Portable generator for home use

[BillK2632]

Ok - first I will say this is NOT going to be used on the boat - ever!

We have a power outage at our house at least once a year, usually < 24hrs, but enough to loose food out of the fridge and just generally cause an inconvenience. Every time the power goes out I say I am going to get a generator, but I never do. Well last Sunday night we had bad storms come through and of course the power goes out - only this time the fridge is packed full of food and with the pademic and the wind conditions predicted throughout the day, we don't know how long the the power will be out. Certainly long enough to loose all of our food.
I had done some research and decided for our use I needed a small inverter generator. I wanted something small and portable -- didn't want a huge thing sitting in the garage and plan to use it to run electric tools occasionally - chainsaw etc. I had settled on a Generac 2200i, but also looked at the Crafsman 2200i. So with the power out Monday AM, decided now was the time! Started looking around at Lowes, Homedepot, and of course neither had the Generac in stock -- but Lowes now carries Craftsman and they had the Craftsman 2200i and it was $50 less than the Generac (later reading the info, I see that it is actually made by Generac - other than the packaging it is the same thing). Bought it, and in an hour had it home and running the fridge, TV, computer and made a pot of coffee. Ran perfectly for the next 12hrs on a little over a gallon of gas. Man I love this thing! Not looking to run the whole house and yes I need to run a few extension cords, but this will certainly make the occasional power outage much less frustrating. When needed, we have a 5000btu window unit in our bonus room - could even run that and have AC.
I know some of you probably have elaborate systems with transfer switches and big generators that can run your whole house, but for not much money and a portable package, this little will more than serve my needs.

 

[Quint4]

I have the Honda 3000 for home and love it. Always starts when needed.

 

[fwebster]

I'm where you are with the thought process and logic.

I have a Miller Bobcat diesel welder with a 10KW generator tap and our house is wired with a switching panel so all I need to do is plug in the welder and crank it up to have the full house powered. I bought a Honda 2000iu portable generator about 10 years ago....a deal I couldn't pass up on eBay.....and that thing is so easy to plug in and run that we have not used the welder for standby power since the Honda arrived. Plus, it is so quiet that we don't even hear it with it runs out of fuel. It is not much bigger than a suitcase so it goes to the beach with us during storm season where power is flakey.

 

[chuck1]

Got to love them Honda gensets. My son in law got a nice Yamaha he uses for camping and would recommend them also.

 

[northern]

Costco in US had an IPower with Yamaha engine last fall for 450US I got one works well. Before had a Honda 1000. Honda was more refined and lasted 15 years.
I got a Honda 4500 inverter generator with eclectic start for a job. Great machine but burnt 5 gallon a day to supply AC and lights in a construction trailer.

 

[sbw1]

We use a Honda 5kw that is stored in the garage next to a plug wired into the main breaker. This is for a new home in a development that has all underground utilities and a history of almost no outages. So we decided not to install an automatic system. But, I have owned this unit since 2000 and it has only 200-300 hours on it, so why not use it? Honda makes very reliable products. We will just wheel it to the other side of the garage door and then lower the door if we need it. With load shedding it runs our entire home which has all LED lighting and is very energy efficient. We can make hot water, cook, heat and AC a 5000 square foot home. We do need to choose our loads, but that is a simple as turning on or off an appliance or system once the transfer switch at the panel is switched to generator power. It is very much like what we do on a boat. I think the smaller Hondas are great units as well.

 

[RollerCoastr]

AC a 5000 square foot home.

Are you sure about that? I have a 7.5kw (peak). It can run the furnaces, but isn't capable of starting even the smaller 2-ton AC unit. Apparently that unit could've been wired to accept a soft-start, but so little is left to run the rest of the house that it just makes more sense to sleep on the lower level in hot weather.

 

[sbw1]

Are you sure about that? I have a 7.5kw (peak). It can run the furnaces, but isn't capable of starting even the smaller 2-ton AC unit. Apparently that unit could've been wired to accept a soft-start, but so little is left to run the rest of the house that it just makes more sense to sleep on the lower level in hot weather.

