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Whole house generator

399 views 8 replies 3 participants last post by  texasredneck 
#1 ·
I know this isn't really the forum for this but curios if any here is a generator savant.
The house is already wired. Just need something to plug in, fill with gasoline, and start after sitting all year.
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#2 ·
As a multi hurricane survivor I’ve done panel backfeed with gas powered generators and just a few years ago after the freak snow storms in Texas, got a whole home automatic standby generator for the ranch. The Houston home get’s abandoned if the power is out for more than a few hours

If you have the money, the whole home standby is the way to go, especially if you have natural gas supply. If you have propane then you have to spend time really making sure you don’t oversize as it will just eat more propane.

My wife is not really able to roll out a gas powered generator and make all the connections which is one more reason I went full auto standby.

Can you be more specific about what you want to accomplish and how your house is currently wired?

If it lends some credibility to the situation I installed my own whole home 20kW standby generator, including the propane piping, pouring the concrete pad, pulling the meter and installing all the additional panels and wiring, including load shedding on the pool equipment, so I have a bit of experience. It’s been over a year and every time I see the app from Cummins tell me the gen set is kicking on or I’m there and the power blips as the generator kicks on, I just smile.


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#3 ·
Local codes say I can have 2x 10gallon tanks up against the house of LP. This feeds the stove only. Everything else is electric. Don't plan on upgrading any time soon. Already have a plug wired in for a generator. I just want to buy either gasoline or diesel generator to plug in. I don't have a problem flipping the switch inside, filling the generator and staring it. Auto would be nice but it's just not worth the extra cost at this point.
Neighbor did say they were snowed in for a week one year which is a little disconcerting, lol.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Scap is on point. 30 amp (calculation is 30ampX240V=7200w. If you want maximum continuous just make sure you aren’t buying a surge rating, but the continuous rating.

As you are thinking about which circuits you can run off your generator, keep in mind that induction motors pull massive amperage on start up and then settle down to a constant amperage. Like an air conditioning compressor, refrigerator etc.

Look at the label to the devices you want to run that are motors and you’ll see a rating called LRA or locked rotor amperage and that’s what it pulls on start up.

Just make absolutely sure that you first flip the mains and disconnect the service from the incoming power line before you plug in the generator. I label all the breakers as essential and non essential and turn all but the essential off to keep from overloading the generator.

If you wanted to upgrade, you would need not only a larger receptacle but also larger feed wires from the receptacle to the panel.


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#7 ·
Thanks for the info. I would have bought something wayyyy overkill.
You bet! And if you decide to move up to a 50 amp receptacle, I’d be happy to walk you through how that’s done. Not terribly hard.

And if you think you may do that in the future, then the generator would be 12,000 watts continuous for a 50 amp receptacle.


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#9 ·
Ive not had a lot of experience with inverter gen sets. On paper they seem to have some advantages, but the price is pretty steep, especially in the larger wattage versions. I tend to look at the engine as a proxy for quality. Honda engines are the penultimate, Briggs OHVs and Kohler is also good.

However for the occasional use generator keeping stabil in the fuel and draining the fuel bowl between uses is most important.

I’ve had a rinky dink 4000 watt generator with a Briggs engine for 15 years and it will still start up on the first one or two pulls as I drain the bowl every time. And it ran almost constantly for 22 days during a hurricane outage in 2008.

Northern Tool seems to have a good selection and I bought my last portable from them.


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