Need advice on a generator

[Petrol & Powder]

If you are using a cord with two male ends, you're asking for an electrocution.

Spend the money for an A-B transfer switch and a recessed socket with a male 220 plug. It's a one time expense and you're done with it.

[6bg6ga]

If your planning a back up generator for your home you need a transfer switch. I would suggest getting something larger than what your current draw is going to be. Diesel is best followed by propane if you have a tank and lastly being gasoline. Buy a good brand instead of something second hand at a farm sale.

[RED BEAR]

I do realize you must turn off the main breaker manually. I feel i am smart enough to do that. Do you have any idea just what it cost to buy and have a transfer switch installed. I know it is fine to say its a onetime expense but if you don't have the money what are you going to do wait or the electrician fairy to come by and do it. Well i am still waiting. When he shows up i will stop using a cord with 2 male plugs.my little 3500 runs everything i need until power comes back on and most important i can actually afford to run it. It is for emergency situations .

[Mal Paso]

And costs over $2,000 for a 3000 watt generator. Even a 2000 watt (which is not enough to run a decent size air conditioner; not that the 3000 will run much of one either) costs over $1,000. And, if the inverter goes out on any of the inverter generators, it costs hundreds to fix it.
It's quite, alright: quite expensive. You can find a decent used 5-10 KW diesel genset for the price of the 3 KW Honda. In fact the going price for a military surplus MEP-002A diesel generator is right around $1500.

I googled MEP-002A and the generator displayed had "Hearing Protection Required Within 13 Feet" stenciled across the side.

I watched a neighbor abuse a Honda 3000 every day for 5 years and it was still running when she left. Honda IS MIL-SPEC without the noise.

Fuel economy has to go to my Lister-Petter LS1 with a Lima alternator but you can hear it running for miles.

[Petrol & Powder]

I do realize you must turn off the main breaker manually. I feel i am smart enough to do that. Do you have any idea just what it cost to buy and have a transfer switch installed. I know it is fine to say its a onetime expense but if you don't have the money what are you going to do wait or the electrician fairy to come by and do it. Well i am still waiting. When he shows up i will stop using a cord with 2 male plugs.my little 3500 runs everything i need until power comes back on and most important i can actually afford to run it. It is for emergency situations .

I hear you but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and spend the money.

On a few occasions (one in the aftermath of a hurricane) I turned the main breaker off and fed the bus bars in the breaker box by hardwiring the cord to the bus bars. Even with some knowledge about what I doing it still made me nervous.

Sometimes you do things because you have no choice and sometimes you have a choice and do the wrong thing.

I later got a large propane powered generator and an automatic transfer switch. I'm much more comfortable with the proper set up.

Many years ago, I was with a friend when the clutch cable broke on his Pinto [yea, ...I know......]. We didn't have money for a tow truck and needed to get home. I put the shifter in first gear, started the engine with the transmission in gear and shifted through the gears relying on the synchronizers. When I needed to stop I just used the brakes to stall it out and put it back in first and started the engine again. Not the safest thing and very hard on the starter and gearbox, but we had no money. That was doing something because we had no choice. Today I would just call a tow truck.

[Tracy]

a 5k unit will do anything you need.

Sure it will, Lloyd... in the Michigan Upper Peninsula. I've had to use a heater in July in Herman, which is not far from Munising. But a 5K air conditioner won't even efficiently cool a bedroom in Texas, nor in Alabama where I am.

The OP should look at the states the advice downplaying the size of air conditioner that will be needed is coming from: upper Michigan, New York, even central Virginia. That does not translate to what is needed in Texas.

Even a small camper usually comes with at least a 13.5K air conditioner. That can be less than 100 square feet, and insulated.

[Tracy]

Honda IS MIL-SPEC without the noise.

Oh, is it? I'm curious to hear which military units use it.

[Mal Paso]

Oh, is it? I'm curious to hear which military units use it.

LOL Mine

.

[RED BEAR]

I really don't care where your at temperatures over 100 are over 100 when you throw in high humidity in the 90% + range are hot. My den faces south and without air is absolutely unbearable but a 5000 btu cools it nicely you ain't chilling watermelons but it is comfortable. This is a 288 sq ft room with a 12 ft ceiling. When i say comfortable i mean in the neighborhood of 73 or 74.

[jonp]

Buy 1.5x the size you think you might need and get a conversion kit for a few hundred bucks that will let you run both propane and gas in it. If you in Texas consider solar and wind to power your cabin as primary or backup

[white eagle]

the beauty of an RV is you can tow it to any state in the union
from sea to shining sea

[Finster101]

Honda EU-2000 or EU-3000. Super quiet and fuel efficient.

