Anyone have a generator?

[Bernadine]

With tornadoes and bad storms becoming more likely due to climate change, I’m thinking it might be time to get one.

We’re likely not looking at a whole home generator at this time, due to cost.

What should I be looking for? I’m thinking we’d like to run at least the fridge, charge our phones, maybe a fan or small electric heater if needed.

[deadwing]

A portable generator will need a place where it can run that will be sheltered from wind/rain/etc, but also where it can exhaust safely. I looked into a whole-home generator last year, but I would need a gas line upgrade to make it feasible and that made it too expensive for me. The only option I have for housing a portable would be my 1-car detached garage and I like to park there in the winter. So no generator for me.

[pierogigirl]

Everyone I know, including us, has a Generac.

Be really, really sure you exhaust it outside far away from windows. My friend spent over a week in a hyperbaric chamber because of carbon monoxide poisoning (generator near the window).

They are loud. We usually run ours only for a few hours at a time to keep the fridge cold and heat the house, and take a warm shower in winter.

[meanie]

We do, got it after going ~2 weeks without power the first winter at our house and we said never again. Ours runs the kitchen and deep freezer, and our heat.

I think most models will run what you have listed, 5k+ watts. We added a circuit breaker to our panel for the generator so we just run an extension cord from that out to the generator in the yard. Another thing to consider is that generators are heavy, so if you live somewhere that gets a lot of snow you need to keep it accessible. We have a small plastic shed that we keep it in along with our snowblower.

[CrazyLucky]

We got one when we lived in NC, after the third hurricane. It was just enough to run the fridge, lights, a fan, and charge electronics. For us, we were able to put it on the screen porch and shut the door so that we didn't have to worry about the exhaust. Agree that they are loud. Ours is 3100 watts and I feel like it cost about $600, but we bought it several years ago, and I may be way off. You have to keep gas on hand to run it, and then you don't want to have the gas too long, so every once in a while, you use that gas for your lawnmower or car and get fresh for the generator. It's probably paid for itself in non-wasted food. You can only use a cooler for so long when the entire area has no power and therefore no ice.

[turkletsmom]

Generac's are great as far as brands go. We needed one quickly a few years ago, so we got a different brand (I can't remember what it is) from Sams Club that had good reviews and we haven't had any issues. It's around 5000 watts and dual fuel so will run on propane and gasoline. I NEVER want to stock up on gasoline before a hurricane so I wasn't buying one unless it also ran on propane.
We did end up adding on a conversion kit to hook it up to our gas line on the house and that has been great.

With the size we have we can run our fridge, chargers, a lamp and an ac window unit. If we want to add on something else like the tv or whatever, we will turn off the ac for awhile, etc.

It's a pain in the butt with all the extension cords and everything but it's the only way we could stay in our house after a storm when it's 110+ degrees outside and nothing around us is open.

[atarianna]

A couple of things you may need to consider with a generator is you should install a “transfer switch” for your electrical panel. We ended up doing a portable generator that is dual fuel, meaning it can run from propane or gasoline. We chose the size by looking at our essentials (and their startup needs, which are higher than sustained wattage needs) and based our generator off of that.

We actually ran a line directly from our buried propane tank (1000 gallons) to the front porch where we would keep the portable generator in case of power loss.

[Susie]

We briefly had a portable generator (Honda) that I bought off my dad when he upgraded to a Kohler whole house generator.  Then we moved and put in a 24 kW Generac whole house generator.  We endured a 5 day outage in fall 2019 due to a derecho when my son was about 4 months old, and I had an irreplaceable stash of breast milk in my chest freezer.  We didn't FAFO, we just packed everything up, put the milk in a cooler, and decamped to my dad's house (out of state) and freezer, lol.  DH had vascular surgery the same day the storm hit, so he couldn't help with the madcap packing with a baby and a toddler, the driving, or any of it.  It was a nightmare that I never want to repeat.

Anyway.

The portable generator is useful for really limited purposes.  You can run a fridge/freezer to prevent loss of food, charge some minor things, run a light, etc.  We didn't have a need for it in the ~1 year that we had it, but my dad definitely used it during hurricane related outages in the past.  (My brother has it now, IDK if he has used it.)  It requires frequent trips to the gas station.  Depending on the reason power is out, and your proximity to a gas station, that can be a problem.  In my derecho situation, roads were closed/impassable due to trees down, and I'm not sure we'd have been able to get gas even if we had the generator then.  Flooding between you and the gas station can be a similar problem.

We also didn't have a great place to run it.  You want cover for it, but it needs to be outside when running.  It's also pretty laborious running the extension cords from outside into the places you need power, unless you have a transfer switch.  You need some long, and heavy duty cords.  If those cords prevent you from completely closing a door or window, you have to be careful about CO poisoning and also just the noise.  They are loud.  

It seems to me like most outages in my area are either <5 hours or 5 days, not much in between.  Relying on the portable for 5 days would be rough going, and I'd be looking at going somewhere else.  I wouldn't get it out and set everything up until we were at the outer edge of the fridge/freezer's range, because it's a pain.  That makes its zone of usefulness limited.  Potentially critical!  But limited.  We also would have needed to have an electrician put in a transfer switch for it to power the electric components of our furnace, so on its own it was of limited value in a winter outage scenario.  

