Back up generators for home

[Dan Murphy]

a few months ago we replaced our generac that ran most of our house with a kohler that will run all of it (including water-we are on a well). i was shocked at how much the cost has increased in the 14 years since we purchased our first but the safety and the security is well worth the cost. ours runs on propane (i rent a 1000 gallon tank and am NOT locked into any horrific rental fee or fuel cost-in fact i pay less than most pay for their bbq tanks and FAR less than gasoline per gallon).

I've looked at Kohler also vs Generac (or most any others, most or all made by Generac). What made you replace with Kohler, if I may ask?

 

[Southernmiss]

I would look into a company in your area specializing in generators for the home

 

[barkley]

I've looked at Kohler also vs Generac (or most any others, most or all made by Generac). What made you replace with Kohler, if I may ask?

our generac was great but when we felt it was time to replace AND upgrade (we wanted full backup vs. having to pick and choose what would be operable which we had done on our smaller generac) everthing we researched pointed to kohler as having a longer lifespan and being more reliable in very cold temperatures. we also found that there were more kohler authorized technicians in our area vs. generac (and when an issue comes up during an area wide outage you want more options to get someone out b/c everyone else with the same brand will be calling as well).

I would look into a company in your area specializing in generators for the home

idealy a place that is not only an authorized seller but also authorized maintainance and repairs. we bought our original generac from costco-got a great deal but then were left to search out authorized repair places which we quickly learned were pretty few and far between.

 

[Dan Murphy]

our generac was great but when we felt it was time to replace AND upgrade (we wanted full backup vs. having to pick and choose what would be operable which we had done on our smaller generac) everthing we researched pointed to kohler as having a longer lifespan and being more reliable in very cold temperatures. we also found that there were more kohler authorized technicians in our area vs. generac (and when an issue comes up during an area wide outage you want more options to get someone out b/c everyone else with the same brand will be calling as well).




idealy a place that is not only an authorized seller but also authorized maintainance and repairs. we bought our original generac from costco-got a great deal but then were left to search out authorized repair places which we quickly learned were pretty few and far between.

Thanks, @barkley. Your thoughts on the Kohler have been my thoughts also. Seems like a more substantial unit than Generac. I almost had one installed many years ago, like 20 or more. The installed cost then was about $6,000,. I'm sure I'll be stunned at the current installed cost. But at my age, 80, it's pretty difficult firing up the portable and running the cables throughout the house to the needed areas. And no heat or AC.

 

[tony67]

Buy one that will run on propane.

Unless you regularly run a gas generator it will not work when you need it because the gas will have turned to gel in the carburetor and the gas will deteriorate in the gas tank and turn into a varnish.

If you don't buy one that runs on propane or natural gas make sure you run the generator monthly and change out the gas every 3 months.

Agreed. They do still need to run every week. Mine is set up for that. Don't even have to think about it.

If i had it to do again .. and with the current pricing of these things .. it seems they increased in price quite a bit in the last 10 years .. Id probably look at solar\battery .. I don't feel its really there yet .. but it will be

 

[jrsharp21]

Anyone have any experience with Duro Max generators? Been looking at the XP13000 dual fuel model. Seems to be very reasonably priced and from what I have read so far, has pretty good reviews.

 

[VGCgroupie]

Ecoflow.

Will Prowse on you tube has a wealth of information worth a look. Also Hobotech on you tube is fun to watch.

 

[_19disnA]

There are lots of websites where you can compare the various brands of portable back-up generators. They come in a variety of wattages and have dual fuel options as well.

 

[focusondisney]

our generac was great but when we felt it was time to replace AND upgrade (we wanted full backup vs. having to pick and choose what would be operable which we had done on our smaller generac) everthing we researched pointed to kohler as having a longer lifespan and being more reliable in very cold temperatures. we also found that there were more kohler authorized technicians in our area vs. generac (and when an issue comes up during an area wide outage you want more options to get someone out b/c everyone else with the same brand will be calling as well).




idealy a place that is not only an authorized seller but also authorized maintainance and repairs. we bought our original generac from costco-got a great deal but then were left to search out authorized repair places which we quickly learned were pretty few and far between.

Thanks, @barkley. Your thoughts on the Kohler have been my thoughts also. Seems like a more substantial unit than Generac. I almost had one installed many years ago, like 20 or more. The installed cost then was about $6,000,. I'm sure I'll be stunned at the current installed cost. But at my age, 80, it's pretty difficult firing up the portable and running the cables throughout the house to the needed areas. And no heat or AC.

