re: Generac generator crapping out

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Thanks bro for explaining the issues with air cooled generators. Your explanation cleared up a lot of questions for me

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no problem. hope it works out for you. if you have any issues, post questions.

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Seems to be a lot of confusion on the service schedule but my manual is pretty clear that it’s 100 hours when running steady like this or in extreme temperature. In regular conditions it’s 200 hours but why would you wait that long? Oil and filters are too damn cheap to worry about that when you dealing with an expensive piece of equipment.

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i have been warning everyone for over a week now. change the oil every 72-96 hours if running continuous. But everyone kept throwing out the 200 hour BS.

I tried explaining the issues we had after laura and after 72 hours in this heat the oil looks like extra thick coffee. this was with using royal purple too.

also tried explaining it has to be shut down every afternoon and people want to argue about the manual saying it doesnt...... well good luck with that

in the end air cool generacs can work down here for extended period but it needs to be babied the whole time. needs to be treated with kids gloves.

during the day, its needs to be turned off as much as possible.

A) because its hot as frick

B) because lazy arse people need to get out and help other people tarp their roof. shouldnt be sitting at home all day anyways, but if you are...get outside and read a book on the porch.


cummins is more expensive and harder to get parts for in many places just do to service centers. But cummins doesnt derate output until 104 degrees, the enclosures are rated for 150mph winds, cummins is brushless, cummins is the quitest at load and overall has the best warrenty.

i currently have air cooled generac but new house will have liquid cooled cummins.

I know this is about the home generators and not portable ones, but we bought a portable 5500 Generac generator from Home Depot 3 days ago, and on the box, it claims it can run anywhere from 11-16 hours on a tank of gas. We consistently only got 3.5-4 hours of run time. I already called Home Depot and they said they’d take it back.
I borrowed a little 2200 from a neighbor and it had a 4 gallon tank, that baby ran all night long!

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Exactly. I understand they might not be the best option, but if they are going to prey on people incessantly with tv marketing to drop $5k they better fricking do something akin to being useful during a prolonged power outage.

I’m tired of excuses for companies like this. Oh everybody knows they suck. Really? Then they don’t need to be a company. This is some China shite. As long as it’s cheaper we are cool. frick that.

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so you do understand that generac does not recommend air cooled for our climate right?

they derate at 77 degrees and on NP. so your 22kw is really a 15kw at most in this heat. WTF did you think was going to happen when you were prancing around your house thinking you could live like normal and run the microwave, electric stove, and dryer all at the same time?

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Jax Teller

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tired of idiots like you who dont understand a damn thing about generators and are too lazy to do their own research.

Like subMOA said, they serve a purpose of giving people cheap standby automated backup power. Thats something only the ultra rich used to have.

The generator ends are what really suffer in the heat. You need an oversized generator end to run at high amps continuously without overheating it, and those things don't have any protection. If it has a 30 amp breaker it will let you run 29 amps until it melts the windings, even if its only rated for 18 amps at 95f ambient. People should know what the derates are when buying and size accordingly if they NEED reliable backup power. If its just a convince well, turn some shite off.

You can use the governor arm on the carburetor/throttle body as a crude ammeter. I have mine marked at half and full stroke with a sharpie just so I can halfway tell how hard its running. Over 50% steady state in this heat = bad news for generator, turn off some shite. You can run it harder at night than the heat of the day since its cooler out.

If you have to run it over 50% load, you need to only do it briefly in cycles. Don't shut the unit down to cool it off, just take all the load off and let it run unloaded. It will cool faster that way since the generator fan will still be pulling air through it. Shutting it down allows it to heat soak. You should always run unloaded for 5-10 minutes and avoid hot shutdowns as much as possible.

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Manual says 200 hours for oil, but in this heat your going to want to change it more often.

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Companies are in business to sell products. If the manual says 200 hours I'd go 100.
Car manufactures tell you to change oil every 10,000 miles. Don't go over 5,000 and consider 3,000 according to driving conditions. They are in the business to sell vehicles. I work with a guy who followed the 10,000 mile oil change. Around 100,000 miles, had engine issues and brought to shop. Was told to either sell it or be prepared to buy a new engine. It was a Ford F-150.

Dude. Chill out. We understand you know more than the average Joe who is actually believing what they were told by the installers and the manual.

Bottom line is the average Joe ain’t comfortable changing oil or even shutting the thing down cause they don’t do any of this for anything they own (car). They rely on people who do maintenance to keep things working.

So it’s really awesome that you think we should have bought 15k liquid cool generators, but for now us plebs have what we have and will have to make due.

We appreciate the advice and still pray our power is back on before we reach mad max level use of our generator we all thought was a pretty good purchase.

Now I’ll crawl back in my corner and feel bad you weren’t out preaching this before the storm hit so we could order up our new Cummins liquid cooled that would sit unused 99.9% of our life.

I do not have NG service where I live. Thinking about getting a 23kw Diesel Generator

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If you have to run it over 50% load, you need to only do it briefly in cycles. Don't shut the unit down to cool it off, just take all the load off and let it run unloaded. It will cool faster that way since the generator fan will still be pulling air through it. Shutting it down allows it to heat soak. You should always run unloaded for 5-10 minutes and avoid hot shutdowns as much as possible.

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tried that after laura. with the "sound dampening" enclosure it tends to not cool down. and the stand by generators are made to be shut down due to the nature of them.

i found its best to run with enclosure open and front panel off and to have a fan on it as much as possible.

keep load small during the day or shut it down

check oil daily after its been shut down an hour or so.

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Dude. Chill out. We understand you know more than the average Joe who is actually believing what they were told by the installers and the manual.

Bottom line is the average Joe ain’t comfortable changing oil or even shutting the thing down cause they don’t do any of this for anything they own (car). They rely on people who do maintenance to keep things working.

So it’s really awesome that you think we should have bought 15k liquid cool generators, but for now us plebs have what we have and will have to make due.

We appreciate the advice and still pray our power is back on before we reach mad max level use of our generator we all thought was a pretty good purchase.

Now I’ll crawl back in my corner and feel bad you weren’t out preaching this before the storm hit so we could order up our new Cummins liquid cooled that would sit unused 99.9% of our life.

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dude i promise im chill and nto angry.

but if average joe doesnt know how to change oil on this when its simply pulling a plug then they shouldnt come on here and bitch.

and all of this shite is a youtube or google search away. no excuse in this day and age. simply watch a youtube video on changing the oil.

and in a storm like this, cant rely on a service tech. there are not enough to go around, thats basic common sense.

and ftr i did preach alot of this before the storm.

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We appreciate the advice and still pray our power is back on before we reach mad max level use of our generator we all thought was a pretty good purchase.

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it was, the generacs can work perfect, just have to be babied and cant have unrealistic expectations like so many on here doo.