Generac or Koehler whole house generator?

[Darth_DMack]

I have two gensets. I have a 5.5kw Cummins / Onan genset in my Toy Hauler, that has never worked properly. I don't believe it's the genset's fault, but a dirty fuel supply, that constantly clogs up the carburetor. In fact, my RV is at the local Cummins shop now, getting the genset back up and running.

For home, I have a GENERAC 26kw stand alone genset. I have a 1,000 gal propane tank buried, and it supplies all of my appliances in my home (on demand propane hot water heater, propane fireplace, propane range, etc.)

I had the GENERAC installed while we built our home. I have a separate 200A ATS installed, and all of my electrical systems are partitioned. I can isolate what I want to power via my genset, in case of long term outages, to ration propane consumption. The 26kw unit will power every thing in my house, with zero issue.

Being rural, our power grid is spotty. Seems like every time it rains, our power goes out. I'm about to do the first scheduled service on the unit, oil change, etc... but so far, the unit has performed flawlessly. With the exception of the last storm. We had an instance where the power "blinked" off and on a few times before actually going out. My unit will automatically start after XX seconds with no utility power. The power stayed off for almost two hours, and the genset ran the entire time, and was not noticeable. After about two hours, the genset just shut off. But, the house remained dark. It was raining buckets outside, so I went out to see if there were issues with the genset. I could not find any issues... so, I called my neighbor down the street and he said that the power had been restored, which is why my genset shut off. I check the ATS, and sure enough, the "breaker" did not return to the UP position, and transfer back to utility power. I used the little yellow handled tool that is provided, and flipped the breaker back to the UP position, and BINGO... utility power restored.

No idea why it did that, but it has not done it since.

The mobile link app for the genset is nice, it shows when it is "exercising", or when it is in power production mode. I have the extended 5 year warranty on the unit as well.

So far (8 months) I am very pleased with it.

 

[sandman2234]

Personal safety - water, power, food, etc. require a stable solution.
Relying on any one form of fuel to provide electricity to get through a time of need is not the way to go unless it's foolproof.
A diesel generator with a 10,000 gallon tank would be ideal
I've a 10Kw Winco PTO generator and diesel tractors to run it.
I've two "dual fuel" (LPG & RUG) generators.
I'm trying to build up some solar (only 2 panels now)
And I've a woodstove and fireplaces with plenty of available wood.
Plus I've mentioned the DeWalt power station which use my already charged batteries.
None of these are a "total" solution, but so far they have given me piece of mind, and a little electricity.

Do you have solar panels that feed your Dewalt power station?
Daughter has a Jackery power station that has a couple solar cells to keep it charged and extend the usage time. Keeps her cell phone charged and a fan blowing, lol, which is why she bought it!
David from jax

 

[RSKY]

During the 2009 ice storm here in Western Kentucky we relied on a 4K gas generator, then added a 2K gas unit from our daughter's when we could get there to pick it up. We used these for more than three weeks. Simply ran power cords under the garage door and all thru the house to whatever needed power. This included two freezers and two fridges. The freezers and fridges were run off the 2K unit with them being set very low and rotated one at a time on the genset. We used an indoor/outdoor thermometer to check the temp in the units and changed accordingly. We got gas cans from everybody and drove fifty miles to refill them.

We got by but neither my wife, daughters, sister in law, or mother could pull start the 4K one. They would refill the gas tank without shutting down the engine if no men were there. So a year or so later I bought a bigger electric start 8.5K one on sale from Sam's Club. Then a couple times stretching the power cords all over the house convinced me that if something happened to me that my wife couldn't handle the problem. So we got the whole house system.

Also, I should probably add that when anything happens everybody ends up at our house. At one time during the ice storm aftermath we had fifteen or sixteen people sleeping in our house. And we heated with two sets of gas logs. Including water for baths heated on one of the gas log stoves.

RSKY

 

[newbury]

Do you have solar panels that feed your Dewalt power station?
Daughter has a Jackery power station that has a couple solar cells to keep it charged and extend the usage time. Keeps her cell phone charged and a fan blowing, lol, which is why she bought it!
David from jax

Nope, I got the first generator like I wrote after Isabel.
My wife didn't like the dark, she would light candles when the power went out. After Isabel, she'd light candles or ask me to fire up the generator. I'd just grab one of my ubiquitous Harbor Freight freebee flashlights.
The power station let me plug in a light, laptop, small over the air TV, etc. so she'd keep occupied, not worry about the power being out, not light candles. Not bug me.
We've had maybe 4 outages in 40 years in the Virginia house that lasted more than a couple of hours.
Most power outages I get through with the little blue oval HF free flashlights I have hanging all over the place.
I'm just getting into the solar panels, waiting for some major sales.

