Best whole home generator

[Southernduck]

I have two of them and have moved them twice today helping folks out. I use one to power irrigation normally.

Newer trailer units have to be Tier 4.

Yea I would be looking for used and definitely no emissions or as little as possible. I have thought about a unit from a boat and hook a 100gal tank to it. Not really worried about automatic but fuel usage and dependability are paramount. Everyone I talk to about the generacs comment on how much LP they use but a diesel unit seems to be way more efficient.

[Palmetto Duck]

Efficient? Having to go drive and dick round with all the dumbasses to get gas is extremely efficient as well. Most outages are under a week. Who ares how much natural gas they burn if you’re sitting inside feet up business as usual?

[Southernduck]

Efficient? Having to go drive and dick round with all the dumbasses to get gas is extremely efficient as well. Most outages are under a week. Who ares how much natural gas they burn if you’re sitting inside feet up business as usual?

Or maybe I don’t live in a neighborhood and have a diesel tank in the yard but I damn sure don’t have a nat gas line in my yard

[Smilee]

Southernduck that’s the approach you have to take. We just rolled 72 hours on generator power.. City dwellers don’t haul or use much diesel. And 5 gallon cans don’t cut it running like this.

Propane Generacs suck the fuel, plus a 250 gallon propane tank really doesn’t have 250 gallons of useable fuel. More like 165 gallons of useable fuel. Plus most all providers want you below 40 to justify a delivery. My in laws were at 50% when it started and already talking about a larger tank.

I started influencing my customers/engineers at work to have 96 hour belly tanks for rural fire stations. Plus having a fuel pump on the tank to fill trucks. As you need to cycle through fuel to keep it clean. The first 49 hours got a little hairy for emergency services around here since no fuel stations had power. It’s all in resiliency if a community to, I know Sphinx stations have CAT generators in a lot of locations across the upstate. It’s for times like this. The used market will be stupid for a while.

[Gregory]

We are running wide open. One Generac down, failed voltage regulator. I’m jump starting my own at this point as well.

Another chicken house unit running in battle mode due to oil sending unit failure.

To those interested in standby generators….

First and foremost….how long can you be without power? 10 seconds? Minutes? Hour or two?

Do you cut your own grass?

Do you have propane or natural gas at your location?

Care if it’s manual or automatic?

Do

I can be without for days but the wife prefers seconds. I cut my grass. I have natural gas. Automatic in case I’m not home. Dependability is paramount. I’m looking at Cummins Onan.

[lowbudget]

We're building right now and went ahead and installed the transfer switch for a whole house generator, parts was about $800, labor was minimal as it is new construction.

500 gallon propane tank at 50% capacity will run a 14KW genset for +/-5 days and power the AC, dryer, tv, fridge, ect the whole time. Longer if we limit the load, or turn it off for a few hours here and there.

Its all automatic, I aint got to try to find gas after a storm, and if I'm not home my wife doesn't have to do anything. We researched the portable generator option, but for ease and convivence, and dependability the propane whole house standby was the best option. If you live somewhere power outages of more than a couple hours are likely, its well worth the money in my opinion.