Residential Standby Generators

[Blackmagic71]

After watching Texas get slapped around by storms this week my wife and I are having somebody come out next week to give us an estimate on a standby generator.

Have any MCB’ers had experience with residential standby generators? Good? Bad? Would you do it again?

Our house is relatively small, so I think 10,000-12,000 Watts would work well.

[Flounder]

I had a 20KW Generac at a previous home. We were out in the sticks, lost power frequently. Ours was propane fueled off a 500 gallon tank buried in the yard. It was nice to be able to take a hot shower during a week long outage. We did not let it run all the time when power went out. It was set up to start automatically with an ABT switch to power the majority of the house. For some reason the fridge was not on a standby circuit. My parents house was set up with a manual transfer switch. They only had a 6500 watt Honda that they plugged in when they needed it, fewer loads but enough to remain in the house during an outage.

I would suggest figuring out how much you need and how often you expect to lose power and for how long. No sense going with a whole home system if you do not need it. Even if power is out for days, a few hours a day is enough to keep things charged up and keep the fridge and freezer cold.

[maggot]

I don't have personal experience, but a co-worker just bought one from Home Depot. Was 11k, installed. Hooks up to natural gas line, just sits and waits for the power to go out.

[DPrekel]

didn't go with a standby, but we do have a generator. Added the inlet box outside, transfer circuits inside. 5500W generator. Enough to keep the kitchen and furnace happy plus a few other sections of the house if needed. Never had the plan to run full time, enough to keep the food safe and heat/hot water when needed, we have natural gas so the furnace is pretty light on power. We will probably never lose power again.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Generac is the way to go with an auto switch over. Power goes out 5 seconds later power is back on. There warranty starts the day you hook them up. So you can buy them from HOA home owners that don’t do there research for a song. Most HOA don’t allow back up generators people purchase them then realize there HOA don’t allow them and no electrician will install them. I have gotten them 2-3k below cost this way. Generac sees it as new even if it’s a few years old. You can save a lot if you have the patience and shop around. Now is not the time to buy one tho for the same reason you are looking. Everything is getting shipped south to capitalize on others lack of preparation and marked up.

You can back feed a generator threw your panel but you better know what you are doing. It may or may not be legal in your area but then again you won’t have an issue unless you screw up the process and burn your house down. I use to back feed mine threw a welding outlet for many years. Now I have a Generac it runs everything and I don’t even have to get off the couch.

It depends on how often your power goes out if an auto switch is worth the investment. Also how much risk you are willing to incur. In an emergency situation like in TX the people that are going to harass you about back feeding are more busy with there on crap then yours. It’s also rare so pulling one out of the garage hooking it up isn’t as big a hassle. If you are constantly losing power the auto system is the way to go.

Auto switch generators increase property values a lot more then they cost and are great selling points down the road as well.

[Flounder]

The problem with back feeding the panel is if done incorrectly you end up energizing the lines feeding your house putting the guys trying to restore your power at risk. The Electric Code was written for your safety, I ti sneer to follow it.

[Blackmagic71]

We don’t lose power often, but we live in Minnesota and it’s not uncommon to get a week or two each year with temperatures in the -15 to -20 range. If we lost power for a week we would probably be in tough shape from burst pipes.

The biggest selling point to me would be the ability to keep the pump in our boiler circulating for heat.

[Flounder]

Those pumps are pretty small, you could probably get away with a 12V inverter run off your car.

[chrislognshot]

get Generac unit or invest in tesla solar panels and get battery packs to hold up to two days of power to keep house going. but having solar panels will help out a lot.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Im going with an outdoor wood burner as a secondary heat source. Going with one of the new GS versions that reburn all the smoke they use half the wood and burn times are longer. Lots of trees in my area if I need heat. Generator I’m going to run off a 500gal tank I’m berrying next to the house with radiant heat.

My current house is hooked up to natural gas so the generator runs off that. But my new house my wife and I are building I’m skipping the fire place and going with a Secondary heat source. Because it’s out in the sticks.

[TheYoda]

8k Generac for a decent sized house. Haven’t had to use it yet.
Power has gone out a couple of times, but usually comes back within a couple of hours. Keeping it maintained, charged, clean... ready to go in case we need it cuz the only thing worse than not having one is having one sitting there that won’t start.

[BLachance75]

We bought a 6500w constant, 8500 startup portable generator over the summer. There was a bad storm that took down power lines all over the area. They estimated it would take at least a week to get the power back. The day after the storm we bought the generator and ran extension cords to the fridges and freezer. At night I’d run a portable AC in bedroom.

This spring or summer I’m going to wire a 30a outlet on its own circuit and put an interlock switch on the circuit panel. That way I can shut off the main breaker then turn on the generator breaker and power my panel. I need to go through the house and figure out what outlet and light is on each breaker.

[powpowpaintball]

Another vote for Generac here

[Spider!]

We have a whole house Kohler, mainly for hurricanes in the summer. It's only a few months old, but it saved the refrigerators one weekend while we were gone. I had a notice from the electric company about the outage and was able to check that the gen was running. The power was out about 10 hours with no problems. Swanky stuff

[Seajay]

If you are looking at a long-term portable unit Generac is the way to go. Other brands are generally just fine for short use, like camping, or an event. Long use, days, Generac is designed for this kind of use. Other brands from my own experience don't necessarily fail but will have a much higher maintenance and power down period, which they can't be run for 2+ days straight, you need to cycle the run times, or they will fail/shut off unexpectantly.

A whole home generator is a bit different, and would be tailored for your specific home. The best long term option.