Generator

[maple1]

Of the two, I would go option 2.

Or, just get an inverter & call that good. Not sure on your outage situation but we can go a day easy without cycling the pump. If real bad weather is coming, you can just run a couple 5 gallon jugs full ahead of time. Having a good sized water tank will help there and also help in regular operation since then the pump won't cut in as much - should save a bit of juice. We also have 3 toilets in the house, so there's that too I guess.

Then if I really did need to be able to run the pump, I would get the second 240v gennie. There are always lots of low hour ones for sale used around here. Fuel consumption is the biggest part of getting through an outage here. Or minimizing it, I should say.

 

[Kiotick4010]

I have two small Champion 2000w inverters that I gang together to run the fifth wheel. Usually just use one unless we want to run the RV air conditioner.

They did double duty as backup at the house for a few years, although most of our power outages don’t go beyond a few hours. Only once in recent memory did we have a 12 hour outage, and we were out of town at the time.

Problem with the small inverters is that they only have 120 v output and the well pump is 240v.

In much of the year we can get water from the lake to flush the toilet, but that doesn’t work when it’s frozen from November to late April, so I picked up a Chinese open frame 3750 watt Black Friday special from Menards for $187 two years ago and wired in a transfer switch to handle a few priority circuits.

It’s enough to handle the inrush current of the well, internet, lights, and the refrigerator.

Haven’t had a significant power outage since I bought it, though.

Worth the minuscule investment. I don’t need to run the mini split for air or heat, we live in the far north, so we don’t get many hot humid days.

Biggest hassle is going out to the shed to start it, and throw the manual transfer switch breakers.

If I get around to it, I will eventually buy a fully automatic unit. Be nice for my wife if something ever happens to me., although she would probably move to town in that event.

 

[mcdougy]

I'm a believer in the throw away big 11000w champion generators from Costco. Under 1000$ when on sale twice a year, electric start. Running premium gas without ethanol and shutting off the fuel to run it dry seems to be working good here after minimal use in 3 years. The electric start is a good option for my wife. Having a generator panel installed makes a simple flip of the switch to power up most of the house and appliances. When it screws up, go get a new one. Our hunt camp has a small Yamaha inverter, it wasn't running well, so took it to the dealer. For 800 he tuned it back up and changed a few parts. Still have a 11 year old generator. In my opinion this was not the way to go. Some things force you to consider the "throw away" option. With generators I'm a believer.

 

[maple1]

I'm a believer in the throw away big 11000w champion generators from Costco. Under 1000$ when on sale twice a year, electric start. Running premium gas without ethanol and shutting off the fuel to run it dry seems to be working good here after minimal use in 3 years. The electric start is a good option for my wife. Having a generator panel installed makes a simple flip of the switch to power up most of the house and appliances. When it screws up, go get a new one. Our hunt camp has a small Yamaha inverter, it wasn't running well, so took it to the dealer. For 800 he tuned it back up and changed a few parts. Still have a 11 year old generator. In my opinion this was not the way to go. Some things force you to consider the "throw away" option. With generators I'm a believer.

Our power was out 6+ days from Dorian. The first day, the closest place to get gas was 40 minutes away. And it was an absolute zoo as could be imagined. After the more local stations got power & got up & going, there were then gas shortages for a few days. I will take an inverter at 1/4 the gas consumption in those circumstances. Ours is a 'throw away' brand and it has served us well, aside from the sticking solenoid that time. If we had LP on site, I would likely do something else - maybe some day as priorities change.

 

[DodgyNomad]

It's interesting reading this thread. One thing for sure, everyone's needs for making their own electricity is different and unique to their own circumstances.

I'm glad to see that others have had good success with the Champion brand of gens. I'm only a recent user and fan of them, but they hang right in there with the commercial grade units I'm more familiar with. I would recommend them again in a heartbeat for folks who don't want to step up and pay 3x as much or more for a premium brand unit. They have impressed me and folks I know to no end.

I can not recommend most of these other Chinese units. So many little things that can and do go wrong with them. Something as simple as a cheap paper bowl gasket leaking fuel and starting a fire, or low grade rubber fuel line, or plastic shutoff valve breaking and you're down on the ground with a flashlight trying to figure out why your 2 year old low hour gen isn't running right in the middle of a blizzard. Or, when you notice the lights look funny and are a bit dim, and the microwave makes a weird buzzing noise when you run it because your gen is only producing 48 Hz.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

i have prettymuch the same setup as jake.. sub panel and a plug at the back of my house. i have 2 generators 1 iis a 13kw and a smaller 6.5kw coleman. most of the time i plug in the coleman. iv learned that i don't need to run the whole house at once. i just need lights, water, sump pump and the fridgeand i dont run them all at once. we went 8 days in 2016 with no power and ran the generator 24/7 with Window ac units. we dont use the generator alot but so glad that i have this setup. i sit on about 15 gallons of gas in the shed which is plenty to get you going for a few days minium. i would go with the sub panel and a medium size generator...

 

[velvetfoot]

Life support on a portable generator? I don't know.
Of course, who knows what the future portends (coronavirus).

 

[Exmasonite]

Hope it's ok to dredge up a slightly old thread but wanted to add....

I have a TroyBuilt 7500W gas generator and house is wired with disconnect to have that run pretty much whatever. So long I don't run house A/C, we are typically fine.