Generacs do fine in cold, snowy weather. We’re outside of Buffalo NY, the town next to Orchard Park. Our house 10 minutes from where the Buffalo Bills play. If you’ve seen any of their famous winter games, you know it gets really cold & snowy here. We got a 13K standby generator in 2019 for about $7K. They have higher wattage models that fully power larger homes. It powers our whole house & has power to spare. The longest it’s run at 1 time so far is 18 hours. But our power goes out a few times a year, sometimes even in clear sunny weather, for several hours at a time. On Father’s Day, it went out for 5 hours. No idea why, weather was fine. ( Yea, our power company is great. ). We had it installed by the same Heating & Cooling company that installed our furnace & AC earlier that year. We have them come once a year to do routine maintenance on all 3 units for about $350. No searching for repair services, that company can handle anything that comes up.

Before we got our generator, there were very few houses in our area that had them. Over the last 3-4 years, more & more homes are getting them. And almost every one is a Generac. Very rarely do I see any other brand. The Generac has extra insulation to accommodate for our cold weather. Neighbors had theirs for 10 years, it runs for 15 minutes once a week. Ours runs 5 minutes every other week. The most effort we have to put in is to call & schedule our annual maintenance visit. IMO don’t rule out a Generac just because you live in a cold area. They’re fine & also highly rated.

 

[LuvOrlando]

So much useful info in this thread.

I have never heard of a person who had one regret it, I only hear how useful they are whether they are only big enough to save fridge contents and provide AC or cover a whole home. Good luck with your decision, please come back and share

 

[Dan Murphy]

Generacs do fine in cold, snowy weather. We’re outside of Buffalo NY, the town next to Orchard Park. Our house 10 minutes from where the Buffalo Bills play. If you’ve seen any of their famous winter games, you know it gets really cold & snowy here. We got a 13K standby generator in 2019 for about $7K. They have higher wattage models that fully power larger homes. It powers our whole house & has power to spare. The longest it’s run at 1 time so far is 18 hours. But our power goes out a few times a year, sometimes even in clear sunny weather, for several hours at a time. On Father’s Day, it went out for 5 hours. No idea why, weather was fine. ( Yea, our power company is great. ). We had it installed by the same Heating & Cooling company that installed our furnace & AC earlier that year. We have them come once a year to do routine maintenance on all 3 units for about $350. No searching for repair services, that company can handle anything that comes up.

Before we got our generator, there were very few houses in our area that had them. Over the last 3-4 years, more & more homes are getting them. And almost every one is a Generac. Very rarely do I see any other brand. The Generac has extra insulation to accommodate for our cold weather. Neighbors had theirs for 10 years, it runs for 15 minutes once a week. Ours runs 5 minutes every other week. The most effort we have to put in is to call & schedule our annual maintenance visit. IMO don’t rule out a Generac just because you live in a cold area. They’re fine & also highly rated.

Thank you for the information, @focusondisney. Much appreciated.

 

[barkley]

Generacs do fine in cold, snowy weather. We’re outside of Buffalo NY, the town next to Orchard Park. Our house 10 minutes from where the Buffalo Bills play. If you’ve seen any of their famous winter games, you know it gets really cold & snowy here. We got a 13K standby generator in 2019 for about $7K. They have higher wattage models that fully power larger homes. It powers our whole house & has power to spare. The longest it’s run at 1 time so far is 18 hours. But our power goes out a few times a year, sometimes even in clear sunny weather, for several hours at a time. On Father’s Day, it went out for 5 hours. No idea why, weather was fine. ( Yea, our power company is great. ). We had it installed by the same Heating & Cooling company that installed our furnace & AC earlier that year. We have them come once a year to do routine maintenance on all 3 units for about $350. No searching for repair services, that company can handle anything that comes up.