Installation of the Generac was multi-phasic, and had multiple costs built in:  buying the unit, buying the transfer switch, paying for installation of both, and paying for our utility company to upgrade our gas meter to higher capacity.  We ordered in fall 2021 and installed in spring 2022.  All in I think it was around $10k.  Buying a smaller capacity generator (<24 kW) did not seem worth it because all the costs would be the same except the cost of the actual unit, and even that difference wasn't that great.  So now we have a generator that can run every circuit in the house.  It's significant peace of mind.

[UMaineTeach]

I don’t have any specific recommendations, I left that to the electrical engineer in the house. We have a portable Generac but I don’t know what size. It runs the den, half the kitchen (circuit with the refrigerator and a couple outlets), pellet stove, and bathroom lights.

I would recommend that whatever one you get that you have an electrician wire up a transfer switch. You plug the generator into a receptacle outside the house and flip a switch near your electrical panel to start using the circuit that the outside receptacle is hooked to. That way you don’t have to run an extension cord in through the window or something.

We just let ours get snowed and rained on while in use 🤷🏼‍♀️

You do have to put it a ways away from the house. H likes to run some gas in through in the summer for a couple hours to cycle old gas and just generally run it. One summer he was running it on the back patio that is next to a 3 season porch with the windows open and the door between the house and the porch open. The gas/CO alarm went off that is in the room leading to the porch. I wouldn’t have thought the gas was travel that far.

So, also get an explosive gas/CO alarm.

[ECB]

We have a Briggs & Stratton storm responder, 5500 watts. We run 2 fridges, cable/wifi, a tv, chargers and a fan or small heater as necessary. Sometimes our microwave.

You want to make sure you have extension cords made for running larger appliances for fridges.

We lost power this week so I used it for my laptop too so that I could work - until our wifi went out. 🙄🙄🙄

[ECB]

Oh / and to the point of ventilation - we keep it on our screened in porch as far from the house as we can (when running). When we aren’t using it, a friend built us a wood table cover yo put over it and hide it the rest of the time!

[lo]

We had a portable generator at our previous house that we had a transfer switch installed for. Our new place we have a smaller generator that we just plug stuff into, which isn’t as convenient but works fine. We need our sump pumps running if the power goes out so we will never not have one. Our basement flooded a few weeks ago when our power was out before we got the generator going.

[litskispeciality]

Aug 11, 2023 9:53:10 GMT -5 atarianna said:

A couple of things you may need to consider with a generator is you should install a “transfer switch” for your electrical panel. We ended up doing a portable generator that is dual fuel, meaning it can run from propane or gasoline. We chose the size by looking at our essentials (and their startup needs, which are higher than sustained wattage needs) and based our generator off of that.

We actually ran a line directly from our buried propane tank (1000 gallons) to the front porch where we would keep the portable generator in case of power loss.

I was going to jump in about the switch too. My parents lived in an area where they would lose power for days, sometimes up to 2 weeks, at a time. ETA: the sub pump is no joke, get the generator and switch just to run this alone. They finally broke down and had this added to their house. It's expensive, and you're limited on how much you can run, but it's better than running 8000 cords.

Otherwise you have great advice. I can't remember what brand of generator we have, just something big and orange. We actually have to have ours fixed, but we can't find anyone to pick it up and take it to the shop (we don't have a truck).

[mofongo]

We opted for a whole house one, I think fall of 2020. They are def pricey, 13kish, we got 22kw. It was used twice in 2020 for two smaller hurricanes and then after Ida it ran for like 6 days. I still have to fool with it when in use. I turn it off daily for about 45 minutes, and add oil every other day.

It is very loud, but for where we live and with Hs job it's been nice to have. He either can't evacuate, or has to come back pretty quick.

Also was super useful for my elderly grandpa after Ida.

[liverandonions]

Another rec for Generac

[georgeglass]

Get a carbon monoxide detector (especially y'all with the screened porches!) - We had a portable one in a carport and it set it our carbon monoxide detector off way easier than we thought.

[VillainV]

We borrowed a portable generator after a hurricane. We were able to run it outside since it was dry and calm by that time. It ran through TONS of gas though. It’s really hard to buy gas for a few days after hurricanes, and it would have been nearly impossible to safely store as much as gas as we would have needed to get us through those few days.

But we were able to keep our fridge running and power a few fans to keep it cool in the house until the power came back on.

[rubytue]

We don’t have a generator yet, but we are (in theory) planning stuff out to have options to back a backup power source (maybe EV car batteries, maybe a generator, etc). We are installing a sub panel that will have: fridge, office, lighting, HVAC fan, and a single circuit to the main bedroom that will also be a dedicated 20amp circuit. This is overkill at this point, but it will be available for a portable heater and, should the need ever arrive, medical equipment. Just the type of thing we think about as far as long term planning. Note, it’s been a year since we planned this all out and it’s not done. Also, H is an electrician so the cost is negligible.