[pworley1]

I built a house over the course of 5 years just working when I could. I used an older model of one of these. I loaded it an air compressor a table saw a 12 inch miter saw and several assorted saws and drills on a trailer and pulled it to and from the site. I never had any trouble or need for more power.

[Tracy]

Well I just bit the bullet and bought one of the dual-fuel Champions I linked earlier. I have a generator I had been using for my RV, and a diesel generator for home backup. But the new Champion will be better for my RV because it has higher output, electric start and the ability to run on propane. All good things. Especially since with the smaller genny I had to do some creative breaker switching and run the fridge and water heater on gas, in order to have enough power to run the air conditioner.

[DougGuy]

I bought a NIB Generac 6500 running watts for hurricane prep, and ended up giving it to my son in Florida b/c it would have used 8gals of fuel per 10hr running, I looked at my fuel storage abilities and decided it would use too much. After a hurricane, if you get hit hard enough, gas stations may be out of power and or fuel for maybe 2 or 3 weeks, and that made my fuel storage too small to last that long. I wouldn't want to have to haul 40gals of fuel every 5 days. That's *IF* the station near me had gas and wasn't rationing it. They often do this after a hurricane if supplies are slim.

Wouldn't you know that as soon as I brought the new generator home, I pulled the fuel bowl off the old one and discovered trash in the jet which I dislodged with a hypodermic needle and now it runs like a top. For free. This was given to me. I doubt I would get over about 3k out of it but mostly if it would run a fridge and a small deep freeze with intermittent breaks for making coffee and using the microwave, it would do just fine.

[RED BEAR]

Fuel consumption is a big concern. Even if i bought a bigger one i couldn't fuel it.

[Tracy]

That's a big part of the reason diesel generators are better; they use less fuel. Under average load, my 1800 rpm diesel 8K genny uses about a quart of fuel per hour.
Also, during the tornado crisis of 2011 I was able to zip right past all the lines at the gasoline pumps and pull up to the diesel pump with no waiting.

[dangitgriff]

Fuel consumption is a big concern. Even if i bought a bigger one i couldn't fuel it.

Right on.

[dangitgriff]

That's a big part of the reason diesel generators are better; they use less fuel. Under average load, my 1800 rpm diesel 8K genny uses about a quart of fuel per hour.
Also, during the tornado crisis of 2011 I was able to zip right past all the lines at the gasoline pumps and pull up to the diesel pump with no waiting.

Good point.
Very good point.
And diesel stores longer, too.

[Lloyd Smale]

I 5000 btu ac doesn't come close to drawing 5000w. a 5000 btu ac uses about 550 watts. Less then a microwave or toaster. biggest draw in your home is your water pump. Most have 3/4 hp motors. and one hp = 746 watts A building the size hes talking if insulated properly could be easily cooled by a 10000 btu ac unit. so now weve used 1100 watts out of the 5000. Add a water pump drawing about 600 a fridge and your about half way to using up that 5kw and that's if the ac, waterpump and fridge all are cycling at the same time. Still leaves 2500 watts. Yup the advice to downsize the ac come from people up north. People that years ago figured out that 6 inch walls and r30 in the attic space is standard operation procedure. Because keeping a home warm in -30 takes at least as much energy as keeping one cool in texas. Peal apart one of those campers that you refer to one day and youll find just how well they are insulated. My guess is youll find there isn't even 4 inches of insulation anywhere in one. by the way a 100 square foot trailer is going to be like 10 or 12 feet long. My guess is a 5k btu ac will freeze you out of any insulated 100 square foot space. that's about like the size of two king sized beds. By the way alothough it might not stay over a 100 for weeks on end up here it does get that hot. I doubt theres been a summer in my lifetime that didn't have at least a couple days pushing a 100 or even over that and when its that hot here its Alabama hot. 100 percent humidity living a few hundred yards from lake superior. Not the dry heat that most of texas Az ect sees. you can run to menards and spend 500-1000 bucks on a 5000-6500 watt gen or do like my brother in law who has money did and have a company come in and set up a 15k gen set that's auto start auto stop and runs on propane. He had over 15000 bucks into it. Even if I had to shut off the ac for a few minutes while I showered or did dishes it isn't much of an inconvenience for a weekend shack to save 10 thousand bucks. Some here must have a lot more money then me. I cant afford to buy a 75k diesel truck either because once a year I need to haul something.

Sure it will, Lloyd... in the Michigan Upper Peninsula. I've had to use a heater in July in Herman, which is not far from Munising. But a 5K air conditioner won't even efficiently cool a bedroom in Texas, nor in Alabama where I am.

The OP should look at the states the advice downplaying the size of air conditioner that will be needed is coming from: upper Michigan, New York, even central Virginia. That does not translate to what is needed in Texas.

Even a small camper usually comes with at least a 13.5K air conditioner. That can be less than 100 square feet, and insulated.