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Thread: What size Portable Generator do you have?

  1. #16
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    Mar 2003
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    Monroe, MI
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    Surge protectors don't really help with the issue of low-cost generators and electronics. A couple examples of what Mike is mentioning--I had a digital alarm clock that would gain upwards of 15 minutes an hour when we used the generator. I had 2 UPSs fail within days of running the generator, one I thought was going to catch on fire it was so hot. It took a couple times using the generator to realize the connection and cost us several hundred dollars. I would definitely not run any medical equipment off one.

    I did the backfeed thing--I'd throw the main breaker and plug in a double ended extension cord to a 220 outlet we had on the outside of the house for that purpose. When we did the standby it was a pretty major project to get the transfer switch installed as our main panel was in a finished wall in the first-floor laundry room. Luckily all the circuits run up from the basement so we installed a 100A subpanel in the basement and pulled all the circuits we wanted on the generator down and installed the transfer switch next to that. Still meant opening up a wall, which led to redoing the laundry, which led to redoing all the hard flooring on the first floor which led to redoing the kitchen.

    When we moved, I was planning to get a Honda or Yamaha inverter generator and put in a small transfer panel with just the critical circuits. Apparently early on our sub had power problems because most houses had them or had standbys.


  2. #17
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    Jul 2005
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    Cincinnati Ohio
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    If I would decide to go all in and get a whole house generator. What kind of price range am I looking at?
    FYI I heat with oil.
    "Remember back in the day, when things were made by hand, and people took pride in their work?"
    - Rick Dale

  3. #18
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    Do you have propane or natural gas? With the prior, you will want a very large tank.

    I'm not sure your age but IIRC you retired so I'm going to guess older than me. Are you going to be able to deal with a portable in say 5 or 10 years? My parents made that decision and it was a good thing because my dad's health declined and no way they could have dealt with a portable, nor could I have gotten there in a reasonable time to deal with it a couple bad storms.


  4. #19
    I bought a Champion, a little bigger model: http://www.championpowerequipment.co...00w-generator/
    Lloyd Kerry

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Lehnert View Post
    If I would decide to go all in and get a whole house generator. What kind of price range am I looking at?
    FYI I heat with oil.
    A typical whole house unit, including installation, is a ~$10K investment. You'll need either natural gas or propane to power one.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  6. #21
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    Jul 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Meiser View Post
    Do you have propane or natural gas? With the prior, you will want a very large tank.

    I'm not sure your age but IIRC you retired so I'm going to guess older than me. Are you going to be able to deal with a portable in say 5 or 10 years? My parents made that decision and it was a good thing because my dad's health declined and no way they could have dealt with a portable, nor could I have gotten there in a reasonable time to deal with it a couple bad storms.
    Just turned 49

    I have natural gas past the house but not hooked up.
    "Remember back in the day, when things were made by hand, and people took pride in their work?"
    - Rick Dale

  7. #22
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    Mar 2003
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    Ah, I must have you confused with someone else. Not much older than me!

    I did mine for about $4000, not including all the remodeling it led to. But I got the generator at Costco and did 80% of the install. My friend did the subpanel install as a side job. The gas line was installed when we got natural gas, I just had to remove a plug and hook up a flex line. I did about 50% of my dad's and my friend did the rest, not including a couple hundred for a gas meter upgrade. I think he figured he spent about $6000. The generator Costco sells today is a bigger unit and therefore more expensive, but has a 200A transfer switch so neither of us would have needed a subpanel maybe making it a wash.

    To answer your next question I have no idea what it costs to run. The weekly exercise is negligible and we didn't see any huge bills when ours ran for a few hours here and there. Maintenance, I put two quarts of oil, an oil filter, plugs, and an air filter in it yearly. I think the kits (minus the oil) are $40. I run synthetic oil for cold starting. Dad bought me a load tester for the batteries as a thank you for doing it. I replaced their battery at 4 years as a safety measure.


  8. #23
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    SE PA - Central Bucks County
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    I initially considered a "self install", but the gas work and changeover to the auto transfer switch as primary and my main panel to a sub combined with pulling the heavy cable from the switch through a small hole in an 18" thick stone wall (with bends) was more than I wanted to bite off on. And for this job, a permit was required. So I bought mine as a fixed price package from a local installer and nailed the timing for a manufacturer's 10 year parts AND labor warranty.

