With the increase of events that result in power outages and who knows how long it will take for power to be restored I am beginning to investigate getting a generator for the house.

This is not my forever home. I will retire from the police department in about 10 years before moving to family land at the coast. This is why I am not really considering a whole house stand by unit.

I like the idea of being able to transport the generator if needed.


I am mostly considering the predator models from harbor freight. I am looking at the 9500 kw models. I like the idea of being able to hook up the generators in parallel.

I know I want to be able to operate everything in the house as normal. I live in the piedmont of NC in a 2200 sqft house. Each level is approximately 800sqt. The half of the basement is finished but if the power is out there is nothing needed in the basement so those power needs can be avoided except the electric water heater. The middle level of the house is all the common rooms and the top level are the three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

All appliances are electric including hvac.

I checked my past electric bills and February of 2023 was my highest use month with approximately 2500kwh used for the month.

So what does the collective say? Would a 9500KW predator generator sufficiently power the entire house? The predator generators say they can be wire in parallel so could I 9500KW model and then add to it as needed?

Thanks in advance.

JD

I had a dedicated 50amp RV plug and interlock installed. check the predator has one, many only have a 30amp.

I also plan adding another inverter generator next year to wire in parallel. I went with the genmax 9000 because it has a 50A plug. We had an outage last week, when I started the generator and flipped the interlock when all the fridges, freezer and hvac came on at once it tripped the breaker on the generator, after I started each individually it was fine with everything

This message has been edited. Last edited by: snwghst,

I suspect that won't be anywhere near enough to run entire house without a circuit limiting exercise. The HVAC is what will kill you, especially if you have electric heat. Or daughters who don't understand "no dryers/irons" during outage.

You might consider what we did with a house in Birmingham. We had a whole-house switch installed inline between power feed and fuse panel. I'm not naming it right, but envision that outdoor gray safety switch box, but instead of ON/OFF it was controlling which of two inbound supplies it fed the breaker pane with.

In normal position, on AL Power. Switch to other position, on wiring to the female plug we installed to connect portable generator. Had friend with hardware store assemble a super heavy duty power cord with plug for interlocking outlet on generator and about 12 feet long to give plenty of distance from window for generator/exhaust. It was manual, so power goes out, wheel out generator, connect cord, disconnect circuit above, turn OFF breakers we knew we couldn't/didn't want to run such as HVAC, start generator, switchbox to alternate supply position and everything in house could be used. Safe for power company, and still running through breakers as normal.

This is, admittedly, less elegant than a whole house generator and we knew we were limited by total power we could use, no AC, etc. But with some general awareness it worked great the times we needed it, and we were running off a 5500 watt generator. We did have an actual electrician install so there was no shortcutting the process. A much less expensive option but invaluable when needed.

YMMV

Check with an electrician or knowledgeable person. When I had an exterior 50amp hook up and transfer switch installed on my house, I found out my HVAC (AC is electric and heat is gas) starting and running amps were well below my selected portable generator (7250 watts). I was thinking I would have to have a soft start kit installed but I did not need it. In winter I could run my entire house (with exception of washer and dryer) on the little Predator 3500. In summer, I have to use the big one and then choose on whether AC or Washer/Dryer is running, can't have both on at the same time. I have one refrigerator and one freezer, with gas stove and oven.

Before I got the 50amp hook up and transfer switch, I used a one room portable AC unit for power outages in the summer. I had to choose AC and refrigerator or freezer, could only run 2 at a time, not all 3.

Champion makes a good generator for a similar price as the Predators.

I have a 7550 watt Generac. It is sufficient to run my entire 3400 sq ft house. Fans, lights, toasters, microwave, etc. What it will NOT do is run central air, water heater, stove, dryer, etc. The reason is that all of these require more than 30 amps at start-up and most generators only make 30 amps. The key will be to finding a 50 amp generator. That, more than the available wattage, will make a bigger difference.

Your use over time matters not to the generator its the total sum of the right now loads.
is the 9500w number peak or not.
Electrical resistance loads are really big...
You need to look specifically at your situation with real spec loads for your units but I doubt you can run electric AC or heat and a water heater at the same time. There is no way you can live like a normal house IMO with 9500w primarily electric. A quick peak at the gen specs shows the largest plug per the specs is 30a.

