re: Recommendations for whole home generator?

Most of my neighbors and myself have Generacs installed by HMC. Everyone seems pleased.

I really appreciate all the input!

I checked into a Generac at a home and garden show and after being told $15 to $25 thousand I figured I would just hook up my 6250 water portable to a transfer switch instead. It is not auto start, but I am not to old yet to crank it. Plus I would have the additional expense of putting in a propane tank also.

Don’t see how y’all justify paying that kind of money for a generator. Mine was like 650$ . It’s been sitting in my shed since the 2016 flood.
How much do you lose power? Yes, it’s inconvenient every 5 or 6 years. That’s half the fun.

quote:

---

so I could add a pool chiller.

---

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.

Lots of upsell on these things. 10kw is realistically plenty

quote:

---

Your generator sizing is nearly entirely dependent on the size of your AC. Then after that you’d need to take into account any other 240V loads (oven, drier, cooktop, etc). If your house is small enough 10kW may be reasonable. But if you’re on the ragged edge sizing wise it may be smart to oversize your unit a bit.

---

Gotcha, the house is already hooked up to propane so i didnt put the oven on there and removed garage doors since i dont have any.

looks like i can get away without spending 30k though. Which is good.

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

quote:

---

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

---

Sorry to hear about your situation. If you need constant power and no interruption for any of her equipment, get a UPS power strip for it so it can ride the 10 second outage before your house switches to gen power. I have my modem on a UPS so my Wifi never goes down and a critical piece of equipment for your kid is of much higher importance. Here's a unit from APC (who has been making UPS units forever):

LINK

If you look at the electrical nameplate information on your daughter's equipment I can let you know if that UPS is enough. Chances are it will be since it will only need to back the equipment up for 10 seconds.

quote:

---

And finally, generators don't need rest and/or breaks. No need to shut it down every day like some do. They like being run, and a load is good for them.

---

The reason I've heard this suggestion is to be able to check the oil level at or near ambient temperature. The genset can handle the constant run time but if enough oil has burned off it can damage the unit. A Generac tech told me to shut down every 2 days to check the oil level to top off. I believe oil and filter changes are every 50 or 100 hours of run time? Would need to double check the manual for that one.