Whole Home Generator Help/Advice Needed

[crrcboatz]

I am more concerned about extended rolling blackouts. Based on the direction our economy and this current administration is heading (quickly) I truly believe that is the biggest risk we face in the near term

Absolutely! We all should become more aware of this

 

[CST]

I had a 22KW Generac installed at my place in Logan County. I used Farmers Electric as the dealer and couldn't be happier....Good people. https://farmerselec.com/

 

[PBramble]

I had been thinking about doing this a few years ago. Was going to run it off propane since my house is all electric. I have called every propane company between OKC and Shawnee and even north and south of here to purchase a new tank and have it installed. No a single one every called me back after taking my information. Some of them I even called several times and I got the same cold shoulder. I have a natural gas transfer line across my property and the company that owns it couldn't tell me if they could do step down regulators or who they use, so I basically got told to pound sand there too. So I purchased a portable that gets the job done for me.

 

[Coug91]

FB page has alot of good info

https://www.facebook.com/groups/171...m/groups/1716967438485868/?ref=share&exp=7ffb

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

This is a short video that does a pretty good job of explaining how to power your house safely and within code with a portable generator and an interlock kit.

 

[ramco]

I'm looking at getting a large portable. Don't want to drop the large $ for this particular house. Need to determine who/how I can accurately determine how large a generator I need.

Just add up the wattage draw of all the items you would probably have on at the same time. I believe 18-20K would run nearly everything in a normal 2000-3000 sq ft home. Go natural gas if you can.

 

[Jason Freeland]

I ended up with a Westinghouse dual fuel 9500 Watt continuous with 12500 peak. It will power my whole house (1600ft2) and I already had the transfer switch from my previous generator. I got this one because when they started the whole rolling blackout thing my previous gas generator would not start at 3 degrees fahrenheit. With it being gas/propane I don't have to worry about that and propane will store. It's done a pretty good job and my wife can even start it since it's electric.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q1DLKBG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[ramco]

I bought an 8500 watt continuous (10000 watt peak) Generac portable with EFI and electric start from Costco w/free shipping. I bought a manual lockout switch for my main house panel. I need to install an outdoor outlet for the generator cord to hook into the panel. It should power pretty much everything I need in the house during an outage.

I haven't installed it yet because I need to get rid of the electric stove in the kitchen (to make room in my full panel) and install a gas stove. I haven't ran the gas line yet so it's holding up the generator install.

Anyway, there are tons of YouTube videos on this. If you feel comfortable installing a breaker in a panel it's not that big of a deal to run a wire and install an outlet.

The generator was $1149. It runs on gas only but...it was $1149. So there's that. It also produces "clean" power (less than 5% THD) so it's safe to run sensitive electronics. That's pretty rare unless you get into inverter generators. That was important to me. Generac has a large support network.

I'll have less than $1500 into everything once it's installed and it should run the heater or A/C depending on the season, fridge/freezer, well pump and lights pretty easily. I wanted one that ran off propane and gas but just wasn't one in my price range. Gas will do fine for the money and how often we'll actually use it.

Once I get this thing installed we'll be set. 500 gal propane tank, well for water, generator for power. We won't be reliant on any utility company during outages. I'm a big fan of being self-sufficient as much as possible without totally going off grid.

I would do some further figuring. 8500 watts may not run a central A/C unless it is a fairly small unit. I have a 6500 Honda and it doesn’t come close to running a 2.5 ton A/C unit.

 

[PBramble]

This is a short video that does a pretty good job of explaining how to power your house safely and within code with a portable generator and an interlock kit.

code is for licensed people. backfeed that thing and kill the main.

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

I would do some further figuring. 8500 watts may not run a central A/C unless it is a fairly small unit. I have a 6500 Honda and it doesn’t come close to running a 2.5 ton A/C unit.

I don't know what size it is. The house is just under 1100 sq ft.

When I was looking for a generator everything I read said an A/C will use about 1000 watts per hour per ton rating. So a 2.5 ton A/C unit should use 2500 watts per hour while in cooling mode. 8500 continuous watts should be sufficient if that's the case.