Whole House Generators

[Nutfarmer]

We use the Miller portable welder in generator mode for backup power. The 10 KW will run the well and what ever else we need. A good way to justify the portable welder. Never can have too many tools

 

[jocat54]

We have a 22kw Generac on propane. Got it after the Feb 2021 snow storm in Texas (temps to -6 and 10-12 inches of snow and no electricity for 3 days and we both had covid. Never doing that again if I can help it.
We have had pretty frequent power outages lately and the generator has been really nice to have. will run heat/ac, electric stove, water well and we have Tv and internet.
Paid right at $12000 installed with 7 year warranty.

 

[David2011]

I used to be a dealer for Briggs standby generators. Mostly the wife was the one that insisted on it, northern Michigan winters and all. Without power your pipes will freeze even if the furnace is propane or NG.

Find a dealer you trust to do the install and maintenance, this is one of those purchases where service makes or breaks the product.

Or, select and install one yourself. It’ll have to be pretty big to run AC units along with your refrigerator and lighting.

If you get an air cooled unit shut it down and check the oil every day. They can and will burn themselves up with a constant supply of fuel.

Water cooled may be a better choice with your requirements. If in doubt go bigger, the better transfer switches can be programmed to manage loads.

I’m sure demand will be high right now so it might take some time before you can get someone out to consult. Look around the neighborhood and see if anyone has trucks out servicing the units they’ve sold, that’ll give you an idea of who to talk with and maybe even knock on the door and ask how they like the company.

During the big ice storm we had in 2011? I spent a lot of time servicing both standby units and portables. I was joined by our local HVAC company, the other standby dealer was on vacation in Florida. If you have a good HVAC guy ask them for recommendations.

Joh

I’ll look into water cooled generators. I’m really tired of the drone of the air cooled engine. My brother tried to give me a more than adequate water cooled generator a few years ago but the wife didn’t want any part of it at the time. It was 35kw or thereabouts. With a natural gas carburetor it would have run the entire house and then some.

 

[Rich Berg]

Hi, a few years ago, I've been taking care of about 200 generators at our facility from 20KW to 5 megawatt units, Generac was getting popular because they are cheaper than other brands, you get what you pay for. most of us homeowners don't want to pay for a high quality one like Onan and Kohler. the Generac units use the cheapest stuff (Chinese usually) that they can make a generator out of.
the Generac units are serviceable enough for a homeowner.
because of the price, in your case I do believe that natural gas is the way to go for the home and the oil stays cleaner.
the biggest problem is many people completely forget about the all-important maintenance.
I might consider Generac but first would look to see what is available from the high-quality brands.
Good luck Rich

 

[ArmyDoc]

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?

We bought our first Generac in 2014/2015. It was a 21K unit and was set up to do the downstairs of our house. We just moved it over to run my parents house, and got a new Generac 23k that will do the whole house. The new unit is about 2/3 the size of the old one. We don't have natural gas available at the house, so we run off propane, but my understanding is they can be set up for either.
I'm only one person, but we've been very happy with ours.

 

[RJSakowski]

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

Not all the lines are buried out here in the boonies, just 20 miles from you/ We have a 1/3rd mile of feed to our residence that was buried about 20 years ago when the power company got tired of repairing lines every time the wind picked up slightly. Some other neighbors on a side road convinced the power company to bury their line after a tornado savaged their overland feed about ten years ago. Aside from those two runs, electric service is still overhead,

Some forty years ago, the power company decided to clear all the 80 y.o. trees along the lines. Big mistake as the new growth quickly reached the lines and with a little rain and wind, they would short out the line. The path was too steep for mowing so it was unmanaged until a fault occurred. FYI, the potassium in black locust creates a neat purple arc. A pole out in the open has a charred section to the ground where a direct strike started a fire five years ago.


Since burying the line, the service disruption went from an almost weekly occurrence to several times a year. Nevertheless, we lost power a few weeks back when a tree pulled the line down at the end of our property. For some reason,the power feeds from two directions and although our section is buried, the fuse didn't disconnect the fault continuing our service. Just yesterday, a fault occur ed at the same spot but this time only our neighbor lost power.

 

[twraska]

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.

You mentioned the problem, Centerpoint and them making crews wait instead of letting them fix the lines. Pure mismanagement on their part.

 

[David2011]

Yeah. So many are just sitting and waiting for instructions. I saw an elementary school parking lot full of crews this morning. We finally started seeing repair crews in our area in force yesterday. This morning I had to leave the house around 8:30 and to my delight there were 5 linemen and trucks in our cul-de-sac. At 1:15 they’re still trying to figure out why 17 out of 81 homes in the neighborhood don’t have power. They told me that they don’t have good documentation on the underground lines in the neighborhood. The outages are scattered; not adjacent to one another. As we left the neighborhood a few minutes ago they were getting ready to dig with a big skid steer.

 

[David2011]

We bought our first Generac in 2014/2015. It was a 21K unit and was set up to do the downstairs of our house. We just moved it over to run my parents house, and got a new Generac 23k that will do the whole house. The new unit is about 2/3 the size of the old one. We don't have natural gas available at the house, so we run off propane, but my understanding is they can be set up for either.
I'm only one person, but we've been very happy with ours.

I think for the purposes of this discussion there is little difference between LPG and natural gas. Most of the specs I’ve seen indicate that they can be ordered for either fuel.

 

[matthewsx]

Actually most will come with different jets for switching from ng to LPG.

John