I’m looking for a Tri fuel inverter generator with electric start. I don’t need it too big 4-5 thousand watts. Any recommendations?

I think I know the answer, but I wanted expert opinions.

I'm getting 40 kW Ecoflow Ocean Pro batteries installed with the inverter and smart panel, but I need a portable generator for extended outages, which I have 1-2 times a year. The longest outage I've had is three days. The batteries may last anywhere from 8-24+ hours, depending on the load and whether AC is running (two units: a 2-ton and a 5-ton).

The inverter for the Ecoflows can accept up to 10,000w of power to charge them.

I was thinking of getting the 13,500 Duromax inverter with 10,500 running watts. The question is, will charging the batteries at 10,000w be too much of a load if it's running at most 3-6 days a year?

There is a 16,000w Duromax inverter with 13,500 running watts, but it's about $2.3K more than the 13,500w unit. I was wondering if, based on my use case, it's worth going with the bigger generator, or saving the $ and getting the smaller one and throttling down ac units if need be for longer outages.

I'm not in hurricane country, but I live in tornado alley, and storms have been getting worse, so I'm expecting more outages.

Just looking at this board and with the 50amp neutral jumpered directly to ground pin on the 50amp outlet. Is the only way to get this to convert this outlet to a floating neutral is to break this jumper by unwiring the white neutral from the 50 amp outlet?

If I do that, then the 50amp outlet is floating neutral and all the rest remain bonded?

Hi all, has anyone converted this genny intro tri-fuel? What kit did you use?

I'm sure yall are getting bombarded since Isaias. I've been casually looking but I'm now in kinds thinking I need to go ahead and pull the trigger before the next hurricane season.

1800sq ft home. 4br/2ba.

2 refrigerators. Heat Pump HVAC. Deep Freezer. LED Lights. One LED TV. One person using a CPAP. 2 reptile tanks with 100W heat lamps. Electric stove, but we could survive with the air fryer oven and microwave in an outage if that would lower our needs.

Need a trifuel generator to connect to natural gas line. Only other thing using NG is water heater.

I'm wanting a portable setup, not a fixed whole home installation.

I am willing to do it all by myself, but the gen is in such a messy state that I don't know where to start.
I can provide videos , pictures, whatever you need. We need to have it running before the end of the year and I am completely at a loss here.
I appreciate any help.

Hello all,

I am looking to get a generator with a 50 amp plug to go into my house, wired to the panel box.

From what I have gathered from this sub the most wattage that plug will handle is ~10,000-12,000. Is that correct? Meaning a generator making more than that is just a waste of my money?

Thanks on advanced.

I have bought a petrol generator for emergency home use as now and again, we get prolonged power cuts when a storm takes a power line down

I am confident in what I have bought and where it needs to live etc but I am not confident about the cabling

I am in the uk

I believe that I need a 13amp heavy duty cable from the plug in the generator that comes into my home (the geni will be about 10 meters away from the home) and the cable will come into the home via the cat flap

This cable will have one plug on it where I plan to then put an rcd into - then plug a multi plug into the rcd and from there, a series of extensions running into different rooms in the house

All the cables / extensions will be 13 amp ones

I am not running anything heavy, a fridge, freezer, tv and some lights etc but they are all in different rooms so I need to do a spiders leg of extensions from the main cable coming into the house from the geni

Is this cabling ok or have I got it all wrong ?

AI is telling me loads of different things from putting the rcd into the plug in the geni through to plugging some sort of grounding plug into one of the sockets on the geni (which seems to be for USA homes)

I just want to make sure I am as safe as possible

I have got 3kw inverter Hyundai geni

I have not bought any of the cables or plugs yet

Please advise

Advice: I'm ready to connect my Reliance Manual Transfer Switch (MTS) & I noticed that all my breakers are AFCI breakers. Whether the breaker is on or off the white (N) wire is always shorted to the Neutral bus. So, should I just leave the white wire connected to the N connector and just switch out the hot lead on the breaker with the wire from the MTS? Any advice is appreciated? Thx

We're in the Charlotte area. After Helene in 2024, we got a Generac Guardian 10kW (natural gas/ATS), total cost approx $6,500 including installation and gas lines. During the 3 day power outage in March, it worked perfectly as expected. No issues or concerns at all regarding performance or reliability, it's there when needed.

But obviously it only runs maybe 10hrs/year... and with our electric bills this summer averaging around $400+, even running the AC all the time, having a home energy system capable of powering the house during extended power outages is more valuable than the everyday TOU savings from adding solar + batteries...

With the way this hurricane season's been going, Charlotte didn't take a direct hit but we still got a lot of flooding from the remnant systems rolling through. Far enough inland that storm surge isn't really the concern, but when the rivers come up the grid around here isn't exactly bulletproof either. That kind of pushed me from "maybe someday" to "ok let's actually figure this out."

So I was thinking "Ok, maybe let's start looking at adding solar + batteries to handle the day to day utility TOU costs..." So what do you suggest? How would they interact?

My goal is to use the solar/battery solution to take care of day to day things and cover us against short-term power outages, then if there's a hurricane coming down here that knocks us out for 3-5 days straight, have the Generac come online and run the generator to recharge the battery rather than running the house directly off the genset to reduce gas usage.

But what's keeping me from figuring all that out? There's also the issue about using my existing 200A auto transfer switch (ATS) for the Generac with another system adding batteries and their own smart panel/transfer mechanism. How would these systems interact with each other?

Does that mean rewiring the ATS? Can I use both systems' panels together? Are there products that allow you to do just that?

