Tonight is the second time my power has gone out in a week. Looks like the whole town is out. I think since I moved here in July the power has gone out about twenty times. Some times for a half hour, other times for several hours.
I'm going to look into a Generac or something similar if this is going to be a common occurance. I may pick up something portable for now until a permanent generator can become affordable.
It's great insurance. Our power used to go out all the time, often for a few days at a time. We bought a genset and transfer switch and in the years since we've never used it.
Honda. I had a 6500ES and it was bad ass. Whipser quiet and sipped fuel, was like $6K new though.
Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Honda. I had a 6500ES and it was bad ass. Whipser quiet and sipped fuel, was like $6K new though.
That's pretty much my dream generator, but I'd never shell out that much for one.
I just bought a basically new, but pre-owned 5500watt Briggs&Stratton Lowes portable generator on Saturday. A friend of mine saw it listed in the newspaper with a phone number that was from our town. On a whim I called the number, and the old timer that was selling it lived about a half mile from me in the retirement park. I went to have a look at it, and it was basically brand spanking new, and fired up on the first pull.I really want a whole house permanent genset with a transfer switch, but it was in the budget this year. I decided I needed something though, so I got the portable. I figure it will serve a purpose, and will have other uses or will be easy enough to sell once I get the permanent generator.
I got out of work a bit early yesterday, and wired up a manual transfer switch setup. It was only a 6 circuit setup, but it covers my well pump(220 volt most important), boiler for heat, refrigerator, some outlets in the living room so we can watch TV if needed, and our propane fireplace. I ran out of time to test it all last night, but I will try today. The 5500 watt rating is lower than I wanted, but the buy-in was way less than I was finding anywhere else, and the generator was/is basically new so I went with it. The generator I got will surge up to 8250 watts for starting motors so I should be okay, but we will see. Hecdk if we can keep the water pump, and heat going that is half the battle.
I bought this from Cabela's for $399.
Has never let me down, and when the power goes out, it keeps the fridges, furnace blower, TV and some lights going. For days sometimes. I fire it up a few times a year just in case, and follow the instructions for maintenance to the letter. It's very loud and industrial, but it puts out the power.
I've got the same Champion Pinchvalve has. It came in handy during Hurrricane Ike. It ran my fridge, the neighbor's fridge, our TV and some lights. Yours will probably be plenty for what you want it to do.
Please be sure your transfer switch is wired correctly. The consequences of it not working properly could be an electrocuted lineman or your generator turning into a firebomb.
The Hondas are soo quite, I loved the one we had until it got stolen.
Basil Exposition wrote: Please be sure your transfer switch is wired correctly. The consequences of it not working properly could be an electrocuted lineman or your generator turning into a firebomb.
I'm a licensed electrician, so no worries there. I also work on generators and transfer switches everyday at work, so I know a thing or two about them. Thanks for the heads up though. So many experts just suggest back feeding your dryer outlet which is so very dangerous as you noted.
Chris
I suggest that you think the whole house genset thing through. You will spend a butt load of money, and will never recoup your investment when you sell the house. A portable unit will be useful when power goes down, and on race days, and camping, and....etc. One big thing to consider is that portables do get stolen. Here in hurricane central, it is a huge problem.
We've got a 7,500 watt Generac in the barn. I haven't had to use it yet. It's a portable unit, but has its own panel and circuit set up so all I have to do is shut off the mains in the house before firing it up. Don't want to electrocute any linemen after all.
cwh wrote: I suggest that you think the whole house genset thing through. You will spend a butt load of money, and will never recoup your investment when you sell the house. A portable unit will be useful when power goes down, and on race days, and camping, and....etc. One big thing to consider is that portables do get stolen. Here in hurricane central, it is a huge problem.
I mainly want the wholw house genset with the auto start/transfer, just because that is what I work on everyday. Well that and the fact that when the weather is at its worst I am always away tending to generators, and such. I would like to know that the genset started and transfered on its own without my wife having to worry about anything. I agree though that the portable will have other benefits, but I plan to move forward on the whole house in the near future. The money shouldn't be too bad as I can do all but the propane hook up myself, and I can get some pretty deep discounts through my connections. TR8Todd can do the propane hook up for me.
We waited until the power was out for 24 hours to try and buy one, and ended up with a Coleman (Subaru Robin engine) from Home Depot. Despite my misgivings it's been fine... ran for 7 days straight when brand new, and 3-4 days at a time 3 times since. It's nice insurance since the house floods without power to run sump pumps. However, it's loud and uses quite a bit of gas, and we have to wheel it out of the garage to use it.
http://www.dieselenginetrader.com/engines/engine_details.cfm?id=36973
No price, but you could really annoy your neighborhood when that little bastard kicked on when the power goes out.......
It'll probably run most of your house too.
has anyone tried to GRM a solution to the cheap, noisy generators to make them quieter? Like extra mufflers or something? I'd love to have a Honda to power our pop-up camper but I can't afford it. The cheapies, OTOH, are so noisy I could never sleep with it running near my camper and I wouldn't want to torture everyone within a half mile of it.
In reply to ultraclyde:
I've seen guys at camp sites build OSB/plywood walls, cover 3 side & top of the generator, open side faced away from camp site, really cuts down on noise. I assume there's little to no air flow issues? You can aim the noisy side at annoying neighbors. 
I've also seen the exhaust routed into a 5 gallon bucket of water, gurgled/bubbled but wasn't really all that loud. The water evaporates & splashes out, so it must be refilled frequently.
In reply to ultraclyde:
Harbor freight sells a knockoff of the Honda inverter generator now, might look there.
Take one 13B. Add one genset. Win.
Port engine for more AMPS
In reply to DaveEstey:
That might actually be one of the thirstiest gensets in history.
Anyone here familiar with whole-house, permanently mounted natural gas generators? I have 3 questions:
1.) Is it possible to run two electric services(in the same building) off one generator?
2.) How do you properly size a generator - add up all the circuit breaker ratings for those circuits you want to have power during an outage? Or calculate the actual power draw of the devices you want powered?
3.) What's the maintenance like for one of these? How often do you need to change the oil/filter/spark plugs/etc.?
bigdaddylee82 wrote: In reply to ultraclyde: I've seen guys at camp sites build OSB/plywood walls, cover 3 side & top of the generator, open side faced away from camp site, really cuts down on noise. I assume there's little to no air flow issues? You can aim the noisy side at annoying neighbors.
that is like a "water lift" muffler on a boat. Great and simple way to silence the drone on any engine.
Last year when the Derecho came through, neighbors across the street had a noisy generator they ran for 7 days straight.. I really wanted to go over there at 2am when I was trying to sleep and rip the guts out of it
Not to spam too much here, but I work for Milbank MFG, there is about a 60% chance we built your electric meter socket. We also sell generators in a variety of shapes and sizes. Permanently installed, natural gas fed seems to be our bread and butter. We build and sell transfer switching equipment too.
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