Whole House Generators

D

David2011

H-M Supporter - Gold Member
H-M Supporter Gold Member
Joined
May 19, 2022
Messages
667
EDIT: The only fuel option for this question is natural gas. I have no interest in propane, butane, gasoline, diesel or solar/battery systems.

The house not including the sunroom and workshop is over 2800 square feet. It has an all electric kitchen and two central air conditioner systems in isolated zones. Total AC capacity is about 8 tons.

END OF EDIT

We’ve been without electricity for over a full week. Our neighborhood used to never lose power but this is the third time this year that we’ve been without for more than 2-3 hours. It’s time to replace our portable generator with a natural gas powered whole house generator.

Generac has the big name and obviously a lot of units in the field but they also seem to have a spotty reputation. Are they a good brand? Is the reputation problem due to the individual business that installs them? What other brands should we consider?
 
Last edited:
You could get a home battery and solar and save on your power bill year round and have silence (no running generator) when the power is out.

Sorry, I don't have any input on generator brands. I've seen the same thing as you, reports of poor reliability from Generac. But I also haven't heard anything from other brands.
 
So, you are in Houston too

Just got my power back on Friday.

Most of the time I ran on my Leaf's battery, with three runs to find a working DC fast charger. That gave me 1 kW off the 40 kWhr battery. Bad electrical part of my gasoline generator, stuck at the fedex depot.

Batteries by themselves are only good for short term. Batteries plus pretty serious solar is a promising solution, but it's a LOT of $$ Tesla solar is far and away the cheapest, because they don't pay for a herd of used-car sales types...

I haven't dug enough into generator reliability vs brands yet. One big step up is getting away from the cheap-o resonant regulated generator heads.

Yes, I am DEFINITELY putting in a natural gas generator. Ad keeping my Leaf setup. And keeping my gasoline setup, if at all possible.... defense in depth.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk
 
400Bird, Thanks. I’m only interested in natural gas power whole house generators. A so-called battery powered “generator” is not going to do much for me. My total air conditioned area if using all of those spaces is up to 3700 square feet with 2 central air units and a 3 head mini-split. That includes the attached workshop, an all seasons room and the house. Realistically, for a few days cooling just the house at around 2800 square feet would be enough and it’s divided into two HVAC zones.

We’ve been running a 5500 watt continuous generator nonstop except for adding gasoline and checking the oil for a solid week. That is keeping the master bedroom cool, running two refrigerators, some fans, 3 LED lights and a small TV that I hooked up to an antenna just to get the news reports. We can also run our choice of a hot plate, a toaster or the coffee maker but only one at a time.
 
Weldingrod1 said:
So, you are in Houston too

Just got my power back on Friday.

Most of the time I ran on my Leaf's battery, with three runs to find a working DC fast charger. That gave me 1 kW off the 40 kWhr battery. Bad electrical part of my gasoline generator, stuck at the fedex depot.

Batteries by themselves are only good for short term. Batteries plus pretty serious solar is a promising solution, but it's a LOT of $$ Tesla solar is far and away the cheapest, because they don't pay for a herd of used-car sales types...

I haven't dug enough into generator reliability vs brands yet. One big step up is getting away from the cheap-o resonant regulated generator heads.

Yes, I am DEFINITELY putting in a natural gas generator. Ad keeping my Leaf setup. And keeping my gasoline setup, if at all possible.... defense in depth.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Yes, over in Baytown. Our neighborhood has 81 houses and most got power yesterday. There are 5 houses in a row that don’t. My next door neighbor on one side got power but we and the next four consecutive houses are without. The repair people have to wait for orders from their dispatcher to come back and find out why some of us are still without.

Our power is all underground. A much larger subdivision down the street has above ground poles and many have to be replaced. We’re concerned that we may have to wait until that work is done. There is no reliable information.

Some people are really angry with CenterPoint. Previous hurricanes that were stronger didn’t do the damage to the electrical system that Beryl has. About 2.3 million customers lost power. The angry people seem to think it should have all been repaired in a day or two. I think the people doing the work are doing a good job. I don’t think the coordination from the top is performing as they should.
 
Your experience sounds like just the opposite of what’s happened here. When we were kids rural electrification was an in progress project. We lived about 5 miles out of town and would lose power for several days at a time as the result of a minor rain or snow storm.

It was so bad my dad considered buying a generator to mount on his David Bradley Suburban garden tractor.

These days all the power lines are buried, and the transformers are in locked enclosures at ground level. If a problem does occur it’s unlikely the lines will be affected, and a transformer can be replace within an hour
 
A friend went for one with a Kohler engine version. He loses power lots over the winter. Powers the house, the well and barn.
 
There’s quite an extensive thread on this subject intitled “OT Home Backup Power Generators” in the “General” forum on the professional machinists website. Lots of input and good information
 
I have a whole house 22kw Generac run from propane. I’m not sure what brand the engine is, everything visible says Generac. It is 2.5 years old and has been fine, but that is not much time to really evaluate it. Our longest outage so far was about 3 hours. We do get moisture in the oil from exercising it for 5 minutes each week without load, Generac says that is normal and nothing to worry about. I believe we paid $14k installed with the transfer switch, getting a smaller unit running only the vital circuits was only $1k cheaper, so we went whole house. We bought it during the height of covid shortages, so don’t know if prices have come down any. At the time we bought it, the electrical contractor we bought it through had 50 generators on back order and delivery was about 4-6 months, so you might not to wait too long to decide on what you want, many of your neighbors might be thinking the same thing. We got lucky ours came two months earlier than expected.

Being up north, it is very comforting knowing if the power goes out in the winter when we are away will not result in frozen pipes, if you need to worry about that where you live, the rest of us are screwed lol.
 
I have had a Generac 22kw standby. On Monday morning, I didn't even know the power was out until I walked outside and heard the generator running. I have had that generator for 6 years and never had any problems with it. A neighbor had one just like mine. When he sold the property, they cut the power. The generator ran for 7-10 days. Monday morning that same generator was running, and it didn't get turned off for 5 days. That is confirmation to me that it is pretty reliable. ;)
My generator has been one of my best purchases. I never have to worry when the media warns of impending doom, power brown outs, etc. If you can afford one, by all means buy one. The piece of mind alone is worth it. Another plus is that I never have to worry about finding and purchasing gasoline during an outage :applause 2: Just be careful on who installs it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top