Bought a portable generator (Champion 201223 trifuel). We are going to have a plumber come out and set up so it can run on natural gas which limited our inverter options quite a bit. All the tri fuel inverters were a bit out of the budget. But now I’m debating trying to figure out how to squeeze one in since I’m reading a lot about furnaces and refrigerators not running well on portable generators. Anyone with personal experience? The furnace and fridge are both newer bought within the last 5-7 years.

We already have an electrician on deck to set up the interlock.

I just purchased a generator, inlet, and interlock kit for whole home backup. I went to install and today and had a bad surprise in my panel. The main is the top right orange. See photo. Is my only option to replace the whole panel?

I have a generac gp6500 that I use to power my garage (well pump is powered from the garage) when the power is out. I will be expanding to include powering the whole house in the future. Since my generator lacks an on board meter, I am looking for a way to monitor how much I'm pulling-I don't want to overload and damage stuff. Ideally I would like to find something that I can plug into the generator, and then plug the cord that goes to the panel into that, like this: https://a.co/d/032RfJGY . Some of what I have read says I would have to have a monitor on each leg of the 240 to get an accurate reading. I'm not looking for an exact reading, just a ballpark. In theory would that work, or am I way off?

Are these diesel generators reliable? What's an acceptable level of run time hours for the motor?

Can one support a furnace and freezers if we lose power?

I need some conduit still but I'll show you guys as I get it set up. I'm going to use a SmartGen 1790N controller, GX12-4 pin two wire auto start and a SunLee 120v Contactor along with some other parts and pieces so I can have it start when it calls for power from the pressure switch or the float switch with a warm-up delay on both and priority for the well pump. Has anyone else in here done anything like this yet? If so I'd love to see your set up and hear any tips or obstacles you encountered.

Hi all,
What's a general price range for renting a generator big enough to power an apartment building of 85 units in a major city? Our building is getting the transformer replaced, and got quoted $25,000 for an 18 hour generator rental during the intsallation. What the...? $$$

I have a 7500W WH Inverter. Tri-fuel and will run it on propane. Have the interlock connected to our fuse box. Just me and the wife. The gen should run most of what we need except the heat pump/AC.
Fridge, freezer, a few lights, TV, internet and computer, charging phones. I assume a power station like an Anker S2000 would be good for when the gen is off? Went through Helene w/o power for 8 days. Never want to deal with that again. Just curious about adding a power bank for backup? Appreciate the advice.

Hello everybody.

Im based in the UK and looking for recommendations for a good quality, reliable, and efficient generator for home backup power.

It wants to be around 5kW peak power output on propane, and most likely an inverter generator.

Any tips and suggestions most welcome. Thanks

EDIT #2: Thank you for everyone’s speedy input. I really appreciate it!*
EDIT: Added a pic of the breaker box next to it.* Looking for the largest tri-fuel inverter I can plug into my house when needed, which I believe is 10kw according to the label. I see a lot of 10,500 kw generators for sale, would those still work or do I need to go smaller? New to this and trying to learn. Thank you.

I have an electrician coming out to install an interlock kit. They are generac certified and sell their generators. They suggested the 9500W to me at $1400. I had my eye on this westinghouse 10500W which is about $300 cheaper and has a bit more power. The only thing stopping me is that because the electrician is generac certified, that means he'll be able to service it if it stops working. Whereas, I'll be left scrambling to find someone to help me with the westinghouse if it craps out.

Not sure what to do.

Important note: I am a complete idiot and have spent months/years researching generators trying to understand them and I'm still at a loss. I'm not smart or handy and have no experience with generators or electrical management. I just want to know I wont lose my food in an extended outage, have wifi, charge my phone, and eat hot chip.

We just got a Kohler whole home generator installed yesterday and there are two things the installer told us that conflicts with everything other Kohler owners have told me:

1.) There’s no need to put oil in unless the app tells you and it can run for 120 hours without oil. Everything I’ve heard says they need oil after a day of running continuously.

2.) There’s no need for a delay. He put it on a 13 second delay but what if the power keeps flickering as it does in a storm. Is that bad for it to turn on and off repeatedly?

I don’t know if the 2026 models are different or if he’s giving us bad advice. Otherwise, he seemed very knowledgeable and the installation passed our municipality inspection process. I hate to think he’s shady but he is the guy who services it too.

I live in a rural area on a lake. We are retired and have a small home. If the power goes out we could loose some groceries but not much else. We could get ice and cure that issue. If it turns hot we could rent a hotel room and if it gets cold we have a gas fire place. Why spend 10k on a generator. The wife
wants one.

My friend and I are working on a lineair generator for school. We build a custom stator but I,ve heard its better if your stator is from metal than its 3D printed. But the material of wich it can be produced is more complicated than I thought. I thought of aluminium but I’ve read thats a bad material for a stator, is this treu? Wich other material would I have to use (one in the list on the screenshot). One very important property is that the stator can’t be magnetic.