I have the 9500 inverter generator feeding my panel through an interlock.

It runs my hot air furnace, well pump, and heat pump water heater without issue, all while proving lights and power to the fridge and freezer.

I have a monitor on the line to verify my loads, and my peak amp draw per leg is 27 amps for up to 3 seconds.

Mostly my draw is under 10 amps per leg, it's if multiple things start at the same time that drives the amps up.

I run my generator on eco for most of the day, but if taking showers I'll run it off eco to allow for the amp pull.

The only thing I can't do on the generator is run my oven (I use a toaster oven to cook on the generator) or the dryer.

If I replace this I'll probably go to the DuroMax 14k inverter and 50a wire, but can really survive fine for quite a while with the 30a output of the 9500.

the request was run the house as normal.
Just for examples at my house.
Hot Water heater electric 18a.
I have electric baseboard in two rooms and they draw 13a each room.
My well pump pulls 10a but in startup needs headroom for about double that.
I'm guessing the OP doesn't have a well pump as he didn't mention it.
In order to survive at my house on 50a I have to kill every 240v load except the well pump. No hot water heater, no stove, no baseboard electric, no dryer etc. But we get heat, lights, frig and freezers, microwave and toaster oven and much of the rest of modern living. To be clear on how we live long term when we need hot water we shut down the other loads and let the generator run the water heater which then gives you hot water for a decent period of time since it stores it.
In any case as I said you are not going to have life as usual on 30a.

The Predator 9500 is only rated at 7600 watts running . You can buy the parallel kit and add another one to increase your available power .

and as I said above it looks like the biggest outlet is 30a so that matches what its capable of.

Do you really need to power the entire house? I am looking at generators as well as our electric used to be rock solid when we first moved in but now it goes down pretty frequently but not for days at a time thankfully.
I was looking to go big as well but then looked at what do we really need for a few days. The more power the bigger the generator at a bigger cost and more fuel which costs more but could also become a scarcity. We have gas so I am going to do a dual fuel unit and run propane for the years of warranty then convert it to natural gas.

We have gas heat, water heater, and fireplace. So all I need is fridge, freezer, and either the bedroom or basement.

Basement stays about 70* in the summer without A/C so no real need for A/C. We can all sleep down there if it is summer and have TV and the video games.

If it’s winter we can easily run the furnace either upstairs or down stairs have the fireplace heat the upstairs.

The more you run the more fuel you need. Which could be a scarcity.

I am going to have a 4 circuit transfer switch installed.
Master Bedroom, Basement, and kitchen will be the mains I use.

I am also going to get a 1000w inverter to run off our vehicles.

I am looking at WEN generators they get really good reviews and are cheaper than the Predators.
This should cover our needs nicely
https://wenproducts.com/collec...-off-and-co-watchdog

Portability and storage were also things I considered. I will want to take mine to our cabin as well plus I have to store it somewhere when not in use. So I don’t want a gigantic generator in my way.

The Predator you are looking at is 250 lbs!!!! And 7600 watts for $2300.

The WEN is 4000 watts running for $650 and 78 lbs. you can get two of those for cheaper than the one Predator and have more power, less money, and weight.

"Do we need the whole house?" is exactly the decision point. At the time I described above it would be nice, but we could survive weeks with ability to cook, refrigerate and bathe. If misfortune hit in August, we could sit in the car from time to time.

I will admit, our final house built last couple years has a whole house 24KW generator built in. Second month there I was unaware the power had gone out for a few hours in July until my SIL and BIL sitting with us lakeside said "what's that noise?" and I realized we'd been on genny for a couple hours. AC, lights, fans, blender making drinks, nobody the wiser.

I felt like a king.

If the generator is limited by the 30amp cable what is the purpose of being able to wire them in parallel?

^^^Presumably, the Y cord in the parallel kit take the 30amp connections from each generator and terminates them into one larger capacity connection.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
<snip>

The Predator you are looking at is 250 lbs!!!! And 7600 watts for $2300.


The WEN is 4000 watts running for $650 and 78 lbs. you can get two of those for cheaper than the one Predator and have more power, less money, and weight.

That WEN won’t generate 240v, which many people with pumps need. It also won’t plug conveniently into your electrical panel to power all of your 120v circuits. Using the WEN means running extension cords all over.

