Some general propane/NG generator questions

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

---in which case he WAS screwed.

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.

You might be restricted from many things that are inconsequential in normal lives.

I'd never move to a place with an HOA. Fiefdoms are a thing of the past, or at least should be.

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.

Using Opera's mail client:

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.

Sure, park a $40,000 Buick in your garage for four years and see what kind of warranty coverage you get.

Perhaps it should have been used more to maintain it in working order. Many generators are started once a month for that reason.

Per TomR:

Made me feel a little better about my "Lifeboat" (as opposed to "Cruise Ship") implementation using two Honda EU2000's in parallel.

Per trader_4:

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...

Per Ed Pawlowski:

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....

EVERYBODY SING! You know the tune!

Heard that story from someone else who said his son had set his house up with such a generator and it failed first time he needed it.

My portable generator, 9 years old, works fine.

Per Frank:

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

A few more years and I may have a change of heart... but that's the way I see it now.

if you ever vacation in the winter where things can freeze.you will regret the day you didnt get a automatic standby generator.

as your cleaing up and dealing with frozen smashed toilets, frozen dishwasher, frozen washing machine etc etc.....

if you have a boiler for stem heat, it will be very worse.....

if you get a auto standby geneator that doesnt stop you from buying a portable too.

and with all the computer hacking the feds have admitted our power grid can be attacked.

so add in someone intentionally turning our power off:(

lastly if you have a auto backup generator at least monthly trip off the main breaker, and allow the backup to do its thing and confirm it works......

i mean isnt that common sense?

The only thing worse than not having a generator when you need one is having one, depending on it, and having it not work.

so do a monthly test run, just turn off the main breaker, and if the home doesnt within a couple minutes power back up

I had been considering one of those big things, but now I agree with you.

Redundancy is good, although you need to run both a while every month.