What Standby Generator are you buying for your house?

[BigCahuna]

I pretty much guaranteed I will never need a backup generator. Where we live, the power only goes out for a few hours at a time, if it ever goes out. Two years after Sandy hit us, I bought a small 4k watt Harbor Freight genny. Since then, we haven't had a outage that lasted more than 20 minutes. My thought for buying it was so we can have heat in the winter, or at least have a couple of fans going in the summer, and keep the fridge going. I do run it every few months to keep it in shape, and change the oil. The same one own, is now over $100 more than when I bought mine. I could never justify the cost of a whole house genny for where I live.,,

 

[Owen Lucas]

I have resisted buying a generator because I could never justify spending thousands of dollars to protect a few hundred dollars of food, especially since I have never lost power for more than two days or lost any food. Beyond food we have a propane fireplace for heat, a propane range for cooking, and a hot tub full of water for washing and flushing toilets.

One helpful thing I do is in the backup freezer, I have 2 1 gallon water jugs that I keep frozen at all times. When the power goes out, I take those blocks of ice and put them in the top shelf of the fridge. It gives extra cooling capacity, about 2 days worth but I've never had to test it till they melted.

I went with the Kohler 14Kw and a 1000 gallon in-ground propane tank. Our hot water heater, stove and aux heat are all propane so we didn't need a monster generator.

That sure is a monster propane tank, a mini-submarine! How much did the tank set you back?

 

[Tom NJ]

One helpful thing I do is in the backup freezer, I have 2 1 gallon water jugs that I keep frozen at all times. When the power goes out, I take those blocks of ice and put them in the top shelf of the fridge. It gives extra cooling capacity, about 2 days worth but I've never had to test it till they melted.


That sure is a monster propane tank, a mini-submarine! How much did the tank set you back?

I also keep some one gallon jugs of water (ice) in my freezers, and buy bags of ice for the refrigerators when power goes out.

The propane tank was here when my wife bought the house 20 years ago, and I believe was installed for free by the propane supplier who retain ownership.

 

[k1xv]

i had a Generac. its still here, but not working. After about 10 years, the parts support is iffy, and their customer service is poor. My maintenance contractor tried to get the necessary replacement part, and was told it was no longer available.

i am now using Tesla Powerwalls for backup power.

 

[thastinger]

That sure is a monster propane tank, a mini-submarine! How much did the tank set you back?

Yeah, when it showed up on the trailer it looked like the cartels could use it for smuggling ops.
I have the exact cost but not in front of me, best I recall it was 6800 for the tank, transport, burring it and the 2 anode bags for it. We obviously bought ours but oddly enough there are propane companies around here who will rent you an in-ground tank.
Pretty sure the 800 gallons to fill it was 2.70/gal

 

[John Galt]

I just had a natural gas fueled Kohler 20RCA 20kwW generator installed last week. It will flop over and start itself up after a 10 second power outage. It is derated to 18kW on NG. Plenty for 100% of my power needs plus I wanted extra kW’s so I can extend a power cord to my neighbors on either side of me to keep their refrigerator or heat system operating. I like my neighbors.

I resisted installing one for 40 years at this house but advancing age, spending more time away from the house for weeks on end and experiencing more power outages in the last few years convinced me to get one. Last year while we were away in Florida (in June) a storm came through and the power went out - that was a Thursday, it was a widespread storm with many trees and power lines down. Our power was not restored until the following Wednesday. Just four months ago on Thanksgiving we had a house full of guests and as we sat at the table at 3:30 that afternoon for our Turkey the power went out. It did not come back on until sometime after midnight. A few weeks ago the power went out for a few hours, I was home.

My biggest concern is a power outage in winter while we are 1300 miles away in Florida for an extended period. My 120 year old house has hot water filled radiators in 90% of the rooms and hot water baseboard in the rest. A power outage in winter that caused the heat pipes in the walls and radiators to freeze and crack will easily cost me $30+ to fix. My radiators are highly ornate and made from a brass alloy and are impossible to replace. I consider the cost of the generator the same as my homeowners insurance or CC and home protection weapons, there for peace of mind and I hope I never really need to rely on it.

