They're good. They give you power when the power goes out.

Hi,

We had a bad experience about two years ago when our power went out for 5 days. That was just real bad. No water we were on a well, and the house got cold. So we had some minor issues with the HVAC (ice in the pipes and a cracked HVAC copper unit). We live in New York State.

So after that we installed a backup generator. In doing so I sort of had a look at the market and I would classify the solutions into three broad price ranges.

1) $US 500-2000 + $US 1,000 - 2,000 for instalation of transfer switch etc. Portable Gasoline. Lawn mower engine based. 3,600 rpm. Air cooled. up to 7,000 watts. Generator on wheels.

2) $US 3000-7000 + $US 1500-3000 for instalation. Propane based. Lawn mower engine. 3,600 rpm. Air cooled. Up to 15,000 watts. No concrete pad required for instalation. Auto start. Permanent crushed rock base install.

3) $US 8000 and up. $US 5000-10000 and up for instalation. Propane based. Car / Truck engine. 1,800 rpm. Liquid cooled. 20,000 watts and over. Concrete pad. Heavy lift for instalation. Auto start. Auto battery top up. Pre-heated cooling system for fast on line start. Computer controlled.

The gasoline based ones are the cheapest solution. But you need to be able bodied. Generators are heavy. And to run one of these you need to wheel it outside. And keep filling it up with gasoline every five hours or so. Note these will go through a gallon of gasoline an hour. You can usually by house / local fire codes store a maximum of only 20 gallons.
If the power is out, the local petrol station may also be out. The gasoline ones must be run outside because of carbon monoxide dangers. If you
run one outside, you have to wait untill the storm passes unless you build a purpose build enclosure *AWAY* from your house. You do not want rain water on the generator. Note gasoline can only be store up to about a year if you use a gasoline preservative like STABIL (available from Home Depot).

The second solution running perhaps $US 10,000 all in is to go for a permanent installation. This will have an auto start and power cut over upon power failure. Propane can be stored almost indefinately. One of these generators can be lifted by four men, and are usually installed on a crush rock base.

The final option is the car engine based one. Advantages are a lower RPM it will be quieter and last a longer time. Disadvantage is it needs heavy lift (a back hoe / crane) to install and also a concrete pad. We went for this option in the end. We bought our generator from Costco a Cummins Onan RS 20,000 and had an electrician and his crew install it. Propane is from a 500 gallon (400 actual gallon because 20% is a gas buffer) tank.

Generator maufactures include:

Cummins Onan. (Costco)
Honda (small gasoline, the most expensive and IMO the best in this category, see their 7000 inverter one.)
Yamaha (small gasoline, good)
Mitsubishi.
Techmusen (small gasoline, bad but cheap, avoid if you can)
Generac / Guardian (Home Depot, $US 2,500 for a 12 kw one)
Centurion (Sams Club, 45 kw $SU 12,000)
Briggs and Statten
Campbell Hausfeld

best, Mike.

i have a small genny. 6kw, but it can run what i need. runs on propane, and i have a dedicated 100gallon tank for it. it has an auto transfer switch, auto start, and battery maintainer built in. no, it will not run my central units, but if we lose power it will run all the 120v stuf inthe house and we can at least have lights and be comfortable. i have a blower insert in the fireplace, and it alone can heat the front part of the house.

i will upgrade to a 30kw or larger unit at some point. but for now the 6kw will have to do. i have 2 central HVAC systems, so i will require a large unit to run both.

keep in mind that when you use a genny you hav eto balance the loads fairly well. you don't want to put a large load on onde side and a small one on the other. you also want to run ONLY what you need to run. the less load you have on it, the longer a tank of fuel will last you. i have had a gas powered honda genny run thru a tank of gas every 3 hours, then again the SAME unit can run for 7-8 hours on a tank under a much lighter load.

When your pricing the genrator system, don't forget to add in at least annual major maintenance and probably quarterly testing and minor maintenance.

Now add up how many days in the last 10 years you have been without power for more than 24 hours. There's not many people who could justify a 2-3000 dollar generator much less a 12000 dollar unit.

