In light (heh) of the recent power outages I'm thinking of buying a generator for backup power at our new house. Does anyone have experience with these who can make a recommendation? Some questions:
- Do I want diesel or gasoline? I don't want to have to mix oil, so a two-stroke is out. How do I store the fuel? In the basement? There are some generators that run on natural gas, but then I'd have to connect to the gas somehow.
- What brands are good?
- How large of a model do I need? This will obviously depend on what I want to run. Computers and the fridge should be less than 2KW, but I'm sure we'll want some lights also. How much power do air conditioners use? I bet quite a lot.
- Should I wire the generator directly into the house electricity, or just use an extension cord when needed?
- I bet generators are loud, but I'd be afraid to put one very far from the house because it might get stolen. Our neighbors wouldn't want the thing near them either, but I don't think it would be safe to run the generator in the basement without a lot of ventilation.
- Anything else I'm forgetting?
You have many questions; I have a few answers.
We live in the PNW where winter power outages aren't uncommon. Last year we decided to get a Generac 15KW. Surprisingly, the best price we found was amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000068LA9/qid=1153768225/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2144626-4126346?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=228013
Our house was built in the 60s so the breaker box thingy (I'm just the wife, so I'm not up on the technical terms) was small enough that we were able to hook up everything in the house to the generator, except the oven/stove. Because I'm an anxiety-ridden freak, I wanted us to be able to have power in the event of an earthquake (yes, they do happen here). In the end, we chose propane. Yes, we had to buy a tank, but the other options didn't excite us either--gasoline is too high maintenance, diesel generators are too expensive, and a natural gas line could rupture (somewhere up the line) in an earthquake.
Sorry to say, we didn't have to use it last winter. We would have got more use from AC this summer than we got from the generator last winter!
We put our generator on the side of our shop, about 40' from our house. We can hear a slight hum when it runs, but nothing unbearable. Just make sure you don't put it outside your bedroom window.
Feel free to email me if you have any other questions.
That's the same generator I was looking at! Unfortunately we don't have enough land that we could put it so far away. Hrm.
I don't have one but if I did it would be propane and in some kind of out building like a garage or shed. Diesel fuel is safer to store than Gasoline, but Heather is right that they cost more. Here is Michigan I don't worry about AC, but winter outages mean not heat and frozen pipes. We went without for 24 houes last summer and it was fun eating by candlelite and reading during the daylite, playing checkers and all that. Don't forget to pull the main. You don't want your generator zapping a lineman.
It doesn't have to be so far away...just make sure it isn't right outside your bedroom window. We were actually going to put ours next to the garage (opposite side of the house), but I didn't want it in the flowerbed. Besides, if any neighbors were to complain about the noise, just offer them shelter or refrigerator space for their food. ;-)
Generators are a small part of my line of work.
I favor diesel. The reationale for this decision is that in an extended outage situation (like an ice storm or hurricane)diesel is easily available and transportable. You can carry diesel fuel in a bucket.
People do not realize that standby generators require periodic preventive maintenance and running to assure some chance that they will work when needed. I've seen a lot of them installed down here in Louisiana since our two hurricanes, and I strongly suspect that at least hhalf of them won't start and run when needed. They're not an item you install and forget.