My neighbors may not be too pleased though...

I’ve had a couple smaller generators over the years, always ended up being a pain in the ass after a few years when carbs gummed up and they became unreliable. Also with infrequent use, trying keep fresh gas on hand is a hassle as well as a safety concern.


While we don’t have long term outages very often, when we do they are a pain! In 2015 we had a freak August windstorm that knocked power out for over 20 hours. I decided I was done with gas generators and running extension cord into the house to power one or two things. Went out and I bought a 7500 watt dual fuel generator, a 40lb LP tank, and manual switch box. I wired the switch box in, did some tests, and sat back to wait.

Didn’t have to wait too long, March 2016 we had an outage for about 14 hours. Worked perfectly and other than pulling it out once or twice to test, haven’t needed to hook it up since...

Until tonight about 6:45 pm - Power went out, popped back on momentarily, then out again. A sure sign in these parts that it will be out for several hours.


It is wired in to provide power to garage outlets for freezer and hot water heater, kitchen appliances/outlets, family room lights/outlets, and master bedroom lights/outlets. We can cook, watch TV, internet is up (so long as cable isn’t out as well), have hot water, be able to shower and such in the master bedroom, and (most importantly) I can sleep comfortably with my CPAP all on generator power.

Once I decided to go ahead and deploy it tonight it was less than 10 minutes to power on.

Life is Good!

The last time that I lost power for any amount of time was last December during a snow that snapped a tree branch down the road that took down the power lines. The reason I remember it was it was on a Saturday morning about 10AM and I was ..."ahem".... "reading" on the throne in the one throne room in the house with no windows, and was in complete darkness to finish my "business". It was out for about 7 hours.

This past spring the PUD went on a trimming frenzy, and we haven't had any problems with the power. Even with the winds today, nary a flicker in the lights. We did get a bit of hail followed by heavy rains for about 10 minutes at about 7PM.

The big storm in 2015 knocked out power here for 48 hours. I get fresh 0% ethanol fuel and treat it with Stay-bil and rotate it out every 6 months. The 15 gallons I got in November will start to be used in March when I start to mow the lawn. If the power goes out this winter, the 15 gallons plus what's in the generator will last ~36 hours. Past that, I have 37 gallons in my truck with a siphon hose.

Now that you have the generator the chances of losing power is small, at least that is my experience.

We had a huge ice storm several years ago and lost power for 8 days. some in the area were out for almost a month. My Wife and I had a sit down and decided we needed a real generator so we bought the 20kw Generac whole house generator and had it wired in permanently, used the propane from our 750 gl house tank and works like a champ...except we have not had any more outages. The generator starts up on a monthly cycle and runs for 30 minutes but that is it. Whole system cost $9,900 but in the long run I guess it was worth it as we have not lost power since.

Don't be an asshole. Invite them over for dinner.

Cook whatever they used to have in freezer, starting with steaks. And their wine.

Looks like it’s going to go all night. Had all kinds of tree limbs down in the roads on the way home from the kiddo’s Christmas gala tonight. Stay safe. I’m hoping the fence doesn’t blow down. Again.

We’ve been in the dark since 6:30pm. I think I’m about 10 miles south of you.

No generator. But we’ve got the gas fireplace on, a lantern, and a few flashlights.

Hurricane season '17 featured Harvey (picked up 40 gallons of gas for my portable generator, but only used less than 5 gallons) and spring of this year our power was out several hours a week as the mildest storm tripped the power due extending power to new neighborhoods in the back of the development. The worst part is I have sleep apnea and was awakened at 1:30 AM on one itty bitty storm to no power and I had forgotten to charge my CPAP battery after my last overnight flight. 2.5 hours to 3 hours of no power meant no sleep for me and I was a zombie the next day at work. There was a nice Kohler generator discount and free automatic transfer switch deal going on so I pulled the trigger on a 20 KW Kohler generator.

