Stand by generators

[southerndeere]

At this point (you already bought it), it makes no difference what the fuel consumption is. You will pay the cost of fuel or you simply don't run it. My 8000 running watt /10,000 surge watt Generac portable claims to run 11 hours @ 50% load on a tank of fuel which lists as 7.5 gallon capacity so 1.46 GPH. I have only ran it a few minutes to check it out. It was hard to start the first time also. I had to remove the air filter and spray gas directly into the carb to get it to fire and run and continue this for a minute or so till it finally primed up and ran on its own. Fuel shut off is a bit confusing also, so had to remove the fuel line to be certain which way was flowing fuel.

I have had to do that on several new out of the box generacs

 

[crazyal]

I'm not questioning you but when I was looking at diesel generators in the 10k running range fuel consumption was about a half gallon an hour at 50% load. I know diesels should be more fuel efficient but I wouldn't expect 3x.

 

[nc redneck]

My 18KW whole house generac just turned off 20 minuets ago from a 30 hour run. Strong storm hit us yesterday afternoon, 30 inch pine trees snapped off at base. We were the last 120 customers to get power. Just for fun me and wife got out and watched power crews get there bucket trucks stuck in the mud and pulled out by John Deer bulldozer. These guys have worked there but off for last 24 hours.
Generators are like tractors you can never have one to big. They are expensive and a pain to maintain, but when you need them you need one bad.
Neighbors down the road have no water, power or anything. We were warm, using bathroom when needed and watching satellite TV all day.
Just my thoughts

 

[grsthegreat]

My 18KW whole house generac just turned off 20 minuets ago from a 30 hour run. Strong storm hit us yesterday afternoon, 30 inch pine trees snapped off at base. We were the last 120 customers to get power. Just for fun me and wife got out and watched power crews get there bucket trucks stuck in the mud and pulled out by John Deer bulldozer. These guys have worked there but off for last 24 hours.
Generators are like tractors you can never have one to big. They are expensive and a pain to maintain, but when you need them you need one bad.
Neighbors down the road have no water, power or anything. We were warm, using bathroom when needed and watching satellite TV all day.
Just my thoughts

yup....ive already spent 2 separate Christmases running my house on my generator. Mine was the only house that i could see from the porch that was lit up. I pretty much dont care what the unit costs.

My current unit is an Onan, but im in the process of swapping that out to a larger Generac...not sure if ill go air cooled or liquid cooled at this point. I can get an air cooled 20KW unit for about $2800 or a liquid cooled 22KW unit for around $6,800.

im just waiting for summer and im doing some more online research to see if liquid cooled is worth the increased costs. Still not convinced if i need a liquid cooled unit. My old 3600 rpm air cooled unit is nearing 18 years of use with no issues

 

[southerndeere]

yup....ive already spent 2 separate Christmases running my house on my generator. Mine was the only house that i could see from the porch that was lit up. I pretty much dont care what the unit costs.

My current unit is an Onan, but im in the process of swapping that out to a larger Generac...not sure if ill go air cooled or liquid cooled at this point. I can get an air cooled 20KW unit for about $2800 or a liquid cooled 22KW unit for around $6,800.

im just waiting for summer and im doing some more online research to see if liquid cooled is worth the increased costs. Still not convinced.

My experiencethe liquid unit if serviced properly holds up better

 

[GrandLakeGAR]

Here is an advantage of a standby unit that may get over looked. Today was sunny, clear and in the high 60's but in the middle of the first NFL play off game the power flickered a time or two and then shut off. My Generac fired up and all our group missed was part of a commercial break. In the past with my portable I would have set a while wondering if it would be off ten minutes or ten hours, then decide on how long to wait before going through the get out, fuel and hook up routine and then have the power return about the time I got it started, as has happened in the past. Power came back on during the third quarter of the second game. I never left my chair or missed a play. These units are nice for more than just major outages. Making your own electricity is expensive and convenience has a price, it's worth it to me.

