The last hurricane took out power at my location for over a week. After a hurricane there is standing water everywhere, bright blue skies and not a breath of wind for a week. Humidity gets up around 99.9999% with temps in the mid 90s too.
My place’s previous owner had a big portable generator sufficient to run air conditioning, fridge, electric cooking, and a reasonable selection of lights, computers, etc. He wired a manual cutover into main supply, so it’s just one easy connection to make it behave as a whole-house unit.
I haven’t used it yet, but I’m glad I have it. It’s been pre-flighted for this year’s season already.
We live in a primarily rural area and if we lose power, we lose water, too. BUT we’ve been here 11 years and the longest we were without power was 48 hours in 2011 when Hurricane Irene skittered by. I had filled the bathtub, so the toilet wasn’t an issue, and we were able to get ice, so we didn’t lose any food. But we did lose all the livestock in our salt water aquarium - that was a painful several thousand dollars. We had a portable generator, but it hadn’t been run or serviced for years and we didn’t have gas for it anyway or a practical way of tying it into the house breaker panel.
Since then, we’ve had it serviced, and we tend to keep gas on hand. We’ve also got a connection to bring power into the house. We’d kill the breakers to the a/c and the dryer, but we should be able to run the fridge, the water heater, and the well pump, as well as lights and such. If it was winter, we’ve got the pellet stove upstairs and a wood-burning insert downstairs, so we wouldn’t freeze. Meanwhile, since Irene, we’ve never been without power for more than a couple of hours a couple of times. Our electric co-op is amazing at keeping the power flowing. Having an automatic full-house generator would be a foolish investment for us.
Let me just throw this into the bitstream, where someone might find it useful:
If you have a propane/NG fueled generator, adjust the fraggin’ valves at least every two years or after any extended (24 hour+ run). If it doesn’t start within a second or two, there are several things to check, but make a valve adjustment part of your first fix-it pass. It took me far too long to discover this when our Generac got hard-starting and then non-starting.
(The problem is often that the exhaust valve gets very tight, meaning that compression leaks away before ignition… meaning everything else can be working perfectly but you ain’t gonna get it to start. A hard or delayed start that turns into normal running and easy restart is almost certainly valves.)
With that adjustment made and other routine service kept up, ours (12 years old) now starts before I can take my finger away from the start switch. As it should be.
We live in a rural area. Although we have a generator, it’s never been used. Our power outages that last more than a couple of hours happen in the winter. I have two big boat coolers; one goes onto the back patio, the other I haul to work and store frozen stuff in a deep-freeze.
Then I make a fire in the fireplace, light lanterns and candles, and cook on the grill. Anything under 5 days is kind of fun/romantic.
We just got the power back after two and a half days without electricity.
About eight or nine years ago I went back to L.A. for a year. I let a friend live in the house. That Winter saw feet of snow – more than usual here by the bay. Power was out. Fortunately there’s a propane heater, but it would not heat the house without its blower. I called a place in a nearby town and bought a Honda EB3000C generator of 3,000 watts peak output. My friend went to retrieve it, and only went off the road once. I think it cost about $1,000. I just checked prices on the same generator, and they’re now going for a bit over $1,400.
Is it worth it? It saved my friend and his dog from a very cold time. I’ve used it a few times over the years. With the generator I can watch TV and DVDs and surf the Internet. Since I work from home most days, it’s crucial that I have power to the modem. As I said in another thread, we lost cable/Internet/phone this time. But we could still entertain ourselves with DVDs. We could power the refrigerator, have some lights, charge the mobile phones, and make coffee. The Wife could do her work on her computer (she was the on-call nurse this weekend), which only needs the Internet to synch.
Is $1,500 worth it? Not if I had to pay that much every year. But I’ve had the jenny for several years, and will have it for many more. The kilobuck I spent bought a nice insurance policy. I have peace of mind knowing it’s there when I need it; and when I need it, it is very useful indeed.
One of these days I need to get a circuit breaker box (to replace the fusebox). I’d like to rewire and have more outlets. When that happens, I’ll have a circuit wired to the box so that I can plug the generator into the house circuitry and not have to string extension cords. I’d have to be judicious when using the stove, I’d have to see what I could run when the water heater is heating water, and I’d have to think about using the dryer. But the 3 kW generator would be plenty for most of the time. Of course if I ever win the lottery and build a new house, I’ll have a proper built-in generator – and piped-in gas.
In this spirit, I’ll add a lesson that I learned from doing my installation:
If you intend to install a generator and hook it up to your house wiring using a transfer switch, especially a manual transfer switch, make sure that you get a unit that switches the neutral in addition to the hot. Quite a few manual switches only switch the hot legs, and any GFCI breakers powered by the generator will not like that and trip.
I don’t know if this applies to automatic transfer switches.
After a couple of years where we had the power go out for a 24+ hour period at least once a year, I considered buying a small one just to run a fan, a couple lamps and keep the phones charged. The last outage we had, after the first day we wound up going to a hotel anyway so what we spent there would have covered 30-40% of the generator cost.
But this year we didn’t have any outages longer than an hour or two so… eh, I guess we’ll start thinking about it again next time the lights go out. This is in Chicago suburbia and our outages are summer storm related so it’s more of an inconvenience than an issue like not having heat in the winter.
I’d have to check but I’m pretty sure they don’t have a 14000 watt generator. That’s a pretty big sized unit.
