Home generator?

[SL6827]

Do home generators go on sale during Labor Day timeframe? I am talking about one like the below pic. My daughter needs to get one soon. Their power seems to go out just when the wind blows now and she works from home, so this is a very needed investment. Any advice, tips, ect. as the best place to look?

 

[cdh]

We have one of these generators and love it. I’m not sure about sales. One thing i didn’t realize when we bought the generator was that the total cost was almost double by the time we had it installed. I’m not sure the size of our generator but it was around $5000 but closer to $10,000 once it was installed.

 

[SL6827]

We have one of these generators and love it. I’m not sure about sales. One thing i didn’t realize when we bought the generator was that the total cost was almost double by the time we had it installed. I’m not sure the size of our generator but it was around $5000 but closer to $10,000 once it was installed.

My husband does this for a living. Hes an EE. So my daughter will get it installed for the nice price of free!!

 

[cdh]

My husband does this for a living. Hes an EE. So my daughter will get it installed for the nice price of free!!

She’s a lucky girl! We had sticker shock. Lol

 

[QueenIsabella]

She should probably have someone come out and take a look at her space and give her a quote. Not so much because she wants them to install it, but to make sure she has everything thought through. Will she need a concrete pad? Natural gas hook-up? Any kind of ongoing maintenance? That sort of thing.

FTR, an EE wouldn't normally do this kind of thing. I'm an EE, and I wouldn't touch it. Mostly due to the natural gas factor. But, it's also an area where an engineer wouldn't know what he/she didn't know. I say that because, after being married to an ME for decades, DH and I have come to an agreement that we hire stuff out rather than him doing things himself--he doesn't know what he doesn't know, doesn't have the right tools, etc.

Beyond that, I don't know if that size generator would meet her needs. We have a whole-house generator, we went down a size so it doesn't cover our dryer, but it does the rest of the house--A/C, entire kitchen, and so forth. She may not need all that.

During Hurricane Florence, we had a smaller, portable generator, and all it really covered was the 2 fridges and freezer, with occasional microwave use (if we disconnected the fridge). Nothing else, for 4 days, and we almost ran out of gas. That's what prompted us to go whole-house.

 

[focusondisney]

My husband does this for a living. Hes an EE. So my daughter will get it installed for the nice price of free!!

Your husband installs generators for a living? Then wouldn’t he know the timing of sales? If he doesn’t normally do it, then I agree with @QueenIsabella & she should hire someone who does. We bought & had ours installed by the same company that installed our furnace & AC. There are specific regulations on how & where they can be installed, including where in the line the gas can be drawn from. So your husband would need to know all the local regulations.


edit to add, ours was about $10K also.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Your husband installs generators for a living? Then wouldn’t he know the timing of sales? If he doesn’t normally do it, then I agree with @QueenIsabella & she should hire someone who does. We bought & had ours installed by the same company that installed our furnace & AC. There are specific regulations on how & where they can be installed, including where in the line the gas can be drawn from. So your husband would need to know all the local regulations.


edit to add, ours was about $10K also.

That's what I was thinking. We already had natural gas to the house, but needed a ~3-foot line to go to the generator (underground). I have no idea on permits, calls to the gas company to determine where the line was, etc.--the company handled that.

Ours was ~$14k all-in, but we have a big house (4000+ sq ft, 3 zones of heating/AC, etc.) and wanted it to cover most everything--I knew I could survive without the dryer!

 

[Sheree]

went thru Costco. they referred us to someone who's an authorized generac dealer. whole house, concrete pad, gas line etc was about 8k plus money back from costco.

 

[focusondisney]

That's what I was thinking. We already had natural gas to the house, but needed a ~3-foot line to go to the generator (underground). I have no idea on permits, calls to the gas company to determine where the line was, etc.--the company handled that.

Ours was ~$14k all-in, but we have a big house (4000+ sq ft, 3 zones of heating/AC, etc.) and wanted it to cover most everything--I knew I could survive without the dryer!

Yea, no disrespect to anyone who works with electric, but in this case, the gas safety was foremost in my mind. One mistake & my whole house could have blown up.

My house is considerably smaller than yours. We can run absolutely everything at once & we have extra power to spare. Generac had discontinued the model we were being quoted, so the dealer gave us the new higher powered model for the same price.

 

[_19disnA]

Whole house generators are EXPENSIVE to install as mentioned above. I priced one out for a former home and the installed price was more then twice the cost of the actual unit. Only a pro/licensed person should install due to what all these require. Would have had to upgrade to a higher flow natural gas line which it seemed like the city was trying to discourage. Also the cost for an electrician to wire it into your electrical panel and the cost of the slab to put it on. You are basically buying an insurance policy for when the power MIGHT go out. Could be a big expense for something you rarely use. Depends on where you live and how often your power tends to go out.

Eventually decided to buy a portable generator to use when the power is out. Ours runs on either propane or gasoline. Trying to run your entire house on a portable generator isn't practical but honestly if the power is out for several hours or a couple of days you can live without AC. Portable generators likely don't produce enough power for electric range/oven or clothes dryer. You have to think about the things you might want to run during an outage and size the unit accordingly. You mostly want to keep the refrigerator/freezers going and have some basic electrical things like lights that work. You can also get an electrician to wire it into your existing electrical panel so you don't have to bother running extension cords all over your house.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Whole house generators are EXPENSIVE to install as mentioned above. I priced one out for a former home and the installed price was more then twice the cost of the actual unit. Only a pro/licensed person should install due to what all these require. Would have had to upgrade to a higher flow natural gas line which it seemed like the city was trying to discourage. Also the cost for an electrician to wire it into your electrical panel and the cost of the slab to put it on. You are basically buying an insurance policy for when the power MIGHT go out. Could be a big expense for something you rarely use. Depends on where you live and how often your power tends to go out.