Here’s how it works at my house:

I have a 50amp receptacle on the outside of my house. It’s wired to a 50amp breaker in my electrical panel. To turn on that breaker, I have to turn off the main breaker in the panel, which allows me to slide a plate up, which then allows me to turn on the generator breaker. That take 10 seconds. Dragging to 200lb generator on wheels outside takes 40 seconds, starting the generator takes 10 seconds, dragging the cord out of the garage and plugging it in to the house then generator the 90 seconds. In under 3 minutes I can power everything in my house except the AC, the heat, and the hot tub. Some things have to be run by themselves: the clothes dryer, water heater, and the stove/oven. Small loads can be run simultaneously with each of those three, so you can run the water heater for a few hours and keep a ceiling fan going for example.

^^^^^
Just the one cord to a transfer switch is all you need. No reason for numerous cords all over the place.
He also wants to transport the generator. One thing to just roll 250lbs outside to plug it in. Much different ball game lifting it in and out of a truck or SUV taking it to multiple locations.

Can a transfer switch be wired to power both sides of an electrical panel from one 120v source? Would it be wise to do so if the house has multi wire branch circuits?

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Can a transfer switch be wired to power both sides of an electrical panel from one 120v source? Would it be wise to do so if the house has multi wire branch circuits?

The transfer switch I will be using has 4 or 6 circuits that it powers.
Not sure about powering an entire panel.
I’d like to power my whole house and if I lived somewhere with the possibility of power being out for a week plus probably would spend the extra coin to do it. But I am in a moderately populated area and weather related issues are only going to put us down for a few days.
So the whole house is just overkill adding a big expense to the budget and the need for a lot more fuel.
One generator and a transfer switch I’ll be under $1000 and be able to power all our necessities and a few creature comforts.
I can always add a 2nd generator in parallel down the line.
But we also have gas heat, gas water heater, and a fireplace so our needs are a lot less than folks who are strictly electric.

Would a Soft Start eliminate the problem for the AC unit starting on a generator.

Link

My Generator is 7500/5500 and we run the whole house with it, the pool pump, dryer, range, anything 220 is turned off in the breaker box, so no AC but TV, Lights, two refrigerators, fans all run.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Can a transfer switch be wired to power both sides of an electrical panel from one 120v source? Would it be wise to do so if the house has multi wire branch circuits?

It would work, but none of your 240v appliances would function. However, it is a big no-no, for the reason in your second question. It would put both legs of the MWBC on the same phase, thus doubling the load on the neutral conductor, which has no over-current protection in a U.S. system. It would be a good way to burn down your house.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
The transfer switch I will be using has 4 or 6 circuits that it powers.
Not sure about powering an entire panel.
I’d like to power my whole house and if I lived somewhere with the possibility of power being out for a week plus probably would spend the extra coin to do it. But I am in a moderately populated area and weather related issues are only going to put us down for a few days.
So the whole house is just overkill adding a big expense to the budget and the need for a lot more fuel.
One generator and a transfer switch I’ll be under $1000 and be able to power all our necessities and a few creature comforts.
I can always add a 2nd generator in parallel down the line.
But we also have gas heat, gas water heater, and a fireplace so our needs are a lot less than folks who are strictly electric.

Ah, the transfer switch you are using has its own panel. The electrician offered that option on our Florida house, but installing the interlock on our existing panel was cheaper, enabled us to run whatever circuits we wanted, and allowed us to keep the 240v pool pump going. On the house in Michigan, we have an automatic transfer switch and a 19kW, on natural gas, whole house generator. It just switches from the power company mains to the generator and back.

There’s three cherry pickers on our street right now. If they get the power back on, that’ll be only 3 days without power. I’m not running the generator at night because it’s not an inverter one, so it’s really loud. We also aren’t running any sensitive electronics off of it. With Ian in 2022, we lost power for a 9 days. I have to go back to Charley in 2004 for another extended outage. I think that was two weeks of not three. I also wasn’t married with kids, so it was a lot easier to deal with.

I haven’t compared fuel use between generator sizes yet. I’m curious what a 4,000 watt generator uses running at 50% load vs and 8,000 watt one running at 25% load. I suspect it isn’t enough for me to not just get the bigger generator.