Considering a backup home generator

[Dennis Droege]

The electric easement behind our house has many large trees. We have experienced several outages in the past, the most recent being over the July 4th holiday. I want to have a backup generator installed; I wonder if anyone else has had this done, and what pointers they might give me. Thanks much for any help.

[Larry Frank]

I have a Generac whole house generator and has worked ok but with several small problems. I would check for references from who ever you consider buying. Go see the installations and make certain they do a good job.

I would suggest buying the extended warranty as it will cover any issues that come up.

[Jim Becker]

There have been a bunch of threads on this over the past few years and many of us have whole house generators, myself included. In fact, it was the first project we did when we moved to this house just over two years ago. Having had one at the previous residence (and greatly sorry we didn't do it ten years earlier than we did), there was no way we wouldn't have one here. We opted for a Generac 22kv with auto transfer at both properties. It only powers the house; not the shop. Failover when the power drops takes about 15 seconds so I have small UPSs on critical electronics for 100% power all the time. The old property had NG; here we're using LP. That did affect our installation cost here as we had to add a tank to meet requirements.

[roger wiegand]

We have one (Generac whole house), it's been useful for a few long outages we've had. Our main concern was an outage like our neighbors across the street experienced -- 13 days in the middle of winter. If that happened while we were on our typical month someplace warm in the winter we could have a real disaster with frozen pipes. I don't find the more typical 4-6 hour outages bothersome, and probably wouldn't have one for those. The thing is very irritatingly loud, both for us and for our neighbors. I find I need to shut it off for a while to take a break.

[Paul F Franklin]

We just had a 26KW GE/B&S nat. gas generator installed. I chose the contractor first, going with the firm that did our HVAC install a couple of years ago because they did a really first rate job on that. They rep several brands, including Generac and Kohler. I believe Generac is by far the leader in sales of residential generators, but was not impressed by their responses to the many BBB complaints about poor reliability and service. My contractor recommended the B&S brand as being in the same tier reliability wise as Kohler but at a more affordable price point. As I hoped, they did a great job on the generator install also.

Some things to consider:

You can get by with a smaller generator if you use load shed modules that turn off big loads such as A/C, electric water heaters, etc., when the generator is heavily loaded. The modules are not cheap, however, and complicate the install process. In my case, it was only about $1500 difference to go with the larger generator that doesn't require load shedding. Worth it to me.

Most home generators are air cooled, but larger models may be liquid cooled. If you are in a very hot location, liquid cooled will probably be best, but they are a lot more expensive. And require more maintenance. They do tend to be quieter, however, as they usually run about half the speed of air cooled engines. And their long term reliability is probably better.

Think about what sort of monitoring you want/need. You can get no remote monitoring, a hardwired display that mounts in the house somewhere near your panel, wireless monitoring that you can check with a phone app, and probably more variations. If you travel a lot and want to be able to check the generator status from on the road, you will want support for that. Some brands require a subscription plan for the best remote monitoring because it uses the cell system for connection.

Ask about routine maintenance. Oil and oil filter/air filter changes are the most common, and you can do yourself if you're handy with such things. Most generators require occasional checking/adjusting of the valve clearance, that may be more than you want to do yourself. Ask about service contracts, what they cost, and what they cover. Also, ask about parts availability and what parts fail most often. You may not get straight answers, but you can usually tell if they are being genuine.

Depending on generator size, you may have to have your gas utility (if you have natural gas) supersize your gas meter. This may be free, or it may be expensive, depending on multiple factors. Generators running at full load use a *lot* of gas, natural or propane. I have to upsize from a 250,000 BTU/HR meter to a 450,000 BTU/HR meter. It should be free to me, but the gas co. won't be out to see for a couple more weeks.

Think about placement. Generators running a full tilt are fairly noisy, so outside your bedroom window may not be best. In my case, the gas meter and electrical service entrance were on opposite sides of my house. We chose to place the generator near the service entrance, so the new gas line had to be run all the way through the house. Fortunately, I anticipated this and left access for this when I finished our basement. Contractor said it is generally cheaper to run a long gas line, rather than a long electric line, but it's not a major difference. IF they have to trench for fuel or electric, that can get expensive fast, depending on distance and such.

