[Sour D]

Can someone discuss what they went with and the cost and the size of your home and usage requirements for comparison sake?

Generac? Kohler? Champion?

[k350]

I have four Honda eu2200's.

I have a shed that they sit in, can run in while the weather is bad. I run two parallel pairs.

When a hurricane is coming, I run the extension cords through a vent thing in my garage, then into the home, then distributes to what I need to run, which is the refrigerator, and three portable AC units. I have plenty of power for other things.

[Mad_Jasper]

Originally Posted by Sour D

Can someone discuss what they went with and the cost and the size of your home and usage requirements for comparison sake?

Generac? Kohler? Champion?

I have a 6,500-Watt Ryobi generator. My dad has the same exact model. Both have been flawless and start on the first pull. I am looking to add a second identical generator and convert it to propane so I have options.

Before we sold our house (we are temporarily renting) I was looking to add a GenerLink MA23-N Automatic Manual Transfer Switch.

Then we could power down the devices we don't need in the fuse box rather than running extension cords. At the time, I think with installation we were looking at around $1200 - $1400 for the transfer switch. I will definitely revisit this once we settle on our home.

[mrviking]

We bought a generator in the early 2000's after a slew of hurricanes hit florida. Two years ago we used it for the first time when our power went out for an extended time, 3 days. We were able to run everything we needed running extension cords. After that experience, I wanted to make things easier as well and looked into transfer switches. Did some research and found one on amazon with a reasonable price. Came with a video that made the install quite easy. Last year we had no issues with power during the season but we are ready when needed.



https://www.amazon.com/EGS107501G2KI...TVNDVXHBQZJMWP

[jean_ji]

There is no natural gas service in our area and we had estimates for a whole house propane generator several years ago. We were quoted an average of $15k with burying (required) a 500 galllon tank at that time for our 1750 sq ft (under air) house. If we had natural gas, it would have been an easier, less invasive and cheaper decision.

We bought a 7.8kWh gas generator and had a generator plug with an interlock switch installed on our panel. We are on well water and that set-up powers the pump and a few select circuits. We had solar panels with a battery back up system installed last year, which changes things.

With no power there is no solar energy to run the house, but the panels will continue to feed the battery back up system which is rated at 10.8 kWh and runs select circuits. The gas generator can be used to power the solar inverter alllowing us to run the solar system and the entire house during sunlight hours when off the grid. We are all electric and use 8kWh a day currently.

Solar panels used daily (with a gas generator during power outages) made more sense to us than a costly system used not often or even ever.

[davephan]

We are having a Generac 24 KW natural gas automatic start up generator installed at our house. It's not cheap! It's about $13K. We could have ordered an 18 KW generator, and used "load management", but that would have only saved about $1,500, which is not much compared to the total cost. It's nice to have natural gas service, since it makes the generator installation much easier. The natural gas pool and spa heater heats the water about twice as fast as electricity. But the electric heat pump pool heater would be less expensive to operate on a long term basis. Natural gas is also nice for cooking, if you prefer to cook with natural gas, verses electricity. An underground propane tank would have added about $3K to the cost. The problem with whole house electric generators is the backlog of installs and the wait on the equipment. The backlog for the installs is about five months from this past January.

Installing a gasoline powered electric generator would be a lot cheaper, powering part of your home, manually started, and fueled. But then you have to deal with storing a lot of gasoline cans, buying a lot of gasoline well in advance of the possible hurricane, before the gasoline stations run out or have lines, making it take hours to buy gasoline, and then having to store all those gasoline cans somewhere, and accepting the fire hazard. Then if and when the storm comes, you'd have to keep refilling the generator in the middle of a bad storm, in the pouring rain, heavy wind, possibly being severely injured or killed by blowing debris, also risk being struck by lightning. If you do use a portable generator, I would recommend installing a concrete pad for the portable generator's temporary placement. Then have a very heavy duty steel security cage installed on the concrete pad, so that the portable generator would be more secure from theft. The criminals would pass by your protected generator, and steal a neighbor's generator that is not protected by a very heavy duty security cage that's locked to the concrete pad. A manual transfer switch would be a no brainer option to add. It would be horrible to run extension cords all over the house!

I've heard that solar panels will shut down when there's an electrical power outage, to protect the power lines from being energized, to protect the power line workers. You'd need a transfer switch, so that you could get the power from your solar panels from a grid-attached solar system.