 

[martinq]

Short answer is Briggs & Stratton.

Longer answer is, with that kind of money I would have two or three, non-grid power options along with a sizable supply of battery power. So, depending on the property & location I would have solar, wind, hydro along with my own gas well and 2 or 3 NG generators of sufficient size.

 

[andrew_j]

Our place in NH has a 14kw Kohler running off two 100 gallon propane tanks. It will run 4-5 days from those.

We looked at a lot of houses. Some had Generac, a few had B&S but more had Kohler. Automatic transfer switch so it comes on once the line power is off for 5-10 seconds, We shut it off in summer so it won’t run unless we are there and need it.

https://www.kohlerhomeenergy.rehlko.com/products/home+generators/14rca


We installed it on the far side of the garage so we can’t hear it. (Not where installed, just new pic).

Our place in Boston is wired for generator, we have a Briggs & Stratton Q6500 inverter we can wheel into place.

View attachment 271595

Certain parts of ME and NH that pallet could be “permanent” base

 

[Ranger83]

Certain parts of ME and NH that pallet could be “permanent” base

They come with their own base now.

 

[road_rascal]

I'm currently looking at inverter generators for our recently remodeled/rebuilt cabin that's going to be our retirement home hopefully soon in a few years. Weather is somewhat unpredictable in NW Wisconsin (ice storms, tornadoes, etc). Right now this one is on my short list.

 

[martinq]

I'm currently looking at inverter generators for our recently remodeled/rebuilt cabin that's going to be our retirement home hopefully soon in a few years. Weather is somewhat unpredictable in NW Wisconsin (ice storms, tornadoes, etc). Right now this one is on my short list.

I would strongly advise you get a parts list for this unit and price out replacement circuit boards & modules before purchasing. I would also advise that if your going to rely on something "cheap", for a potentially critical resource, that you buy two of them.

 

[road_rascal]

I would strongly advise you get a parts list for this unit and price out replacement circuit boards & modules before purchasing. I would also advise that if your going to rely on something "cheap", for a potentially critical resource, that you buy two of them.

I wouldn't say cheap as it's about $1800 US. For the research I've been doing it's come down to Champion, Wen, Duromax or Westinghouse.

 

[6.7 CTD]

I'm currently looking at inverter generators for our recently remodeled/rebuilt cabin that's going to be our retirement home hopefully soon in a few years. Weather is somewhat unpredictable in NW Wisconsin (ice storms, tornadoes, etc). Right now this one is on my short list.

I like champion generators, my dad and I both have that brand. I’d just be cautious of the CO sensing. From what I have read, it can shut the generator down in varying wind conditions even in a well ventilated area. I have a champion open frame inverter 8750 starting/7k running watts. I opted for no CO sensing because when I need it, I don’t want it shutting down in austere weather conditions, which often necessitates generator usage.

 

[1lieutenant]

We installed a 20k Generac standby after a freak storm in CT that shut down power for 11 days. Has been trouble free for 12 years. Essentially will run our whole 3200 sq ft house including central air but minus the oven and dryer. Since that time we have had multiple outages, most short, and the generator kicked in so smoothly we didn’t realize there was a power loss. The longest was 4 days. I would shut down the generator in the morning before I left for work just to check the oil level. Never used a drop. Ran for 24 hours straight between checks. Although it didn’t call for an oil change until 200 hours, I changed it with a new filter. Great piece of mind.

 

[martinq]

I wouldn't say cheap as it's about $1800 US. For the research I've been doing it's come down to Champion, Wen, Duromax or Westinghouse.

I'm not familiar with that Champion generator but most of the ones I've seen are very cheap and sold by Big Box stores. They break easy and usually aren't worth the cost of repair (parts cost more than the generator or are not available, etc).

I classify a standby generator as a critical part of my infrastructure and prices would start around $5000. A portable generator "could" do the job but I wouldn't want to rely on it if I actually needed power for days.

Quality equipment has a dealer network and parts that are available and worth buying. Disposable equipment, sold by Big Box stores, should be purchased in qty if you need to rely on it.