Backup Generator Recomendations?

[Mark Griffiths]

I had an Onan /Cummins 12K natural gas generator that would run everything
in the house except for AC (we no longer live there).  It had 200 amp
service with an auto-switching panel and exercised automatically once per
week for 10 minutes.  It was basically a Subaru engine with a generator
attached to it.  Mind you, this was in 2004.  The generator paid for itself
when our area was without power for more than a week due to snow and ice.
It ran 24/7 with an occasional shutdown just to check everything.  I had a
baby and her nervous mother, and that generator saved my sanity and our
comfort.  We could cook, refrigerate, freeze, heat, take hot showers., and
see at night.  Everything was natural gas (cook top, heat, hot water, wall
ovens).

You definitely want auto-switching with an exerciser.  Even today, I would
prefer an Onan/Cummins over a Generac just for reliability.  In a SHTF
situation you could switch to propane if you had to.

Mark

On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 3:09 PM James Sentman <james at sentman.com> wrote:

> HI Folks,
>
> My wife and I have decided that it’s time to pull the lever on a real,
> professionally installed, natural gas powered backup generator. With the
> kids mostly grown up we have no interest in evacuating for a near miss but
> want to be able to sit it out. (if it’s too bad obviously we will of course
> get out! But they try to evacuate for way too much. With toddlers we would
> have just gone and we did a few times, but now as long as it’s not a direct
> hit or the flood level estimates aren’t above the front door we’re not
> going to do that anymore) Up until now I have had either smaller generators
> powered by gasoline and running extension cords to window AC units and the
> fridges, or more recently I installed an individual circuit transfer switch
> and bought a generator large enough to run the main AC unit in the house.
> Though that burns a lot of gasoline and storing that much is dangerous as
> well. I plan to keep those smaller generators and leaving the transfer
> switch in place to cover for a failure of the main unit.
>
> What do  you guys like for this?
>
> We have friends who are on the essential list at the local hospitals and
> so have generac or other devices, but they have ALL without exception,
> failed at just the moment they most needed them. Oh that monthly test has
> been running perfectly every month for the last 3 yeras, but now the
> throttle linkage is broken and you’re in the dark! Just when nobody can be
> called to come and fix it! My Mother In Law has a huge 40kw generator that
> my wifes dad installed after one particularly pointless evacuation that has
> literally never worked during an outage and that they recently had to have
> disconnected because the propane tanks under it started to leak!
>
> So I’m curious what you all do for backup power? And what your experiences
> are related to reliability and so forth.
>
> Thanks,
>  James
>
>
> James Sentman                       http://www.PlanetaryGear.org
>       http://MacHomeAutomation.com
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> XTensionList mailing list
> XTensionList at machomeautomation.com
> http://mail.machomeautomation.com/mailman/listinfo/xtensionlist
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.machomeautomation.com/pipermail/xtensionlist/attachments/20210520/5f3918da/attachment.html>