Bought A Dual Fuel Generator

[Cdog]

My wife and I have been in our new to us 50+ year old house for 3 years now. During that time we’ve had a few power outages. The worst was around 5 days without power. Seems we’re at the tail end of a small low priority section. Luckily I was able to borrow a small generator from a friend. It kept the fridge cold and lights on.

We recently replaced our dual fuel heating and air system. The people that did the install told my wife he’d come back and show me a simple way to keep the heat running using a standard generator.

Well my wife found a new Duromax XP12000DX on sale for just just over $1000 drive out. I haven’t fooled with it yet. My thoughts were, dual fuel gasoline or propane and we can’t afford either one.

Top it off, as we brought it inside the basement my wife discovered a wet spot on the floor in a closet. After a short look I found wet cast drain pipes. Large cast iron pipe is above my pay grade. Absolutely no experience with it. I’m calling my plumber this morning. Yea, flex seal was the first thing my wife said!

Welcome to the joys of buying an older dream home…

 

[chief38]

There is NO perfect home - old or new! We just moved in to a brand new custom built home about 3 months ago. We have had a plethora of issues with the pool, the grading, the electrical system, the tiles, blah blah blah. The Builder IS fixing the issues one by one and at this point (3 months later) we are down to only a handful of problems left. We do have warranty appointments for those issues but my point here is that new or old, homes are always going to have issues.

My previous home was built in 1964 and after basically demoing and rebuilding the entire house and systems I got it to be relatively efficient, comfortable and reliable. That doesn't mean i did not have issues. I did have some minor plumbing issues (even with the brand new system) pool problems, electrical problems etc. Thankfully I am a very handy person and I do have persistence so eventually I did find the problems and did fix them - but again, there is ALWAYS something!

Sorry for your woes, but it just seems to be the nature of the beast as a home owner.

 

[jeffrefrig]

Cdog, if it's feasible maybe the plumber can replace the cast iron with PVC drain pipe. We're second owners of this place built in 1950. I'm slowly trying to fix a million minor problems so we can sell and get into one story ranch style house (and out of Pittsburgh!) One thing after another here. I'm 65 with back problems, and I just have to take a pill and do it myself or break out the wallet. So far it's been both! Good Luck! (I generally don't wish people good luck because that's less luck for me!!!) Peace!

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

See if you can find one that runs on electricity-cheaper and quieter.

 

[Cdog]

Thanks for the encouragement. I’m normally a do it yourself person. Who knows, Flex Seal may work? If it wasn’t a threat to everyone being able to bathe, etc, I’d likely want to go get PVC and try to tackle it myself. What a pro can do in a half day would take me 6 trips to town and a full week to accomplish. Plus I don’t have the stamina to tackle something like that now. The truth often hurts.

I knew the electric powered generator would come up. You can’t lob one across the plate and not expect someone to take a swing!

I figure there’s some fairly powerful people that think such a thing is available and what anyone with any sense of responsibility would have bought…

 

[forindooruseonly]

Three things:

First - Non-ethanol gas only.

Second - Use fuel stabilizer in the recommended amount EVERY time you put gas in.

Third - Start and run it once a month, whether, hot, cold, or needed.

If you do these three things, you will keep the fuel system from gumming up and then failing when you actually need it.

I worked in a motorsports shop for a while when covid shut my normal job done. Customers always waited until power was out, or the winter storm was coming, before trying to start their generator that had sat for months, and then were mad when it didn't work and we didn't have time or parts to fix it. Don't be one of them.

 

[Cdog]

I use 90 octane non ethanol gas in all my small engines.

Thank You for the advice. This forum has a collection of very knowledgeable folks.