[redhead610]

We bought a generator a couple years ago after getting more and more instances of power outages. We used it twice this week when we lost power 2 different days for hours at a time.

It is a Generac, and my husband did a ton of research into exactly how much power we needed. I think it was around $1k. We wouldn't really be able to do a/c, or our dryer, and if we want hot water we would have to turn everything else off. But, being able to use water / flush toilets (on a well) amd not have to throw every item in our fridge and deep freezer out every few months is totally worth it.

[litebright]

This is a really useful thread. We have a portable generator that DH bought during one of the few sustained power outages that we've had. It's not super big/powerful, we switch between powering our fridge and our fish tanks intermittently so that the fish don't die during an outage.

Whole-house generators are pretty common where I am, a lot of people are on wells/septic so if you don't have power, you don't have water. It's on our to-do list, but they're expensive, so it's nice to read about other people's experiences. 

[mofongo]

Aug 11, 2023 13:42:49 GMT -5 VillainV said:

We borrowed a portable generator after a hurricane. We were able to run it outside since it was dry and calm by that time. It ran through TONS of gas though. It’s really hard to buy gas for a few days after hurricanes, and it would have been nearly impossible to safely store as much as gas as we would have needed to get us through those few days.

But we were able to keep our fridge running and power a few fans to keep it cool in the house until the power came back on.

Yes, gas stations were violent after Ida, someone was shot here.

[Nonny]

We have a whole house Generac. I couldn't tell you how many kw, but it's hooked up to our gas line, has an automatic transfer switch (kicks in automatically about 30 seconds after an outage) and it runs everything except our dryer.

It's pretty slick, but the particular version we have has a problem where the voltage regular will sometimes fail, in which case our house gets too many volts, and things get fried, and we have to shut the generator off. Which totally defeats the purpose of having a generator. This has happened to us twice, once it wrecked out fridge, and another time it set our oven on fire - I was actively baking at the time, and the coil overheated. Luckily I was right there and could just shut it off, so we had to replace one oven part, and everything was fine, but it could have been bad.

My H brings his voltage meter up and periodically checks our outlets now whenever we flip to gen power, and we always turn on our kitchen lights, because them getting too bright when we are gen power is a sure sign we're about to have a problem.

[VillainV]

[mention]nonny [/mention] that’s terrifying! Sounds like grounds for a safety recall, or that they should at least replace the faulty voltage regulator at no cost to you.

[Nonny]

Aug 11, 2023 16:05:00 GMT -5 VillainV said:

[mention]nonny [/mention] that’s terrifying! Sounds like grounds for a safety recall, or that they should at least replace the faulty voltage regulator at no cost to you.

You would think, but no, we've had to replace everything ourselves. It's possible that my H just hasn't done his due diligence on it, and there is a recall, but he's generally not one to leave money on the table. But I basically had nothing to do with researching what to buy, or hiring out the install, and I don't do any of the maintenance. All I know how to do is go outside and open the panel to shut it off in case the lights get too bright.

[hbomdiggity]

We have a portable. We ran out and got it during an ice storm so we could save the fridge, freezer, and have hot water. We’ve considered a generac, but it doesn’t seem worth it at this point. My parents have one and it was the best decision since they lose power regularly and a don’t have to lift a finger to keep power running.

[mich1]

We have a Honda generator that is 3 KW. It is one of the quieter ones on the market, and isn’t a horrible gas hog. The generator is sufficient to run our freezer, fridge, TV, lights, router, garage door and the blower motor on both the gas furnace and fireplace. It is not sufficient to run our stove or dryer but we have a gas grill with a side burner. It is also sufficient to run a small appliance like a crock pot. We also have a gas hot water heater, so this isn’t impacted by loss of power.

We lose power regularly, and are usually one of the last where power is restored. We store about 20 gallons of fuel, which gets recycled regularly, either into cars or the lawn mower.  If we shut down the generator at night, we can get well over a week out of the gas we keep on hand. I think our longest outage has been just under that. Usually it’s not hurricanes that’s the issue for us but wind storms, so gas stations are  running.

[snapoutofit]

For anyone who has solar panels: we got two batteries that charge on our solar panels and the house switches to battery power when it detects power outage.

[VillainV]

Aug 12, 2023 17:18:42 GMT -5 snapoutofit said:

For anyone who has solar panels: we got two batteries that charge on our solar panels and the house switches to battery power when it detects power outage.

If you don’t mind my asking, were these like ridiculously expensive? This time last year we moved into a house with solar panels but no battery, and I’d definitely consider installing a battery if it wasn’t insanely expensive.

[snapoutofit]

Aug 12, 2023 18:34:53 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Aug 12, 2023 17:18:42 GMT -5 snapoutofit said:

For anyone who has solar panels: we got two batteries that charge on our solar panels and the house switches to battery power when it detects power outage.

If you don’t mind my asking, were these like ridiculously expensive? This time last year we moved into a house with solar panels but no battery, and I’d definitely consider installing a battery if it wasn’t insanely expensive.

The total was 17k and we got a 10k tax credit. That was for two Tesla batteries. We don’t just use it for when the power goes out. We switch over to battery power to reduce peak energy usage.