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Generators...what brand is good?

highland145

highland145

Lifer
Plan on getting a portable one now that our "winter" is almost over and the prices should be down. Would like a Honda but not a Honda price. Costco had some brand I've never heard of. Suggestions? Re-badged brands? Or are most of them coming from the same Chinese factory?

Thanks.

How many watts? Fridge, a few lights, plus a buffer.
 
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Mine is a coleman powermate 7200. Its several years old and I have had no problems.

I used the generator and welding machine to build my bar-b-q pit.

One thing about buying from sears, if the item weighs over a certain poundage, they will send a service tech out to work on it, rather then you having to bring it back to the store.


highland145 said:
Costco had some brand I've never heard of. Suggestions? Re-badged brands? Or are most of them coming from the same Chinese factory?
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Unless you buy something like a honda, everything that has a small gas engine is going to be made by only a couple of manufacturers. My sears generator has a Tecumseh motor on it.
 
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Texashiker said:
Mine is a coleman powermate 7200. Its several years old and I have had no problems.

I used the generator and welding machine to build my bar-b-q pit.

One thing about buying from sears, if the item weighs over a certain poundage, they will send a service tech out to work on it, rather then you having to bring it back to the store.




Unless you buy something like a honda, everything that has a small gas engine is going to be made by only a couple of manufacturers. My sears generator has a Tecumseh motor on it.
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The sears site has a hundred + of them. Surely, lot of them are pumped out by the same factory or 2, like you said about the Tecumseh engine.
 
Detroit Diesel, Cummins, Caterpillar, etc

they'd definitely handle a fridge :awe:

For the little tiny ones, yeah, honda is all I hear is worth buying.
 
Listeroid w/biodiesel conversion.

If you bunker used cooking oil beware the exhaust will smell like Taco Bell and make your stomach growl so be sure you have plenty of food handy and enough reserve to cook it well! :biggrin:
 
highland145 said:
The sears site has a hundred + of them. Surely, lot of them are pumped out by the same factory or 2, like you said about the Tecumseh engine.
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Do you have gas or electric hot water heater?

My hot water heater strains my 7200. I dont know if "strains" is a good word, when the hot water heater is ran off the generator, you can tell by the sound its pulling a load.

If you want something that is going to last, and I mean last, get a generac and pipe natural gas to it. Or, run it off propane.

Where I work we have a generac that runs off natural gas. We dont have to worry about getting fuel when the power goes off.
 
Rubycon said:
Listeroid w/biodiesel conversion.

If you bunker used cooking oil beware the exhaust will smell like Taco Bell and make your stomach growl so be sure you have plenty of food handy and enough reserve to cook it well! :biggrin:
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A little help...
complete_kit.jpg


http://www.generatorsales.com/order/lister-parts.asp
 
Texashiker said:
Do you have gas or electric hot water heater?

My hot water heater strains my 7200. I dont know if "strains" is a good word, when the hot water heater is ran off the generator, you can tell by the sound its pulling a load.

If you want something that is going to last, and I mean last, get a generac and pipe natural gas to it. Or, run it off propane.

Where I work we have a generac that runs off natural gas. We dont have to worry about getting fuel when the power goes off.
Click to expand...

Residential electric uses a 4.5kW nominal element. That's a stiff load for your 7.2kW (is that continuous or peak?)

Natural gas generators are OK however if they are air cooled 3500 rpm engines you definitely need to watch the oil. Sure they have oil guard but that does not monitor for depletion of additives in the oil. After a few days of heavy load the oil will be quite depleted and require changing on those.

They get neglected due to the seemingly unlimited fuel supply they have. In a disaster fuel pressure can drop too if the distribution system components lose power...
 
Texashiker said:
Do you have gas or electric hot water heater?

My hot water heater strains my 7200. I dont know if "strains" is a good word, when the hot water heater is ran off the generator, you can tell by the sound its pulling a load.

If you want something that is going to last, and I mean last, get a generac and pipe natural gas to it. Or, run it off propane.

Where I work we have a generac that runs off natural gas. We dont have to worry about getting fuel when the power goes off.
Click to expand...
Electric water heater.

Didn't know you could run them off lp/natural gas. That may be the way to go because of the reason you mentioned. One more plus for the gas logs in the fireplace. Is it a one or the other or can you convert to gasoline if you wanted?
 
Which do you have LPG or natural gas?
How cold does it get outside? Outdoor temps affect LP pressure directly. On gensets >15kW this is a serious concern.
 
