Opinions on Back up gas generator

BrotherBart said:

Don't get carried away.

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Thats some good advice right there BB. Unless I hit the lottery a whole house unit isn't in the budget, $30/day gasoline bill is much easier to swallow although it sucks at the time

You really can do this on the cheap if you desire. I would say my generator setup was about ~$900. Transfer switch was $150 a Champion 4000w generator was $280 and a Champion 2000w inverter was $350 and 100ft of 8 awg wire. Sure Id love to have a standby generator but just could not see spending the money on something that may not get used but once every 5 years. I do have to shut off our well pump to avoid tripping something if everything else was running but I dont see that as a big inconvenience. We have a ~15 gallons of reserve in the pressure tank.

The 5kw generator I originally had didn't run my well pump-well is 400'. Had to get a bigger genny and even that one sags when the pump runs.

We use a Honda 2000 inverter it will not handle the water pump, but can keep the fridge and freezer cold and run the furnace fan if needed. It will do this continuously on little more then 2 gal a day. Its not as nice as a whole house genny but I use it a lot more then I ever did my old 8000 kw, It takes 30 seconds to throw it in the back of the truck/ atv and you have power where ever you want, the old 8,000kw never made it out of the yard.

Whatever you do, have it set up so you can shut the flow of gasoline off when you shut it down for the last time. Basically run it out of gas. Should keep the carb clean that way. Wouldn't hurt to dump some stabil in the tank too.

The EU2000 isn't set up like that: one knob turns off the ignition and gas at the same time. It is easy to drain though.

Basically snowsleds/generators/4 wheelers/etc Once i'm done with them for the season, turn gas off and run the unit dry.

The 5500 watt, 220V genny we bought in 2005 was the best buy ever for about $400. Because ever since we bought it, we rarely have a power outage. Good insurance policy. That said, it's on a transfer switch and runs the well pump, fridge, freezer, microwave, some lighting circuits and the computer/TV circuit. Plenty for emergency backup power.

We currently have the 8000W Briggs & Stratton Genny, with an approved xfer panel and it works just fine. I'm not the kind of guy to run it for hours, we use it for an hour or so to keep things cold in the freezers (if summer) and run some water if we need. I don't just run it for hours at a time like some do, so gas usage is pretty low for me. The B&S will run our 200' deep well pump easily and we can have other circuits on at the same time. It's nice as it has a 30A 240V L14-30 on it to supply the tfr panel.

I had a smaller 5000W Coleman powermate that had a 20A 240 outlet on it and when I had it running into the tfr panel the well pump would def cause it to sag some. It would not run the pump and anything other than a light bulb, so I gave it to my electrician / neighbor. (He "supervises" all the electrical work I do).

I do find myself looking at some of the smaller 2000W inverters every now and then thinking it would be usefull to have something smaller for just the fridge/freezer in cases of shorter term outages, but haven't bought one yet. Something like that would be great for someone who doesn't need the 240V/30A for a well pump or any other 240V feed.

Whatever you do, please remember that backfeeding a panel without a proper transfer switch/panel is in most cases illegal and can be deadly to a lineman working to restore your power. Please do not backfeed, ever.

IMO people oversize their gennys 3/4 of the time - and for me, the prime consideration after the first day of a multi-day power outage isn't how much juice does it put out, but how much gas does it burn.

Which is why I sold my 5500/8500 B&S genny this winter, and replaced it with a 3000w Inverter genny this spring at a tax-free sale. I didn't use it or even get around to taking it out of the box until this past Sunday after Arthur blew through. The power came back on about 4 hours after I got it set up & going, but in that time it burned very little gas, ran barely above a very quiet idle 95% of the time, and powered my whole house - except for 240v stuff like dryer & stove. That included my well pump & boiler for hot water (whole heating system was powered actually but not used except for charging storage) - although it is only a shallow well 3/4hp 120v pump.

That setup might not work for everyone - but I would highly recommend to everyone that they fully and honestly evaluate and even accurately measure how much juice they really do need before they buy one. As I'm sitting here my monitor says the house is using 600 watts and I can hear the fridge running. Gas can be a pretty scarce commodity in an extended outage, and bigger (>5kw) non-inverter gennies can drink a lot of it fast while you don't use even 1/4 of the juice they're putting out. Plus bigger stuff can get expensive to buy.

And for a decent sized decent quality decent priced capable inverter genny, check out the Lifans at HD. Lots of good reviews, and I'm pretty sure that's what my red one I got elsewhere is.

If you have the money to spent buy Honda. They are quiet and great on gas. With all that said three years ago we had a power outage due to the freak snow storm in October I run my whole house on 12 years old generac 7250watts surge. If I was to buy one now I would get the gp series. Mostlikely gp 6500 I think that's enough for what you are trying to do and relatively good on gas. Just do yourself a favor and don't buy it at lowes or HD generators for them are made with a cheaper parts so they can sell them cheaper. Check electric generator direct they got pretty good prices.