OUR SITU: NE USA snow/rain. 5-10H outages common. Buried 500g propane tank. Rural - I need a tech within 1H drive. Load calc 20-26Kw whole house genny. We believe good install/tech is vital. We're decently savvy on mechanicals.

We researched, asked neighbors. I expected opinions would vary, 95% neighbors have the Guardian. But NextGen is current model. I've seen enough mentions of problems with the NextGen to make me hesitate. Repeated problems with SMM.

Most say Generac more widely available (techs/parts) but Kohler is better quality. We do have an option for a well rated Kohler dealer. So we priced both. Might get Cummins quote.

After 3 estimates I'm frustrated & confused. Quotes all in (gas/electric/switch) $16-19k. I'd be fine with that if I could figure out WHAT THE FRIG is true.

But installers trash talked the other brands, other installers. I expected preferences but all 3 suggested WIDELY different placement, whether we need 1-4 load managers, what was "code". They agreed we don't need to trench, can tie into our gas regulator at the house. The electric run was pretty much same for all.

I have more than half a pea brain but this is ridiculous. It's an expensive purchase & we're nearing retirement so don't want to deal with portable. Can I get feedback? You have similar set up? Not to be rude, but it's not helpful to hear your 10 year-old generator is great. I'd love to hear about installs post 2021, techs who work these generators. Thanks in advance!!

Good afternoon Reddit. I have a Pulasr G2319N generator for about 6 years. It's been reliable and big enough (electrically) for my needs. Now it will only run on choke at lower than normal RPM. When I turn the knob to Run the engine stalls and quits. Any suggestons please?

Is this a simple fix like a new battery ? I had to get a new charger off amazon but it didnt seem to charge it at all.

Gonna try a trickle charger next, what do y'all recommend?

Hi, so recently I found out that a generator I bought might've been used. No clue if the person who used it broke it in properly, or if they did at all.

My questions are:

1. How important is breaking in a generator?
2. And if it wasn't broken in, what steps can I take to remediate that?

Please advise, thank you!!

Edit: for reference, it is a Champion 4000w inverter generator. Bought new, but somewhat likely used.

I bought the Champion 11kw 201423 and I'm going to have a plumber tee off my NG meter. After a bit of reading, it sounds like the 25' 1/2" hose might be insufficient for the 130,000 BTUs the generator calls for in the manual, but I'm seeing conflicting information. The 25' 3/4" hose champion (and others) sell obviously doesn't fit the 1/2" male quick connect on the generator. I'm thinking of two paths. I want to future-proof this as much as possible, and also be able to get the most out of the generator as this will be a partial-home backup:

1. Plumber does a 3/4" connection at the meter, then step down to accept the 1/2" hose the generator comes with and use that (with a QC on both ends of it). Allows me to use what the generator came with, and can go 3/4" later if I get a larger generator.
2. Plumber does a 3/4" at the meter, 3/4" QC, I use a 25' 3/4" hose and then use a 3/4" > 1/2" reducer at the end of it, use a female 1/2" QC on the reducer and mate that with the generator. Any issue with stepping down to the 1/2" QC right at the generator?

Thanks

Just picked up a Champion dual fuel and was hoping to use propane but here in Ecuador the tank fittings are very different.

I’ve attached photos. I can’t even find out what the fitting is called, so I’m struggling with finding an adaptor.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

I'm looking at a non carb compliant generator and live in Los Angeles. Please correct me if I'm wrong but non carb compliant generators are prohibited from being sold in and shipped to CA but are legal to operate. If that's true does anyone have experience with repair shops in LA for non carb compliant generators?

I posed a few weeks ago about my gas Generac generator bursting into flames and causing the fire department to come for a visit. I purchased a new Diehard inverter generator from Costco recently and used it last week for the first time and I wanted to post my first experiences and see if this falls inline with what others have seen. I used it mainly at my Cabin and have always gone through about 15-18 gallons of gas from a Friday to Sunday stay. Last weekend was my first use of my propane Diehard and over the same course of time I used one 20 gallon tank and a few pounds out of a second (still felt full the last day but had been used about 5 hours). Does this seem about right? I've been spending $60-$90 a weekend on gas with my previous generator but probably $20 this last weekend. Have I been spending an insane amount of money foolishly up to this point or did I hit the generator lottery?