We just got a live-in horse trailer with a 15K BTU A/C. We ended up getting 2 of the Wen 2000-2200 W inverter generators and the parallel kit:

WEN 56421 30-Amp 3600-Watt Parallel Connection Kit for Inverter Generators

- Connect two WEN Inverter Generators for up to 30 amps and 3600 watts of output- Includes one RV-ready 120V outlet (TT-30) and one twist-lock 120V outlet (L5-30)- Easily mount the parallel kit to the top of a WEN Inverter Generator- Features a reach of up to 7 feet and a two-year warranty-...

wenproducts.com

Doesn't run 240 but will run darn near anything else and juice is clean for expensive electronics. Wife can carry either of the little gennys and nice to have some redundancy. If one goes down, still have some degree of power. Can also cycle them out for regular 20A to save hour/time on each genny while keeping continuous power. Also fairly quiet, even when both are running.

 

[firefighterjake]

Still loving my Yamaha . . . ran 'er for the past four days (not 24/7 mind you . . . but when my wife and I were up and about during the day and evening). That said . . . it was nice to get power (and internet) back up yesterday evening.

 

[maple1]

I had to drag our 3kw inverter out this morning, first time since before Christmas I think. Power went out overnight in bad wind storm and wifey needed to take a shower before work & dry her hair & all that stuff. Have a shallow well 120v water pump and lots of hot water in the water heater still. It's a bit of a pain having to do that manual stuff (pulling it outside the basement door & getting it going, then running a couple of extension cords), but it only took 10 minutes even while half asleep still, and it uses so little gas it's worth it, & does all we need in an outage. We have not much reason to have anything bigger - although having one around the same size that would put out 240v would be nice at times. That would be our ultimate setup - along with a generlink to plug it into. Champion makes what looks like might be a good candidate, but they don't sell them up here.

 

[Sean McGillicuddy]

I had to drag our 3kw inverter out this morning, first time since before Christmas I think. Power went out overnight in bad wind storm and wifey needed to take a shower before work & dry her hair & all that stuff. Have a shallow well 120v water pump and lots of hot water in the water heater still. It's a bit of a pain having to do that manual stuff (pulling it outside the basement door & getting it going, then running a couple of extension cords), but it only took 10 minutes even while half asleep still, and it uses so little gas it's worth it, & does all we need in an outage. We have not much reason to have anything bigger - although having one around the same size that would put out 240v would be nice at times. That would be our ultimate setup - along with a generlink to plug it into. Champion makes what looks like might be a good candidate, but they don't sell them up here.

Road trip Bangor !

 

[maple1]

Road trip Bangor !

In the back of my mind.

When we're allowed to road trip again, that is.

 

[fire_man]

My Forever home is going to have one of these:

 

[mcdougy]

In the back of my mind.

When we're allowed to road trip again, that is.

First off, condolences to you and your province for the unspeakable act committed. Such a beautiful province and all of our country mourns for those people affected..........

If you are eyeballing a champion brand generator, do you have the option of ordering it online from Costco? There is a slight premium ordering online vs in store pricing, but it does include the shipping. I doubt Costco pricing can be beat for the champions?

 

[maple1]

First off, condolences to you and your province for the unspeakable act committed. Such a beautiful province and all of our country mourns for those people affected..........

If you are eyeballing a champion brand generator, do you have the option of ordering it online from Costco? There is a slight premium ordering online vs in store pricing, but it does include the shipping. I doubt Costco pricing can be beat for the champions?

Yes, we can do that with Costco. But Champion doesn't sell any 240v inverters in Canada. Didn't go through the cert process or something, from lack of demand. Or that is more or less what they (Champion) told me when I emailed. Costco did have an interesting looking 120v open frame inverter this fall but wasn't there any more last few times I looked.

Thanks for the condolences. It all actually started quite close to me, about a half hour away. Had a RCMP cruiser fly by our house Saturday night, responding. Had no idea anything like that was going to happen. Everyone is shook up, badly, even ones like myself who don't directly have connections with the victims. I do know some who were friends of friends though - not many degrees of separation here. A very bad scene.

 

[mcdougy]

Unbelievable. Knowing that a part of all people's Innocence has been taken. The comforts in life have really been threatened as of late.

 

[blades]

Even that diesel gen set can be set up as dual Fuel, lpg or cng . problem - diesel now days can be the fuel going bad in a long term storage even with stabilizer. Not a mater of separation but fungus growth ( thanks EPA). so that said lpg or cng are still the best long term storage options. My home is on Lpg I have a 250 gal tank and several small tanks for other portable items. i have dealt with outages electric wise from short- couple hours to long term, week+ over the years. I have a whole house Generac unit plus a 4k portable ( gas- got to get a lp kit for it) ,funny, I have never used it yet because I had a little chicom 1800 watt unit which recently bit the dust. So I have been looking at the inverter units also but I want the dual fuel option and 240 v output. More than likely it will never see Gasahol ( that's what we called it way back when). ( that 4k unit has been sitting on the storage rack for almost 20 years now never fueled ) Course if I sell it, sure as the sun coming up I would need it the next day or so. Heck it might not even run

 

[fire_man]

If you heat with oil then the diesel gen might be smart.