    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  9. #24
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    May 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Aumiller View Post
    OLE... "I backfed my panel through my drier's 30 amp breaker so I don't have to run extension cords. A proper lockout will not allow the main breaker to be on while using your generator. Very important."
    Hopefully you disconnect the main breaker before you do this... Very easy for you to back feed on the main line and possibly kill a lineman working on the power lines or even a neighbor thinking the power is completely gone...
    Also, you will not know when power is restored unless the the power company or a neighbor advises you if you disconnected the main breaker..

    VERY DANGEROUS....
    Yup. Tell me something I don't know... A proper interlock is a safe way to go. https://natramelec.com/genswitch/m/m3/m3.htm

    And unless you have an automatic, not manual, transfer switch, you still don't know when the power is back on.
    NOW you tell me...

  10. #25
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Bedford, NH
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    In my neck of the woods (NH) an installed 20 KW Kohler whole house generator system was quoted from $12K to $14K. I was about to abort when I ran across another installer who quoted me $10,800 for a total turn-key installation including the town permits & warranty. Still don't understand how the other quotes could be so different. It pays to search!
    Thoughts entering one's mind need not exit one's mouth!
    As I age my memory fades .... and that's a load off my mind!

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  11. #26
    I don’t mean to hi-jack the thread but have noticed that there hasn’t been much conversation regarding portable propane generators. I have a gas generator I’ve had for about 15 years. Luckily we have real dependable commercial power and almost never loose power for more than an hour or so (and that’s usually when some careless driver hits a power pole) unless a hurricane comes through. I have been considering getting a new portable generator and have about decided that propane is the way to go. I had a lot of carburetor problems with my old gas generator until I finally learned to shut off the gas and let the engine run on until all the fuel in the carburetor and fuel line are burned. Additionally I only keep a small amount of gas in the tank and still pull it out and run it about every 6 weeks or so. After years of dealing with a gas unit to me propane seems like a better idea for a piece of equipment that gets run very seldom. I would be interested in hearing from others that have gone the propane route. Thanks.
    Last edited by Maurice Hood; 09-06-2017 at 8:15 AM.

  12. #27
    Propane only has 96,000 BTU's per gallon, so you burn more gallons to do the same amount of work. In our market propane usually costs more than gasoline.

  13. #28
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Western MA
    Posts
    52
    I have a honda EU5500.

    I can run well pump, boiler (with superstore for hot water), and any room (One at a time). I plug into a dryer outlet after shutting the main off. works well.

  14. #29
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Putney, Vermont
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    I bought a homelite 4400 watt generator in 1996, in a group buy with 5 other people at work. After we lost power for almost a week,previously, my wife had to leave home for a warmer place. It got down to 40 degrees in the house.
    I put in a short run of heavy gage wire,10 feet or so to a small breaker box used for my compressor, and then to the main breaker panel for the house. The other side of wire is attached to receptacle that the generator plugs into, outside the house.
    When I have to use the generator in a power outage, I switch off the main switch off the power meter box outside the house, close the little metal door the switch is behind, and put a padlock on the door, so no one can open it, and switch the power back on from the road.
    I then turn of the main switch to the house breaker panel. The wires from the generator bypass this switch, and feed directly into the main panel. I then turn off all the unnecessary breakers to the house.
    The generator puts out 4000 watts with an 8hp gas engine. I easily powers my well,refrigerator,lights, and boiler for heat.
    I always leave the gas tank empty until ready to use, because it is not used that often. This saves draining the gas. I also use a spray can of starter fluid, and spray a 3 second burst into the sparkplug hole of engine before starting. This makes it easier to pull starter rope and engine starts on one pull.
    Last edited by michael langman; 09-06-2017 at 11:05 AM.

  15. #30
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    Northern Florida
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    643
    We have a Ridgid 8500-starting/6800-running portable we got from Lowe's nearly 10 years ago when we moved to Florida. It got its first real test of about 48 hours when Hermine went through a year ago. With Irma aimed more-or-less in our direction, the one thing I'm not worried about is the generator. More would be nice, whole-house would be nice, this is enough. Propane or gas would be nice if we already had an installation. I've learned more about water in fuel tanks and gummy carburetors in the last 10 years than the preceding many decades and it would avoid that.We ran a refrigerator, chest freezer, microwave, computers, lots of lights and a window AC with it but not all at the same time. If I remember correctly, we could run all of those as long as the microwave was off. We didn't cook with electricity. It would be nice to wire it into the panel. I understand the issues. Maybe we'll do that someday but we did OK with extension cords on the floor.

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