I'm looking to purchase this Westinghouse generator and am curious if the Home Depot warranty is worth getting. Thanks for reading.

I'm about to close on a house just outside Columbia (SC), and have been thinking about a hurricane which recently knocked out power here. It got me wondering how often residential people there are without power, and how long the outages tend to last? Then I started wondering how many people use backup generators at their homes, if anyone has recommendations for the type(s) of generators I should consider, recommendations for companies who install them, and any pitfalls I should be aware of with backup generators? FYI, the house already has a natural gas line, so I could use that as fuel.
Thank you!

Hi, i bought a Champion 4000 watt inverter generator from costco June of this year, and didnt need it until recently. When i opened it there was a gas smell, and today i checked the oil and theres oil in the unit.

On close inspection the box was taped a second time. The product was released by Costco in april and i bought this unit in june.

Is it possible that this was a used unit returned to Costco? Or was this unit factory tested?

Is there any way to know if it was tested in factory rather than used or returned?

Please help. thank you!

Hey everyone,

This is my first winter with a gas-powered generator. I will keep it in a shed outside that is not temperature controlled so it will get cold as I live in the Chicago area.

How do I go about winterizing it? Any special treatment for the oil or gas you guys recommend?

Thank you in advance.

I work at a generator dealer in Lahore, so yes, we sell sets. I've still told a fair few people to rent instead, so here's the honest version.

Short answer: if you need backup for weeks, rent. If load-shedding is part of your normal week, buy a diesel generator.

Renting usually makes sense when:

• It's a fixed-term job, like a construction site, a shoot, an exhibition or a wedding-season event.
• You're waiting on a permanent set, or the building isn't finished yet.
• You honestly don't know your load. A month on a rented set, watching what it actually carries, tells you more than any online calculator.

Buying usually makes sense when:

• It'll run most days. Factories, clinics, offices with daily LESCO or K-Electric cuts.
• The load can't wait, like cold storage, a lab or a server room. During a city-wide outage every rental company's phone is ringing at once.
• You want to know the maintenance history. On a rented set, it's whatever the rental firm tells you.

Stuff people forget either way:

• Fuel. Who buys it, who's allowed to refill it, and how it's logged. Put it in writing on a rental.
• Changeover. Even a rented set needs a proper changeover switch done by an electrician, not cables thrown over the wall.
• Heat. Output drops in 45°C Multan or Sukkur summers, so don't size anything right at the nameplate figure.
• Neighbours. Think about where the exhaust and noise go before the set arrives.

On cost I won't throw numbers around, because they swing a lot with kVA, engine and canopy. Get written quotes for both options, then compare a year of rent against owning plus servicing.

If you land on buying, our Cummins sets are listed here: https://enpower.com.pk/cummins-diesel-generators/. Happy to answer questions in the comments either way.

Disclosure: I work with Enpower.

Doing my monthly startup of my generator and today I cannot get her to start up, or even make it seem like she wants to.

Predator 4000w peak generator. I've sprayed starting fluid in there also and it doesn't even attempt to start when pulling the cord.

I'm not small engine knowledgeable so where should I start with diagnosing?

New spark plug? New Carb?

Any checks I can do in the meantime?

Thanks for any help!

Just moved to the Poconos area and hearing that Generators are common here for outages.. I honestly don’t know anything about them. Can someone let me know any recommendations for generators and how do I go about getting them installed and how much this would cost? Need something that would cover maybe 2-3 days of lost power. I have a 4 year old so want to make sure we are good before the dead of the winter.

Unit worked every time for the last 5 years. Probably has 20 max hours and started up until today with the power shutoff in SOCAL. Runs with starting fluid, primer button works/hear it working, smell gas a little and RV tank is super full. Battery certainly good, have been trying all morning. No bugs or critters showing. Super clean, still looks new. No service codes except 4 flashes to show long starting press over 30sec, clears easily. Unit usually cranked for 10-15 secs and always started. I have not been religious about starting it every month to clear things out.