I was just checking a site that sells generators and they wrote that the only reason you’d need over 10000 watts is if you’re planning on running a central air system off your generator. That’s a valid issue if you live in some parts of the country but my parents live in northern New England and they don’t even have central air.
Unfortunately, I have an electric stove and oven, water heater, and clothes dryer. Here are the specifications for the range:
Total Connected Load: 10.0 kW @ 240V / 7.5 kW @208V
Voltage: 220/240V
Main Oven Broiler Wattage: 3000
Minimum Circuit Rating: 40 amps
Main Oven Bake Element Wattage: 2600
It looks like my generator makes just enough power to run the oven. (3 kW is peak power, not continuous.) I know the generator has a 20 amp circuit breaker for the 110 v, but I don’t know about the 220 v. The label on the water heater says the upper and lower elements are 3,000 W each, and the maximum allowable something-or-other is 4,500 W. So if I’m ever able to wire the house for a plug-in generator, it’s going to have to be bigger than my Honda one if I want full functionality. Or I could just wire it to the 110 v circuits only. Not knowing anything about domestic wiring, other than to change switches and outlets, a 10 kW unit looks to be in order.
We do have a propane heater. We also have an efficient wood-burning stove. I have nine Svea 123 stoves and a few others, plus the MSR Internationale I used to cook breakfast Sunday. The Honda generator makes enough power for the 110 v needs, even if I do use extensions instead of the house being wired for it. Considering that the power only goes out a couple of times a year, and it’s usually back on within a few hours (being without for 2½ days hasn’t happened before), a 10 kW generator to run the whole house is not worth the cost. The Honda provides power for the necessities, and is considerably cheaper. And The Wife gave me a big hug for having been prepared.
Here’s another data point:
I live in a rural area with a well, and my heat, hot water, dryer, stove, and everything else is electric. My electric service is 200 amps. I bought a 10 kW generator for $2,000. It runs on gasoline and is mounted on wheels. I have to run a heavy cord between it and the house. It’s big enough to run the well plus a bunch of other things, or to run the clothes dryer with little else, so I could do laundry though I’d have to stage the whole thing.
I think having a foolproof system that my spouse could operate, and that would let us live “normally”, and would run on propane so we wouldn’t have to be cycling gasoline through our storage system, would cost over $15,000.
We have lost power for 11 days one time, 4 days another time, and 24 hours or so perhaps every year or two. Losing water has been the biggest problem (though all our long outages have been at above freezing temperatures). We run a sort of a cat rescue, so relocating to a hotel isn’t very viable – and they fill up when hurricanes mess with everybody, anyway.
When I was peeking at generators to double-check things for this thread, I saw a couple of places that said ‘inverter generators’ cost three or four times as much as non-inverter generators.
First question: Is it an inverter generator?
Second question: What’s the difference between an inverter generator and a non-inverter generator? Don’t you need an inverter for household power?
Yeah…I spent close to two weeks living in a basement huddled by a Franklin stove and hauling water in a bucket from a dug spring one Winter because a blizzard brought down power lines all over the state. There have been similar events there multiple times in the years since. $10k to not live like that every time Mother Nature feels dyspeptic is cheap.
It’s entirely a personal preference thing. It’s worth it for those that want that convience.
Personally I don’t see much value in a permanent installation but I’m in a much different position than most. I own generators and am more then capable of tying one in should the need arrise.
I’ve installed them professionally and am periodically consulted on new installations for them. My primary business is well work.
Hundreds of my customers have them and are very happy with them.
I’m content sleeping in a tent in the white mountains in the middle of the winter. Losing power for a few days is easily survivable, barely even an inconvenience.
If you live in an area where the power supply is undependable and tends to go out for extended periods as a result of storms or gremlins (looking at you, AEP), having a generator backup adds considerable peace of mind.
Having experienced a couple multi-day outages in the dead of winter (plus extended ones in other seasons), I know it is not fun coping with them. I can well imagine it would be considerably less than “romantic” for people with sick/elderly family members or small children. If there is a region-wide extended outage, it may be very difficult for some people to find a motel room with power, or other refuge.
Other considerations involve pets (including people with a big aquarium setup, reptiles or other cold-susceptible creatures not readily moved*) or a greenhouse (it would probably suck mightily to have all your orchids perish because of a midwinter outage).
*“yo, Motel 6 - I’d like to rent a room for two people and 10 snakes”
During our last hurricane we experienced 9 days without utility supplied power. I have a whole house 15KW NG generator and it was worth every penny of the $9K installation price. When it comes time to replace it, I’ll do so and won’t give it a second thought.
My wife and I have a home just north of Hilo on the Big Island. It is entirely off grid. For power we have solar panels and a mini hydro electric system in the stream that runs through the property. If its sunny and dry, the solar panels kick in. If its cloudy and rainy, the hydro system takes up the slack. But we still have a back up generator in case a serious storm comes through. Its a propane 15KW Generac Eco Gen specially designed for off grid systems which means it automatically keeps the batteries charged.
The installed $6.700 price gives us peace of mind and is well worth the price.
I got a used Briggs and Stratton gasoline powered portable generator in exchange for an old banjo. It’ll run the fridge/freezer plus supply enough electricity to our natural gas heating system to allow it to run. And allow another plug-in or two as needed.
Definitely cost-effective for us. But I’d explored the option of having a system that would kick in and run the whole house in case of power failure, and the economics just didn’t make sense. Especially since we lose power generally for only 4-6 hours maybe once a year.
