3 day power outage, Westinghouse generator experience

Only ptoblem, Westinghouse claims it still exists and is the same company that was formed in 1886. If its true, they are licensing the name. If it is not true, it is fraud.

"Guided by our legacy of innovation and quality, we partner closely with industry leaders in product development, manufacturing, and design to curate a selection of high-performing products for residential and industrial customers worldwide."

This says it all. The industry leader that makes their inverter "IgenXXXX" models also makes generators for Generac and dozen+ other companies. So despite where it's made they're partnering with an industry leader. After reading the thread in its entirety, I struggle to see how this is fraud?

Read product reviews, research the brand history if you must, but they're not hiding anything. If I'm spending more than a Benjamin on something, I'm looking it up and I'll know in less than a half hour whether it's worth buying.
 
I've seen plenty of this brand of genset the last two years and they seem to be just fine.

Not sure what the valve lash intervals are, its supposed lifespan, or where to get parts locally like a Honda or Yamaha, but so far no I know with one has needed any work yet and som are 3 years old now.
 
GE is the same way. Household goods sold with the GE name have nothing to do with the original company. The real GE now only makes big ticket stuff: equipment for power plants, MRI and other medical machines, and jet engines.

Almost every "household name" has been bought and sold several times.

The invention that made George Westinghouse rich in the first place wasn't even electric. He only got rich because he was also good at business. People like Nikola Tesla who are purely inventors and not businessmen never get rich by inventing stuff. The best ones get something named after them. In Tesla's case it is a unit of measure of magnetic fields, not a car-- Elon just appropriated that.
GE sold their appliance business to Haier several years ago. GE Appliances, the official name bought and paid for, is used by Haier and it's not a German Co. They are Chinese.
 
Good to hear the success of your generators. I have the iGen2200 and have luckily only had to actually use it for about 3 hours when the power company was replacing the main power line to us. I only ran a couple table lamps and a ceramic heater on medium.

L8R,
Matt
 
Good to hear your investment worked great.

I have a Firman T07571 model from Costco and run extension cords when we had freezing rain this year.

My main panel is outside and right by the natural gas meter. I will hook it up this season to the main panel with an interlock and use natural gas. This way I won’t have to worry about getting gas, plus storage will be much easier.

I still have a 5 gallon gas can though, plus I could always siphon from my minivan in a pinch.
 
It is a fraudulent misrepresentation because decades of association with industrial quality manufacture built goodwill in the public market place, If the seller of the trade mark sells it without requiring the buyer to hold to those same high standards , it misleads the buyer into thinking the product will perform to the original Westinghouse standards.

What if Hershey chocolate sold the rights to the Hershey name without any product standards, and the chocolate bars sold as Hershey bars were total crap, not the quality that the buyer thought he was getting. Not fraud?
Not at all; in this case Hershey has the rights to sell, license, etc. their IP, including brands... Caveat Emptor and do your homework.
 
Fraud or not isn't really the most meaningful question to me.

The real question for me is whether the name actually stands for anything, or is the product in any way unique or a stand out.

Aside from the name it could be any number of a dozen or almost otherwise identical rebadged products.

I'm sure if cared for it will probably last a fairly long time and when the electrical end shorts, or motor gives up its a probably a throw away at that point, but maybe not.
 
Had a strong thunderstorm followed by a freak windstorm on Friday. Guess that's the price to pay for several days of 70+ degree temps in late Feb/early March. I think the jury is still out on max recorded wind speed (I heard 70mph+), but it was enough to split healthy trees apart that lined my driveway.

Power went out around 2:30pm Friday, didn't get it back until early Monday morning.

Hooked my Westinghouse 2500W inverter generator up with extension cords for the first night. Lots of strung cords, not ideal, but not unsafe either. With the kitchen fridge and two chest freezers running, I didn't see over 800W sustained load at any time. Plugged my computer, internet router, stuff to get Wi-Fi working, and also the entertainment center in the living room (TV, sound system, etc.) Saw about 1000W sustained loan with all those things, of course higher momentary peak load when the fridge or a freezer kicked on. Didn't miss a beat and ran through a little less than two gallons of gas with that unit in about 24 hours.

After making a trip through the neighborhood the following morning it was clear we'd be without power for a while and house was getting cold. I hooked my Westinghouse 9500DF to the manual transfer switch and ran the whole house and shop off that. Was good for a single 30A 240V appliance (water heater, heat pump, clothes dryer, etc.) while leaving all 120V circuits on. Ate through two 20# BBQ grill sized propane tanks and about 15 gallons of gas the last two days using the bigger generator. But all in all I'm pretty pleased with the performance and glad I have these things around, even though they don't get used much. Saved me several hundred dollars in food at the very least.

I know I am posting to an old thread -

But why not connect your small generator to the manual transfer switch?

I hook my Honda 2500 watt to a manual transfer switch and feed the whole electrical panel.

I do flip the 240 volt breakers off and I need to manage the power a little - like don't run my HVAC heater fan motor while running the microwave and making a cup of coffee -

But it sure beats running extension cords all over.

Check Amazon for an adapter cord - my transfer switch is a L14-30P (male) and the small generator is a L5-30R (female)

So I use an L5-30P to L14-30R adapter / combined with a L14-30P to L14-30R power cord. Works great.