Check the condition of your main electrical panel. By code, they will have to convert your main panel to a subpanel, with the external transfer switch becoming the main. This means the grounds and neutrals in your panel have to be separated. Depending on your local codes, this may require that your main panel be updated to meet current codes, which will likely be a big added expense given the cost of panels and advanced breakers these days. Ask your contractor about this. Fortunately, I did not have to do this.

Hope this helps, good luck.

[Brian Runau]

We put in a Kohler unit. Check annual service contracts costs and if they offer 24 hr service, should you need it. I wound up using a different service company. Original Company wouldn't guarantee me they would change the oil annually under their service contract, nor were they available to send someone on a Saturday! I like the unit didn't pick well on who to buy from. Brian

[Charlie Velasquez]

I went a different route.
The day I moved into my present house in 2018 we had a major rain/thunderstorm storm; no electricity and 10” of rain in just a few hours. Without the sump pump there was nothing we could do but watch the water build up in our basement.

My son’s house sits on a high water table and his sump runs about every couple of hours regardless of weather. He bought a small Honda generator to run his pump if need be, I thought I would do the same. But I found a great deal on a 12,500 watt peak/10,000 watt continuous portable (edit: dual fuel).
I installed an inlet in my shed and ran conductors to my main panel. That and an interlock kit and I have access to any circuit in the house. I can run my a/c, dryer, or stove, just not at the same time. The rest of my house runs as normal.
So, conduit, conductors, inlet, interlock, breaker for the panel, and generator - out the door for about $1,100.(I did all the work)

[Keegan Shields]

Nice cost effective solution Charlie. Thanks!

[Brian Tymchak]

Yes, I'm also seriously considering a whole house generator now. The weather is going to extremes more often. Last summer we had our first ever rolling outages due to a failure in the grid coupled with peak demand due to heat. I suspect we will see more of this type of outage. I also want to have power on the sump pump as well as the refrigerators and freezers.

[Roger Feeley]

All,
if all you care about is the sump pump, check out Liberty Pumps. They sell a backup pump that’s powered by city water. I had one bak in Kansas and I have two here in Northern Virginia. Now that I have a whole house generator (Generac, 26kw, air cooled), I don’t need them so much. I guess they would be nice if the electric pumps dies.

[Bill Dufour]

If you buy a new or used generator you can replace the carburetor with a duel fuel one to suit your needs cheaply..
The cabins we stay out has a good sized generator. It is not auto start. Owner lives on site and he waits five minutes or so before starting the generator. Most power outages in the woods are under five minutes and he feels this prolongs engine life and maintenance. I would want automatic start but add a delay on timer
Bill D

[Paul F Franklin]

I did (do) have a 7500 watt portable generator with proper transfer panel set up to run critical loads. That's fine if someone is always home to deal with it when needed, but not helpful otherwise. Since we plan to travel more now that SWMBO is retired, moving to a whole house automatic setup seemed best. Plus storing enough gas for a prolonged outage and keeping it fresh is a pain. But if you're mostly home and don't mind dealing with the fuel, a portable is a great way to go and very cost effective.

[Allan Dozier]

I am also in the process of installing standby generator at our mountain house. We rarely lose power there but with a generator I won't have to winterize the house again. Out of the four main manufacturers Generac, Kohler, Cummings, and Briggs, we decided on the B&S since they seem to have the best warranty, at least on my cursory research. For one thing if we have a problem THEY call the electrician who is a rep and is the one who installed it. He also happens to be the electrician we used for house construction. It also seems they don't use as much proprietary parts. The B&S Vanguard engine is used for many applications and parts are thus easy to find for it.

If you plan on doing the maintenance like I am I would suggest having the generator raised at least somewhat above grade will make draining the oil much easier and cleaner.

