Take a look at the generac reviews on Amazon. A lot of people with real bad reviews, even with new units. I had a neighbor with one about 5 years old, failed during an outage and dealer told him not worth fixing.
If it was just the alternator no reason he could not have used the battery from the car to start it, and plug in a battery charger to keep it up and run the ignition. (Unless you mean the BIG alternator
A lot of people with real bad reviews, even with new units. I had a neighbor with one about 5 years old, failed during an outage and dealer told him not worth fixing.
Sounds like that unit totally failed to do what it was paid to do. Not good.
She/you might want to look at diesel powered generators. Diesel fuel can sit for long periods of time and still be ok. Tanks of diesel for irrigation use sit outside for months at a time without any being used. There are fuel filters on them. Off road diesel is cheaper than on road also due to no fuel tax.
On one hand, HOAs are great. You never have to worry about your neighbor storing a 1970s travel trailer or other unsightly junk in their yard. OTOH, you might be restricted from running a generator to keep your pipes from freezing. So the $64K question is, will the HOA even allow the install of a buried propane tank and a generator?
Another consideration is that if power outages are a problem for your friend, they are likely a problem for everyone in the HOA. With member support, maybe the HOA could install a community propane tank and amend it's rules to allow individual generators? If not, your friend is screwed.
We don't have a HOA here, but we do have hot sticky summers. I expect I'll never have a generator big enough to run the central A/C (3 ton), but can use a window unit in one room.
BTW, we had a power outage this summer (it was caused by a tornado) and the window A/C helped a lot.
It seems like there ought to be some sort of warranty coverage, even after several years. When you buy an expensive thing and don't get ANY use out of it.
We had a six-hour outage last week and I rode my bike around the neighborhood looking/listening. Saw one Generac working, saw a single lady's not working with a neighbor trying to figure out why...
I arrived at the same conclusion after watching a few condo buildings in Hawaii. I came away with the impression that participation in HOA governing bodies attracts a certain type of person - and it's not the type of person I would want running my life, even a tiny sliver of it.
It started from this tropic port, on a six hour outage; a six hour outages. The weather started getting rough, the tiny neighborhood was rocked. With one Generac running, one out. A guy with two Hondas, and the Perfesser and Maryann..... here on alt home repair....
Unless outages are more frequent that they are around here, I think the substantial PITA factor of deploying two portables is more than compensated for by the reliability factor of a much simpler setup.
I started out with a single portable (2kw) because our house cruises on
800-1200 watts. Got the second one for redundancy - but being able to run the big microwave, the toaster, and/or the coffee maker is a nice-to-have.
A few more years and I may have a change of heart... but that's the way I see it now.
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