I asked people in the industry, what would happen if there was a major electricity outage, if you had a natural gas generator. My concern was that the natural gas pressure in the natural gas distribution system would be dependent on electricity to maintain the natural gas pressure. I found out that the natural gas pressure in the natural gas distribution system is maintained by huge natural gas electric generators. So, a major electricity outage would not impact the natural gas distribution system. However, if you were very unlucky, a tree could fall in the wrong spot and take out the natural gas distribution line, between the distribution line and your house, which could cause a loss of natural gas to power your natural gas electric generator. So, there's a very small risk that you might not have natural gas to power your natural gas electric generator. If you wanted to cover that very small risk, you'd need to have a propane tank buried on your property.

[markjames68]

I was quoted a few years ago around $15K for a 20kw Kohler plus 500 gallon buried propane tank and first fill.

I ended up going with a panel interlock kit and plug for my generator (around $1K) and bought a Dewalt 14,000w portable (around $3K). After Irma I was able to pretty much power everything including 2 central AC units with it. This was because the ACs had variable speed compressors so the start up load didn’t exceed the generator’s capacity.

As I ultimately moved from Florida it made sense as the generator came with me. In my current house after adding soft start kits I can start and run any 2 of my central ACs at a time.

If you’re staying put for a number of years a whole house automatic start is great.

[jean_ji]

Originally Posted by davephan

We are having a Generac 24 KW natural gas automatic start up generator installed at our house. It's not cheap! It's about $13K. We could have ordered an 18 KW generator, and used "load management", but that would have only saved about $1,500, which is not much compared to the total cost. It's nice to have natural gas service, since it makes the generator installation much easier. The natural gas pool and spa heater heats the water about twice as fast as electricity. But the electric heat pump pool heater would be less expensive to operate on a long term basis. Natural gas is also nice for cooking, if you prefer to cook with natural gas, verses electricity. An underground propane tank would have added about $3K to the cost. The problem with whole house electric generators is the backlog of installs and the wait on the equipment. The backlog for the installs is about five months from this past January.

Installing a gasoline powered electric generator would be a lot cheaper, powering part of your home, manually started, and fueled. But then you have to deal with storing a lot of gasoline cans, buying a lot of gasoline well in advance of the possible hurricane, before the gasoline stations run out or have lines, making it take hours to buy gasoline, and then having to store all those gasoline cans somewhere, and accepting the fire hazard. Then if and when the storm comes, you'd have to keep refilling the generator in the middle of a bad storm, in the pouring rain, heavy wind, possibly being severely injured or killed by blowing debris, also risk being struck by lightning. If you do use a portable generator, I would recommend installing a concrete pad for the portable generator's temporary placement. Then have a very heavy duty steel security cage installed on the concrete pad, so that the portable generator would be more secure from theft. The criminals would pass by your protected generator, and steal a neighbor's generator that is not protected by a very heavy duty security cage that's locked to the concrete pad. A manual transfer switch would be a no brainer option to add. It would be horrible to run extension cords all over the house!

I've heard that solar panels will shut down when there's an electrical power outage, to protect the power lines from being energized, to protect the power line workers. You'd need a transfer switch, so that you could get the power from your solar panels from a grid-attached solar system.

I asked people in the industry, what would happen if there was a major electricity outage, if you had a natural gas generator. My concern was that the natural gas pressure in the natural gas distribution system would be dependent on electricity to maintain the natural gas pressure. I found out that the natural gas pressure in the natural gas distribution system is maintained by huge natural gas electric generators. So, a major electricity outage would not impact the natural gas distribution system. However, if you were very unlucky, a tree could fall in the wrong spot and take out the natural gas distribution line, between the distribution line and your house, which could cause a loss of natural gas to power your natural gas electric generator. So, there's a very small risk that you might not have natural gas to power your natural gas electric generator. If you wanted to cover that very small risk, you'd need to have a propane tank buried on your property.

Actually it is the solar system inverter that shuts down with a loss of grid power and solar panels do not work without the inverter. A transfer switch is useless during an outage with a grid-tied solar system unless you have a generator to power the inverter which can then run independent of the grid and can power the whole house. A battery back up system can run the inverter and select systems during day and if charged during the day for overnight use, but that requires some sun.

Note: the inverter needs to be one of the newer hybrid type that can run on grid, off grid and with DC battery to work as above.