When I told my boss I had installed it, he astutely said, "Thanks Todd! You've pretty much guaranteed no hurricane this season."

Do you know how many hours the generator has run (excluding the weekly 10 minute auto run)? You guessed it zero. I'm not complaining as I'd much rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

quote:

Originally posted by Sgt Neutron:
... I get fresh 0% ethanol fuel and treat it with Stay-bil and rotate it out every 6 months. The 15 gallons I got in November will start to be used in March when I start to mow the lawn. If the power goes out this winter, the 15 gallons plus what's in the generator will last ~36 hours. Past that, I have 37 gallons in my truck with a siphon hose.

I am inherently lazy and never stayed up on the rotation, etc. I don’t have any gas garden equipment so it would have to be used in vehicles. Also not a fan of storing gas in garage or shed.

My propane tank should be good for about 24-36 hours. Then I can use the BBQ and Fire pit tanks for another 12 hours or so. Or, since it is dual fuel I can go get gas and run on that, then run it dry and switch back to propane.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
... The worst part is I have sleep apnea and was awakened at 1:30 AM on one itty bitty storm to no power and I had forgotten to charge my CPAP battery after my last overnight flight. 2.5 hours to 3 hours of no power meant no sleep for me and I was a zombie the next day at work.

Nothing worse than waking up feeling like you are being smothered. I have a battery back up for my CPAP I use this time of year. It stays plugged into the wall to keep charged and CPAP is plugged into it for instant cutover if power goes out while I am sleeping.

Useful for other things as well...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...ilpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
There was a nice Kohler generator discount and free automatic transfer switch deal going on so I pulled the trigger on a 20 KW Kohler generator.

When I told my boss I had installed it, he astutely said, "Thanks Todd! You've pretty much guaranteed no hurricane this season."

Do you know how many hours the generator has run (excluding the weekly 10 minute auto run)? You guessed it zero. I'm not complaining as I'd much rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

quote:

Originally posted by bushpilot:
Now that you have the generator the chances of losing power is small, at least that is my experience.

We had a huge ice storm several years ago and lost power for 8 days. some in the area were out for almost a month. My Wife and I had a sit down and decided we needed a real generator so we bought the 20kw Generac whole house generator and had it wired in permanently, used the propane from our 750 gl house tank and works like a champ...except we have not had any more outages. The generator starts up on a monthly cycle and runs for 30 minutes but that is it. Whole system cost $9,900 but in the long run I guess it was worth it as we have not lost power since.

Once I retire and we move from this hell hole, I expect we will be in an area that has more outages. At that point I will probably go this route. For where we are at now, just unnecessary overkill.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
Don't be an asshole. Invite them over for dinner.

Cook whatever they used to have in freezer, starting with steaks. And their wine.

No, old neighbor (friend) goes and stays at hotel when this happens. New neighbor is an asshole (built fence on my property one month after moving in, even after we discussed where property line was. His response after I noted the posts were set 18” past where discussed and marked - ”Oops...”.

Not a big deal, doesn’t effect my property use and not worth cost of survey to fight it. Just the principal of it and I can be pig-headed on things like that.

On the bright side for him, the fence he built should act as a noise barrier to a certain degree considering where my generator sits.

quote:

Originally posted by Copefree:
We’ve been in the dark since 6:30pm. I think I’m about 10 miles south of you.

No generator. But we’ve got the gas fireplace on, a lantern, and a few flashlights.

Yup we went down at 6:44pm, coming up on 4 hours now. Looking at PUD website, they are making progress in my area. initially had over 14K out in my “zone”, now only 7600 out.

Went out for 30 seconds in Covington. I have a generator but I think the battery is dead.

Kohler 14KW auto-start/auto-transfer, runs on propane.

Arguably the best money I've ever spent. We've had three multi-hour outages in the past 6 weeks.

Only fly in the ointment is the piratical price of propane in small batches. I just paid $4.319 for 42 gallons to top off my tank. I need to look into a 500 gallon tank that I can fill at a decent price every other year or so.

