Home Generator

Fredkrueger100 · Jan 29, 2019

I am looking at different ideas of a generator for my house. I was going to go the stand alone generac route until I saw how much it would cost to get it installed. Combo that with me needing to get a large propane tank installed since i don't have gas here. I currently use propane for my fireplace but i use 100 pound cylinder tanks for it. Adding up all the cost I just can't afford to get a stand alone right now. I then discovered people that were using portable generators to power their homes. They had a line connected to the home electric and then had an outlet installed to plug the generator into. I found a generac GP17500E that runs at a wattage of 17500 watts and starting watts of 26250. It is a 50 amp and has three 30 amp outlets, 4 20 amp outlets, and a 10 amp outlet. Says its powerful enough to start many 5 ton air conditioning units and can power up to 16 circuits. I saw some videos on youtube of people that have used the same setup to run their houses. I don't have to run every single light and appliance that i have but would love to be able to run my well, hot water tank, fridge, and a couple of tv's. In the summer it would also be great to be able to run the AC for at least a little while to keep it from being too out of hand. Hopefully the electricity never goes out more than a couple of hours but you never know. Does any of you have any experience with doing this? I don't know anything about this kind of stuff so any help would be great. Also, is there any risk with using a generator on appliances? I don't want to burn anything up or damage the generator if i get one. Thanks for the help in advance.

jakeman · Jan 29, 2019

I own that same 17.5kw generac. It's "portable" in that you can roll it around on flat ground by yourself, but you aren't loading it or rolling it up a hill by yourself. It's an impressive beast. It's also thirsty.

Put in a transfer switch, and you're in business. It'll run a whole house without much problem as long as you don't turn on everything in the house at the same time.

Cowcatcher · Jan 29, 2019

That is a hoss of a generator! Transfer switch as mentioned above would be they way to go. As for me personally if I was gonna spend $3k on a generator it'd be a welder generator so I could get more use of it. I will say that last I knew the biggest welder/generators in that price range only had 10-11k watts. That may not be enough for you but I've powered up everything I needed for an 11 day power outage caused by an ice storm on a 10k welder/generator. I know I'm going a different direction than you laid out but it's something to consider. I'm not a fan of engines just sitting around not getting run because they'll let ya down when you need em. If you have no need for a welder........I just wasted lots of typing I guess.

dennishoddy · Jan 29, 2019

TonyKane1 said:
I am looking at different ideas of a generator for my house. I was going to go the stand alone generac route until I saw how much it would cost to get it installed. Combo that with me needing to get a large propane tank installed since i don't have gas here. I currently use propane for my fireplace but i use 100 pound cylinder tanks for it. Adding up all the cost I just can't afford to get a stand alone right now. I then discovered people that were using portable generators to power their homes. They had a line connected to the home electric and then had an outlet installed to plug the generator into. I found a generac GP17500E that runs at a wattage of 17500 watts and starting watts of 26250. It is a 50 amp and has three 30 amp outlets, 4 20 amp outlets, and a 10 amp outlet. Says its powerful enough to start many 5 ton air conditioning units and can power up to 16 circuits. I saw some videos on youtube of people that have used the same setup to run their houses. I don't have to run every single light and appliance that i have but would love to be able to run my well, hot water tank, fridge, and a couple of tv's. In the summer it would also be great to be able to run the AC for at least a little while to keep it from being too out of hand. Hopefully the electricity never goes out more than a couple of hours but you never know. Does any of you have any experience with doing this? I don't know anything about this kind of stuff so any help would be great. Also, is there any risk with using a generator on appliances? I don't want to burn anything up or damage the generator if i get one. Thanks for the help in advance.