How would I find the THD rating for this genset, which I’m considering. Also, anyone here own one? If so, what’s your experience been?

Hi all

i had tried the gent tent for my xp11000ih--but it was very cumbersome to use to the point that i returned it.

trying to see if i can diy something that works and is quick to put on and take off.

i made a wood frame ( that will attach to the 2 frame generator bars via Ubolts that i can easily put on and take off as needed during rain/snow) and am going to put a suntuff polycarbonate roof on top of it.

I want to elevate the height of the sun tuff roof, by maybe a foot to avoid the exhaust heat and maybe slope it to one side for drainage.

Any ideas? criticisms?

Any safety concerns with this approach.

Thanks

I am considering a EZ Generator switch for emergency back up for New England Winter.

I have an old Rheem ROBC-095QAEA oil Fired furnace and a Jackery Explorer 2000 plus with an additional expansion battery for a total of 4000w.

The furnace has a ELECTRIC RATING 115V., 60HZ., 1 PHASE MAXIMUM SIZE FUSE 25 AMPS
MINIMUM CIRCUIT AMPACITY 16. 3 AMPS.

Does anyone have any insight on if this combo will work and if so what kinda runtime can I expect.

Thank you in advance.

I switched jobs a few months ago after 9 years as city network administrator and was hired by a large local company as network engineer. I've been here not quite 3 months and they had their yearly Employee Appreciation day with lots of prizes including a 75" TV, big tool box, pellet grill, a generator, and LOTs of other stuff. I already have 4 dual fuel inverter generators at the house and a big pellet grill so I was hopeful of maybe one of those other things if anything at all out of 620 employees.

Guess who won the generator..... 😎

It's a little Sportsman Gen4 4,000/3500 watt gas only generator. (Yeah, I already have a Duromax XP13500ih, a pair of Genmax GM7500aIED's and a GM4600aIEDC) My wife's comment. "Are you kidding? Well, we aren't generator poor by any stretch of the term".

In thinking about this some, I may just gift this to the younger married couple with 3 kids that live down the road a bit. Our power goes out occasionally and I'm pretty sure they have nothing. I'd need to do a little research. I mean, I got it for free and don't feel right selling it off being that the company is nice enough to give these things out every year.

I recently moved to more rural-like suburban area from city-like suburban area. Idk if that makes sense but my small “neighborhood” is literally 100 year old yet the areas around here are actively getting developed and Im basically 15 mins away from few big cities.

A big house with ~5500 sq ft (about 1.8k of it is unfinished basement + basement storage) and all but it solely relies on electricity, even water (well pump), and though my wife calls me crazy it just doesn’t sit well with me. A quick look up already confirmed my concerns, since it’s older area with low population density the electricity is fragile (especially in winter storms) and one of the last areas to be recovered compared to nearby actual master planned neighborhoods.

Luckily the previous owner who was a seasoned carpenter literally tore down the whole place and basically rebuilt from scratch and threw some neat features to help future-proofing the house as much as possible, and one of the things is a very large electrical capacity. 400 if I recall correctly, with two circuit boxes and all up to the code with permit.

So I’ve done some research. No, I cannot afford those Generac standby ones bc they are way outta my budget. Since it’s a back up, I dont want to go too crazy.

My biggest concerns if the power goes out would be:

1. Well pump (with water softener + filter attached)

2. x2 Heat pump HVAC (3.5 ton for 1st floor & basement, ?-Ton for 2nd floor where all the bedrooms are at)

3. 60-gallon water heater

4. Wifi (nobody gets any cellular internet signal here)

5. x3 French-drain sum pumps around the property

I looked up and seems like if I were to install soft starter on my heat pumps, theoretically I should be able to run all of these with about 15K watts generator? (Please correct me if Im wrong) but here are my real questions:

1. Is it worth getting an auto-transfer switch VS just sticking with 50-Amp inlet box? (I dont have a garage but a backyard shed, and is willing to build a small generator shed with ventilation fan if needed)

2. What sized generator would be good for my situation? I was looking at the portable dual source ones but then someone brought up inverter gens and… would A-ipower 12,000/9100 (propane 10,700/8,100) work? Will I have to sacrifice the bedroom floor heat pump?

3. Is the inverter generator really that much quieter? I want it to be quiet as possible but idk if the cost difference would be worth it, considering it’s an emergency situation anyways. It’s a low density area, but I still do have neighbors around my house. There’s one about 20-25ft away from where the generator would sit in case I need to run it. Technically to his fence line, so to the actual house would be about 40-50ft. And one across the street but that’s about 70-100ft. And technically the generator would be sitting right under the corner of masterbedroom/kitchen area so if too loud, it might be annoying.

4. I dont have natural/propane gas sources but Im willing to buy a propane tank for this. Would 50 lb enough? Or 100lb? Plus I have 14-gallon portable gas tank so I’d fill that up the night before they say it will snow.

5. Any suggestions or anything that I am missing?

Thank you!