Power outage

Early morning two weeks ago the power went out at home while I was at work; wife grousing about it. I knew there was a gov auction so pointed my browser at govplanet and threw a lowball bid down on a MEP-802A generator. While out on my morning walk I got an email that said I won it!

It's on the way. The MEP-802 is a 5K watt generator, but it'll really do closer to 7K and sips the diesel while doing it. My hot water, stovetop, and heat are gas, the heat distro is electric of course and the oven is electric. Regular size fridge in the kitchen, mini-fridge in the garage, lights, but not much else. All the military generator experts I've talked to say it'll run my house no problem.

So with the auction win, fees, transportation from TX, getting it up and running, transfer switch, and some wire I might be into this for under $2500.
 
As long as one is comfortable with one’s choice, it matters not what some may think. In my area of NE Ohio, we have had two serious outages and numerous minor ones. My township doesn’t even have its own Post Office but we do have lots of Amish neighbors. Yes, the power company gets to us at the end of the line.

Two of my freezers hold dog food. My dogs are content with the generator. So is herself. That makes me a happy man.

Kevin
 
After a series of power outages, one three days, in 2018 we decided it was time for a generator. I started doing research with the idea of a portable unit in mind.

After looking at the cost required, including a new storage shed and that my wife might not be able to lug the thing out where it needed to go, connect it to the transfer switch inlet, and then start it, the only viable answer seemed to be a whole house generator.

I talked with an acquaintance who was the service manager for company that does mostly commercial generators, but also sold residential.

He steered me away from Generic because he said that they had lots of problems getting parts when a unit went down. He recommended a Briggs and Stratton "Fortress" 10Kv unit.

He gave me a lot of good advice, including suggesting that I find my own electrician as they used sub contractors and that would drive up the price.

In the end, I bought from his company, found my own electrician, and used the propane company he suggested (no natural gas on my street).

All up, it cost about $7,700.00 dollars. Everything has been flawless.

We are about to put the house on the market and move south. We'll very likely get another whole house generator for most of the reasons I mentioned above. One of the things high on my list for the new place is natural gas availability. Propane is fine, but the tanks are ugly and you have to depend on the company to be reliable and re fill them when they are empty.

I've heard good things about Kohler as well, so that's an option.
 
When Frances and Jeanne ran over my house in 2004, I picked up a 5500W gas portable. It will run everything except the AC, although not everything at once. A little power management is easy enough. It will run the window AC unit I bought for such occasions, enough cooling to keep a bedroom cool for sleeping. $500 or so for the generator. Traded costs for some minor inconvenience. Fill my gas cans before a storm gets close--no last-minute lines--and rotate cans through the hurricane season. Longest I ever had to use it was three days, and only had to break it out 2-3 times since 2004. Pull it out in May for a 10-minute test run and put it away until needed. It suits my needs.
 
We've got a 22K Generac (second home I've owned with one) that runs on Natural Gas. During Hurricane Ian last September it came in real handy as we lost our power for two days - we were lucky, no damage from storm! In my development I'd venture to say 90+% of the homes have whole house back-up generators. Of those I'd say 97% are Generac's and 3% are Kohler's. Where I live, for every Kohler Dealer there are about 20 or so Generac Dealers, so parts and service are only a few miles away.

Kohler's are fine units, actually great ones, I just wish their Dealer Network was larger. I've had pretty good luck with both my Generac units. My last home went through 6 Tropical storms and hurricanes that left us without power for between 1 - 2 weeks per event! The Generac unit worked flawlessly each time. I live in my new home just over a year and our 22k Generac worked great during Hurricane Ian. I think both brands are good - but to me the Dealer Network and parts availability are important.
 
bgrafsr said:
When we bought our home (in a rural area), I wanted to be sure we had a backup power source, as I wasn't sure about the electric service we had.
I purchased a Kohler 14KV generator, which runs on Natural Gas, and will run everything in the house if the power goes out.
We have had a couple of very short outages and the generator starts up quickly and runs very good.
Today our power went out at 1:15PM and is still out at 7:12PM.
The generator has been running since 1:15PM and everything in the house is working.
Cost for installation was around $10,000, and it was money well spent.
I went with Kohler since a contractor recommended them over Generac. Also I have learned that the Kohler engines have hydraulic valve lifters,whereas the Generac engines use
adjustable lifters, which need to be adjusted every now and then, depending on how often and long the generator runs.


Power just came back on, 8:00PM.
Click to expand...

Wait until you get your natural gas bill will probably add at least $25 to a usually morbund summer bill :eek:
 
Last edited:
CAJUNLAWYER said:
Wait until you get your natural gas bill will probably add at least $25 to a usually morbund summer bill :eek:
Click to expand...

Nobody buys one of these generators because it's an economical way to provide power to one's home.

(It only looks reasonable if you consider the cost of motel rooms and restaurant meals over a period of time for extended outages.)

Outages never troubled me a great deal for the most part...but they really bugged my wife and I felt that she'd put up with enough of them over the years and deserved the creature comfort...and so I ponied up the cash to give her that comfort and to ease her mind.