Before we got our generator, there were very few houses in our area that had them. Over the last 3-4 years, more & more homes are getting them. And almost every one is a Generac. Very rarely do I see any other brand. The Generac has extra insulation to accommodate for our cold weather. Neighbors had theirs for 10 years, it runs for 15 minutes once a week. Ours runs 5 minutes every other week. The most effort we have to put in is to call & schedule our annual maintenance visit. IMO don’t rule out a Generac just because you live in a cold area. They’re fine & also highly rated.

don't get me wrong-we LOVED our generac. it was just showing it's age and when we first got it i was fine with it not running the entire house but we wanted a whole house and when comparing brands it just seemed not the best choice for our circumstances. the longest single period of time our generac ever had to operate was about a week and a half. ran like a champ. we did (and will do with our kohler) the annual maintainance with our hvac company (who are authorized installers/repair for both our units and generac). i always have and always will reccommend generac.

that said-to anyone considering getting a fully plumbed automatic generator....if you have non battery backup computers and televisions spend a few hundred and get each a small portable battery backup (they run less than $100 each at best buy and such). there's just enough time between the power loss and the generator kicking in to turn everything off so with computers and tv's that have dvr's and such it causes them to have to reset. not a major issue but if you are in the middle of doing something on your computer it's awfully nice to hear that little beep and know you've got plenty of time to exit and close anything important you are on.

 

[_19disnA]

Battery back-ups for things like computers or TV's also depends on how you get your internet/TV service. If there is a big electrical storm, we have occasions where the cable/internet goes out but our power stays on. Probably a better plan to turn off your PC when storms are approaching and/or not be working on some large file/spreadsheet/presentation at that time which requires an internet connection. I am not sure there is really anything you can do to prevent the provider (cable, dish, etc.) from having an external issue that interrupts your service.

 

[barkley]

Battery back-ups for things like computers or TV's also depends on how you get your internet/TV service. If there is a big electrical storm, we have occasions where the cable/internet goes out but our power stays on. Probably a better plan to turn off your PC when storms are approaching and/or not be working on some large file/spreadsheet/presentation at that time which requires an internet connection. I am not sure there is really anything you can do to prevent the provider (cable, dish, etc.) from having an external issue that interrupts your service.

for us it's strictly for power loss. with both our internet (starlink) and tv (dish) if either go down but the power remains on it's not an issue. the reset for the dish hopper is fairly quick and there's no issue of having to turn the computers back on. if we lose actual power the dish hopper goes through a longer reset and it can take an extended period of time for it to recreate any recording scheduals you have pre-set (or access previously recorded material). with the computers it's just not great for them to suddenly shut down.

this time of year it's not a storm approaching situation that would have us without power-the utilities are being VERY proactive on shutting down due to wild fire concerns. whereas it used to be that if a given distant area from us had an event that damaged a pole or lines we would'nt be impacted we are now much more likely to be.

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

We do not have a whole house but have looked into the Generac's. On their website you could do an estimate to get the size you need for your house and select what sort of stuff you want to power. The only caveat is you really need a technician to come out to your house to give you a final quote. It will depend on where you need to place the generator in comparison to your fuse box and that could end up being alot of pipe to run. Our neighbor said theirs ended up being about $3k more than the online price. But us, there are restrictions on where one could be placed at your house, such as can't be near a window. Also by us, we have natural gas to our house so we would just tap off the natural gas. I mean granted the natural gas system could be compromised but that has never happened.

Before we looked at whole house units, we purchased a stand alone one. We lose power about once a year and while a pain to run extension cords all over the house, we don't want to invest the money in a whole house until we retire and will be gone often for extended periods of time. With a stand alone, there is the option to basically have an outlet on the size of your house, connect the generator into that one outlet and do something with the fusebox so you aren't running cords all over. Not sure on exact details, but for us, even with DH being able to do the electrical work and the limited power loss we've experienced it wasn't worth it.

 

[QueenIsabella]

We now have a whole-house generator. We were directly hit by Hurricane Florence, and out of power for 4 days. We had a portable generator and gas--but, were disappointed in how it worked. We could power the fridge and freezer, that was mostly it. We did have occasional use of the microwave. While we had gas, it was not nearly enough--luckily, a friend brought us more, and we got power back as I was plotting to hit the one open gas station nearby. Meanwhile, my husband was locked in at work, so it was me, three sort-of adult children, and the three kittens we found in the front yard after the storm passed.

So, DH insisted we get a whole-house generator (I think he felt guilty for leaving us alone, but we were mostly bored and sweaty). We went with Generac. It powers everything except the dryer (our choice--we could go for a slightly smaller size). We already have a gas line for our hot water, so not a big deal to tie the generator in.