Eventually decided to buy a portable generator to use when the power is out. Ours runs on either propane or gasoline. Trying to run your entire house on a portable generator isn't practical but honestly if the power is out for several hours or a couple of days you can live without AC. Portable generators likely don't produce enough power for electric range/oven or clothes dryer. You have to think about the things you might want to run during an outage and size the unit accordingly. You mostly want to keep the refrigerator/freezers going and have some basic electrical things like lights that work. You can also get an electrician to wire it into your existing electrical panel so you don't have to bother running extension cords all over your house.

All very true! I think my husband went all-out because he felt so guilty after Florence--he got locked in at work, and we were home without power for 4 days. TBH, we were mostly bored and sweaty. But he had to call in a favor to get us more gas for the portable generator, plus I had the gift (???) of three tiny kittens in my front yard during the hurricane. You could definitely go smaller than we did.

We also figure we might be running a B&B during a longer outage--we have older neighbors and DD20's BFF is from a family of 7.

 

[SL6827]

Your husband installs generators for a living? Then wouldn’t he know the timing of sales? If he doesn’t normally do it, then I agree with @QueenIsabella & she should hire someone who does. We bought & had ours installed by the same company that installed our furnace & AC. There are specific regulations on how & where they can be installed, including where in the line the gas can be drawn from. So your husband would need to know all the local regulations.


edit to add, ours was about $10K also.

He does this type work for manufacturing plants. At it for about 25 years.

 

[_19disnA]

Sites that sell either the whole house units or portable generators usually have some section that lets you do basic calcuations about how much power you need. That is a good place to start to understand how big of a unit you might need.

 

[DisneyTexan]

We bought ours through Home Depot, and the installation service was part of the package. The service took care of the city permit.

The only thing we had to do on our own was get the slab poured.

 

[barkley]

generac is a phenominal brand. they generaly do not go on sale.

Natural gas hook-up?

we have propane and fortunatly already had a line in close proximity to another piece of luck-an existing cement slab adjacent to the garage. we did pay to upgrade the line b/c i knew i was also going to eventually upgrade my existing oven to a double and the pull on the line would have been a bit insufficient.

FTR, an EE wouldn't normally do this kind of thing. I'm an EE, and I wouldn't touch it.

we had to have-

an electrician for the generator panel (required a permit)
a plumber for the gas hookup (even if we had'nt upgraded the line).

we've had ours for 13 years. i pay about $150 to have it checked/serviced each fall. this year we had a whole house surge protector put on the regular electrical panel as well as a separate one on the generator's.

went thru Costco

our general contractor priced them out everywhere and could not find anyone that beat costco's prices. the added advantage is if you've got a membership you will also earn your standard costco rewards (plus a 10% costco giftcard if you have them install-they do free home consultations).

i don't know how it is now but as of a year or two ago there was a HUGE demand for generacs-my brother had to get on a 6 month waiting list to get delivery but it was well worth it. like me he's reliant on it to run his well when the power goes out but he also loses cell phone when pg&e does rolling blackouts b/c they take down the cell phone towers in his area (so he has a landline in case of emergency).

 

[mjkacmom]

One of our next door neighbors is on another power grid than us, we have a longer outdoor extension cord and will plug into their house to have a light, run the fridge, and charge phones, the longest we had to do this was one week, but our power goes out at least twice a year.

 

[BGparadise]

Would love to get a generator if the cost is right. Will have to look into Costco. It would be of extra benefit as not only are we without the typical conveniences but also water as we have a well.

 

[barkley]

Would love to get a generator if the cost is right. Will have to look into Costco. It would be of extra benefit as not only are we without the typical conveniences but also water as we have a well.

being on a well was one of our major considerations getting one. fire protection aside, we can get periodic outages during the winter months and if one lasts a day or more there's a risk of freezing pipes. the tipping point for us was a prolonged winter outage wherein people had to leave their homes for warmth and came back to the power having been restored but major damage due to burst pipes (people with municiple water take it for granted that they can turn on a faucet and let it drip-not an option absent power for those of us with wells).

 

[TheDailyMoo]

Yet another vote for Costco. I've seen the larger (over12000 KW) Generac whole house ones go on sale at Costco albeit one time only but it does happen.

 

[firefly_ris]

I don't have a helpful response for OP, but for any lurkers out there who would like a whole home generator but cannot afford one, an alternative can be a portable generator with a transfer switch. It won't power your whole house, but can really help for occasional outages. We have one. We roll the generator out back behind the garage to its special outlet, and turn on the manual transfer switch in the basement. We picked 6 breakers to have on the generator so when the power goes out we still have some lights, fridge, basement freezer, furnace/AC, a couple outlets and a TV. Obviously an automated whole house generator system is better but if you only lose power 2 or 3 times per year it's not bad and I'm glad we have it -- living in a rural area just outside of Buffalo we get our share of outages per year.