Generator for your home

[krdisneybound]

We just purchased a generator for our home in case we lose our electric in a storm or other occurrence. The hurricanes in FL this past year just did us in. It is equipped to power our entire house if we lose our electric for any reason.

Anyone else have a generator and how often have you used it?

 

[bubie2.5]

Blackouts here are the norm. We use ours at least an hour per week. It powers everything, even the elevator.

 

[Laz]

I have a portable 5500 watt generator with 8500 surge rating. I have had it since 2003 and have only used it twice. Its funny because before I got it we would have outages all the time, now we don't have any. I had an electrician come to the house and put a in a hard wire to the house, a seperate circut box, and a switch so I do not back feed into the lines and electrocute a worker. I can run lights, both sump pumps, the refrigerator (a real electrical hog), and the gas furnace fan. My next house I am going to get a whole house natural gas generator.

 

[pumba]

WE got a big one after the ICE STORM of 98.......I mean no heat for over a week and cooking on top of a gas stove was the pitts.....our water bed was freezing too.....But having this generator has been like an insurance policy....we have not used it for no power.....but do turn it on once a year like the paperwork said to.....good luck with yours

 

[MdmMim]

I bought DH one a few years ago. We have only needed it once, but the peace of mind it gives is great.

DH has found another use for it--he lights up one of our fields for the holidays! He put lights on 5 trees and even on the outhouse! It's awesome to look out and see everything lit up!

 

[monarchsfan16]

We got ours in 97 or 98. Grammy and Grampa had had it with weekend long power outages from blizzards every December that they came to visit So they bought us one. We had one before my parents split in 95 but that went with my dad. This generator doesn't power the whole house, but it does give us water, heat, working fridge, and then we can choose to power either the stove, the microwave or the tv.
We use it a couple times a year, either for nor'easters, ice storms, or nasty thunderstorms.

 

[Chattyaholic]

We bought one for our camper, so we can camp in rustic areas yet still enjoy all the comforts of home. We have a big one for the farm as we used to raise hogs and if the power went out they could start dying within 20 minutes if the fans aren't running so we needed one for the barns, but it's big enough to run both houses on too. Now that we no longer raise hogs we don't use it that often, unless the power is out more than 12 hours. If it's just a short outage we hook up the small one to run heat. If it's a longer outage we'll hook up the big one.

 

[mtblujeans]

These big generators you have that supply to the entire house....do you have these wired into your main fuse box?

 

[ChrisnSteph]

We have one, but we haven't had to use it.

 

[krdisneybound]

These big generators you have that supply to the entire house....do you have these wired into your main fuse box?

We had it wired to the main box. if the light co. ever comes out to work on the liens and our generator is running, it kicks it off so the guys won't get hit with the volts. Actually it is a piece of mind for me now.

 

[nealymouse]

We also got a generator after the ice storm of 98. We had it hard wired in our home

 

[bubie2.5]

These big generators you have that supply to the entire house....do you have these wired into your main fuse box?

Yes. There's a switch you can turn on if you want the generator to start running automatically if there's a blackout.

 

[Laz]

I do have my generator wired to a box where the circuts I use are located. It also have a crossover switch to keep the feedback from going up to the worker fixing the problem.