Any experiences with home generators?

[Deb in IA]

We just had a horrific ice storm here in the Iowa. Up to 1/2 inch of freezing rain that immediately turned to ice fell on Saturday, knocking out power lines to thousands of towns and homes, us included.

We were out from 3 pm Saturday, when our substation went down, to 7 pm Monday. That's 52 hours of no eletricity, no heat, no running water. Yuck.

And since we are predicted to get yet another round of freezing rain tomorrow, we've had enough.

We are getting a generator put in tomorrow!!!

Anyone else have one? Tell me the pluses and minuses. How reliable are they? Are they easy to operate? Do they work? What kind do you have?

Thanks!!

 

[Hercules10]

I've got a stand alone 13,000W generator w/Honda engine. Sounds like you'll have a in-line one installed? My brother has a in-line generator and his only gripe is the power surge(s) he gets from the generator "hic-cupping"
(I.e engine sputtering at bad times).

 

[Seahunt]

I would like to hear this also! In between the hurricanes down here, we purchased a portable Honda (3000 watts) to at least have a little power available, and started looking at whole house models. We got a couple estimates, both around $20,000 installed with pad and fuel tank, and haven't gotten any further

 

[Nancy]

We bought one in October when we had our storm that knocked out all the power lines (ours were out for 8 days) We have a stand alone, it was enough to run the sump pump, the fridge and 1 light and the tv/dvd combo. My DH set the whole thing up...I know we used a lot of gas during the time we used it.

It was fairly easy for him to set up. I have friends that have theirs connected to the main power lines so as soon as power cuts off their generator kicks in..theirs runs the furnance too. Ours isn't enough power to run the furnace and all the other stuff.

Biggest thing to remember with the stand alones...keep them away from the house, the fumes are horrible and they are noisy! We had people here that died from carbon monozide poisoning cause they put them inside (like in enclosed porches).

 

[DVC-Don]

We are having a stand by generator installed this spring as we just went through a 3 day power failure (ice also). It will run off our natural gas line (no gasoline storage needed) and be large enough to run our whole house, except a couple of circuits. Gonna cost about $3200 plus a few hundred for installation. It'll self start every 7 days and when the power goes out it'll have us back on power within 1 minute automatically.