[Bruce Wrenn]

The biggest load on most stand by generators is an AC, or heat pump condenser. There are soft start kits (not to be confused with hard start kits) that allow for up to three ton units to start using only a 5 KW portable unit. We have a 5 KW portable, electric start built into it's own enclosure. Enclosure includes a light, an exhaust fan and automatic louvers which come on when engine is running. Engine (11HP) has a fuel pump on it, so I added some fuel line disconnects, and a hose that allows me to draw fuel directly from fuel cans, or in case of an extended outage, from fuel tank on truck. I supply power to house with a four wire #10 cord set. Have a four pole plug built into breaker box on side of house. Two duplex outlets in wall fed from fused disconnect where cord set plugs in. We use three extension cords laid on floor to power both refrigerators, one on each leg of the 220.. Have a dedicated (100', #12 ) drop cord to power booster pump on water tank. Just today, lost power for three hours, due to thunder storm. Fifteen minutes after rain let up, we were up and running. We heat water using LP gas, and have back up heat sources for winter time. In our bedroom, we have a 6000 BTU window unit for when the AC is out. Generator has no problem running it, but the 5K that we used to have, generator struggled to start it.

[Jack Frederick]

I had a 9kw Generac on our house in the foothills. The Music of the Mountains is the many generators starting up when the power fails, which it does frequently and for days. I had no problems with the Generac. By comparison with others here it was very small, but in the re-model we built to minimize power consumption. Th shop was not on the system. I installed it myself. The 7-9kw units are single cylinder machines. As I understand it dealers don’t like those. I stayed up with the maintenance and valve adjustments and the machine was great. If you go LP, get enough tank. We ran out this past winter after 5 days of operation and couldn’t get power or lp for another 5. I don’t know how close your neighbors are, but they do make noise, so placement for you and them needs some attention.

[Bill Dufour]

I bought a tarp today at horrible fright a man and his teenage son were returning a hf generator. I asked whats wrong with it. Brand new they could not get it to start. Not a ringing endorsement of HF quality.
Bill D

[Mel Fulks]

Maybe someone neglected to do something correctly. Botch-uh- lism can be a hobby for “fun and profit”. And there is the fact that the store took it back. That’s how good stores work , they don’t interogate people…. but it might be because it’s against the law. I think the
system is working.

[Bill Howatt]

... I don’t know how close your neighbors are, but they do make noise, so placement for you and them needs some attention.
Neighbour about a block away got a Generac installed, probably in the 7-9 KW size, and we had a power failure about a month ago. I was surprised at how loud it was - seemed much louder than the portable generators.

[Pat Germain]

How do solar panels combined with a battery system such as from Tesla compare to gas-powered generators? I would think sunlight would allow longer power than a fuel tank, but I don't know. Some friends of mine used to live near Cripple Creek, Colorado in an area where no electricity was available. They were truly, "Off the Grid" and had two solar panels on stands with batteries. This allowed them to power their entire house and garage, to include power tools, just as if they had city power. I was very surprised by this considering all the negatives I hear about solar power.

[Jim Becker]

How do solar panels combined with a battery system such as from Tesla compare to gas-powered generators?

Pat, I actually looked into that before opting for the 22K backup generator here. The cost of solar plus battery bank to provide three day's of power (to account for the possibility of bad weather inhibiting the solar panels) was in the $35K range for our home. Now that's for true "whole house" backup since we are 100% electric; it could have cost less if we didn't account for AC and a few other things, but that wasn't desirable for us. The 22k generator was $10K installed. We did have a little extra cost because we needed a second propane tank installed to meet the required 200 gallon minimum for a generator install, but all in all, we came in at less than half the equivalent solar install. Since we will not likely be here for more than 10 years, the numbers didn't work for us to buy the solar solution, despite it being our personal preference over a gas powered solution.

[Alex Zeller]

I bought a tarp today at horrible fright a man and his teenage son were returning a hf generator. I asked whats wrong with it. Brand new they could not get it to start. Not a ringing endorsement of HF quality.
Bill D

I got a 25% off coupon good for anything a month ago and bought one of their inverter generators. I had thought about a diesel home generator (since I have plenty of diesel around for the tractor and heating the house). The generator starts and runs just fine. I'm not one who trusts HF tools that use electricity or gas. But almost 20 years ago while building my house I bought a 10" tile saw cheaper than I could rent one from HF figuring I would be done with it before the return period was up. That saw has been loaned out dozens of times and has yet to fail. I took another chance on a small gas engine water pump that never has failed to run in the last 10 years. Now I have a jig saw and 4" belt sander (Bauer brand) that also work just fine as well as a 1hp dust collector. So I took a chance on the generator.