Get a licensed electrician to set this up. Lots of ways to set up a generator to feed a home. We have a portable generator that is 10,000 watts peak but 7800 watts full load. It runs our TV's, electric heater, two freezers, two refrigerators, electric stove and lighting easily.
The secret to adding a portable to a home that has lost power is to turn off every breaker, and turn each breaker back on one at a time and give it a couple of minutes before turning on the next because if I just turned on the main, and all the high load compressors came on at the same time, it would overload the generator causing it to trip the breaker.
Learn what wattage each appliance has for running,(its on nameplates on each appliance) and size the generator accordingly. Always go bigger if one can afford it.
If you have a smaller generator, you can cycle the appliances like freezers. If the lid stays closed, they will maintain below freezing temps for a couple of days. Plug one in for 24 hours, and then unplug and plug another in for 24 hours. Repeat until main power is restored.
It's pretty amazing how small of a generator one can get by with if they know their appliances wattages.
If your needing to run a central heat unit that is a heat pump or an older electric element model, the generator will have to be sized to accept the starting current as well as the running current with extra to cover appliances and lighting.
Myself, I've got a 100 amp line running from my shop to the house. I have put the proper receptacles in place that the generator is running in the shop 100' away, and I'm back feeding the house through the main breaker in the shop. We don't get the noise nor the possibility of carbon monoxide getting into the house from the generators exhaust if one is ran too close to the house.
Always turn off the main breaker in the house that is fed from the utility company as you don't want to back feed the commercial power line.

NightShade · Jan 29, 2019

Agree that a transfer switch is best. It will need to be installed by an electrician. Saw a deal the other day where an auto generac system was put in and once the main was tripped off the switch over was less than 15 seconds which is great but I agree that the cost is exorbitant. A place I worked at many years ago would do something similar to dennishoddy backfeeding power into the structures being worked on while they were in the assembly line. We literally had a stubby cord that had a male on each end to feed power from a wall outlet into the house so lights and such could be turned on while work was completed. In a pinch I would do something like but only just to get by and you have to make sure the mains are off or that the circuit you are feeding is off with no chance of backfeeding the grid. Don't want to be feeding power to the neighborhood for one and potentially create a hazard for a linesman out there trying to restore power on a circuit that should be dead.

Snattlerake · Jan 29, 2019

Amen on the transfer switch. It is provided to keep from feeding back toward the power company. Many a lineman have been killed by homeowners that pushed electricity backward.

FreeSpiritBalloon · Jan 29, 2019

For the propane part, we use BK Grain and they loan us a 500 gallon tank as long as they are supplying our gas.
You may want to look at LP generators to have a bigger and hands off fuel supply. That is my plan for the future. Now we just have a portable 8,000 watt in the barn on a separate manual breaker to back feed the house during two ice storm outages so far.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Cowcatcher · Jan 29, 2019

I wasn't prepared when the big ice storm hit. I pulled my meter and hooked my generator up there. When the power company got to my neck of the woods they gladly reinstalled the meter and put the "clip" thing back on that I cut off. Your not supposed to pull your meter but they had no issue since it was an emergency. They also said it was one of the safest ways to do it. I said I didn't wanna be backfeeding their line. The guy told me that was right and on the flip side if I was backfeeding when they reenergized the line it would've burnt my generator to the ground.

Dave70968 · Jan 29, 2019

Hopefully @dennishoddy will chime in quickly, but pay attention to the bit about the transfer switch. Get that part wrong, and your generator will backfeed the line and potentially kill someone.

Shadowrider · Jan 29, 2019

I did a lot of research on this some years back. I found then some great info on a Florida electric utilities' websight. After hurricane Andrew went through there a lot of people thought they were covered in spades with a 500 gallon propane tank feeding their whole house generator. They were running out in a couple of weeks. Remember that that storm did almost what was done to Puerto Rico. Wiped out the grid or at least great big parts of it. This website had a very in depth FAQ page, I'd look that direction. But note that now it won't be quite as bad on needed capacity or fuel consumption. LED bulbs and central air are much better on current draw now than then. Electric heat is still something to watch.

My mom went with a whole house Generac and 14kw is all she needs. I was there when they tested it and it was running the 3.25 ton AC, one burner on the stove, the oven, fridge, freezer and lights all at the same time. But it was all setup across three circuits that started 2 minutes apart IIRC across her smart switch. With 17.5kw you can do a bunch these days, but make no mistake, generators are thirsty SOBs so don't underestimate fuel.

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