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Generator Questions - MarkSLSmith - 04-10-2025
Folks,
Last year we were without power for 12 days post Helene, so I am finally motivated to get a generator. I would love any advice you can share.
House is all electric. I assume this mandates a gasoline powered portable. Assumption: no one in their right mind would install propane just to run a whole house generator?
Power requirements are a well pump, portable or window unit AC, refrigerator, lights, and other small misc consumers. Obviously we won't run the heat pump.
I'm in the mood to buy the best. Does anyone have this model from Northern Tool? https://www.northerntool.com/products/generac-portable-generator-surge-watts-19300-rated-watts-15500-voltage-120-240-model-gp15500efi-5867287 and if so, has the experience been good? What other brands are worth considering?
Thanks,
Mark
RE: Generator Questions - jteneyck - 04-10-2025
(04-10-2025, 03:32 PM)MarkSLSmith Wrote: Folks,
Last year we were without power for 12 days post Helene, so I am finally motivated to get a generator. I would love any advice you can share.
House is all electric. I assume this mandates a gasoline powered portable. Assumption: no one in their right mind would install propane just to run a whole house generator?
Power requirements are a well pump, portable or window unit AC, refrigerator, lights, and other small misc consumers. Obviously we won't run the heat pump.
I'm in the mood to buy the best. Does anyone have this model from Northern Tool? https://www.northerntool.com/products/generac-portable-generator-surge-watts-19300-rated-watts-15500-voltage-120-240-model-gp15500efi-5867287 and if so, has the experience been good? What other brands are worth considering?
Thanks,
Mark
I'd rethink that. A portable generator isn't something you'd want to run for 12 days. Plus you have to be home when the power goes out to hook it up, and that usually happens in the middle of a storm. If you're away on vacation, all the stuff in your fridge is going to spoil. If you have a sump pump that's key to prevent flooding, you're toast on that, too. And if you're gone but your wife is home, how's that going to work? If she can haul it out, hook it up, get it running, and make all the electrical connections, she's a great lady.
If you are going to the expense and trouble of getting a generator, I'd get one that will automatically turn on when the power goes out and run it on propane if NG isn't available. I have one that powers my whole house, summer or winter, with an automatic transfer switch, so I don't have to do anything. It just works and life goes on as normal. And if I'm away from home, I know things will be ok if the power goes out.
John
RE: Generator Questions - Allen - 04-10-2025
NG or Propane are the way to go if want to run for more than a few hours at a time. I would go with auto start and a transfer switch. How many trips to the gas station would you have had to make over that 12 days assuming you could get to a station and they had gas available?
Al
RE: Generator Questions - blackhat - 04-10-2025
If you have a large storage system in place for gasoline, ok. If not, keep in mind that LP does not go bad with age. Your stated desire and proposed solution don’t match.
RE: Generator Questions - GaryMc - 04-10-2025
(04-10-2025, 07:37 PM)Allen Wrote: NG or Propane are the way to go if want to run for more than a few hours at a time. I would go with auto start and a transfer switch. How many trips to the gas station would you have had to make over that 12 days assuming you could get to a station and they had gas available?
Al
Ditto that! For years I made do with a portable Generac that would keep the fridges cold and supply power to the gas furnace and cooktop (no AC, laundry, even microwave). Every time, it was a bear to string wires into the house and then throughout for the appliances, lights, TV, internet, etc., not to mention needing to shut off to refuel and late at night. We FINALLY bit the bullet and installed a whole-house NG one (Honeywell/Generac), transfer switch, etc., big enough to power virtually everything (Well, I don't run the multi-horsepower tools when it is on, although I could). Difference is like night and day - 10 seconds after power out, everything is back on and working as usual, and NO wires to fiddle with. Greatest downside is that some clocks (not all) need to be reset. When power comes back, the switch is instantaneous. The thing kicks on once a week to recharge the battery and circulate oil, but does not trip the transfer switch. And most of the time when the power is out it is only running at about 1/3 full power.
If you need propane, I would suggest a tank large enough to get through any likely upset, and a little extra.