Rubycon said:
Residential electric uses a 4.5kW nominal element. That's a stiff load for your 7.2kW (is that continuous or peak?)

Natural gas generators are OK however if they are air cooled 3500 rpm engines you definitely need to watch the oil.
Click to expand...

7.2 is peak on mine.

Changing the oil is a must. After hurricane rita, I changed my oil like every 3 - 4 days.


highland145 said:
Electric water heater.

Didn't know you could run them off lp/natural gas. That may be the way to go because of the reason you mentioned. One more plus for the gas logs in the fireplace. Is it a one or the other or can you convert to gasoline if you wanted?
Click to expand...

There are some kits out there to convert gas powered gennys to propane or natural gas.

A buddy of mine converted his gas genny to propane, then got a 250 gallon propane tank. The tanks are not filled all the way up. I think he has something like 175 - 200 gallons of propane just for his genny.

The thing about propane, it never goes bad.
 
Rubycon said:
Which do you have LPG or natural gas?
How cold does it get outside? Outdoor temps affect LP pressure directly. On gensets >15kW this is a serious concern.
Click to expand...
Natural gas but lp is available. Cold...this is the south. The lowest this winter has been 27. Lowest that I remember, ever, was ~16.

We rarely would need it but 1 freezer of lost meats would go a long way to paying for one.

Gasoline would, probably, make it more useful with other projects away from the house.
 
highland145 said:
Natural gas but lp is available. Cold...this is the south. The lowest this winter has been 27. Lowest that I remember, ever, was ~16.

We rarely would need it but 1 freezer of lost meats would go a long way to paying for one.

Gasoline would, probably, make it more useful with other projects away from the house.
Click to expand...

The bare minimum I would go with is the 7.5 like what I have. You can get a 5kw, but its likely not to run your hot water heater.

If I had the money I would go with a 10k.

Does your sears have a local repair center? Buy the extended warranty, if you have any problems someone will come out and work on it.
 
Texashiker said:
The bare minimum I would go with is the 7.5 like what I have. You can get a 5kw, but its likely not to run your hot water heater.

If I had the money I would go with a 10k.

Does your sears have a local repair center? Buy the extended warranty, if you have any problems someone will come out and work on it.
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I don't know. Something to check on, too, when I look at the Colemans.

The Generac 8K is about $1400.
 
From what I understand Diesel is the only way to go. Most Gas powered Generators are not very efficient and run on high RPMs.

But Diesel one will also cost you....
 
When I built my house we installed a Generac 55kw. Model QT055A. Would this be overkill for you?
 
Vdubchaos said:
From what I understand Diesel is the only way to go. Most Gas powered Generators are not very efficient and run on high RPMs.

But Diesel one will also cost you....
Click to expand...

My son repairs and services diesel (and other generators); mostly larger units, as in megawatts. But, he does some "smaller" ones (to him.) He finds it amusing when people call up for a service call - he gets there, "you're out of diesel" or "you're out of propane. That'll be $240 for the service call and diagnostics." Keep that in mind with a diesel generator. If there's going to be a prolonged outage (as there was recently for parts of NJ, NY and other locations in the Northeast), you're going to want to have a couple weeks worth of fuel on hand.
 
If you want to spend some cash and get thew best go with a CAT, if you want to spend less and still get a great genset get a Honda or a Yamaha. If you want to spend even less and get a average run of the mill genset get anything else, but if this is for emergency purposes and has to work when needed no questions asked i would go for either of the first two options.
 
crab said:
When I built my house we installed a Generac 55kw. Model QT055A. Would this be overkill for you?
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Yes unless we have some massive natural disaster. The longest that we've been without power, ever, was 4 days. Even the 17" we got in 1973 didn't keep us in the dark that long. Mainly, just trying to keep the groceries from going bad.
DrPizza said:
My son repairs and services diesel (and other generators); mostly larger units, as in megawatts. But, he does some "smaller" ones (to him.) He finds it amusing when people call up for a service call - he gets there, "you're out of diesel" or "you're out of propane. That'll be $240 for the service call and diagnostics." Keep that in mind with a diesel generator. If there's going to be a prolonged outage (as there was recently for parts of NJ, NY and other locations in the Northeast), you're going to want to have a couple weeks worth of fuel on hand.
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Man's gotta be paid.😀



Thanks for the replies.
 
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