Anyone got any reccomendations for a generator? The past two years, more than once a year, we've had our spring storms come through and be it hail or high winds or both somehow the electricity goes bye bye for days at a time. alot of my neighbors have purchased small generators so they can keep their fridge etc going....the past two years ive actually used my neon with an inverter to run a TV and a fan (ran it out of gas last year hahah oops). Thinking about getting a generator this year just to have in case, especially now that there is one baby already here and another on the way, i'd like to be able to keep the house comfortable with fans etc....
not looking for a huge one that will run the whole house, just somethign for perhaps the fridge and a TV and fan or something.....
I have seen decenlty priced units that have battery start and was seriously thinking about this....i have a recessed storage area on the side of the house that is shielded from rainfall etc but still open to the outside. thought about putting the generator there, and permanently mounting the push button switch panel (make the wires as long as i need) through the wall into the inside of the garage so when the power goes out i can just go out and start it w/o going out in the hail or what have you....and was thikning about permanently adding an outlet in the laundry room so i can connect it directly to the generator and have its own outlet. Id have to still unplug the fridge and plug it into an extension cord in order to plug it in and use an extension cord to run the fan/tv but since i like to complicate almost anything i do, i think it would be a good project. pros cons ideas? im kinda lookin for somethign the wife could just push the button on and plug into in case im not here if im at work etc....
i have been thinking about getting a portable one , so that way when we go to the lake or camping and they do not have full hook ups i can use one like that. but then that one my not be good for the wife....
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Some discussion a while back about whole-house standby generators. Portable gennys are good for short term power outages, but require a lot more babysitting overall. You need to make sure it's fueled up, that the fuel is good, oil changes, cool down periods, etc., and the power they supply is considered "dirty", meaning it's not recommended for sensitive electronics. If you're looking at a higher end portable gennys, you're probably halfway to the cost of a whole-house system. For those, labor and install is usually just as much as the material.
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Your plan sounds perfect. Kindof what I'm doing as well. I went with an expensive inverter generator: Honda IS3000. I bought that one so I could use it for camping and it is very, very quiet. Keeps the other campers happy. If it were just for my house for power outages, I would have gotten a much cheaper one.
I am installing a psuedo tranfer switch in the house, not just a dedicated outlet. Gets cold here and I need the furnace and hot water heater. So I installed a plug outside with an L5-30 receptacle that I plug the generator into. That goes into the main breaker box that has a mechanical interference mechanism that prevents backflow from the genny to the main input. I just pick which circuits to power from there. Not a lot with the 3000 watt generator, but enough to run the furnace, fridge, hot water heater and some lights.
So, the same setup as yours, just a bit more involved.
I am by no means an electrical guru but my experience w/the ice storm that rolled through the northeast in december, i learned some interesting stuff. My girlfriends house out by Albany, NY got hit pretty good and resulted in no power for 2 days. She bought a 3000watt Homelite at Home depot for about $400-500 and was able to power the necessities without bogging it down at all. In fact her uncle powered 3 houses off his 1 3500 watt generator. What blew me away was how her uncle hooked it up to her system, simply got an extension cord w/2 male ends and plugged one end into the generator and the other into an outlet. He flipped the main breaker to prevent backflow to the grid and only flipped the breakers he wanted on. Worked perfectly. He did say it'd be better if he had a 220v extension cord but the 110v worked just fine. I asked if the panel had been wired for this and he said no, they can all do it. I guess it's like back-feeding the panel, again no electrical guru here. Obviously it'd be better to do it the correct way by it worked in a pinch and he's done it dozens of times and no issues.
When I was stationed in Guam. I shut the main power off to the house and had the generator backfeeding through the dryer outlet. It power the whole house but was not able to run the hot water heater and stove, it pulled to much power. I did this for a month and a half. Didn't have any problems.
Tink, it all depends on whether you want portable or a permanent mounted gen-set.
Our old house was in a low area and if the power went out, our basement flooded so I had a portable Honda (3500 series) that I could run the furnace, sump pump, fridge and a few lights.
Like the "good doctor" mentioned, babysitting is in order for more than say 4 hours of operation. Depending on the fuel size of the tank of course.
What I did in our old house is close to what TomHole did and he's correct, Honda's are quiet and easy to start.
I installed a recessed 30w 120v "male" receptacle inside the garage close to where the gen-set would be running. Inside the house I ran wire to each of the above appliances with an extension cord so I could physically unplug each device and plug it into the gen-set line.
There was no chance of "feed back" from me (gen-set) to the power company or the other way around.
Was it a pain, you bet.
Or do what a buddy of mine did and he got a permanent gen-set that runs on natural gas. It feeds about 70% of his house and there is a seperate (required) panel mounted close to his existing panel that automatically switches to "Gen-Set" when the power goes out, the gen-set starts and runs till power is restored.....and back accordingly.
It also runs once or twice a week on a "test" mode for a few minutes so it's always ready to go. If you don't have NG in your area, they do make them for Propane but you'll need a large enough tank so you're not filling it all the time.
The above option would be much costlier but it all depends on what you're looking to power, how long and how much effort you want to put into this project and maintenance.
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Last edited by Flashgordon; 02-03-2009 at 01:17 PM.
I got tired of losing my power for days on end. I bought a Honda, 13HP, 8000w unit. Then I installed a new panel (designed for this) and hooked up all my "needed" lines. I have my well, furnace, Freezer, refrigerator, living room(including TV) and a few other lights and outlets on it. You are going to want more than just the bare essentials if you are going to be out for a while.
My advise, would be to go a little bigger than you think you will need, then hook up everything it will take to make you comfortable (not just to survive). If you are going to get into the expense and hassle of emergency electric, you might as well "go for it" up front, so you don't wish you did it differently later.
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Being in a Hurricane area with several times in the last few years when we have lost power for 10 days on end I've relied on an Honda EU2000i. This is an inverter generator and is very quiet. I run 3 Frigerators a flat-screen TV and a fan. The thing will run 10 hours on 1.2 gallons of gas for the fridges.
I was going to suggest the 2000 Honda as well. I have 2 of them and made my own dual connector to tie them both together. I also have made a fuel set up so they can run from a remote fuel supply.
The 3000 is a good unit but heavy and bulky to move around.
We have a propane powered Guardian (built by generac I believe). Its a whole house setup on a concrete pad and wired directly into the breaker box via a manual switch.
It is a piece of crap. We've had it for about 2.5 years, I've replaced the starter twice, and the computer board hasn't worked right since the day it was installed. It was supposed to kick on automatically when the power went out. It does, but it kills itself every 90 seconds due to something screwing up in the computer. The only way to make it run is to switch it to manual mode, flip the main switch, and you have to check every once in a while to see if the power has come back on yet...
I'd stay away for this brand if i were to do it again...
I'm looking now at a natural gas unit 10 KW from Kohler which turns on automatically and will run the whole house. For now it's the camping version of the Honda 3000 W inverter, nice and quiet and will run everything necessary, just more hassle to hook up and refuel. I'm still keeping it for camping, as it is the smallest thing that will run the air conditioner.
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