Yes. Pretty sure it will work according to the electrical contractor who wired the house. We do have three systems that use lots of amps. One is the kitchen, all electric appliances. So we may not run the oven in the summer. We also have tandem electric hot water heaters. So again need to carefully manage that load. And the AC. But, this home is brand new and the AC is very efficient and we have a huge amount of insulation every where. Our other home is smaller by 1200 square feet and has a larger electric bill with the heat set down to 50 degrees. Hopefully we will not need to test the limits but the contractor feels it will work in a pinch.

 

[Gofirstclass]

Just a tip for you Lowe's customers who have been in the service at one time or another. Register with Lowe's, supply a copy of your DD-214 and they give you about a 10% discount on every purchase.

Yours truly, the CSR Resident Cheapskate.

 

[OllieC]

Interesting thread because I've been trying to figure out the correct load/sizing and how to add breakers to my AC distribution panel. I'm not that concerned with air conditioning, but I am concerned with the heater, freezer & refrigerator. We have gas heat, but the furnace obviously has a blower. Unfortunately my breaker panel is full, so I'm not sure how I can add a generator interlock kit to the panel.

 

[northshore]

Ok - first I will say this is NOT going to be used on the boat - ever!

Kill joy.

 

[Henry Boyd]

We had a 3.5 kw generac portable before installing a 25 kw Koehler whole house after about ten years of good service. Both run on gas (propane and natural). You might look at a propane powered portable especially if one a year or sporadic use is in the plan given the poor shelf life of gasoline. The Generac ran off of standard bbq tanks, but I bought a tall tank you sometimes see on travel trailers and RVs. Fuel consumption was about 10-12 hours off the bbq tank size, so not terribly expensive to run. Obviously we weren’t running AC, but common house electric, two fridges & dedicated freezer, electric oven, gas boiler & circulation pumps, and of course internet/tv.

If you already have a gas bbq and access to exchange tanks, it really is not an inconvenience. When we first got the generator we were using household propane for the cooktop. While it is ok to attach a bbq to outside propane in Mass, it is not for a portable generator, go figure. But depending on your local regulations you might be able to connect it to your existing household propane using the same technology as a bbq grill hook up.

 

[BillK2632]

Kill joy.

Haha - I've been around long enough to know I don't want to be the subject of that sh*t show!

 

[sbw1]

Interesting thread because I've been trying to figure out the correct load/sizing and how to add breakers to my AC distribution panel. I'm not that concerned with air conditioning, but I am concerned with the heater, freezer & refrigerator. We have gas heat, but the furnace obviously has a blower. Unfortunately my breaker panel is full, so I'm not sure how I can add a generator interlock kit to the panel.

This is pretty simple for a licensed electrician. We had the same issue preparing for Y2K ( turned out to be a non-event). Our panel was full like yours. The electrician pulled wires down from the main panel into a small separate box with breakers on it that he mounted on the wall beneath the main panel. The new box had breakers for the circuits that ran the outlets for the fridge, microwave, a light in each room, home theater, and furnace. There was a manual transfer with in the box. A power cord ( think shore power cord on a boat) was wired to a new outlet in the garage that the generator plugs into. To switch to generator power, you connect the genny to the new wall plug and start the genny. Then you transfer the power to the new box and turn on the breakers one by one like on your boat to load the genny slowly. You need to move the genny to an outside location so the cord needs to accommodate the distance.

 

[OllieC]

When we rebuilt our kitchen 3 years ago, I installed a sub panel like you mentioned. I didn't provision extra breakers during the build (smack forehead). I think I'm going to add a larger sub panel and redo it. I've replaced all of the electrical in my 1950 house (almost all). I pulled permits and it has been inspected. I actually cleaned a lot up. Anyway, I knew what the answer was, I was just hoping for and easy modification.

