Getting ready for new generator....questions (of course!).

[dlundblad]

I made portables work for decades in the city, where you still have water during a power outage.

Country living with well and sewage transfer pumps, and a 5ton HVAC unit, on top of normal household loads made the whole house genset basically a necessity.

The fully automatic nature of its operation is certainly a plus.

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Nice! Is this a Briggs? How do you like it.

This is what I ended up doing. In order to get a decent inverter style that could run our well, lights, fridge, and freezers I was looking to spend 5k on the unit alone. This is excluding the wiring and transfer switch.

For just a tad more, I have was able to get into a standby model with an automatic switch that’ll take care of the entire house. The wife won’t have to mess with a thing if I’m not home. I don’t have to worry about keeping fuel on hand either since it runs off our house’s propane tank. All the little conveniences make it well worth it.

 

[UncleDave]

Nice! Is this a Briggs? How do you like it.

This is what I ended up doing. In order to get a decent inverter style that could run our well, lights, fridge, and freezers I was looking to spend 5k on the unit alone. This is excluding the wiring and transfer switch.

For just a tad more, I have was able to get into a standby model with an automatic switch that’ll take care of the entire house. The wife won’t have to mess with a thing if I’m not home. I don’t have to worry about keeping fuel on hand either since it runs off our house’s propane tank. All the little conveniences make it well worth it.

Thanks - its a Kohler 20KW, or more accurately at 20KW unit that makes 18KW on natural gas. Which is still more than enough for me.

I travel often and didnt want the wife to have to deal with hookups and load management that a portable requires.

Its about 10 seconds to fire up from an outage and the switchback is seamless.

The install was more than the genset.

 

[SmokeyBear]

Yup!

 

[Intheswamp]

Ok, I'm back from, seemingly, the grave with updates. Been a little under the weather but...here is what I got for $302.00...

There is 30' of the yellow poly-coated copper tubing involved...in the first picture you can see the gas tank and the other end of the tubing. The jacketed hookup hose is 10' long. I dug the trench before they arrived..guy said it would save me some money. They charged $75 for the trip and labor, which I didn't think was bad. The only thing I saw that might have been a bit high was the 10' hookup home @ $78.

I was caught off guard when they arrived. Me and the service guy had looked at the current system and had agreed on installing a tee at the tank and adding a high-pressure regulator there beside the low-pressure house regulator. Well, you see what I found when I came back to see how they were doing. No tee at tank, no high-pressure regulator, and they had already connected the hookup hose to the generator. I told the guy that this wasn't what we had discussed and he told me it "ought to work", to try it and if I had a problem let them know. I feel that they'll stand behind their work but I haven't had a chance to install the transfer box yet and haven't been really able to drag the extension cords to the refrigerators. Maybe tomorrow. Hopefully with the refrigerators and a couple of other items running the generator will run fine.

But, here is the problem. I went out this afternoon going to disconnect the hookup hose and move the generator back inside the garage. It's been sitting beneath a tarp for the last week or so. We're supposed to getting rain for the next week so I figured I'd get it inside. Before I disconnected it I cranked it and let it run for a couple of minutes and shut it off. No problem there.

I then started to unscrew the hookup hose fitting and it was very snug, too snug. I turned it a few rounds with no swivel action in the hose/adapter...the hose just twisted up. I peered a bit closer and turned it again and I saw the brass fitting on the generator turning. The hose is jammed onto the propane fitting of the generator and will not come off. Before I cranked it the first time, while the service guys were there, the older main guy told the younger one to check the tightness of the connection there so he put a wrench on it and gave it a shove. Like I said, they had already tightened the hose onto the generator when I got there. I'm thinking they simply over tightened it. Now I'm worried that the connection there has been compromised...or, is the connection made to "move" some? I'll be calling them Monday.


One thing that I am curious about. Is this the correct fitting on the end of the hookup hose? I don't know what kind of metal it is but it looks a bit "pitted", with possibly some corrosion/oxidation on it. What is bugging me is the chance of galvanic corrosion happening between the brass and whatever metal that is. I was in the tire business and have laid on my back under vehicles beating aluminum wheels off many a steel hub. Any thoughts on this hookup hose and adapter?

It seems like the more I move forward the further behind the eight ball I am.

Thanks!

 

[Intheswamp]

The gas guy came by and did a quick A-1 job. We spent more time talking afterwards than it took for him to swap out the parts.

What he did was simply screw the OE fitting of the generator all the way out and replace it with a longer "stem" of sorts so that there was somewhere to hold the fitting with a wrench while the hose fitting was turned. Works like a dream.

After he left I went ahead and hooked both side-by-side refrigerators up to the generator and got them running. I then hooked up both of the 1500W heaters and turned them on-and-off several times during the run. Everything seemed to run fine and the engine would load up a bit but never stumbled or made me sense that it was having any issues running.

Since I'm going to be running on propane how often should I run the engine? How often to change the oil?

I've got my happy camper hat back on.

ETA: If anybody was at fault regarding the problem with the fitting spinning I believe it would actually be Champion due to the fact that the nut of the fitting is recessed below the surface of the panel so that you can't get a wrench on it. The positioning is ok for manufacturing where you can put a socket on the fitting to tighten it into the LPG input but once a hose is in place a socket can't be used.

 

[Dennywires]

Most generator's call for a 5w30 synthetic or 10w30.. if ran constant in 90°+ temps then 15w40 should be a possible substitute.