Like these -


They make adapters for just about any configuration.
 
Poor Nikolai Tesla. The original Westinghouse Corporation was saved when he gave up his royalties on all of his technologies he licensed to them. He wound up as an impoverished man and died while in residence in a New York hotel. At least Westinghouse paid his rent.

And now Elon Musk has appropriated his name as a business name.
The rock group Tesla did OK for a while.

The Westinghouse trade name has been bought and sold several times. Toshiba was in the mix recently and basically screwed thousands of home owners with their poorly engineered HVAC equipment. Then went bankrupt again and left the dealers they courted hanging out to dry, supporting 10 year warranties on junky equipment.
 
I know I am posting to an old thread -

But why not connect your small generator to the manual transfer switch?

I hook my Honda 2500 watt to a manual transfer switch and feed the whole electrical panel.

I do flip the 240 volt breakers off and I need to manage the power a little - like don't run my HVAC heater fan motor while running the microwave and making a cup of coffee -

But it sure beats running extension cords all over.

Check Amazon for an adapter cord - my transfer switch is a L14-30P (male) and the small generator is a L5-30R (female)

So I use an L5-30P to L14-30R adapter / combined with a L14-30P to L14-30R power cord. Works great.

Like these -


They make adapters for just about any configuration.
Not worth the hassle of managing power, stepping up to a 5500 watt that can do 220v loads if needed and power multiple 110v is a better choice IMO.
 
A really good current example of how this quality level, (or rather lack of it), is determined by the free market, and not the courtroom, is in the firearms world.

Ruger not too long ago purchased Marlin. But going back well before that, Marlin originally was operating as a stand alone company. They were flirting with bankruptcy at the time. Even though they produced some of the finest quality lever action rifles made anywhere. (The Marlin Model 39-A was an all but legendary heirloom quality .22). But they couldn't make money overall for various reasons.

When Ruger purchased Marlin, it was wholly owned and operated by the Freedom Group, who also owned Remington Arms. They were a huge conglomerate of companies that were run by corporate bean counters, not knowledgeable firearms people.

Freedom Group immediately increased production, and in the process pushed garbage out of Marlins docks. Quality all but disappeared. And the guns produced were so bad at that time, shooters referred to them as, "Remlin's".

Profits fell through the floor so badly the Freedom Group finally dumped Marlin for a fraction of what they paid for it.... Enter Ruger. They bought Marlin as a basket case cheap, in hopes of making a sizeable investment in machinery and personnel, hoping to bring back the quality the Marlin name used to stand for.

It's huge undertaking, but it's happening. The quality of the new Ruger produced Marlins thus far has been exemplary. (At least so many of the more popular gun writers say). One by one they are retooling the machining operations, and bringing back the different model rifles one at a time.

Prices are up, but so is the quality. Ruger is successful enough to have the cash to make this happen. And all of it was by design, and massive investment.

None of it was because anyone sued anyone else for anything involving misrepresentation or fraud. In spite of those many customers who purchased the crappy "Remlin" rifles in the middle of this fiasco.
 
Not worth the hassle of managing power, stepping up to a 5500 watt that can do 220v loads if needed and power multiple 110v is a better choice IMO.
A friend got a tri fuel unit from Firman and can hook it up to his natural gas line. I considered doing it it but don't have a good location for the gas hook up.

A large generator like you have burns so much fuel -12 hours uses 6 gallons - I would think it would be worth it to run the large unit when you have to - but switch over to the small unit when you don't need the extra power.

My Honda EG2800i was going 12 hours between fill ups and using less than 2 gallons of gas. For me it isn't really a cost of gas issue - it is how much gas do you need to have to run several days after a hurricane.


I did the extension cord thing once - that seemed way more of a PITA than managing the load. But I am so OCD I would be managing the load even if I had a whole house generator.

My neighbor ran a power cord from his generator to his refrigerator and freezer - the next day he smelled something burning and discovered the power cord that was strung over his wood floor and gotten hot enough to leave a black burn mark on the wood.
 
A friend got a tri fuel unit from Firman and can hook it up to his natural gas line. I considered doing it it but don't have a good location for the gas hook up.

A large generator like you have burns so much fuel -12 hours uses 6 gallons - I would think it would be worth it to run the large unit when you have to - but switch over to the small unit when you don't need the extra power.

My Honda EG2800i was going 12 hours between fill ups and using less than 2 gallons of gas. For me it isn't really a cost of gas issue - it is how much gas do you need to have to run several days after a hurricane.


I did the extension cord thing once - that seemed way more of a PITA than managing the load. But I am so OCD I would be managing the load even if I had a whole house generator.

My neighbor ran a power cord from his generator to his refrigerator and freezer - the next day he smelled something burning and discovered the power cord that was strung over his wood floor and gotten hot enough to leave a black burn mark on the wood.
The NG can be run from a flexible hose just like propane. So location is merely a point of convenience.

If I lived in a more humid environment I'd already have a whole home unit. However being able to run all the 110v loads and being able to start the 2.5 ton A/C is a requirement. I don't manage anything. Cord goes in the generator and then into the panel. Start and done. It uses more fuel but that is something I can live with. If it was used more often I'd consider a tri-fuel and run propane which can be stored indefinitely.

He(your neighbor) doesn't know Ohms law but got a lesson that day.
 
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