Recommendations for whole home generator?

go w/ Generac for residential. they used to be shite but are now one of the most reliable. we have generac at our home fwiw.
call your local generac dealer and have them come look at your loads and they will size what you need. you can load shed what you don't want to run.
i live in the electrical world and deal w/ generator back up power a good bit. most of our commercial customers are now transitioning to generac. in the past it was always CAT and kohler.

fwiw, i dont sell generators, just install what the client goes with.

I used GenPro. They handled all of the details and coordination. Entergy quickly approved gas hook up saying they don’t even have to check behind GenPro because they always do it perfectly.

It has been installed 5 months now and no problems at all. It has supplied power on two occasions due to outages.

I went with a Kohler water cooled.

I installed a 20kW air cooled Kohler in Oct 2022 for $16k.

They had to trench ~60’ for gas and electric.

20kW is more than enough for my 3400 sq ft house. I have a 3 ton and 2 ton. I put soft starts on my condensers to put less strain on the generator when they start up. I tried to overload the unit when we installed and it never got above 50% capacity.

I had picked out a Kohler liquid cooled in 2021. But by 2022 it went from $8k to $12k just for the unit, so I went air cooled. I got a 10yr warranty on it.

22kw Generac by Optimize EGS in the Lafayette area. Zero issues.

I really appreciate all the input!

Lots of people getting liquid cooled beasts in here huh? But I guess if you have pool loads you might need the extra horsepower.

I have a 22kW Honeywell (Generac) and it’s been great for 2 years. Do the oil changes myself and have backup filters/spark plugs/stepper motor in case of a random failure. Haven’t had to mess with it at all though and it’s got 24 hours on it. Time will tell.

I was on the fence about what brand to choose and had my heart set on a Briggs and Stratton. I went with what was available at the time (early 2021) and was happy I got the Generac due to it being so common. Pretty much any company could service it in a pinch since it’s on almost every house that has standby power. But honestly, whoever you choose will give you a good unit. There are some quality options out there.

I've gotten 2 quotes in the last 2 weeks, both around $15K for 22kW air cooled (1 was kohler 1 was generac)
Waiting to see if my insurance will pay as we are tyring to get one for my 9 month old daughter who has a rare form of epilepsy and needs oxygen at night and sometimes during the day if seizures occur

I was told to look for water cooled by a firefighter friend who said he saw a few air cooled burn up during Ida due to sucking in the debris

Whatever you decide, go with propane. In large neighborhoods, the pressure on NG pipelines will fluctuate when many whole home generators are running. Rent or buy a 500 gallon propane tank and you won't have any worries.