Whole house generator

[grsthegreat]

All I can say is onan used to be a great generator. Cummins bought out onan but the cummins unit is no where’s as nice of a unit. I used to own an Onan cast iron 1800 rpm 7500 watt generator that was amazingly quiet. Id still have it if it wasn’t for the fact that I needed more power for my large home. That unit was bullet proof.
I really doubt there’s much difference in quality on any air cooled unit. They all run 3600 rpm on a 1 or 2 cyllinder engine. Their not designed for long time use, only emergency use.

generac has about a 90% market share of the residential air cooled market. From personal experience I do know that their air cooled units do a great job, as I have few major repairs over the years on Them. I have limited experience with kohler, but they seem like a nice unit. I have no experience with cummins series, as I have never received a call to install one or service one. I have chatted with installers that have placed cummins units, and their only complaint as I recall was lack of working room in the unit. Overall they work just fine. Their just as noisy as any air cooled unit. I have no idea if cummins offers extended warranties like GENERAC does.

the old military diesels are great units. But nearly every one I’ve seen is in the 10 kw range. I would love to get ahold of a nice 20KW unit At a good price. But I do love the small footprint of the propane generacs.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I have one of the old cast iron 1800 rpm Onan generators, they are GREAT, but now Onan is not cast iron, and they run at 3600 rpm. SO, as far as I'm concerned, they are living on their OLD reputation!

They just aren't what they "use" to be!!

BTW, I DO have an newer aluminum version to compare it to, too...

SR

 

[TheMan419]

We had a pretty good freeze here and the power was out for a week. A bigger generator might be a good idea and I'm curious bout this one. I'm not sold on Generac and I've always thought of Cummins as being a good brand. Anybody know anything about this generator?

Cummins Power Generation A071Z402 Cummins RS20AC - 20kW Quiet Connect™ Series Home Standby Generator System 200A Service Disconnect

Buy Cummins Power Generation A071Z402 Direct. Free Shipping. Check the Cummins RS20AC - 20kW Quiet Connect™ Series Home Standby Generator System (200A Service Disconnect) ratings before checking out.

www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com

I thought about that when we were out for a couple of days in the middle of winter. However the longer I thought about it the more I realized we have been in the house 5 years and run the generator 3 times. One of those times the power was back on in 4 hours (after the power company told us 36 hours).

So to me not worth the price.

Might be good to just know you guys can lose power like that for a week and plan fuel accordingly for the generator set up you already have.

Of course we have a horse barn as well so some thought has been given to wiring that for generator as well and buying a second portable unit to power it since it has a separate well.

 

[grsthegreat]

Wells and animals that require well water are the leading reasons why I sold and installed generators. Horses and cattle cannot go long without water.

the only reason I myself have a fully automatic backup generator is I got it for free. If I had to buy it, I would have stuck with my old onan. When we have outages, over the last 25 years I’ve lived here, they are generally always over 24 hours in length, stretching to up to 2.5 days.

this year we have be especially hard hit. We had 2 outages lasting over 2.5 days each, and I believe 4 others lasting over a day.

 

[TheMan419]

Wells and animals that require well water are the leading reasons why I sold and installed generators. Horses and cattle cannot go long without water.

the only reason I myself have a fully automatic backup generator is I got it for free. If I had to buy it, I would have stuck with my old onan. When we have outages, over the last 25 years I’ve lived here, they are generally always over 24 hours in length, stretching to up to 2.5 days.

this year we have be especially hard hit. We had 2 outages lasting over 2.5 days each, and I believe 4 others lasting over a day.

We have now had three outages this year requiring the generator. Two of them in the last 60 days. So now the wife is pressuring to get a standby generator. I am starting to see the wisdom in it.

I would want the ability to shut the generator down though so as not to burn fuel all night when I don't really need to.

 

[grsthegreat]

A whole house can be shut down manually without any issues. Just turn off breaker in generator, wait a min or 2 for gen to cool down, turn off gen.

i do this with mine at night when I sleep. Don’t need it running

 

[ponytug]

If you lived closer to @grsthegreat I would definitely recommend him to do your generator work.

There is also getting solar with batteries...

All the best,

Peter

 

[sandman2234]

If you lived closer to @grsthegreat I would definitely recommend him to do your generator work.

There is also getting solar with batteries...

