Have been looking at standby gen sets lately because of the extremely poor service we always get from our local "Electric Membership Cooperative". There are so many out there but I've been leaning toward an air-cooled, single phase, LP fueled set of about 15-20KW. I am especially interested in finding sets that run quieter than the competition. I believe word-of-mouth is probably one of the better ways to find out about folks' experiences, so if you own a standby set, OR if you are best friends with someone who does, and you feel inclined to share their "real-life" stories I would LOVE to hear from you. My "THANKS" in advance..... FredT

Water cooled is for sure quieter than air cooled. Onan/cummins is probably your best bet.

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Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Water cooled is for sure quieter than air cooled. Onan/cummins is probably your best bet.

I'm not aware of any water cooled generators in the size he's looking for. They start around 26-27kw and are 2-3x as expensive as air cooled.

OP they all have a db rating on them. That's the best you are going to get since noise is subjective to people. What might keep you up at night maybe gentle white noise for others. Location on your property, insulation, and windows are going to drive what noise you hear in your house. If you are worried about your neighbor, offer him to plug his fridge in with an extension cord if there's a longer outage.

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Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Water cooled is for sure quieter than air cooled. Onan/cummins is probably your best bet.

I'm not aware of any water cooled generators in the size he's looking for. They start around 26-27kw and are 2-3x as expensive as air cooled.

OP they all have a db rating on them. That's the best you are going to get since noise is subjective to people. What might keep you up at night maybe gentle white noise for others. Location on your property, insulation, and windows are going to drive what noise you hear in your house. If you are worried about your neighbor, offer him to plug his fridge in with an extension cord if there's a longer outage.

Onan/cummins made a 1800 rpm. 20kw liquid cooled generator that was only 66 decibels at 7 meters away...….sadly I checked and it's been discontinued. It was a good gen set and in production up until a year or two ago.

https://www.electricgenerators...enerator/p11711.html

Anyways, Onan/Cummins makes several air cooled in the OP's size range and they're only 65 decibels and what I'd go with over generac unless there's no dealer support.

https://www.electricgenerators...5D=10000%20-%2019999

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Anyways, Onan/Cummins makes several air cooled in the OP's size range and they're only 65 decibels and what I'd go with over generac unless there's no dealer support.

Sold and serviced Generac for years, no argument here. Generac is best bang for buck if you can get by with problems for first 6-12 months of ownership. Usually after bugs are worked out they are great. I saw ~10% failure rates in first year of ownership (mostly one design flaw). In general good machines, but that one period/flaw gives me pause on ever buying one.

Sold generators for years, never owned one since I've only lost power once for more than two days where I live. It's nice to be one same power grid as the information super highway.

My neighbor did lose a generator control board with lightning strike about 70 feet away. You may want to site the generator away from lightning attractions like trees.

If you're concerned about what the neighborhood hears then there are ways to screen/dampen the sound with some aspects of positioning and plantings around it. It can also be scheduled to do its run-test during hours that people usually mow.

If you're worried about apocalyptic zombies finding you then you'll have to have it turned off anyway

I've had a Generac 20kw air cooled for some time now and though its quieter than all the portables, its still a noisy affair when its running. Luckily, mine gets used primarily during hurricane outages which means virtually everyone in the neighborhood is running their portables, making mine the least obnoxious of the bunch. If you make an effort to position the gen set appropriately, you can mitigate a lot of the noise it will generate. Best implementation I've ever seen was a 20kw air cooled installed in a one sided carport. The carport kept it out of the elements and the single wall blocked a ton of the noise.

I have a Kohler 20RESD which is a 20 kw natural gas gen set and it's quieter than my old portable briggs & stratton 6 kw.

It's 64 dB during weekly exercise and 69 dB at full-speed (8 point average not a single distance). The equivalent Onan QuietConnect is 65 dB, but it's measured at 23 ft at "normal" load.

I have a generator (Generac) and am happy with it. No issues but I have a maintenance agreement with the local service folks and it gets looked at every 6 months.

The mission is reliable power when you need it. There are a lot of criteria - reliability, warranty, availability of service and parts in your area, installed price, capacity, fuel choices.

RE: acoustics. The acoustics of your specific installation are subject to a lot of variables - you could buy something that is supposed to be quiet and still find some folks objecting to it, if they have a mind to. When you are relying on it for power, there is no hiding the fact there will be a mid-sized engine running in your yard. If you are looking to have it be quieter inside your house, then you could ask the dealer/installer how close to the house it would have to be, and have it installed at the maximum distance.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Onan/cummins made a 1800 rpm. 20kw liquid cooled generator that was only 66 decibels at 7 meters away...….sadly I checked and it's been discontinued. It was a good gen set and in production up until a year or two ago.

That's the unit we have, installed in 2003. Water cooled and 1800rpm will get you quiet. The engine is a 4 cyl. from a mid-1990's Ford Ranger, which makes it easy to get engine parts.

We are out at the far end of the power distribution network on the ranch, and we are in hurricane country. We need absolutely reliable power and a lot of it. For 15 years I have been running a 40kw SDMO with a John Deere diesel engine with a sound enclosure. It is a beast and supplies power to all circuits on all my buildings, and is surprisingly quiet. When it kicks in it sounds about the same as the AC unit. When power is down I can hear the neighbor's portable gensets more than my own.

This has to do with whether you want it quiet all the time or just at night. I have a 12K Generac whole house and use a different approach. I actually leave the unit in the "off" position. I make the decision as to whether or not I run it based on the situation. If the power goes off in the middle of the night, so what. I turn it on in the morning when I get up if I need it. If the power goes off on a mild temperature day, I leave it off until I need something. The fuel consumption on all of these units is higher than most people think and there is no reason to pay for the fuel if you don't need the power. I would probably never run it at night because the noise would keep me awake and I don't need the power at that time. To start it up, all I need to do is walk outside, lift the cabinet top and push the button. A small unit like mine would use about 2 gallons of propane per hour. At $2 a gallon that is about $96 per 24 hour day if you run it constantly. Larger units would of course cost more than that to operate. I never see that mentioned in the advertisements for these things. Seven days of constant operation for my small unit would be about $672. That makes me appreciate the $4 per day I pay my power company for electricity. I am also glad I have the Generac for when I really need it.

Every time I see an increase in building activity in the back of the neighborhood (they're expanding my neighborhood) the grid gets real unstable. That's on top of the hurricanes, thunderstorms, aging equipment, vehicle accidents, etc. that cause power outages.

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If the power goes off in the middle of the night, so what.

That was actually the final straw that prompted my generator purchase. I have sleep apnea and use a CPAP to sleep. Apparently, they decided to do an unannounced 3 hour shutdown in the middle of the night (perfect weather with normal Texas overnight temps) which I assumed was a tie-in of the new neighborhood to the existing grid. I'm instantly awake and can't fall back asleep. It started getting warm in the house since in Texas even the overnight ambient temperature is warmer than I keep the house.

I have a neighbor that has a Generac,
no idea what size or model, but he is in about a 2300sqft house,


anyhoo, the unit is maybe 150-200 yards from my bedroom window

power out, windows up, I can hear his unit running, but not so that it keeps me or anyone in the house awake, just a hum like a lawn mower running, in the distance