I assume that home standby generators are also taking advantage of inverter technology. If so that's the direction I would go. It takes a little getting use to the engine not just screaming away even though there's little load but once you do. I have a nice o scope that I used to look at the AC sign wave from the generator to see how much noise is present. Compared to the older Generac Honda powered generator it's replacing the wave is extremely clean. It's also right on the money at 60 hz where as my old generator would need to have the engine speed occasionally adjusted (every couple of years I would check).

[Pat Germain]

Pat, I actually looked into that before opting for the 22K backup generator here. The cost of solar plus battery bank to provide three day's of power (to account for the possibility of bad weather inhibiting the solar panels) was in the $35K range for our home. Now that's for true "whole house" backup since we are 100% electric; it could have cost less if we didn't account for AC and a few other things, but that wasn't desirable for us. The 22k generator was $10K installed. We did have a little extra cost because we needed a second propane tank installed to meet the required 200 gallon minimum for a generator install, but all in all, we came in at less than half the equivalent solar install. Since we will not likely be here for more than 10 years, the numbers didn't work for us to buy the solar solution, despite it being our personal preference over a gas powered solution.

Thank you for that thorough and polite answer. I was afraid I would get angry, anti-green energy screeds.

[Mike Henderson]

How do solar panels combined with a battery system such as from Tesla compare to gas-powered generators? I would think sunlight would allow longer power than a fuel tank, but I don't know. Some friends of mine used to live near Cripple Creek, Colorado in an area where no electricity was available. They were truly, "Off the Grid" and had two solar panels on stands with batteries. This allowed them to power their entire house and garage, to include power tools, just as if they had city power. I was very surprised by this considering all the negatives I hear about solar power.

From some research I did, I don't think solar with battery backup would be too reliable - unless you had some really big batteries. Those battery backup systems can take you through a short power outage but there's a limit on the lenght of time it can provide power. A backup generator can provide power as long as you have fuel.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

Thank you for that thorough and polite answer. I was afraid I would get angry, anti-green energy screeds.

My pleasure. We really, really, really did want to go solar, but in our particular situation, it just wasn't going to make sense financially as I noted. If we were planning on being here for 20+ years...it would already be in-service. But I'd be in my late 80s at that point. ;)


From some research I did, I don't think solar with battery backup would be too reliable - unless you had some really big batteries. Those battery backup systems can take you through a short power outage but there's a limit on the lenght of time it can provide power. A backup generator can provide power as long as you have fuel.

Mike

It's all about design and sizing, Mike. When I was looking at it, I had it designed for three day battery holdover with no charging from the sun, and a lot longer with at least some available sun during daylight hours. That's about the limit I'd get with our whole house generator because at this house, it's propane, not NG like we had at the previous property. NG was essentially "unlimited" run time. No so with propane 'cause, well...tanks that get empty.

[Jack Frederick]

Pat, there are so many options today. We had a couple neighbors who put a Tesla roof on their house with Powerwalls. With this last winters Sierra storms they made it almost two days before they had to go to the generator. These folks have vast resources. They learned a lot about load shedding requirements. Another friend, the contractor who re-built my house and built my shop has been totally off-grid since ‘72. If there is a person who is truly Gyro Gearloose, it is him. He runs his house and shop on his solar and the small hydro he built on the creek which runs in the winter months but not summer. He cannot, or at least does not, run 220 tools due to system limitations. For my part, I did the grid tied system on my 7.5kwh system. I zeroed my electric bill, which with PG&E is a real number. It is really a pretty cool time for alternatives. Do the research, do it again and figure how much you can spend to achieve your goals.

