Whole house generator

[Dargo]

I am not coobie, but I talked to the Cummins/Onan regional rep and local residential rep only last Friday about 20KW residental units and load management quesitons. Onan has always been big in RV gensets and now its Cummins/Onan so maybe they got married.

The 10kW generator in my RV says Onan on the front cover of the air cleaner. It says Cummins on the shrouding around the engine, and the engine is a Kubota diesel. Go figure! Apparently Cummins/Onan/Kubota all seem to be related in some fashion.

With a large home and 5 kids, one having had basically 2 brain surgeries in the last year, and frequent power outages that have lasted up to 3 weeks, I have a 65,000kW Yanmar diesel powered generator that is fully automatic. Yes, it was expensive, but I now have no worries about my wife being without power with the kids or any issues keeping everything cool in the hottest summer days. We've lost power for almost a full week several times in the summer due to tornados and other storms. I have one 5 ton A/C unit, one 4 ton A/C unit and a 3 ton A/C unit for our guest house (which always has guests living in it during power outages. As I said, it was expensive by the time I included the generator, fuel tank, concrete pad, 400 amp service rated automatic transfer switch and all. My only regret is not going with the setup sooner.

I make money on the side clearing snow in the winter. It's nice to be able to run my plasma cutter, compressor and welders to fix broken plows and other things when we have no power. I actually have made decent money doing welding work on other broken snow removal equipment when all power around me has been out. No, it will never pay for itself that way, but it's nice to have everything running as normal when I'm off the grid when power is not available.

 

[DelSc]

....I have a 65,000kW Yanmar diesel powered generator that is fully automatic.....

Impressive set up Dargo!

We have a regular aircooled 16kW propane-burning Generac whole house set up and have been very happy with it. I am guessing we have had it about 7 years. We have small (couple hour at a time) outages a few times a year, but have had 2 instances where we lost power for several days. One of them lasted 4 days in the dead of winter. It would be quite possible to get by on a much smaller unit and a bit more manual intervention, but I am very glad to have the full house set up. Its money vs convenience so you have to pick based on your own preference.

During the long winter power outage, we burned about 1 gal of propane an hour while the generator was running. At the time we had a electric dryer and range, but have since switched to propane for those appliances. If we sized a generator for our house again we might be able to get a slightly smaller size. Not sure.

Scott

 

[Dogballs]

I have had a Generac 7kw air cooled generator for 3 years now with no problems at all. It runs my well pump, heat, kitchen, TV, and half the lights in my house.

I paid $1900 including the transfer switch, then another few hundred bucks for propane and electrical hook ups. No question the liquid cooled units are better, but for the money I spent I'm happy with what I have. I use synthetic oil which seems to make starting easier when it's below zero.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Like i said before my Onan generator was purchased USED in 1994, not sure how old it really is. It electric start and has run flawless (cept batteries and oil) since i bought it. Its propane fed

Propane derates the engine about 20%, so it runs cooler and longer. There is no sulfur in propane to make acid in the crank case, and it is low carbon and runs without deposits. A small engine running on propane is virtually immortal.

 

[grsthegreat]

Propane derates the engine about 20%, so it runs cooler and longer. There is no sulfur in propane to make acid in the crank case, and it is low carbon and runs without deposits. A small engine running on propane is virtually immortal.

hmmm, i wonder if i could convert myself to run on propane.......god knows i create enuf sulfurous odors hehe:laughing:

 

[ultrarunner]

The only problem I've ever had with a small natural gas generator was a $25 head gasket after 17 years of weekly operation.

 

[gfrobin]

It really depends on the size of the house and what he needs to run and what he really wants to power during a power outage. Lights, refrigerator and TV, 5500 is fine but the need for heat and maybe a water pump will take something much larger, remember a generator is really only good for about eighty per cent of it's rating, the full number is considered for the surge of motors, lights, etc. coming on line only. I think if you can afford it, a 20KW is great and air cooled would be OK for this, but anything larger than a 20KW I would want a water cool system, even with all the extra maintenance that it requires and believe me, water cooled requires a lot of maintenance.

 

[Scooby074]

I have a 65,000kW Yanmar diesel powered generator

Got one of these in your backyard do ya?

J/K . A 65kW genset would be really nice. Excellent setup, about 10X the capacity of my Honda.



For the OP you got to ask how do you want to live during the outage? Want AC? Want to run the whole house, including the range and the hot tub? Want it totally automatic, or can you load balance manually? All that costs for both the generator capacity itself and in fuel used.

We get away with the 6500W Honda just fine. Yes i have to load balance, but thats ok. Main thing is keeping the fridge cold, water running and lights on in a couple rooms.

A transfer switch (or a Generlink, which has some advantages), a proper sized extension cord, and a decent brand generator ( i like hondas) and your in business with a basic setup. It takes like 10 minutes (likely less)to hook up my generator when the time comes. To me its not worth the extra cost for a full auto system. If you travel alot, or have family at home that cant run the genset, then a auto system might pay off.

There is something to be said for propane and diesel over gas, especially for storage purposes. With the ever increasing ethanol in our fuel supply, im concerned about gas lasting for when you really need it. I use Stabil in all my gas, and cycle it through the vehicles so it never has a chance to go bad.

 

[ultrarunner]

Just want to relate a story of a home that burned to the ground with an auto genset...

The homeowner wanted his family to not have the inconvenience of power outages... they are in a heavily treed area... power outages happen although the duration is a few hours at most.

Anyway, the homeowner was on a business trip and the power went out... one of the family members placed boxes too close to the genset which eventually caught fire and spread.

Just because it is automatic doesn't mean it is fool proof.

 

[tsteahr]

Propane derates the engine about 20%, so it runs cooler and longer. There is no sulfur in propane to make acid in the crank case, and it is low carbon and runs without deposits. A small engine running on propane is virtually immortal.

I'm certainly not disputing your conclusions but propane most surely contains sulfur. I spent over a year working in a R&D lab of a major fuel cell manufacturer trying to develop a cost effective way to remove sulfur from propane. We could buy propane that was free of sulfur but it was a special order. The objective was to develop a fuel cell that could run on propane. Commercial fuel cells generally run on natural gas which is much cleaner than propane. We had to separate all test equipment that has been exposed to regular propane due to the sulfur. The sulfur in the gas was so sticky there was no easy way to clean out test equipment after regular propane had been run through it. I had never thought of a gas as being sticky until I worked that project.