All the best,

Peter

Does he make house calls...to Florida?
David from jax

 

[Steelauzzy]

I run my propane gens on nat gas and vide versa with no mods. The fuels has slightly different energies and of course propane may need a vaporizer for cooler climates.
I am mechanically inclined so I went with a used genset off the web. I paid 8000cad for 2x 45kw in questionable condition and 1x75kw Cummins nat gas in great shape.
I run 24/7 to power my small welding shop, house, server farm and I have a solar array feeding in to offset fuel costs.
Nat gas may have come up but if you compare to your hydro prices it’s almost 100% of the time cheaper to generate your own power than to connect to the grid.

 

[grsthegreat]

I run my propane gens on nat gas and vide versa with no mods. The fuels has slightly different energies and of course propane may need a vaporizer for cooler climates.
I am mechanically inclined so I went with a used genset off the web. I paid 8000cad for 2x 45kw in questionable condition and 1x75kw Cummins nat gas in great shape.
I run 24/7 to power my small welding shop, house, server farm and I have a solar array feeding in to offset fuel costs.
Nat gas may have come up but if you compare to your hydro prices it’s almost 100% of the time cheaper to generate your own power than to connect to the grid.

Not sure where u live, but here i pay $0.065 per KWH for grid power. No way i could generate it for less.

 

[grsthegreat]

Does he make house calls...to Florida?
David from jax

Dont see that happening......

 

[Steelauzzy]

Not sure where u live, but here i pay $0.065 per KWH for grid power. No way i could generate it for less.

Is that the rate on your statement? Or the total you paid tax included for your metered power?

 

[Diggin It]

My June bill was $62.59 for 446 KwHrs which breaks down to around 14 cents each.

Per unit charge is about 10 cents, plus various charges.

I'm reasonably certain I could not continuously generate power for that. Given the buy in costs of solar, it would take me quite a few years, maybe decades to break even.

If solar ever becomes affordable, Ill be all over it.

I really wish utilities would embrace community solar plants ... something that might serve a few mile radius or a few dozen homes.

 

[grsthegreat]

Is that the rate on your statement? Or the total you paid tax included for your metered power?

Thats the base charge. There are some other fees, ill have to go calc actual cost incl taxes, etc.

ok, with meter fee and taxes, it comes out to $0.0810 . This includes a utility base fee of $8.50 per month for equip maint.

were a coop, lots of wind damage last few years.
still, no way i could generate this power for less. I too have run the figures for wind and solar. Be like 30 years to pay back......just too expensive and we have crappy sun exposure and unreliable wind.

 

[ponytug]

We have $0.42/kWh summer peak down to $0.23/kWh winter off peak, so payback is on the order of 5.5 years. When I first ran the numbers a about fifteen years ago, the pay back was never, and ten years ago it was 25 years, four years ago the payback had dropped to 7.7 years and we installed solar. The electrical prices have risen substantially since we installed and the payback has dropped to 5.5, despite generating less power than we planned (fire code restrictions on the solar panel layout).

It really comes down to your local price of electricity, local installer costs, and whether or not you place any value on being able to generate power when the grid is having trouble, e.g. drought, post storm line damage, earthquake, etc.

As we transition away from gasoline / diesel powered vehicles, we will add solar to cover charging those. Local gas prices are high, too. $4.39 for regular last week, so electric vehicles become cost effective pretty quickly; currently less than half the running costs per mile of our gasoline vehicles.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ranger danger]

I also live on the outskirts of the Bay area. At the time of solar installation, the local building codes would only allow for 92% of usage. I got around that by submitting for a permit with 260w panels totaling 91.3%. After permit approval, I changed my order with the installer to 370w panels .

 

[grsthegreat]

yeiks...at .40/kwh id go solar also. i service backup gen units on quite a few off grid homes up here. since sun can be scarce in the winter, the generator powers up the batteries. some people up here sink $40K into off grid houses. and they dont work some days due to weather. running generator is expensive and kind of ruins the clean energy mode. one things for certain, theres no way one of these houses could charge up 2 cars. they can barely run the house.

 

[Steelauzzy]

Thats the base charge. There are some other fees, ill have to go calc actual cost incl taxes, etc.

ok, with meter fee and taxes, it comes out to $0.0810 . This includes a utility base fee of $8.50 per month for equip maint.

were a coop, lots of wind damage last few years.
still, no way i could generate this power for less. I too have run the figures for wind and solar. Be like 30 years to pay back......just too expensive and we have crappy sun exposure and unreliable wind.

Yea that’s pretty cheap power. Also depends on your gas price. One of my sites I can generate for 1/4 that. My main shop however I’m close to that .07-.09 if I generate.
Solar prices have also come wayyyy down! My system and my system expansion the roi is almost down to 4 years now. Original was 6. We have pretty decent solar around 3.4 rating.