RE: Generator Questions - DogwoodTales - 04-10-2025
There is a safe way to back feed power from a portable generator to your house via something like your dryer outlet. It’s not for long term and not for everything in the house. Only essentials. I’ve done it but found more often than not that by the time I decided to get out the generator the power came back on. It does work though. I won’t get into details here except to say that the first step is to shut off the main breaker coming in from the street supply.
RE: Generator Questions - EatenByLimestone - 04-10-2025
If you try to run everything at once, you’ll need a large generator and that will take a lot of fuel. If you’re comfortable running the well pump when you need water, then switching over for the freezer to keep it cold, then switching to the furnace… you can get by with a lot less.
RE: Generator Questions - Don_M - 04-11-2025
(04-10-2025, 03:32 PM)MarkSLSmith Wrote: Folks,I could probably write a book on this topic. We live in CA, went thru this a few years back and after much research I ended up installing a portable generator. Have used it a half dozen times since then – once for over 3 days (and it worked fine for the entire 3 days). Here are my thoughts:
Last year we were without power for 12 days post Helene, so I am finally motivated to get a generator. I would love any advice you can share.
House is all electric. I assume this mandates a gasoline powered portable. Assumption: no one in their right mind would install propane just to run a whole house generator?
Power requirements are a well pump, portable or window unit AC, refrigerator, lights, and other small misc consumers. Obviously we won't run the heat pump.
I'm in the mood to buy the best. Does anyone have this model from Northern Tool? https://www.northerntool.com/products/generac-portable-generator-surge-watts-19300-rated-watts-15500-voltage-120-240-model-gp15500efi-5867287 and if so, has the experience been good? What other brands are worth considering?
Thanks,
Mark
· Portable v. Stand-by Generator. Probably the biggest difference is convenience and cost. I installed my portable generator for around $2,000 (transfer switch, et al) v. closer to $20K for a stand-by system. But I only use it once and a while so the “inconvenience” of manually having to switch over to the generator is not a huge factor for me. And “portable” is a bit of a stretch. It does have wheels, but his thing is HEAVY. You are not exactly going to be able to lift it into the back of a pick-up. In my case it is pretty much stationary.
· Size. I went with a 10k Westinghouse portable generator (Has been very reliable for me). You will have to size for your needs – but 10k should pretty much supply the basic needs of a normal sized house (kitchen, except electric range, office, family room, upstairs bedrooms, garage – including the garage door opener -very important!). But it probably will not be able to run a large condensing type A/C. Although mine will (barely) supply enough power for our upstairs 3-ton A/C if everything else is shut off. Convenient if outage occurs in summer (our bedrooms are upstairs) I cant image a well pump consumes much power (water is not a compressible fluid. A/C is another issue
https://westinghouseoutdoorpower.com/collections/generators/products/wgen9500tfc-tri-fuel-with-co-sensor
· Transfer Switch. You will need one – especially if you seek permits the installation (most City’s will require). Mine is a manual transfer switch – all I need since I have to manually operate the system anyway - ALTHOUGH the Westinghouse does have a remote on/off feature.
· NG v. Propane/Gasoline Combo. At the time, Westinghouse only offered the (NG) or the (Propane/Gasoline combo) – I went with the propane/gasoline combo. I just figured something that knocks out power – might also impact NG supply. Plus, gasoline (which I usually use) generates a few more kilowatts – but I keep a spare bottle of propane around just in case. I can operate for about 8 -10 hours on gasoline. BUT they now have generators that can operate on all three fuel sources – so that would be my pick now.
· Cost. The generator was about $1000, the transfer switch(s) were around $500 and another $500 for misc. wires, installation, etc. I am an EE and so I was able to wire the installation myself.
· Maintenance. No real issues here – but you should count on running it for 5 or ten minutes every other month to make sure it is operational, and battery stays charged ( I would also by a “trickle” charger just in case.
RE: Generator Questions - crokett™ - 04-11-2025
(04-10-2025, 03:32 PM)MarkSLSmith Wrote: Folks,
House is all electric. I assume this mandates a gasoline powered portable. Assumption: no one in their right mind would install propane just to run a whole house generator?
Power requirements are a well pump, portable or window unit AC, refrigerator, lights, and other small misc consumers. Obviously we won't run the heat pump.