We live in a hurricane prone area. We were without power about 3 days once, about 10 years ago. A good part of our area was without power 5-6 days. If we had been out 5-6 days we would have lost $300 worth of freezer contents. We did loose 20-$30 worth of refrigerated stuff that we couldn't eat up. And it was a real hardship going without ice in my whiskey.
This never happened before and hasn't happened since. A generator would cost 5 to 10 times my potential lose, take up space, be a pain to maintain. and probably break down when I needed it.

A generator makes sense for some people, but not many.

Justify???? We are Americans, this is about comfort and convenience. To MANY folks this has no price.

Sorry David, this is not a personal slam, but I always laugh when someone with some mini-mansion HAS to puts in a 25 or 30Kw genset, or bigger, because they "need" to run almost everything in their house.
IMO this is typical gluttony, regardless of the fact that you can afford it.

petey, after rereading my post i need to clarify a couple things. i don't take your comment as a slam, i think it was the way my post was worded.

i hardly have a mini mansion. it is a 30 year old all electric house with 2 HVAC systems. it is not unusual at peak usuage during the summer for me to use 200+KWH a day. last winter i would sometimes even see 300+kwh due to the 2 heaters both having 19.2kw heat srips in them. run both of those at once, and 30kw genny ain't gonna cut it! but with a 30kw i could run one at a time to heat an area of the house, then turn that one off and run the other for a bit. i could run both AC units, but not heat.

my post may have sounded like i HAD to have a bigger unit. in truth, if i wanted to run the whole house i would. the unit i have now does just fine, other than if we had an extended outage during the heat of summer i would have to do soemthing else. no way you can stay in an unairconditioned house here during August.

i would not even have the genny if it were not given to me. i hardly have the money to buy one, too many other more pressing repairs at home take the money first!

The bad- Initial cost, on-going upkeep and so on, too many visitors after a day or so when yours is the only house within miles that has "lights."

The good- When the power goes off, count "1,2,3" then it is back on. Wife doesn't miss favorite TV shows, the kitchen is still open, sump pump and freezer still run. Power company guys wave as they go by.

Justification- my $$$, my decision.

"Power company guys wave as they go by"

Or pray to God you have a proper transfer switch installed.

David, you from Arizona too? We lost power last year one August night for about 6 or 7 hours. Thank God it was night. Even then, we about had to head to a hotel. It was flat miserable in the house in no time at all. A/C here is not a luxury or comfort item. It's a flat necessity. We have a 2600 sq. ft. home all on one level. We have 2 a/c units totalling 6.5 tons. They calculate 1 ton for every 400 sq. feet.

There is no need for prayer in my situation, as the X-fer switch installation is to POCO spec and features a "visible open", to verify isolation. Perhaps you have a case of transfer switch envy.

All kidding aside, your snide remark does offer an opening to mention the fact that a proper transfer switch is integral to a safe and legal standby power system. If you cannot afford a proper switch, you can't afford "whole house" standby power.

nope, i am from the Mississippi Delta. it was 81 yesterday, and the RH was 62% at the LOW point of the day, and 93% yesterday afternoon! we ran the AC yesterday and last night, had to turn the heater on this morning and supposed to be in the 30's tonight. back inteh upper 70's this weekend.

yes, a PROPER transfer switch is a must. i had a good friend killed 10 years ago due to an idiot runnign a genny without isolatiing his house fromteh grid. My buddy got called out for for an outage, he climbed the pole to check things out and low and behold the lines were hot. his neck hit the line as he was getting situated, and he was killed in a matter of seconds. yes, HE screwed up by not taking every safety precaution. but if the guy running the gen set had a proper transfer switch it would not have happened either.

Wayne...no snide intentions at all with my remark. The reason it was made was for the exact reason david quoted. It wasn't directed at you personally at all. It's just too serious a matter to ignore. I've actually heard of POCO guys stopping at lit houses during an outage and confirmed the proper wiring prior to working on the lines. Smart guys.

No big deal. And a good chance to bring up a serious issue. A friend once suggested that it would be a great service to linemen to make mufflers illegal on portable generators.