Basically what I did in the last storm and was comfortable enough. Just had to sleep in the living room, but still had the TV and internet router going to entertain everyone and get work done.
Yea bro, n you can always unplug the refrigerator (it'll hold for hours), n plug something in, if you need to. Plus it doesn't use much gas, 4-6 gallons a day. I recommend you getting a portable ac unit, that you can move from room to room as needed
OK ok. Maybe it'll power one or two lamps. Ya got me. . But yeah, I wouldn't waste my time on smaller units. Not for me. Guess it's fine for some folks.
I had one, but only thing I didn't like was the water. You have to hook a hose up to it and run it outside or it would eventually leak. I prefer window unit instead to not mess with that.
Got me a 12500 Peak Watt one a while back on Amazon. Tri fuel. You can't find the ****ers nowadays hardly.
Got the quick connect plumbed on to my natural gas, took me about 30 minutes. I get a little anxious when I deal with stuff that could go boom, put it off and when I finally do it, it always ends up being a nothing burger. Tonight I will test. If I disappear then you know it went boom.
Those are nice if you got natural gas at your house, but if powering up the entire house is important to you, why not get a generac? So you don't have to mess with it all
12500 watts should power an average suburb house. Whole-home instant switch-over generators compared to something you haul out of your shed and have going within an hour are a luxury item for most people on a decent grid. People with medical equipment that needs power 24/7 or high-end expensive saltwater aquarium setups that start to die very soon after the power goes out are the only thing I can think of that really needs it.
Depends who you go with, my buddy just got his installed, it was 15k, with 5 years maintenance included.
That's still significantly more than a portable generator plus interlock. Generacs are fantastic, but it's a luxury. In all, I spent about $2,500 total for a portable generator an interlock. Champion Tri-Fuel 9000w/5850w inverter Generator - $1300 NG quick connect installation by a pro - $450 (I absolutely could've done it myself for $50, but I wasn't sure if I needed to pull a permit. The plumbers ended up didn't pull permits anyways ) AC soft start - $450, self installed Interlock kit - $25, self installed Power Inlet - $50, self installed Misc. fittings, wires, conduits - $25 Plastic Shed to store it outside- $200 So that's a total of $2,500 for a system that will run the small loads (fridge, lights, tv), 3 ton AC, and still leave about 1.5kw margin. I was even able to do laundry with my heat pump combo washer/dryer during Beryl. I can't use the oven or stove though. It's not as good as a Generac, but it's really quite close as long as you don't mind lugging it out whenever there is an outage. My eventual goal is to add in whole house battery that can seamlessly switch over when there is an outage and power the house for a few hours. Then I'll drag out the generator if it looks like the outage will last a long time to recharge the battery.
I have almost the same setup and it sure as hell beats the 12k I was quoted in 2021 for a Generac standby unit.
During Beryl, it cost me about $7 in natural gas per day. My house is on the smaller side (1700 sq ft with 3 ton 2-stage 16 SEER AC) and the inverter generator is more a bit more efficient than a non-inverter. So you may need to scale that number up depending on your situation.
Thats totally worth it then. My neighbor was running his entire house on a propane generator, ran him about $100 a day.
Have a question for the smart folks here: our current 17kW Generac may need to be replaced and we may have access to a good deal on a new 26kW Generac. The 17kW unit powered the whole house just fine so we know the 26kW unit will be overkill but will this require an upgrade to the gas meter or lines to/from? We've had the 17kW Generac since 2008 (installed after Ike) and it's been great until Beryl came through. It held up fine during the power outage for Beryl but has been struggling to function correctly since. It's almost as if Beryl's winds blew the generator off kilter and the exhaust heat melted a portion of the black base trim to the left. Ever since Beryl the Generac's motor has been running very rough and can barely stay on. I topped off the oil but did not notice anything else physically wrong. The company who installed it, and has serviced it, advised we keep it off and they will be out on the 19th to inspect it. I'm not sure if we'll use the same company to replace the unit since they have been very slow to respond and we had to schedule the service two months out! I'm hoping it's just a matter of unhooking the old 17kW Generac and connecting the new one since gas and electrical lines have been installed since 2008. Thoughts/concerns/recommendations?