I am in my right mind and I have propane solely for the generator. Propane doesn't go bad (unlike gasoline) the large tank I have will run my generator for 100 or so hours depending on load so for extended outages I am not depending on having to fill gas cans at stations that may or may not have power and I don't have to store empty gas cans that I then need to run and fill before a storm like everyone else is doing.
If you aren't planning to run the heat pump you can run all of that on 6000W or so fairly comfortably. I would wire in a manual transfer switch or I would wire in a breaker to the generator plus a lockout so the generator breaker can't be on when the main is on. I have done it both ways. If it were me I would do a dual-fuel generator and then get a propane tank.
RE: Generator Questions - pprobus - 04-11-2025
(04-10-2025, 03:32 PM)MarkSLSmith Wrote: Folks,
Last year we were without power for 12 days post Helene, so I am finally motivated to get a generator. I would love any advice you can share.
House is all electric. I assume this mandates a gasoline powered portable. Assumption: no one in their right mind would install propane just to run a whole house generator?
Power requirements are a well pump, portable or window unit AC, refrigerator, lights, and other small misc consumers. Obviously we won't run the heat pump.
I'm in the mood to buy the best. Does anyone have this model from Northern Tool? https://www.northerntool.com/products/generac-portable-generator-surge-watts-19300-rated-watts-15500-voltage-120-240-model-gp15500efi-5867287 and if so, has the experience been good? What other brands are worth considering?
Thanks,
Mark
While I completely agree with much of what is written by others, I will share my own experience.
We lost power for about 4 days during one of coldest snaps in recent years back in 2022 (temps got down into the teens and single digits at night). Like your house, ours is all electric. I was afraid that we would definitely bust our water pipes, luckily we didn't (THANK YOU, LORD!). We only have a portable generator and while it is large, it still can't power our entire house or even just our heat pump. Luckily, we have a fireplace and we had some firewood, but it had been so long since I burned wood, 1/2 of it had turned to topsoil.
Fortunately, I had the foresight to have our power company install a Generlink (I think that's what its called) that they install as part of the electric meter. They had been advertising it in their magazine (our power company is a cooperative and they send out a magazine to their customers) for a little over a year before I finally pulled the trigger. It automatically disconnects the meter from the power line so no need for a transfer switch. You DO need to load shed in your panel by turning off breakers you don't need or can't power (like a heat pump). A bit pricey, but I highly recommend it, if you go the portable generator route, our power company rolled the install cost into our electric payment, so we didn't have to pay the full cost up front. Check with your local power company to see if it offers them.
Anyway, we ran the portable generator mostly in the evenings to power the lights and TV/cable box. We also used some small 110V heaters in the living room where we all huddled together. Our microwave seemed to work at less power, but worked OK. Didn't use the oven or cooktop. During the day, we pretty much left the house, ate out, drove around, and used our car chargers to keep our phones charged. Our well pump is a shared pump and we can't power it from our panel, it has it's own panel and meter that it is fed from. Granted, we were only without power for 4 days, far cry from 12 days, but here's another consideration, I was not prepared for the outage, so I had to run out to get gas. I went to the closest gas station and only got a drop of gas in my can before their pumps ran dry (every dispenser was filled with customers, I actually had to wait for a person to leave the pump I tried to use). I had to go a bit further out to fill the can. If the outage were to last longer, you'll very likely have to travel pretty far to get gas, especially if the outage affects the closest stations, which did not happen in my case due to where the lines run, etc. But since they were powered up, people went there to get gas. Probably ran the generator about 8 hours total (didn't run it the first day, ran it days 2 and 3 for about 4 hours). Still had a good amount of gas in it that I eventually ran the generator to empty the tank and carb.
Personally, I would recommend getting the "whole house generator" installed with a propane tank (I use quotes because I still don't think those "whole house generators" are capable of powering a heat pump, when I researched them many years ago, the commonly advertised ones were no larger than the larger portable generators). I would also, at least, add in a gas fireplace (unless you already burn wood in a fireplace), even if you don't have a fireplace, in the main living room area for those times power goes out in the winter time. If you need to extend run time, I don't think you need to leave the whole house generator to run 24/7, I think you can shut them off and run them as needed.