Now, every time there's a storm, you can hear my husband muttering, "Come on--Daddy needs a good power outage!". We live coastal, so a hurricane hit is not an "if", but a "when".

 

[GAN]

We do not have a whole house but have looked into the Generac's. On their website you could do an estimate to get the size you need for your house and select what sort of stuff you want to power. The only caveat is you really need a technician to come out to your house to give you a final quote. It will depend on where you need to place the generator in comparison to your fuse box and that could end up being alot of pipe to run. Our neighbor said theirs ended up being about $3k more than the online price. But us, there are restrictions on where one could be placed at your house, such as can't be near a window. Also by us, we have natural gas to our house so we would just tap off the natural gas. I mean granted the natural gas system could be compromised but that has never happened.

Before we looked at whole house units, we purchased a stand alone one. We lose power about once a year and while a pain to run extension cords all over the house, we don't want to invest the money in a whole house until we retire and will be gone often for extended periods of time. With a stand alone, there is the option to basically have an outlet on the size of your house, connect the generator into that one outlet and do something with the fusebox so you aren't running cords all over. Not sure on exact details, but for us, even with DH being able to do the electrical work and the limited power loss we've experienced it wasn't worth it.

With a standalone, you might as well spend the extra $800 on the Automatic Transfer Switch. Then you have no cords, no worries -the unit controls the power distribution for you.

 

[_19disnA]

A whole-house generator might make sense IF you live somewhere with frequent and long lasting power outages. This isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. In some places where there is rarely a power outage, you would have spent tens of thousands of dollars on a whole-house system you might rarely/never use.

Smaller backup generators wired into your electrical panel might be a more cost effective solution to many people. That is what we have and it works great as we can run essential electrical devices during any temporary outages. It eliminates the need to run extension cords from the generator, through a window and into your house. We hired an electrician to allow the generator to feed electricity into our main panel. This also includes an interlock since local electrical code requires you don't feed electricity back into the utility when running on generator power since it could injure anyone working on the power lines. That sort of electrical work is beyond the ability of the typical home handyman and should be left to the professionals.

 

[barkley]

We do not have a whole house but have looked into the Generac's. On their website you could do an estimate to get the size you need for your house and select what sort of stuff you want to power. The only caveat is you really need a technician to come out to your house to give you a final quote. It will depend on where you need to place the generator in comparison to your fuse box and that could end up being alot of pipe to run. Our neighbor said theirs ended up being about $3k more than the online price. But us, there are restrictions on where one could be placed at your house, such as can't be near a window. Also by us, we have natural gas to our house so we would just tap off the natural gas. I mean granted the natural gas system could be compromised but that has never happened.

yes a site evaluation is needed to get an accurate price. things like local code requirements, permitting and the potential need to upgrade existing pipes all add to the cost.

 

[bluezy]

A whole-house generator might make sense IF you live somewhere with frequent and long lasting power outages. This isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. In some places where there is rarely a power outage, you would have spent tens of thousands of dollars on a whole-house system you might rarely/never use.

Smaller backup generators wired into your electrical panel might be a more cost effective solution to many people. That is what we have and it works great as we can run essential electrical devices during any temporary outages. It eliminates the need to run extension cords from the generator, through a window and into your house. We hired an electrician to allow the generator to feed electricity into our main panel. This also includes an interlock since local electrical code requires you don't feed electricity back into the utility when running on generator power since it could injure anyone working on the power lines. That sort of electrical work is beyond the ability of the typical home handyman and should be left to the professionals.

I completely agree. While I *wish* we had a whole house generator that would just kick on whenever the power goes out, I know the portable back-up generator is a far more cost effective option for us. We really don't lose power very often -- maybe 3 or 4 times a year that it's off long enough for us to pull out the generator and even then, it's usually only once a year or so that it's out for several hours. My husband wired our original "generator/emergency" panel, but we still had to run the generator cord in through the basement window and plug it in to that panel. Fortunately, the electrical panels and that window are right by the driveway and garage, so it was easy to roll the generator out to the end of the parking area (away from the house and cars) and run that cord through the window. But when we put an addition on the house the other year, we needed to upgrade the electrical panel to a larger one so the electrician used a panel that has everything we need incorporated into it and then installed an outdoor inlet to plug the generator in to. Now it's super easy to hook everything up. And we always keep a few 5-gallon containers of gas in our shed, so we're usually ready to go whenever an outage occurs.