Propane Whole House Generators, Warning.

[not2old]

My parents told me about that and that there was an ice delivery to the door as well. I do remember the milk deliveries and the paper routes.

I remember the ice and milk being delivered by horse and wagon in the fifties and didn't live in the sticks. Times have changed.

 

[MossRoad]

So is it someone else's fault that he bought propane instead of diesel? Do you blame a car dealership if you buy a gas truck and later wish you bought a diesel?

So ignorance is everyone else's fault? Its not like the burn rates for that generator are some great secret...the info is readily available on the internet. It's pretty clear his biggest beef is that he was going to run out of propane...HE INSTALLED THE WRONG SIZE TANK FOR HIS INTENDED PURPOSE. He even complains about not being able to get more propane after a major storm! Newsflash...that's what happens after a major storm. Again, should have bought a bigger tank so he wouldn't be in this situation. He lives on the Gulf Coast for goodness sake, so these things shouldn't be a surprise.

This guy your friend or something? Because he never ever remotely says anything like this. He never says "I should have known", or "I failed to research this"...he blames everyone but himself. Good grief...

As for the service, we are only hearing one side of the story. From the sounds of if, this customer probably burnt some bridges. And in the weeks before a major storm, thousands of people are trying to get service on their generators, which VERY likely contributed to the poor support. Despite what some apparently think here, parts don't grow on trees. They often have to be ordered, and around storm time, parts are hard to come by. Anyhow, that's all I have to say on the matter. Maybe 21 years in the Marine Corps has made me a little intolerant of people not taking responsibility for their own decisions. Out.

Perhaps you should have read the comments under the video.

 

[MossRoad]

I remember the ice and milk being delivered by horse and wagon in the fifties and didn't live in the sticks. Times have changed.

We didn't have ice, but we did have a milkman until the late 60's.

 

[TheMan419]

If it's warm out, we run our little 3500 enough to keep the fridge and freezer cold.

If it's cold out, we put the food outside and run the furnace enough to keep the pipes from freezing. It can just barely run the furnace.

Our little genny isn't up to running the well, so we try to have bottled on hand and fill buckets and coolers when bad weather is predicted.

We have gotten by without power by just using a camp stove and the fireplace, but it's easier with the genny. We have only been without for ~2 weeks after Irene (had to wait for a pole transformer feeding our trunk from the next town over) that prompted us getting the generator. Morale definitely took a big hit on that one, and we had to throw away a lot of food but I don't think we ever felt our lives were in danger.

Yep I have lived on well water the majority of my life. When a storm is predicted I fill the tub with water. Even now that I have a generator that can run the well I do it out of habit.

We have horses so I need on the order of 70 gallons of water per day (more than double that in the heat of summer) so I have to be able to run the well.

Thankfully I live far far away from hurricane land. So even after a major storm finding gasoline is easy for me.

From a cost vs morale perspective I will run the genny enough to keep the house warm, not just the pipes from freezing. During that time the fridge/freezer can be powered too so no worries there.

Main issue we would have in a long outage is the stove is electric and we do not have that tied into the generator. So we might end up having to get a hot plate or something to cook on. In the summer I would just grill for every meal.

Knock on wood at our current home we have had 1 outage in 3 years that lasted more than an hour.

 

[Oldoak]

I remember the ice and milk being delivered by horse and wagon in the fifties and didn't live in the sticks. Times have changed.

As do I. Same situation. I can remember the last house on our block that changed to an electric refrigerator. Even had a horse drawn wagon come around once a week selling fresh vegetables during the Summer months. All us kids used to run out to pet his horse when he made his stops.

Life was harder back then, but much simpler.

Back on the subject of propane. Just had propane delivered today, $1.799 per Gal.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

We didn't have ice, but we did have a milkman until the late 60's.

We had a milkman too, BUT it was to "pickup" the milk, NOT to deliver it!

SR

 

[Garandman]

Its probably not wise to base your decisions from videos posted by idiots on youtube. I mean, look at this clown...he has more money in RVs than he does in his house! And, he puts in 250 gallon storage tank for a whole house generator? Good grief...if posting a "warning" thread, please provide something more substantial than a stupid youtube video which provides nothing but anecdotal evidence.

My comment on that video was "So, where do you live in Florida?"

 

[RoyKing]

Actually I enjoyed a video for Honda 3000 inverter by guy who full time lives off the grid in Florida everglade's. He puts more hours his machine than anybody I've seen, and his service routine of oil and plug changes are well documented, he been there years.

 

[Travelover]

We didn't have ice, but we did have a milkman until the late 60's.

We did, too. Several of my siblings look a lot like him.

 

[JasperFrank]

If you need the clean power all you need to do is plug a UPS into the power supply and then plug your device into the UPS. A good UPS will clean the power right up and you can run a computers or anything else off a dirty generator using that technique.

VERY GOOD POINT about the UPS and dirty Generators! Found that out the HARD WAY.