Generator ??
 

After spending the last 8 days without power thanks to Ike my interest in a whole house generator has spiked. Does anyone have any experience with one? Recommendations?

~40% of the Houston metro area is still without power so we are one of the lucky ones at this point.

Generac sells a natural gas fed generator that will run the whole house. You're looking at a $12k to $15k investment. My buddy owns one and it kicked on 30 seconds after he lost power.

http://www.generac.com/Default.aspx

You can go for a cheaper diesel model, but you would have to be concerned with fuel storage...especially for 8 days worth of continuous service.

I feel your pain. We just went thru Gustav and were without power for 4 days.

I really like the souns of the Generac unit but $12-$15K is a bit steep.... The house is only about 2,700 sq ft with one AC unit so I can probably get away with something a little less.

I found a Yamaha that is a tri-fuel.... Gasoline, Propane or Natural gas... seemed like an interesting way to go. It isn't a stand by unit but might be a good solution considering a lot of areas around lost gas service too. I'll have to find some reviews because I'm a interested in how the engine holds up when switching between 3 different fuel types.

Check with Northern tools as well. They have natural gas models running from $6K to $15K.

First of all you need to check the Power rating that you need.
A quick way to ascertain this is to decide what appliances you might want to run. Once that is figured out, you then need to buy a plant that will provide the Power(Watts) rating to meet your need.

I got mine from Lowes for $800, and it is rated for 5.5KW. I was able to carry my fridge, freezer, fan, other appliances. You should avoid over loading it, as that will lead to shut down and potential damage of the system.

I avoided running the Gen through the House electrical system. What you may want to do is run some extension cords to the units. Something else you need to know about the cords, ensure that they are rated for 1.6KW.

Good luck. What part of Houston are you in?

If you have the funds for it, I would consider getting an automatic standby unit big enough to run the house. But you should also look up the average gas usage of one that size under load and figure out how much it would cost to operate per day. The gas usage by cubic foot is on their "full specs" PDF file linked on generacs page KrimsonX posted a link to.

We live in The Woodlands area. My dad had an extra 3.5KW generator so it was enough to pull the fridge, small AC unit, and TV. While it got us through I'd like a larger unit for future outages. I need to check the house AC unit and see what it requires. I'm guessing a 8-12 KW unit should be enough.

I connected our little generator to the house via the 110 outlets with the guidance of my elctrician neighbor and it worked well but we were very careful with what we tried to use. I figure in a few weeks there will be a large supply of used generators on the market but not sure I want to touch just any used one.

What part of town are you in?

That is one thing that concerns me about the larger gasoline powered ones is being able to store and get enough fuel for it. The natural gas one can't be cheap to run but at least I wouldn't have to sit in gas station lines for 4 hours either.

Our situ is different, as we don't have piped nat gas up here on the
Mtn; most of us run on propane from a big buried/hidden tank.

But, nearly all of us up here have a Generac brand, stand alone,
whole house generator, as we lose power for hours/day, several
times per year. Ours is 7 yrs old, and other than a couple
of glitches, runs like a top: it comes on 20 sec after loss of power,
runs 85% of the entire fooking house, (you will probably only need
to power <50% of your house, imo), turns off seamlessly and
comes on once per week to exercise itself. It is "hard wired" into
our elec. system.

One neighbor has a diesel version, which is quite economical in
terms of fuel usage, and that diesel version offers the ability to
run 24/7 almost indefinitely vs. our air cooled version which
shuts down for half an hour every ~10 hrs or so, to cool itself.

I would look hard at the Generac site; lots of good info.
Some friends have gasoline powered Hondas that run like
tops, but gasoline storage is a slight consideration...

Good Luck in your search. mD

Sugar-Land/Harris County. 8-12KW should be enough.
Mind you a lot of used Gen sets will be almost brand new as people only used for them for max of 3 weeks. Do your home work and you might get one at a bargain.

Do you guys have power yet? How bad is it over there?
Good luck with the recovery.

We got power about 9:00 PM last night. Damage overall isn't too bad here. The older houses tend to have more roof damage and of course the heavily tree covered areas are a bit worse. My worry with a used generator is the lack of maintenance but I think if buy a reputable brand it should be fine.

It looked like Sugarland got spared mostly.... How about power?

My background was designing, selling, and servicing diesel and natural gas generator sets, from 1988 through 1995. I am still at the same company, but not in our Power Systems division any longer. We sold the Generac units at the time (branded with another name), as well as our prime brand (the yellow ones made in Peoria) We also built, or packaged, gensets with various diesel engines. We used Honda gasoline gensets for portable power.

Natural gas: easier; cleaner; no fuel maintenance such as stabilizers, etc; less power density so there is a higher capital cost (you need more displacement for the same output). It will be an installed unit, so you will need some kind of transfer switch, either auto, semi auto, or manual. Biggest negative is the potential interruption of your natural gas supply. In some localities, the gas is pressurized by compressors driven electrically. In those cases, if the power goes out the natural gas does as well. Some building codes require separate diesel gensets if you have a code requirement for standby power, over and above the natural gas unit.

The cost of fuel is not a factor for any of these choices. You will use it so infrequently that it is simply irrelevant.

You need to decide if you want whole-house standby, in which case you need 12-15 kw depending on HVAC loads, or partial standby because you want to run lights, TV, microwave, fridge, etc. For occasional outages, it makes the most sense to buy a Honda unit that is parked in your garage. We have had 4 or 5 in the family over the years, and I could get serious gensets at real discounts, but still bought Hondas regularly. At home we always installed a welder outlet (like a dryer outlet, but more amps) in the garage. We used a manual system of shutting off the main breaker, plugging in the genset, starting it up, and ensuring we didn't run all the electric heat at the same time. 5 kW is plenty for a partial standby. 3 kw is enough for some lights and a microwave. The capital cost of this approach is a fraction of the other options. When we saw the lights come on down the street, we waited 10 minutes and then manually switched back to utility grid power. You can make the system safer by using a manual transfer switch so that you don't blow the fuse on the genset by forgetting to isolate the utility power.

Whatever you buy, you need to exercise it every couple of months, and maintain it. Testing it is the key to knowing it will work when you need it.

How much you should invest depends on the frequency of outages, and the consequences of those outages. To avoid occasional nuisance outages, I would simply buy a Honda and rig up a welder outlet to use to energize the house circuits.

Jeff

Thank goodness for the power:thumbup:.
Just do proper research when going for the used gen set.
We got power back on Sunday afternoon, and we were lucky to have been spared though with some minor damages.