[Bill Dufour]

Rumor is in 5-10 years used electric car batteries will be sold for cheap. A car battery that is only holding 50% of new charge will be discarded and replaced with a new one. The old ones will be plenty good for home use at scrap price. Size and weight are not really an issue for home use.
Tesla will not install solar unless you also buy at least one Tesla brand battery. Tesla claims a powerwall battery will run a home for 10-15 hour each.
Bill D

[Jim Becker]

Rumor is in 5-10 years used electric car batteries will be sold for cheap. A car battery that is only holding 50% of new charge will be discarded and replaced with a new one. The old ones will be plenty good for home use at scrap price. Size and weight are not really an issue for home use.
Tesla will not install solar unless you also buy at least one Tesla brand battery. Tesla claims a powerwall battery will run a home for 10-15 hour each.
Bill D
The problem with that rumor is the format of the batteries that many EVs use...it's not like they can just easily be pulled out and replaced. It's a major operation, at least for current generation battery technologies used which are under a whole lot of the vehicle floor and not accessible from the outside with many vehicle platforms in use. Most will likely go ten years or more and then you get into the time frame when vehicles are less likely to remain on the road and in use anyway. Now as battery tech shifts to newer, smaller formats that are more easily exchanged, I can see more of a "renewed" market. But even there, recycling the materials may still be the direction taken.

[Alan Lightstone]

I had also extensively looked into Tesla Powerwalls for my home. I run a significant surplus daily with my solar panels (I have a very large array), and it's mostly sunny here in Florida, so that combo sounded great in theory. But...

Having full house coverage would involve having 4 Tesla Powerwalls. That's about $60K installed (could be way off there, but very expensive). A full house propane generator 25kW would run about $12-15K.

Yes, in theory the Powerwalls could power the house at night, and charge in daytime producing significantly more surplus. But Duke Energy only pays $0.0669 per Kwh surplus and charges $0.15 per Kwh for electricity, so the bottom line is that battery backup here is crazy expensive, and will never pay for itself.

Now you don't really need to power the whole house with batteries. I could power half of it. But that's still about $30K, which would be twice what a whole house generator would cost. So twice the price, for half the capacity using batteries.

I've asked this question to multiple solar/battery installers here. All said it makes no financial sense. Fortunately, power outages are rare here. But if a hurricane hits... Of course, if I lived in California, and had frequent blackouts due to forest fires, I'd give you a different answer.

We also really, really, really wanted to add batteries to our house. We actually installed hardware/software to measure energy consumption and switched loads on our breaker panels to prepare for it. And never bought them.

[Dave Lehnert]

I bought a tarp today at horrible fright a man and his teenage son were returning a hf generator. I asked whats wrong with it. Brand new they could not get it to start. Not a ringing endorsement of HF quality.
Bill D

As a person who worked in retail selling power equipment for over twenty years, Very high chance they did not put the switch to "run" or just used it for a weekend project never intending to keep it. Generally HF generators rate very high.

[Jim Becker]

I agree with you Dave. I've noted a lot of things that seemingly get bought and returned "after a short use". HFT is already combatting that with compressors with an actual return fee unless it can be proven that it's not running. I had a bad one and did an exchange. That transaction required the manager to manually remove the return fee. I have bought a number of items from them that were intended for limited time use, but I plan to turn around and sell them on the FB Marketplace to recoup most of my cost. I'm about to do that with a few things I bought for my shop build, as a matter of fact. Some folks would just return them. Other box stores fight the same battle and it's disappointing that more than too many people take advantage.

[Alex Zeller]

I was amazed today to see a (large) contractor using a HF cement mixer. It's an orange metal one. It looked like it had lots of use too. My personal opinion is that HF items are good for the guy who occasionally needs something but if you make a living with a tool or if you have a crew who will be standing around costing you money you really should buy tools that you can count on.

[Jim Becker]

I was amazed today to see a (large) contractor using a HF cement mixer. It's an orange metal one. It looked like it had lots of use too. My personal opinion is that HF items are good for the guy who occasionally needs something but if you make a living with a tool or if you have a crew who will be standing around costing you money you really should buy tools that you can count on.
That's the one I bought for my walkway project. It works very well and I'm not going to have any issue selling it for a very large percentage of what I paid for it...on sale. :)

[Ron Selzer]

I was amazed today to see a (large) contractor using a HF cement mixer. It's an orange metal one. It looked like it had lots of use too. My personal opinion is that HF items are good for the guy who occasionally needs something but if you make a living with a tool or if you have a crew who will be standing around costing you money you really should buy tools that you can count on.

Over on the New Ag Talk board general consensus is the Predator motors from Harbor Freight on the ones to buy over any other. This comes from 200-0ver 20,000 acre farmers. If you can get a majority of farmers to like something then it must be good