 

[southerndeere]

Here is an advantage of a standby unit that may get over looked. Today was sunny, clear and in the high 60's but in the middle of the first NFL play off game the power flickered a time or two and then shut off. My Generac fired up and all our group missed was part of a commercial break. In the past with my portable I would have set a while wondering if it would be off ten minutes or ten hours, then decide on how long to wait before going through the get out, fuel and hook up routine and then have the power return about the time I got it started, as has happened in the past. Power came back on during the third quarter of the second game. I never left my chair or missed a play. These units are nice for more than just major outages. Making your own electricity is expensive and convenience has a price, it's worth it to me.

That's what im talking about. I may nothavean auto but I can have my welder hooked up an juice flowing in 5 minutes.

 

[GManBart]

Are you talking portable or stand alone? I haven't seen any stand alone NG/ Propane generators that are also set up to burn gasoline.

I was just saying that my NG generator only requires pushing a lever to have it work with propane (obviously after some piping/fitting changes). I know they make tri-fuel setups for portable generators, but I'm not sure if anybody makes one for a stand alone designed for NG/propane. Based on my rough calculations, I think I figured out that I should be able to run my 20Kw setup for around 12 hours at half load using a 100gal propane tank, so I might eventually get a couple to keep on hand, and sort out the piping issues so I could drop them next to the unit, change connections, and be back up and running if something happens to the NG supply. Historically NG infrastructure has been pretty robust in all but earthquakes, so I'm not terribly worried, but I certainly do like backups, and options! R,

 

[GManBart]

My 18KW whole house generac just turned off 20 minuets ago from a 30 hour run. Strong storm hit us yesterday afternoon, 30 inch pine trees snapped off at base. We were the last 120 customers to get power. Just for fun me and wife got out and watched power crews get there bucket trucks stuck in the mud and pulled out by John Deer bulldozer. These guys have worked there but off for last 24 hours.
Generators are like tractors you can never have one to big. They are expensive and a pain to maintain, but when you need them you need one bad.
Neighbors down the road have no water, power or anything. We were warm, using bathroom when needed and watching satellite TV all day.
Just my thoughts

Been there, done that....it's a comforting feeling not having to worry about power. When we were moving into our current house the power was out for over three days and it was really hot that week, so we were lucky to still be in the old house. After a couple of shorter outages upwards of 12hrs, we decided to go with a whole house unit, and we're really glad we did.

Everybody's situation is different, but my wife has a pretty high-level position where she works from home. The company is actually in D.C., so if we lose power it's not like she can just drive to the office. She can't be cut off from phones and computers, so we have backups for everything....the standby generator, an 11kw portable generator, cellular phones, mobile hotspot for data, etc, etc. With the frequency we lose power out here in the boonies, it's simply too much of a risk to her job to not have things set up to run automatically. Further, I sometimes have to travel for work (up to a couple of weeks at a time), and she would struggle physically to maintain a portable generator with fuel because she's quite petite. Sure, she could probably figure a way to use one of our hand trucks to bring the fuel cans back to the generator (outside hookup is behind the house), but that sort of thing would be hard on her, and I simply don't want her to have to deal with that sort of stuff. As it is now, it's pretty much a non-event when we lose power

 

[DKCDKC]

As I advance in years, relatives and friends nearby with medical issues - oxygen for example - have invested in whole-house generators. Since we don't have natural gas out here in the country, they are all on propane. And, if I get into a medical problem, I would do it too. But right now I am very happy with a small 6 kw gasoline unit. My service - a mile long - is underground and I am out very rarely, and usually for less than a half hour. I am on a co-op and they have a lot better outage rate than the investor owned electric utility I once worked for. If I have reason to believe that power will be out for more than a half hour or so, I just fire up and plug in my little generator ($150 at an auction almost new). It powers the frig and lights - and the water pump if I turn other stuff off. I have a wood stove for heat in the winter and lots of fans for cooling in the summer. Living in Virginia's mountains means not having a lot of extreme weather anyway. With a generator, like any other equipment, you pick something that will meet reasonable minimums for a reasonable cost. I prefer to keep my dollars for other things where I can.