Home Depot Generator sale

[Thomas]

Saw HD sale and purchase Generac 5500 3 weeks ago for $400..saving of $250..sure hope we don't get another ice storm to try it out.

 

[Dargo]

No sale in my area. Prices are quite a bit higher than last year. Store has no traffic. Maybe 4 cars in the lot. Looks like they need to have a sale!

 

[firefighter9208]

I have a Generac 5500/8500. Had it about 5 years. Bought it at Home Depot. It's been a great purchase. I use it all the time to build barns/fences etc.... Have the house wired so I can run the refrig. and freezer if we have an outage. Also, lights and blower on the gas logs. I just have to manage the loads. Wish it had auto throttle.

I ordered my mother a Generac 8500/13500 online. It's electric start with pressure lube. It runs about 30 minutes a month. Only used it about an hour during one outage. This one has auto throttle.

Chris

 

[JB4310]

I have the auto throttle or idle control or what ever they call it, on a couple of small portables.

It will only idle down if there is no draw on at all, even if you turn on the smallest light it speeds right up to 3600 rpm's

Comes in handy on a construction job where you might be using power tools intermittently, so the genny is not racing away with no load on it. But I don't see how it would help as a home back up machine, where there's always gonna be something on, else you wouldn't be running the generator.

Unless it's some new technology I'm not aware of, where the machine can still put out stable power at varying RPM's and loads.
Are the new inverter types capable of that?

JB.

 

[firefighter9208]

I mostly use my generator for the operation of power tools. Skill saw or Porter Cable pancake compressor to run a nail gun. The auto idle would be great for the times that you aren't running the saw or the compressor isn't running.

I've only had to use my generator once in the past 5 years to power the house and that was for less than 3 hours. I did get home last week and the power had been off for about 3 hours. It was getting dark and my wife was about to get home, so I plugged in the generator and cranked it. In about 10 minutes the power came back on.

Chris