 

[ning]

Low generator loads will always be inefficient. At a 0% load, you have a O% efficiency.
“strict rpm requirements” is irrelevant for these tables as the machine is running the same fixed speed at both a 50% load and 100% load measurement points.

This chart shows a 61% increase using NG, from 50% to 100% load. Reasonable numbers

Again, the first 10kw chart has a mistake in the numbers I circled.
I don’t understand how you don’t see it.
These erroneous measurements, or misprinted numbers happens all the time in published specifications, be it owners manuals, or online articles. No guessing of technical reasons to explain the numbers. Simply a case for Occam’s razor.

I did note that the difference you circled seems very high but it's similar in concept to the other numbers - the other charge shows a 61% increase of fuel use for a 100% load difference, which indicates that the 50% load operation is much less efficient than the 100%. Not the same poor efficiency of the 101/127 numbers for certain - but that can also be explained by the tune of the engine involved.

If you know that your load is almost always going to be near 100%, you're fine with a tune which heavily prioritizes the 100% load, even if it means a 50% load consumes almost the same amount of fuel as the 100%. Overall you're going to save on fuel. On the other hand, a home generator should probably not be so focused on 100% - in fact I'd consider it backwards, that a home generator needs to be able to handle max load only intermittently and is more likely to be running at 25-50%... but then I don't live in the deep south where you're likely to have every AC in the house on 24/7.

I strongly suspect that RPM matters and is not irrelevant. (as in, i'm absolutely positive!)

The most efficient RPM for a 50% load may well be different than the most efficient RPM for a 100% load, but if you're constrained to a single RPM because of an RPM-tied AC frequency, one or the other of those - presumably the 50% load - will be less efficient.

This is why inverter generators are more efficient, because they can generate a 60Hz AC voltage from idle.
In ICE applications which aren't constrained by RPM choice, you can easily see that the RPM a given load can be significantly different than the RPM for another load - check out a CVT car sometime - a big part of the programming for RPM selection there is efficiency.

 

[grsthegreat]

I have two gensets. I have a 5.5kw Cummins / Onan genset in my Toy Hauler, that has never worked properly. I don't believe it's the genset's fault, but a dirty fuel supply, that constantly clogs up the carburetor. In fact, my RV is at the local Cummins shop now, getting the genset back up and running.

For home, I have a GENERAC 26kw stand alone genset. I have a 1,000 gal propane tank buried, and it supplies all of my appliances in my home (on demand propane hot water heater, propane fireplace, propane range, etc.)

I had the GENERAC installed while we built our home. I have a separate 200A ATS installed, and all of my electrical systems are partitioned. I can isolate what I want to power via my genset, in case of long term outages, to ration propane consumption. The 26kw unit will power every thing in my house, with zero issue.

Being rural, our power grid is spotty. Seems like every time it rains, our power goes out. I'm about to do the first scheduled service on the unit, oil change, etc... but so far, the unit has performed flawlessly. With the exception of the last storm. We had an instance where the power "blinked" off and on a few times before actually going out. My unit will automatically start after XX seconds with no utility power. The power stayed off for almost two hours, and the genset ran the entire time, and was not noticeable. After about two hours, the genset just shut off. But, the house remained dark. It was raining buckets outside, so I went out to see if there were issues with the genset. I could not find any issues... so, I called my neighbor down the street and he said that the power had been restored, which is why my genset shut off. I check the ATS, and sure enough, the "breaker" did not return to the UP position, and transfer back to utility power. I used the little yellow handled tool that is provided, and flipped the breaker back to the UP position, and BINGO... utility power restored.

No idea why it did that, but it has not done it since.

The mobile link app for the genset is nice, it shows when it is "exercising", or when it is in power production mode. I have the extended 5 year warranty on the unit as well.

So far (8 months) I am very pleased with it.

tug on the little spade clips on both of the coils...actually give a slight tug on all 8 of the wires on the transfer switch. make sure they dont unplug easily. if the do, there not making proper contact. just squeeze the connector a little with a pliers and reinstall any loose ones.

