House generator questions...second thoughts on whole house system.

[Bullwinkle123]

What type of generator do you h
ave. $600 for maint sounds real high.

Like I said, mine is an over the top setup. I have a 45KW industrial Kohler setup for a somewhat compound like set of buildings. The price for service has been rising, and you have to factor in years with bigger tasks, like changing coolant and such. Though my service place really ripped me off charging me $150 for a new battery this year. I'm a bit peeved about that. Anyway, my skimping is that I only do service every other year, so $600 every two years isn't horrible. No doubt I could cheap out if I serviced it myself, but I have enough other things to spend time on, and nothing so critical as my generator.

The upside is that my life is completely unchanged on generator power. I can run anything I please, including my welder.

 

[grsthegreat]

Ya, I’ve installed several 45kw in compounds. Those things suck gas. ( I also installed a 48 kw for a customer. The 48 runs at 1800 rpm.the 45 at 3600 rpm. Man…what a major drop in noise. I was real surprised.)but not as much as a 130kw lp unit i serviced years ago. That pig sucked down 22 GPH of propane . It ran on liquid propane too as I recall. This nutter wanted everything in his house on, including heated towel racks. He could care less about propane use. Has several underground tanks.

 

[ultrarunner]

My 125 kW prime Cummins turbo diesel fuel consumptions varies a lot depending on load...

For years a jobber would top me off every year under contract but when we really needed fuel during the utility shut off was told it would be a week maybe more...

Contracts don't mean much when stuff hits the fan...

Topped off yesterday four 5 gallon jugs at a time... 6 trips at $4.89 gallon.

Not diesel red but what you gonna do...?

 

[check]

Yup. Whole house is the way to go. Have a propane powered 17kw Kohler with transfer switch. Very quiet and comes on immediately when the power goes out.

Can check on the tank online, so don’t have to worry about running out of propane.

 

[zzvyb6]

I think its a mistake to use the past outage history as a predictor of future generation needs. Electric cars will overload the capacity, reliability and durability of our power grid. I'm expecting monthly if not weekly outages, even just for 1 hour or so to have rolling black-outs. Stash fuel, cash, and ammo for a likely coming Depression, fueled by inflation, greed, and political bullies.

 

[grsthegreat]

My 125 kW prime Cummins turbo diesel fuel consumptions varies a lot depending on load...

For years a jobber would top me off every year under contract but when we really needed fuel during the utility shut off was told it would be a week maybe more...

Contracts don't mean much when stuff hits the fan...

Topped off yesterday four 5 gallon jugs at a time... 6 trips at $4.89 gallon.

Not diesel red but what you gonna do...?

$4.89 yeiks

 

[MoKelly]

We looked at a whole house generator.

Unfortunately, the electric meter and gas meter are on completely different sides of the house - as far away as possible. The two meters are 165 feet apart going across back yard.

The cost to install was astronomical.

Obviously the person who built the house had no intention of ever installing a generator.

MoKelly

 

[grsthegreat]

That’s where adding a propane tank is way cheaper than piping gas

 

[3Ts]

We have a 22kw Generac with a buried 1000 gal tank. Is it cost effective for the very few outages of short duration we have? No! However, when we lived in Florida, we were without power for 9 days and used a portable and extension cords for the refrigerator and freezer. We are getting older and I do not want to do that again and the heat and humidity will be very difficult for us to deal with as we get older.

As for the maintenance costs, we pay a company to check it out every year with oil changes, etc. for $225 each trip (they're an hour away). The battery is 4 years old, they wanted to change it out every 3 years at $115 each. My feeling is that if the battery needs to changed out every 3 years, it needs a different brand. I'll have them change it out at 5 years for the $115. I checked the cost of the battery at Wal-Mart and it was about $100 (if I get it at a major city it's half that).

 

[MGH PA]

Thanks for all of the various replies! Certainly a lot to consider. Now if I could just find that money tree somewhere...