Whole Home Generator

[lightman]

I live in an area that's close enough to the coast that we are affected by hurricanes. I live far enough inland that we have occasional ice storms.
Either one can put us out of power for days to weeks. I also live out in a rual area where we are the last to get power back.
I just retired and at my wife's and my age, I don't want to sit in a house after a hurricane for days on end in 90+ degree weather.
Like others have mentioned, when the power goes off, I'd like to enjoy life with full power capability.

These are my feelings too! When I retired I had seven weeks of vacation coming and that vacation check bought my generator. It runs whatever I want and I don't have to store fuel for it. While I'm 400+ miles from the coast we usually get some weather from any hurricane that hits the gulf. High winds, lots of rain and sometimes tornadoes. We also get ice storms. I retired from an electric utility as a lineman and I've had rural customers out of power for 7 to 10 days despite of me working 18 hours days making repairs.

[Down South]

These are my feelings too! When I retired I had seven weeks of vacation coming and that vacation check bought my generator. It runs whatever I want and I don't have to store fuel for it. While I'm 400+ miles from the coast we usually get some weather from any hurricane that hits the gulf. High winds, lots of rain and sometimes tornadoes. We also get ice storms. I retired from an electric utility as a lineman and I've had rural customers out of power for 7 to 10 days despite of me working 18 hours days making repairs.

Yup, My point to the point. It's been a priority of mine to install a generator at my home that would pull the load on everything that I needed before I retired and moved back home. When I found out that I would be retiring about a year earlier than I had planned, the first thing that I did was invest in a generator that would do what I wanted.

My wife had second thoughts as usual. And as usual, I told her that the day would come that she would say that I am glad that you made that decision as she has already done numerous times.

[Chad5005]

we have a 22kw generac also with a 250gal tank and even with the generator running 5 days along with our stove,tankless hot water heater and fire place we only have to fill up every 6 to 8 months and I figured we needed 22kw many because we use a lot of electricity on normal power and I don't want anything to change when the grid goes down for whatever reason,plus im old and cripple and don't like carrying gas in the rain lol

[jmort]

Exact same set up. Dedicated tank for the generator and a larger tank for the house.

[429421Cowboy]

We also have a Generac unit at the ranch that is hooked into the natural gas line. It is likely close to 15 years old, and has given good service with only regular maintenance. We got the 22kw unit to have enough power to keep the freezers full of sale beef frozen during summer time, as well as run the deep well pump and keep 2-400 head of cattle watered in the winter time, and keep the wellhouse from freezing up, and the ranch house. Those are real possibilities since we are most likely to lose power during the real cold snaps during winter. As others have said, it cycles once a week, just have to check that it does and watch the light to make sure it's online and working. One of the best investments we have ever made without a doubt!

[gishooter]

I went with diesel. Since I have a lot of experience using the military diesel gensets overseas, I was very confident in their abilities. Bought a surplus MEP-003A with very low hours at the local base auction. It is a 10kw. Built like a tank. It is a commercial quality generator. Very conservatively rated. They are meant to supply 10K continuously. Runs my house and shop (A/C, well pump,lights, microwave, machine shop) with literally everything turned on without issue. And yes I actually tried doing that. Couldn't tell the difference between idle and everything on. Was hard wired in by a electrical company that does a lot of residential stand-by generators. The generating head on mine weighs as much or more than the entire consumer grade gensets I looked at. Uses about 1 gallon an hour under load. Had it for about 5 years. Run it under load once a month. Only thing I've done was change the filters and oil once. Diesel stores well and easy to keep. Much lower risk of fire/explosion compared to compressed flammable cylinders. Does not require special pumping equipment to refill fuel tanks. I've had coworkers run out of propane during winter conditions because the delivery trucks couldn't get to them. In the event of a extended/bad road conditions, I can literally walk to multiple neighbors with a fuel can who have bulk diesel tanks for their farm equipment. But I keep 55 gallon barrels on hand already.

[jmort]

Sounds like you have what you want. Diesel has good storage life. Propane has insane great storage life. I have two completely seperate central air/heat units. 10kw would be a joke for me. If things go way south, none of this will matter. Otherwise, I am completely happy with the 22kw unit I have with a dedicated propane tank. I keep my tanks full. Preparation, common sense.

[gishooter]

jmort, the MEP series produces high amps in single or three phase. And it puts out a full 10k at normal running speed at 1800rpm. You can see specs here: https://greenmountaingenerators.com/...sel-generator/
No affiliation with this company. They do have a lot of info and parts available on their site however.
Much heavier than an equivalent rated consumer unit. I went with the MEP-003a because it was way more than I needed for my acreage and shop. There are much bigger mil surplus generator sets available. Mine is actually one of the smaller ones. If you have really big AC units, might make more sense to wire a dedicated generator for them only. Then run the smaller load stuff on a smaller generator.
I'm actually looking for another reasonably priced generator as a spare back up. Would like to have two to alternate between.

[jmort]

All good ideas. I get the fact that these units are ultra heavy. This can be suboptimal. If I got another large generator it would be a 3-point hitch pto generator for the tractor. Far less $$$