Whole house standby generator

All of them I've ever seen were monthly.

No doubt...bike shop I wrenched at was also Honda OPE dealer, we had a regular customer that had a 6500 Honda genny (with a TON) of hours on it (used everyday for his portable milk testing business) in for repair of the governor and he had to use a backup Generac while the Honda was down...he stopped in several times per week until it was done, he said the Generac was gonna drive him nuts with all the noise! That Generac was a cheap portable though, not a built in auto standby type.

See above post ^ ^ ^ that machine will outlast you, and probably me too if just used for backup service.

 

3 years ago a 20k from Costco was $3999. Wonder what happened...............

 

My buddy's Generac unit starts weekly.

 

Is that at max output or at 50% like many portable generators list.

 

Mine exercises weekly, you can set it for how often you want it to start!

 

This is boat I am in with predator…

 

I know it's not the same, but my 20 kw diesel generator uses 1/2 gallon per hour. (1800 rpm)
There's way less BTU'S in gallon of LP. and you need to consider how long you'd like to have emergency power in an outage and size your LP tank accordingly.
There's no throwing a few gas or diesel cans in the back of the truck and running out to grab some fuel with a propane generator.

 

^^ this and can run on HHO diesel can be found usually at state and govt auctions

in recent storms can a propane truck get up driveway

 

What does a plumber charge to come out and fix frozen busted pipes? Plus the water damage…. ?

 

My setup was anything but "turnkey" but I found my generator (Cummins) on craigslist. 1000 hours on the meter with 190 gallon diesel fuel tank base for $4500. Now this didn't have an enclosure and I may have went a little overboard on my build but the ideal location was right on the driveway and the first thing you see coming to our place.
I have a remote meter with a manual transfer switch there.
I didn't want anything "automatic" and I exercise it myself periodically. Parts you don't have never fail and don't need to be replaced!

 

Co worker has one, he cheaped out and it and does not have hot water on the standby generator. So no hot showers when the grid is out. His power was out for a week and a half last year and it cost him $700 in LPG.

 

That’s certainly one way to look at it. And I get it. That’s why I said my opinion would probly change as I get older.

 

If power goes out at my house during a rain storm and I am not home to start a generator, my house will flood. I have a 2.5 hp exterior foundation pump, plus my interior sump pump that have to run, otherwise I would not have a whole house generator. Could I have a smaller automatic generator, yes...but I figure go big or go jome!

 

You sound like my neighbor, except you have it figured out. Last weekend I was in her basement with hip boots rigging the sump pumps and hooking them up to generators.

this has been happening since the late 80’s

 

20 KW is small for me. I have a John Deere ,turbo diesel, 32 KW 110/220 single phase / 3 phase with a 300 amp vacuum transfer switch plumbed into my 500 gallon diesel bulk tank that runs the entire farm 100% turnkey......

 

Not to worry......it's just transitionary!

 

One of my wife's coworkers father in law is a prepper with apparently deep pockets. He has two 1000 gallon and one 500 gallon lp tank, that he had filled, then lived off grid on his whole house genny to see how long it would last. No idea on his generator size but he lived like he normally would. 30 days he emptied those three tanks.

 

Thanks for the info brenndatomu ... bought our Honda around 1998-1999... after the ice storm. We were out for 4 days. Our old 9000 watt lost one side of the output, running almost 24/7. At least we had 120v. Good to hear another Honda keeps on keepin on too.

 

Bully!!

 

The parents of a guy I work with got a Generac installed a few years ago and he said it only comes on once a month to keep things running smoothly.