Which generator would you recommend?

[lengel]

You guys have been so great helping us with everything from firewood to worms, tractors and chickens.

So I have another one: generators. What brand should we get for our house? Should we get an enclosure for it? Will it need a concrete pad to sit on? What else should we consider? I'm thinking that it needs to be a whole house generator instead of a select circuit because otherwise we'll wind up with burst pipes in cold weather.

 

[tattooedchickenlady]

I heard the generac home systems are nice, but they can run $50 to $100 a day for natural gas......
not much help, I know.

 

[tattooedchickenlady]

Oh, and you can find out about it at Lowes or Home depot, they sell em

 

[patandchickens]

It depends a whole lot on how insulated your house is, where your pipes run (in a cold climate they shouldn't be in exterior walls... although of course sometimes they are anyhow) and whether you are on well water. Whether your house has any other form of heat. Also how long a power outage you are trying to plan for.

The pipes should only freeze if you have questionable insulation (always a good thing to invest in fixing anyhow) and/or they are in outside walls (also may be worth $ to fix), or if the power outage is quite long in quite cold weather. The more you can trickle water thru pipes, the less of a problem freezing is. Also, if just part of your plumbing system is vulnerable (e.g. an exterior-wall run of pipe up to a cold upstairs bathroom) you can install a valve by which that part can be turned off and manually drained in the event of what looks to be a prolonged outage.

So unless you have *unusually* vulnerable pipes, you have to ask what am *I* going to be doing, if the house is that cold for that long?

A woodstove or soemthing like that might make as much or more sense

As far as generators, please make sure to hire a professional electrician to install it if there will be things (furnace, well pump, fridge circuit, whatever) to which it is permanently wired (as opposed to smaller generators where you just run a cord into the house and plug things in by hand). If it is not done EXACTLY RIGHT (which btw can cost as much as the generator did) you can wind up inadvertantly electrocuting (like, fatally) unsuspecting power company linemen

It is not something to fool with; make sure it is done RIGHT.

Have fun,

Pat

 

[jnjross]

generac has a nice one that run on lp or natural gas ,it looks like a air unit , tcl is right hd and lowe have pamlets that have calculation to help you pick the right size that run from 2000-6000. my gp got one for his 4b/3b house for 3500.

 

[jnjross]

here's a calulation sheet http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/products/generators/content.aspx?asset=gg_wattage

i have a 6500 watt 1978 generac

 

[lengel]

Quote:
Thanks Pat.

We have no insulation at the moment although we're getting some installed in half the house before winter. Our main drain pipe is in an outside. I really think we need a generator 'cause the people who built this thing weren't very bright.

 

[DLS]

Only one generator that is made tough as steel
ONAN