 

[ponytug]

I have two gensets. I have a 5.5kw Cummins / Onan genset in my Toy Hauler, that has never worked properly. I don't believe it's the genset's fault, but a dirty fuel supply, that constantly clogs up the carburetor. In fact, my RV is at the local Cummins shop now, getting the genset back up and running.

For home, I have a GENERAC 26kw stand alone genset. I have a 1,000 gal propane tank buried, and it supplies all of my appliances in my home (on demand propane hot water heater, propane fireplace, propane range, etc.)

I had the GENERAC installed while we built our home. I have a separate 200A ATS installed, and all of my electrical systems are partitioned. I can isolate what I want to power via my genset, in case of long term outages, to ration propane consumption. The 26kw unit will power every thing in my house, with zero issue.

Being rural, our power grid is spotty. Seems like every time it rains, our power goes out. I'm about to do the first scheduled service on the unit, oil change, etc... but so far, the unit has performed flawlessly. With the exception of the last storm. We had an instance where the power "blinked" off and on a few times before actually going out. My unit will automatically start after XX seconds with no utility power. The power stayed off for almost two hours, and the genset ran the entire time, and was not noticeable. After about two hours, the genset just shut off. But, the house remained dark. It was raining buckets outside, so I went out to see if there were issues with the genset. I could not find any issues... so, I called my neighbor down the street and he said that the power had been restored, which is why my genset shut off. I check the ATS, and sure enough, the "breaker" did not return to the UP position, and transfer back to utility power. I used the little yellow handled tool that is provided, and flipped the breaker back to the UP position, and BINGO... utility power restored.

No idea why it did that, but it has not done it since.

The mobile link app for the genset is nice, it shows when it is "exercising", or when it is in power production mode. I have the extended 5 year warranty on the unit as well.

So far (8 months) I am very pleased with it.

My neighbor has a Generac that had the same issue in reverse, and called me. i.e. the generator started, but one of the two ATS didn't switch.

tug on the little spade clips on both of the coils...actually give a slight tug on all 8 of the wires on the transfer switch. make sure they dont unplug easily. if the do, there not making proper contact. just squeeze the connector a little with a pliers and reinstall any loose ones.

It turned exactly as @grsthegreat suggested, and one of the wires to the transfer solenoid/coil was loose. Those coils are hefty and fast, so watch your fingers if the switch is live.

All the best,

Peter

 

[IXLR8]

One of my neighbors has a Generac whole house system, I think it is a 22Kw generator. It is noisy but tolerable. My other neighbor just installed a Kohler system, no idea on the size. It is VERY loud, the loudest of the 4 in the neighborhood. My other neighbor has a cheap 5Kw portable unit, it is slightly louder than the Generac. Me, I got a Honda 7Kw inverter generator that I can't hear running from inside the house. The only issue with it is that it won't run the 4 ton AC unit in our new house. So I am looking for a whole house generator in the 14Kw range. This has been a timely thread for me. Still deciding what unit I want to go with. Whatever I do I will set it up for manual start and manual switch over.

 

[grsthegreat]

I installed the resurrected 10 kw for manual start in my shop, so i can control roll up doors and lights during an outage ( thats when i get my calls alot of the times).

I built my own manual start/stop switch with 2 digital displays for output. Have manual transfer switch for panel. This unit is large enough to power air compressor also, if i need to top of tires.

On the generac units, after 2008, you can switch out the controller to operate on 2 wire start instead of auto utility drop out. This way it still exercises automatically.

 

[LittleBill21]

One of my neighbors has a Generac whole house system, I think it is a 22Kw generator. It is noisy but tolerable. My other neighbor just installed a Kohler system, no idea on the size. It is VERY loud, the loudest of the 4 in the neighborhood. My other neighbor has a cheap 5Kw portable unit, it is slightly louder than the Generac. Me, I got a Honda 7Kw inverter generator that I can't hear running from inside the house. The only issue with it is that it won't run the 4 ton AC unit in our new house. So I am looking for a whole house generator in the 14Kw range. This has been a timely thread for me. Still deciding what unit I want to go with. Whatever I do I will set it up for manual start and manual switch over.

before you do that buy and install this if its a startup issue. be aware you can parallel the 7k to get to 14kw

Amazon.com