I'm glad I did. What's the point of being able to afford it and not make use of the ability to do so? Just one man's opinion.
 
chief38 said:
We've got a 22K Generac (second home I've owned with one) that runs on Natural Gas. During Hurricane Ian last September it came in real handy as we lost our power for two days - we were lucky, no damage from storm! In my development I'd venture to say 90+% of the homes have whole house back-up generators. Of those I'd say 97% are Generac's and 3% are Kohler's. Where I live, for every Kohler Dealer there are about 20 or so Generac Dealers, so parts and service are only a few miles away.

Kohler's are fine units, actually great ones, I just wish their Dealer Network was larger. I've had pretty good luck with both my Generac units. My last home went through 6 Tropical storms and hurricanes that left us without power for between 1 - 2 weeks per event! The Generac unit worked flawlessly each time. I live in my new home just over a year and our 22k Generac worked great during Hurricane Ian. I think both brands are good - but to me the Dealer Network and parts availability are important.
Click to expand...

I have the same model Generac generator and I am glad to hear how well yours have performed for you. It was either from an ice storm or Hurricane Sandy that people around Baltimore lost power for a week. Baltimore is only 45 miles from me. Every Wednesday when my generator exercises itself that is very reassuring sound.
 
We had a 22KW Generac installed a few months ago. Just under $10,000 fully installed by the local dealer.

We’re thrilled to hear it fire up and couldn’t care less if it costs us a few extra dollars to power our 4 freezers and A/C or furnace (along with everything else).
 
24 kW Generac

We got our 24 kW Generac installed after the 2021 Texas Ice storm. We were without power for about a total of 30 hrs, but in 4-10 hr. chunks.

My Dad and brother live 15 minutes away, also in suburban Houston and never lost power. There were others that had no power for over a week.

Since install it has ran less than 5 hrs, including the maintenance run time every 2 weeks.
 
When I bought my house in the Southern California mountains about 4 years ago it came with a 16 Kw Generac mounted on a pad next to the garage and hard wired into the main electrical panel. It is fueled by the same propane tank that is used for the house. It has only come on a few times in the winter but more often it is needed when Southern California Edison shuts off the electricity during high fire danger periods. And that can be several times during the season and has been on anywhere from 8 to 20 hours at one time.

I'm really glad the builder of the home had it added to the new construction. I do run 5W-30 synthetic in it and check the oil often as well as the battery that cranks it over and maintains the electronics that run the system. I change the oil & filter every other season and so far the oil has remained a nice amber color. I use a 5W-30 synthetic.

I should have a serviceman come out this summer though to adjust the valves. If it's anything like doing it on a twin cylinder motorcycle it would require a top dead center dial indicator, gauges and shims and I'm not equipped to do that myself.
 
gjgalligan said:
Great plan, as long as you are able to do your part.
What happens if you are not at home, say on vacation or in the hospital, or maybe injured and can't mange dragging the generator out, hauling gas, ect?
I don't how much cold weather you get but if for some reason your home freezes up and pipes burst you will wish you had planned better. A hot weather outage can cause you refrigerator & freezer to thaw out causing leakage that causes damage to flooring, ect. (ask me how I know that!)
Do you ever go away, hunting, fishing, ect, and leave wife at home alone? Who will help her?
If you have ALL possibilities covered then your great. Otherwise a having an automatic start up unit installed gives great peace of mind. And it will increase the value of your home when you decide to sell it.
Click to expand...


Exactly. Peace of mind is priceless.
 
Having had an outage or two in the past, when I built my current house in 2008, I put in a small whole-house battery backup system, fitted with 4 x L16 deep-cycle batteries, and acquired an old (c.1960) Onan 6kW diesel genny (wired for 120v only) and a 20 gallon fuel tank.

The battery system will run most of the house for about 4-6 hrs., then the genny can be fired up to run the house as well as charge the battery system, which takes around 2 hrs. The house is small and well-insulated, with HW baseboard (no AC.) I'm on a well, so in an outage I plan showers, running microwave etc. around rechargng the batteries.

Surprisingly we had no outage here last winter, but a few years ago an ice storm left us w/o power for 84 hours. I was fine :) My neighbours even came over to have a shower.
 
During Hurricane Ian my Generac ran for about 48 hours straight. My natural gas bill went up by $75 that month and I couldn't care less. The fact that we lived as we normally do including the two central ac units running made my day. :)
 
bgrafsr said:
When we bought our home (in a rural area), I wanted to be sure we had a backup power source, as I wasn't sure about the electric service we had.
I purchased a Kohler 14KV generator, which runs on Natural Gas, and will run everything in the house if the power goes out.
We have had a couple of very short outages and the generator starts up quickly and runs very good.
Today our power went out at 1:15PM and is still out at 7:12PM.
The generator has been running since 1:15PM and everything in the house is working.
Cost for installation was around $10,000, and it was money well spent.
I went with Kohler since a contractor recommended them over Generac. Also I have learned that the Kohler engines have hydraulic valve lifters,whereas the Generac engines use
adjustable lifters, which need to be adjusted every now and then, depending on how often and long the generator runs.


Power just came back on, 8:00PM.
Click to expand...

A freak little storm hit texas a few days ago. Knocked out a lot of power near by
 
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