EDIT: It has a built-in battery charger that keeps the battery topped off from utility power when it's not running. Also has a carb heater to avoid freezing problems in the Winter.

Maintenance consists of changing the oil and filter in the Fall and eyeballing the battery connections to be sure they're clean and tight.

For those with generators, when it's raining or snowing, do you need to cover or protect the generator? If so, how do you do it?

I'm looking at generators as a just-in-case option and am wondering about any danger in running the set while in wet conditions.

I have a 22KW PTO generator for my tractor that I run my house with.
The downfall is keeping diesel in the tank.
It runs about 6 hours on a tank.

quote:

Originally posted by marksman41:
For those with generators, when it's raining or snowing, do you need to cover or protect the generator? If so, how do you do it?

I'm looking at generators as a just-in-case option and am wondering about any danger in running the set while in wet conditions.

Obviously, mine being in an enclosure, I don't need to worry about it. If it's snowing/drifting I do keep an eye on the air intake as it's air cooled.

For a portable, I'd want a roof over it just to keep rain/snow out of the electrical parts. We had a big portable for the Fire Department and we just built a tin roof over the frame of the generator.

quote:

Originally posted by bushpilot:
Now that you have the generator the chances of losing power is small, at least that is my experience.

Isn't that the truth. We installed a 20kW Onan when we built our house in 2002-2003. We wanted enough to power at least one of the two central AC units, figuring any power outage would most likely be in the hottest part of the AZ summer, what with monsoon storms and all. So far, we have used it twice (both during summer), once for 7 hours, and once for 3 hours. Sure was nice to have it then, though.

quote:

Originally posted by marksman41:
For those with generators, when it's raining or snowing, do you need to cover or protect the generator? If so, how do you do it?

I'm looking at generators as a just-in-case option and am wondering about any danger in running the set while in wet conditions.

I don’t have a pic with me, but my portable generator in the aftermath (ie. Not during the hurricane itself) of Hurricane Ike in ‘08 I zip tied my golf umbrella to it. Lost power for 4 days and my portable took 5 gallons of gas every 12 hours

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
It is wired in to provide power to garage outlets for freezer and hot water heater

Do you REALLY need hot water in an outage? That's 3500-4000 watts, which will KILL your propane fuel mileage and eat through lots more expensive propane than you need. Plus hot water heaters can stay hot for 12-18 hours without any power to them...

My advice is to turn the water heater off during an outage, and only turn it on 30 minutes before you need showers, than turn it back off again after showers.

And don't forget to change the engine oil every 50 hours if you don't have an oil filter, or every 100 hours if you do (industry standard recommendation).

Thanks for the info. on how you guys shelter the generator for safety. I've got some more planning to do!

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
It is wired in to provide power to garage outlets for freezer and hot water heater

Do you REALLY need hot water in an outage?

Yes, I am not a savage

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:That's 3500-4000 watts, which will KILL your propane fuel mileage and eat through lots more expensive propane than you need. Plus hot water heaters can stay hot for 12-18 hours without any power to them...

Not when it is a Natural Gas tankless heater

Uses very little AC for control circuits and igniter.

Living in rural Virginia and experiencing regular outages, I purchased a Kabuta 25KW diesel generator. I didn't have an automatic transfer switch, but I had the electricians install a manual switching arrangement so I could power the whole house. I always keep 300 or so gallons of diesel on hand, so I was always prepared. When we moved to Virginia Beach where natural gas is available to most homes, I had the automatic transfer switch installed and bought a 30KW NG Generic liquid cooled model. The power doesn't go out as often here at the beach, but when it does, I keep on going like nothing happened.

Great to have but don't put it too close to the house. I had a generac 22kw that caught on fire while coming on for it's weekly scheduled 1 hour run. Mine was one of five on Long Island that this happened to this year. Luckily it was 20 feet away from the house giving the fire department plenty of time to arrive before it got out of hand.