Generac or Koehler whole house generator?

[EarPlug]

Northern Tool Catalog arrived in the mail yesterday, and the first dozen pages in the catalog are generators. There is a section of Generac generators that seem to be a lot lower in cost then what Torvy said he was quoted for where I live in Tyler.

24kw with 200 amp transfer switch is on sale right now for $5,847.30

https://www.northerntool.com/products/generac-guardian-series-home-standby-generator-24kw-lp-21kw-ng-200-amp-transfer-switch-aluminum-enclosure-model-7210-102681

I have Natural Gas to my Mom's house, but I haven't ran it to my house yet. I'm adding on a 3 car garage and I want the meter set at the end of my garage. Hopefully I'll get that all done over the winter, but it's proven harder to get to then I thought possible with all my other "must do" projects.

The Natural Gas meter is for a 1 inch line. Does anybody know how big of a generator I can run off of a 1 inch Natural Gas line? Is that a lot of Natural Gas, or will I be limited in what size generator I can run? We will also have a Natural Gas range for cooking, but there isn't any plan to have Natural Gas for laundry or the water heater. The HVAC is currently electric for heat, and we never use it since we heat with wood and electric heat is stupid expensive. When we replace the HVAC system, it might become Natural Gas for heat, but I'm not sure on that.

Guardian Series (Air-cooled)	10/9 kW	13/13 kW (Discontinued)	14/14 kW	16/16 kW (Discontinued)	18/17 kW	20/18 kW	22/19.5 kW	24/21 kW	26/22.5 kW
Fuel Consumption @ 1/2 Load NG cu. ft/hr	101	154	195	182	169	204	228 | 203	203	188
Fuel Consumption @ Full Load NG cu. ft/hr	127	225	256	245	247	301	327 | 306	306	333
Fuel Consumption @ 1/2 Load LPG cu. ft/hr (gal/hr)	36 (0.97)	56 (1.54)	65 (1.81)	62 (1.70)	62 (1.70)	86 (2.37)	92 (2.53)	92 (2.53)	75
Fuel Consumption @ Full Load LPG cu. ft/hr (gal/hr)	54 (1.48)	90 (2.45)	112 (3.07)	109 (2.99)	110 (3.02)	129.6 (3.56)	142.1 (3.90)	142 (3.90)	132

 

[DarkBlack]

One of those numbers can’t be right.

 

[grsthegreat]

Nat gas will derate the output of the generator. The values are stated in the spec sheets. For instance, a 24kw generac provides 100 amps on propane but only 87.5 amps on nat gas. It also requires large enough pipe to supply 306,000 btu of energy.

 

[ning]

You'd be amazed at how much fuel they suck just maintaining basic voltage & frequency requirements even if there's only a USB charger plugged in (well, really they don't even care if there's any draw at all, the genset has to be running, just in case).

Our area had a "snowpocalypse" a couple years back where a surprisingly little bit of snow managed to break a ton of drought-weakened trees and knock out power to many homes for weeks, and people were yelling because their generators cleaned out their propane tanks in under a week, leaving them not only without power but without heat as well. They would've been much better off with a automatic switch to a set of important circuits (well, furnace, kitchen perhaps).

The idea of an automatic full-house backup generator - without a battery system - is amazingly wasteful.
I suppose if there was an inverter type generator that could manage at an idle it might be ok, but even then you need to be ready to dump a bunch of power in when a motor starts.

At least if you've got a generator backing up a whole-house battery backup, it will never be run with low loads.

 

[cdaigle430]

I have a whole house 16kw NG gen from Generac. 7 years its still protecting my home and loved ones. Dont buy it under the false pretenses its cheap on fuel or I dont need to spend money to maintain it or its a set it and forget it machine.

The whole house auto transfer switch is a miracle for us.

You must maintain it at least once a month, check oil, check for rodent or insect infestation or anything abnormal.

I am now looking at these solar battery packs that start out at 1-1.5kw each and you can stack two or more to increase the kw rating for whole house power. Can be charge by way of solar or grid power.

 

[grsthegreat]

You'd be amazed at how much fuel they suck just maintaining basic voltage & frequency requirements even if there's only a USB charger plugged in (well, really they don't even care if there's any draw at all, the genset has to be running, just in case).

Our area had a "snowpocalypse" a couple years back where a surprisingly little bit of snow managed to break a ton of drought-weakened trees and knock out power to many homes for weeks, and people were yelling because their generators cleaned out their propane tanks in under a week, leaving them not only without power but without heat as well. They would've been much better off with a automatic switch to a set of important circuits (well, furnace, kitchen perhaps).

The idea of an automatic full-house backup generator - without a battery system - is amazingly wasteful.
I suppose if there was an inverter type generator that could manage at an idle it might be ok, but even then you need to be ready to dump a bunch of power in when a motor starts.

At least if you've got a generator backing up a whole-house battery backup, it will never be run with low loads.

They didnt need to leave them run 24/7. Seriously, they need to run a few hours a day to maintain refer, freezer, well, etc in extreme emergency situations

 

[ning]

They didnt need to leave them run 24/7. Seriously, they need to run a few hours a day to maintain refer, freezer, well, etc in extreme emergency situations

I know that, and you know that.
But, they're sold and set up to be a replacement for a grid connection - which they're great for for a couple hours.

I made do just fine for years with no backup at all (luckily no full-day outages), then graduated to a very small generator that I got for a "storm of the century" (narrator voice: it rained half an inch.) but came in handy during a fire evac, I came home and fired it up for a few hours a day and everything was fine.

Most of these whole-house systems though just turn on automatically and suck gas (of whichever sort) until they run dry or the grid comes back on, even if the people are partying in Ibiza half the world away.

 

[ericm979]

We have a year old fridge that has a temperature display. When we have outages I turn the generator off at night and for a few hours during the day. The fridge's high and low temps slowly climbed over the days we were out. And that was during winter. I think the fridge has very little reserve capacity to cool itself down from an elevated temp. We saw that when we put it in and filled it with the stuff from the old fridge that had been in coolers. It took days to get down to running temp.

 

[bdhsfz6]

For me, if I'm going to spend the money on a whole house system, I want it to run off of Natural Gas.

Probably the best choice if natural gas is available. It isn't foolproof though.

My brother in law lives near Wilmington NC and installed a whole house natural gas system when he built his place in 1995. When hurricane Floyd hit the area in 1996, there were so many homes destroyed and gas meters ripped out, they had to shut off the gas supply.

Ironically, his neighbor, who had recommended the natural gas system, was able to power his house with a gasoline generator throughout the entire 3 week outage.

Go figure.

 

[DarkBlack]

Nat gas will derate the output of the generator. The values are stated in the spec sheets. For instance, a 24kw generac provides 100 amps on propane but only 87.5 amps on nat gas. It also requires large enough pipe to supply 306,000 btu of energy.

Not sure if you’re responding to my post…. If you are, The two numbers I circled, where at least one of them must be wrong, are both labeled NG