 

[Henry Boyd]

Actually guys you can by pass extra panels by using the installation hardware supplied by the generator companies. Basically, the hardware gets tied into the main feed where the feed is split through a switch that isolates utility from panel when gen is being used. This can be automatic, or it can be manual. This set up powers the whole panel, leaving the user to only turn on the stuff that’s needed, or within the amperage capacity of the generator.

 

[RollerCoastr]

yep - I have one of these. It's a Reliance Protran and can handle up to 10 circuits, 30A's and doesn't require its own breaker in your existing panel.

It's a really nice compliment to a portable generator. I don't lose power often enough to justify a $15,000 fully-automatic monster. This $330 transfer panel is good enough, but still not ideal.

It's sized to the 7,500 generator, but neither are sized to the commercial air-conditioners, so they're excluded. The more annoying issue for me is that this almost 50-year old house was wired for very high electrical consumption - LED lighting and efficient appliances weren't things they could consider back then, so they divided the house into 57 circuits. I can light every room in the house and part of the exterior using less electricity than it took to light the kitchen with halogen, but with only 10 total circuits on the transfer switch, running on the generator requires many sacrifices.

I'd advise anyone who can justify even a portable stand-by generator to install a transfer switch, but plan it carefully!

 

[RollerCoastr]

But, this home is brand new and the AC is very efficient and we have a huge amount of insulation every where.

I'll be interested in hearing how it goes. Is it just one unit? My house is wildly inefficient, but it's not the temperature swing that's the problem for my generator, it's the starting and running loads of the units. I also don't actually have 7.5KW to play with. I run it on propane, so that offers less power, and the continuous rating is almost 1kw IIRC even on gasoline. Does Honda rate their units as peak or continuous?

 

[sbw1]

I'll be interested in hearing how it goes. Is it just one unit? My house is wildly inefficient, but it's not the temperature swing that's the problem for my generator, it's the starting and running loads of the units. I also don't actually have 7.5KW to play with. I run it on propane, so that offers less power, and the continuous rating is almost 1kw IIRC even on gasoline. Does Honda rate their units as peak or continuous?

Hopefully, we will not need the AC but our panel is set up with a transfer switch/breaker at the top of the panel. We switch that over to genny and all the breakers run through the genny powered line. I'm not sure how Honda rates generators. My set has a governor on it so it idles down to minimum rpms if the load does not justify more engine power. Manual says it does this to save gasoline and reduce noise. It runs quite a while on a tank of gas. When we suffered power outages in our previous home which is in a wooded area, I would fill the tank at 10:00PM and it would still be running at 8:00AM the next day. We always had enough fuel to operate for several days when storms were predicted. Maybe I will try running it this spring when temps heat up and check with how it does cooling the house. We have just one unit to power. I'll post the results.

 

[my3sons]

yep - I have one of these. It's a Reliance Protran and can handle up to 10 circuits, 30A's and doesn't require its own breaker in your existing panel.

It's a really nice compliment to a portable generator. I don't lose power often enough to justify a $15,000 fully-automatic monster. This $330 transfer panel is good enough, but still not ideal.

It's sized to the 7,500 generator, but neither are sized to the commercial air-conditioners, so they're excluded. The more annoying issue for me is that this almost 50-year old house was wired for very high electrical consumption - LED lighting and efficient appliances weren't things they could consider back then, so they divided the house into 57 circuits. I can light every room in the house and part of the exterior using less electricity than it took to light the kitchen with halogen, but with only 10 total circuits on the transfer switch, running on the generator requires many sacrifices.

I'd advise anyone who can justify even a portable stand-by generator to install a transfer switch, but plan it carefully!

That worked for us at the house for several years when I was working. I liked the set up.
When we bought the townhouse after retirement, I went with the Generac whole house that runs on natural gas.
The only thing I left on the original sub panel is the electric dryer. Twice while we were in Florida this past winter my generator texted me that there was a power outage and it was running. Great piece of mind.