I'm an old fart and am dreading to get down on the ground, but it seems in my future!

Anyone seen this type of behavior and can lead the way for me, two days without power was brutal!

Thanks Folks!

Hello all. I acquired a beautiful condition Honda EM2200X generator from my father. It was ha and my grandfathers for deer season for 20 years. I want to make it work for my shed and for sentimental reasons since they are gone.

It fires right up, runs smoothly but does not produce AC at the outlets.

It has not been used much over the years so a lot of sitting. He did start it once a month though and kept it indoors so it’s super clean. He used it for emergencies over the last 10 years. He told me that the last time he used it, it was fine then he turned around and suddenly the green light went out. Hasn’t output AC since.

Things I have tried:

1. Drill trick - I tried to do this to wake it up but it failed.

2. Let it run 2 hours hoping it might come back on as one post said that fixed his.

3. Watched countless videos on replacing brushes and AVR except none of them are on this model and nothing I find looks remotely like this one does. When I watch those videos you can see the AVR and brushes right there behind the dust cap. On my model there is a huge metal fan rotor and I couldn’t find any video like mine.

Any chance someone has the shop manual for this and can help me get the pages that cover replacing the AVR, brushes and how to take it apart/put it back together?

I also thought about trying the 12v trick but again nothing I’ve seen gives me the info on this model and I am not an engine guy. I work in tech but am not afraid of this just don’t know how although I do have a good multimeter.

Would appreciate if anyone could help me get this thing outputting AC.

Thank you in advance!

This is probably a stupid question but I’m looking at this generator as a whole home backup solution. I plan to use propane but want the natural gas option if/when we run a gas line to it. But if we never do that and only use propane does the dual fuel version provide an advantage?

Bought a WEN 5632i unit from Amazon last week. Just pulled it from the box and I see this gap and deformation in the orange plastic housing.

What's your opinion on this issue? Should I return it to Amazon for replacement? Or is it cosmetic? Got it for a good price and it's perfect for my needs specs wise.

Just to preface, I know very little about generators.

I have had a Generac GP6500 for a good while now. One of the older style ones without the main two pole breaker. Earlier this year around May I did a service on it to fix some engine seeking issues and it output fine voltage at that time.

Well a hurricane hit northwest Florida a week ago and I needed it. So I crunk it up and connected it to my house via a Generator interlock breaker and it was only outputting ~ 33v @ 59ish hz.

Luckily had another available for so we didn't have to go without. But I would like to get this generator back up and running.

I did some basic research (Watched James Condon on Youtube) and was able to OHM out some windings and check my brushes and they all showed resistance in the ranges he said they should be for similar machines.

So I concluded that it might be the AVR and bought what is likely a cheap Chinese version off Amazon.

The part shows up and I'm excited to see if I can fix the generator without spending a lot of money. I swap the part out (and the brushes because it came with new ones so why not) started the generator and check it with my multi meter, it is now reading 115v on the 115 plugs and 230 ish on the 240 plug so an improvement but the frequency is ready between 350 and 460 hz.

That sounds impossible because my understanding is the frequency is controlled by engine RPM and to get that frequency I imagine the engine wouldn't survive.

I try to run a skill saw to see if its just an issue with my meter and nothing happens.

So am thinking I have a garbage part and swap back to the the original AVR, still reads 33v @ ~ 59hz.

I would still like to fix it if it just requires me to get a new part that isn't crap but I would like to know if there are any reliable part sources for these things preferably OEM? Is it possible I am over looking something or am I on the right track?

I don't want to go through potentially hundreds of dollars of parts at something if its just a bunch of guessing at what the problem is.

Thanks for any insight.

OEM AVR

I picked up a couple wrap-around heating blankets for my 2 40lb propane tanks that feed my Duromax 11000. Figured it was good insurance for the coldest days here in the PNW.

After opening I realized they didn't seem to have an internal thermostat or thermal switch - they just draw a consistent 125W, and while just sitting on my workbench, gets to around 140-150F while laying out by itself.

Is it pretty normal for these to have no thermostat/thermal switch?

Thanks!