We have plenty of dual-fuel engines in the rental fleet here and see no issues with dried out/leaking gaskets or seals. These engines are in the range of 20 hp air-cooled v-twins up to 80 hp water-cooled inline fours. There had to be something wrong with the Mitsubishi mentioned above. It would be downright silly and dangerous to have a system installed on a piece of machinery that was inherently prone to cause leaks from the fuel system. About the only "issues" we ever experience with dual-fuel systems, (gasoline/propane), are related to one fuel type or the other not being used often enough. Things like regulator diaphragms, fuel switching solenoids, filter lock-offs, etc. can fail after sitting "unused" for long periods of time. Leaks are a rarity though. I haven't seen any indication of differences in the engine blocks themselves on these machines but some manufacturers, (Kubota is one that comes to mind), do spec a different cylinder head on their engines for dual-fuel applications. I suspect that different valves/valve seats are installed for dry fuel applications. As with anything else, there are probably "good" and "better" ways to convert your Briggs. Personally, I'd stay away from conversions that involve modifying the existing carburetor and instead source some built-for-the-application components from a supplier that deals with the engine model you have that's factory-installed or factory-converted to be used with natural gas.

" Yes, I am in a rural area that does experience outages sometimes 3-5 times a week, maybe for no more than a couple of hours, but last year , or year before last, the neighborhood was out for 1 week after the big storms came up from the gulf. I may not need hot water and furnace at the same time. I am trying to plan as best I can since this is new construction; if I do become disabled/ not able to cut wood anymore for wood heat is the reason I was wanting something big enough to run the furnace. Even at that, the wellpump, range, fridge and furnace would not be on at the same time; my goal was to be able to select the circuits manuallly, as well as start/stop/ exercise manually also. Thanks again for your input. If I do go w/ a portable, my application will be one that I can hook up to propane which I will have on site and builder will be able to set up the lines/wiring properly. I will visit the site you suggested also. Thanks again, " There is no surge to a hot water tank therefore if it has 2 x 3000 watt elements and your generator puts out 10,000 watts you now have 4000 watts to spare and you do not need to have power on it all the time to have some hot water. If you randomly select what you are going to run or operate you Will be surprised what you can do with a 5000 watt generator. Refrigerator's or freezer's do not have to run 24 hours a day to keep food. You do not absolutely need the electric stove oven or clothes dryer. You can get by with one or two stove burners on 120 V or a hot plate and microwave etc. etc. etc. No you can't run everything at the same time but you do not need to under emergency situations, you just want to be able to get by with some resemblance of normalcy and not have to abandon your home and property. The biggest problem is FUEL, which is why a dual or tri-fuel system is far better unless you want to store a 100 gallons of gasoline and such and that will only last but a few days depending on the power output of your generator.

Follow up to my own post. I think I misinterpreted the function of the throttle. It makes more sense to say it admits more air to the intake, which sucks more gasoline (or propane) in for acceleration. The governor, connected to the throttle also, does the same thing to maintain a constant speed. I do notice a lot of posts dealing with carburetor and gasoline problems. Many of the responses advise rebuilding the carb, using carb cleaner, cleaning jets, even getting a whole new carb, and throwing out stale gas. Also cited are possible seal deterioration from ethanol, and other problems/solutions. I am surprised more people don't try the propane option. By the way, there are several manufacturers of conversion equipment, some of them much cheaper than Altfuel. I only went with them because other websites were almost impenetrable to navigate, and confusing when trying to figure out whether their system would work with my situation.

Hi, I have a generator which is hooked up to a propane tank, 20,000 Watts Cummins Onan RS 20,000. This has a 4 cylinder Ranger engine made by Ford. The gas line is 3/4 inch and runs from the propane tank. The gas line by code is limited to 100 feet (New York state). And you cannot have an underground join in the gas line. The gas line does not have to be very big because the propane is under presure and when under pressue it is actually a liquid. Right by your generator the gas line will connect to a Regulator. This regulator "converts" or more accurately will allow the propane to expand. The propane then becomes a gas and be at a lower pressue. This gas is then passed into the "propane carbaretor" which you will mount on your genset. So a relatively thin line can feed quite alot of propane because of the liquid to gas transformation. Things to watch out for a Carbon Monoxide poisoning. I would not site the genset near any windwows near a house. Also having a high pressue gas line snaking all over your house could be a fire risk and may not be allowable by code. Note if you bury the propane line, you only have 100 feet to play with and you have to bury it deep. This means expensive. Think a back hoe or some mechanical digger. If you are going to all the troule with the gas line etc., maybe it would be worth it to consider a new genset as well. warmest regards, Mike.