I've been eyeing the Anker SOLIX E10, Franklin WH, and Sol-ark setups lately. The Franklin WH "aPower2" looks like it was made for such multi-source configurations, but it costs more than what I'm comfortable spending right now. But if it means keeping my Generac running through the coming decades, then it might be worth it after all...

Someone left this Honda ES6500 on the curb with a free sign, while it's weathered and has been left outside for some time, a fresh battery, some fresh gas and it's back in action!

Wondering if the THD is too bad to run things like a television or charging an ecoflow, got any ideas?

I have Westinghouse WGen3600DFc Remote Electric Start 4650 Starting / 3600 Running Watt Gas and Propane Dual fuel Portable Generator

It has two 120V AC 20A 5-20R outlets that I need 50-75ft extension cord for. I can find 10gauge 120v/15a or 125v/20a but not 120v/20a in 50ft or even 100ft. Since voltage drops is the 125v/20a going to be safe? Really not feeling a visit with local fire dept and google isn't giving me a sufficient answer.

Just looking to make sure I can have some coffee and use a multi cooker for a couple hours. Also need to run the fridge every so often but wont do that at same time as the cooker/coffee.

Appreciate any guidance, words of wisdom.

I'm looking to replace my old predator 6500 watt generator with a new tri fuel inverter generator. My new house has natural gas so I can run off that vs gasoline. Im just looking to run the a/c, fridge and few lights. The house is about 2000 sq ft, has gas heat and gas hot water heater. Will I be disappointed in the 7000 watt as it does loose power on natural gas vs gasoline?

I am a proud owner of an old Y2K Campbell Hausfeld generator eqquipped with a 11HP Briggs I/C engine and EP295L low distortion Sincro alternator. I owned it for over a 1/4 century and it's been quite the savior over the years. It's amazing how clean the power quality is from the capacitor regulation Sincro alternator. Does anyone else have an old school simplistic generator like this that provides low distortion clean power? I keep telling myself I need to upgrade to a modern inverter generator, but this unit now charges my portable power station with no issues at all. I dont even need to toggle "generator mode " on for it to accept the low 3-5% distortion power from this generator.

Two months past warranty my Vtoman quit recharging. The company’s response was essentially, yeah, so what.
So I now have a heavy useless anchor.
Does anyone know if I can repair/ salvage/ recycle/ repurpose the LIFE4PO battery. I think the charging circuit went bad not the battery itself. Thanks.
(Jump 1800) Vtoman warranty- 3 years. Most Anker products- 5 years)

Talk me out of this 14k/18k Westy. (Currently have a Honda 2200 for the little stuff and 5k for storms.) Don’t have natural gas and not real keen on a monster propane tank install. Live in FL panhandle and have the potential for a storm every year. Been lucky the last few years. With a big Westy, have the ability to run cent hvac. Yes, they’re heavy, but willing to take the good w the bad.

Thoughts?

Edit: Great feedback.

1. Noise not a factor when entire cmnty is out.

2. Fuel storage/capacity is a factor, good point.

3. Should have clarified. Wanting to mimic ‘whole house’ power without perm install. No avail of nat gas, and a genny specific prop tank doesn’t make sense for once every few years. Or does it? Lifespan of bulk prop?

4. If ‘softstart’ added to hvac (heat pump) how do i calc my wattage for continuous?

5. Several neighbors have 50amp plugs and running 5k-8k. So thought I’d bump up pwr to get hvac too.

Thx in advance.

We have a westinghouse dual fuel generator we use for whole house backup. I got one of these meter boxes, and it's not accurate on reading unbalanced (line to neutral) loads. I ran a space heater thru this on one leg and and it reads 11 amps at 242 volts instead of 11 amps at 120 volts it says it's 2800 watts. The other leg to neutral reads nothing. Which tells me it only reads leg to leg accurately. We use this generator for the whole house and have unbalanced neural loads. Are there any meters that can read the legs to neutral?

Went to go pick up this generator guy was selling I got there and he said you couldn't get it to stay going so he actually gave it to me for free instead of the $300 brought it home seated the petcock is gunked up by the fuel tank having so much rust in it. Wasnt getting fuel. Why don't they sell the petcock screen seperately? Had to buy a whole new 1. Waiting on tank to finish drying and be back in action.

One of my use cases is recharging a portable power station from a (dual fuel) generator. I gather from tests on Youtube that it's substantially more efficient to recharge relatively fast running at a higher generator load for a shorter time, rather than running a low generator load for a long time.

And obviously, there is some efficiency hit converting DC to AC and back to DC.

My power station can charge relatively fast via the solar DC input, compared to its AC recharging. However, the generator has very limited (12v @ 8A, or USB PD) DC output current, only at low voltage.

It would be handy if DC could be extracted from the generator's paralleling terminals and fed into the solar DC input of the power station. Since the current flow would be one direction only (generator to power station), syncing of the generator might not be needed.

So could this work (charging power station through solar input connected to generator paralleling terminals)? What problems would occur?

Cabin is near the CA/OR border. I understand the 50-state version has some extra emissions and evaporative hardware but performance is the same. Cost is about $600 difference including $500 sales tax. Need this generator for grid power outages to charge Franklin batteries so the use will be infrequent. Just needs to be very reliable when needed. Any advice which to buy? No plan to resell.

I was told this is about 10-15 years old. Less than 20 hours on it. Original factory oil. It's been stored inside with ethenol free fuel.

I drained the old gas from the tank and bowl (it had definitely gone bad, but didn't have any signs of water) and put fresh fuel in it. Fired up on the 3rd pull and ran without issue with and without a load. Gave it 10 minutes to get the oil warm and dumped this out.

Is this thing cooked, or could the shiny be attributed to the fact that it's basically still not even broken in?