If the load management was limited to not running both central AC units at the same time, you could easily get by with the 12KW unit. AC probably needs 25 amps/240V running, more to start. Those other loads are peanuts. A modern fridge draws maybe 3 amps to start, then less than one amp when running. TVs, lights especially LEDS now don't amount to much. But then like I said, the difference in price isn't that much of a percentage because all the other stuff adds so much. That new gas line is a killer.
The refrigerator and upright freezer in the kitchen date to 1988. The refrigerator in the basement is probably 50 years old.
She likes her large CRT TV. There are almost no LEDs. Though she doesn't keep many lights on.
Yep.
Yep. That is what stopped her when she looked into this some years ago. There were long outages after Sandy and Irene. One was 5 days and the other
11 days. But in those days my father was alive. The fire department brought a gasoline generator and returned every few hours to refill it. But my mom doesn't use a CPAP machine or need to keep insulin cold. So that ended.
The next door neighbor does not have a whole house generator. Only partial. They have been going to their beach house on the weekends.
That one in the basement... is probably working with Freon-12. Which is highly valuable these days. Call a couple of air condiitioning/refrig places and see how much they'll offer you.
That being said, I'm sure you've considered the economics of swapping these old units for _much more efficien_ modern ones. Then again, of cours, is the hassle factor.
Anyway, my main point is to mention that while the units might be using 50 to 200 watts when operating, they can easily pull more than 500 when in auto-defrost mode.
My current one is about 75 watts running, 500 in defrost. Older units probably double or more both those figures.
Which are numbers that get big enough to be a consideration when spec'ing emergency power.
- a social hall I deal with recently started getting full outages of all the overhead lights in their main reception area. It turned out that although there were a dozen circuit breakers on that floor, all those wires ran to just a pair of breakers at another panel.
So instead of (for illustration) 150 or so amps available, it was only [20 times 2, more or less].
And... they had recently added an outlet to the main floor and pluged a refrigerator into it. Which was wired into the same circuit feeding the overheads.
When the overhead lights were off, or even just one string of them, there was no problem when the defrost cycle kicked on.
However... if the place was occupied and all the lights were lit, then the extra five amps from the defrost heater was enough to overload the other breaker pair. (It only tripped one of the breakers, but they were joined together).
Took me a long time to figure out what was happening...
I own a Generac 1700 KW Full House Generator. We've had it for about a decade.
The oil is changed twice yearly by a generator repair outfit that uses a multi grade oil. My manual says that if the generator runs for any extended period of time the oil should be checked daily. We once had the generator running for almost a week during one serious outage. I did check the oil level for the first two days. It remained constant. After that I didn't check it but every other day. I wasn't too worried about it because the engine has many safeguards built in. One of them is a low oil pressure sensor which cuts off the engine if the oil pressure reaches a certain low point.
We used to have 5500 watt portable generator with pull cord. I got sick and tired of starting and stopping the thing multi times a day to see if the electric company was back on line yet.
As far as I'm concerned, this generator along with the auto power transfer switch is the best investment we ever made in our home.
Yes, ours is seemingly the same model you show in the pic.
Ours is also a 17 Kw unit, and not a 1700 Kw as I posted in error.
Model #0060531 (Guardian)
It does the entire 2 story house. We can run everything off of it at the same time. That includes our 220 volt A/C unit downstairs and the 10,000 btu A/C in the upstairs bedroom.
I do not know how many Generacs are in our neighborhood, but during the last outage I walked around and saw 3 houses with Generacs where the gennie had failed.
We've had a Generac 17kw whole house generator for almost 15 years. It has never failed. A few times it had to run for a solid week because of power outages due to flood conditions. It has had to run for 3-4 days at a time quite often because of non-flood power losses. It is the best investment we ever made in regard to our home.
You cannot be sloppy with the maintenance of such a necessary item. We have a professional maintenance outfit come out twice a year to change oil and check it out. You have to pay attention to it. You just cannot wait for some problem to happen before you call the maintain people. It could just be during an emergency that it will fail if you didn't keep up with the maintenance.
We have a few large retailers around here who depend on Generac generators. One of them is a Menard's who has a monster one sitting in their parking lot.
As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a dang thing wrong with the Generac brand. And that includes the helpful people at the other end of their customer help line. I've had to call a few times with a question, and those people were very helpful and had a nice attitude.
What fuels your 17,000 watt unit ? and how much fuel would you use - per day - on average ? I've been getting-by with my 5,000 watt Honda portable, for almost
20 years - but might be upgrading soon. < if it ever dies > John T.
Forgetting the brand name - is a 17 kw unit significantly better that a 10 kw unit ? if you only need about 8 kw ? Is the fuel savings given-up in the quality / longevety of the unit ? John T.
If you only need 8kw a quality 10kw unit should be adequate. THEORETICALLY a larger unit will be less stressed - but if the smaller unit is designed and built for heavy duty use and the larger one is not - all the theory goes out the window.
You want a pressure lubricated engine with steel sleaves and an oil filter. A water cooled engine WILL be more durable. An 1800 rpm unit will outlast a 3600 rpm unit. An oversized unit will generally burn more fuel.
I'd take a high quality 7200 over a mediocre 12000 every day of the year.
We used to have a portable generator. It was a pia waking up in the middle of the night during a snow storm and having to go out to the garage to start it up. The price of running it became too high as the price of gasoline kept going up. I don't remember the figure, but it was EXORBIANT having to run it for days.
I think it got something around 7 or 8 hours on a tank of gas. The tank held somewhere around 5 gallons. It had to be refilled about 3 times in 24 hours. Multiply 15 x $3 to $4 a gallon for gas and you get a fair idea of what it did cost to run the thing just for a day. Natural gas is a heck of a lot cheaper. Plus I don't have to get up in the middle of a snow storm to start the thing. Ours system has an auto on/off feature. It knows when the power goes off. It knows when it comes back on. If we're sleeping when the power goes out, we might never know that we're running the generator.
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