Yikes.... well.
Looking at some of the prepper-type boards, it seems these old military castoffs are pretty highly regarded, am I wrong? I mean, it looks like a lot of people are going this route as an option to get higher output capability and longer life - these things seem to be rated at many thousands of hours, whereas the big box store units, even the Hondas, aren't usually going to be good for more than a few thousand.
Granted, I don't see myself needing to run this thing for 30,000 hours. At least I hope not. But, if we get a bad storm, I could run up a couple hundred hours' use fairly quickly. And I'm thinking of this adding a little bit to the resale of the house. Not so much in dollars, I don't see it raising my sale price so much as making the house more desirable and selling quicker. I know when I'm looking at a house, if I see it's already got a military-grade generator installed and wired properly to code for automatic switchover, then that's a really nice selling point for someone like me!
Am I totally barking up the wrong tree? As for the questions about capacity, I just don't see I will need 15kw or more. 10kw is somewhat overestimated for me, I think. My house is older, about 2200 sq feet. Gas heat and gas water heater. I'd love to switch to gas stove/cooktop, honestly, but that's in the future. My neighbor (the electrician who's going to install this) is like me, a hunter and gun guy, fireman, thinking ahead to disasters/TEOWAWKI/outages without being all "The sky is falling!" He has a 6500w at his house and his is similar to mine in most ways - size, electricity usage, etc. His genny he says is just slightly too small to run his AC. He can run heat in the winter, but not his central air unit. So... I figure 10kw oughtta get me where I need to be. I could go for a larger one, but I don't see myself needing the extra power and the additional fuel consumption is the downside, as is wedging it in where I'm planning on putting it.
So that's my reasoning. As always, I'm open to advice.
<edit> This is also a bit of a "test" run. I'm thinking if I get this to work out well, then when I sell this place and build my eventual permanent home, the place I really want, with some land, some space, etc., then I'll probably go for one of the bigger 15-20kw units, as it'll be more useful in that situation.
Looking at some of the prepper-type boards, it seems these old military castoffs are pretty highly regarded, am I wrong? I mean, it looks like a lot of people are going this route as an option to get higher output capability and longer life - these things seem to be rated at many thousands of hours, whereas the big box store units, even the Hondas, aren't usually going to be good for more than a few thousand.
Granted, I don't see myself needing to run this thing for 30,000 hours. At least I hope not. But, if we get a bad storm, I could run up a couple hundred hours' use fairly quickly. And I'm thinking of this adding a little bit to the resale of the house. Not so much in dollars, I don't see it raising my sale price so much as making the house more desirable and selling quicker. I know when I'm looking at a house, if I see it's already got a military-grade generator installed and wired properly to code for automatic switchover, then that's a really nice selling point for someone like me!
Am I totally barking up the wrong tree? As for the questions about capacity, I just don't see I will need 15kw or more. 10kw is somewhat overestimated for me, I think. My house is older, about 2200 sq feet. Gas heat and gas water heater. I'd love to switch to gas stove/cooktop, honestly, but that's in the future. My neighbor (the electrician who's going to install this) is like me, a hunter and gun guy, fireman, thinking ahead to disasters/TEOWAWKI/outages without being all "The sky is falling!" He has a 6500w at his house and his is similar to mine in most ways - size, electricity usage, etc. His genny he says is just slightly too small to run his AC. He can run heat in the winter, but not his central air unit. So... I figure 10kw oughtta get me where I need to be. I could go for a larger one, but I don't see myself needing the extra power and the additional fuel consumption is the downside, as is wedging it in where I'm planning on putting it.
So that's my reasoning. As always, I'm open to advice.
<edit> This is also a bit of a "test" run. I'm thinking if I get this to work out well, then when I sell this place and build my eventual permanent home, the place I really want, with some land, some space, etc., then I'll probably go for one of the bigger 15-20kw units, as it'll be more useful in that situation.