was
moderated by the notion that we were doing our bit to help save the
planet. Also, we were supposed to be able to get a home fueling
appliance that would allow us to say goodbye to the gas station forever.
When you live someplace cold (as Wisconsin is most of the year), not
having to stand shivering at the gas pump is a very good thing.
Fuelmaker, a Canadian company that manufactures vehicle refueling equipment, has been promising a consumer-level CNG refueling appliance called PHILL for almost five years. When I first asked about PHILL, I was told that it was only being test marketed in California but I should be able to get one some time next year. Imagine my surprise when they put my name on a waiting list in May. A couple of weeks later, Fuelmaker pulled some $3500 off the credit card account I gave them to get on the waiting list so I figured I was set. After a few miscues that saw my PHILL shipped back to the factory for "adjustments", the unit was installed on August 5, 2005. I'll be posting my experience with PHILL on this page as a service to others that may be interested.
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AUGUST 6, 2005
| The installation crew showed up bright-and-early with my Phill. I
stuck around to make sure they knew what to do before heading into work.
They seemed like they at least had a clue, so I left them to get
on with it and drove my gas guzzling minivan to work.
The unit came well packed in two boxes. The big box had the Phill itself: |
| The other box had the mounting hardware and stuff. The gas hookup originally went to a heater that I had removed a few weeks earlier because it took up too much garage space. I was originally going to mount the PHILL where the gas line was, but I decided later that I wanted to have it in a more centralized location. |
| The installation crew brought a coil of 1/2" corrugated stainless steel gas
line (the yellow pipe in the picture above) to make hookup easy. They were nice enough to put in the requested shutoff valve for a
garage heater. I had a pressure gauge (more about that later) sitting
there that should have been removed. PVC tubing is definitely not
appropriate for use with natural gas. I may hard-pipe it in later
through a test valve, but for now it's gotta go! Here's what the installation looks like: |
| You can see the other end of the yellow corrugated gas line is
leading
into a submeter as per my request. I bought the submeter so I could
determine how much gas went into the car per fill (more about this
later). There's a gas shutoff valve provided per code between the
submeter and the Phill. More corrugated pipe was used to make the final
run bringing gas service to the Phill. This isolates the submeter from
vibration coming from Phill during operation. The vent pipe at the top of the unit passes through the wall to exhaust cooling air outside. Since this is an indoor installation, an additional gas sensor is required and is mounted tat the highest point of the building where gas would accumulate since natural gas is lighter than air. There is also a stainless steel blowdown line that [in the case of a malfunction] would depressurize the system safely to the great outdoors.
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It doesn't look too bad from a distance. Note the bags of ice melting salt sitting on the driveway in the middle of August.
NEXT: PHILL'S FIRST FILL
