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Hi everyone,

The recent power outages in the Portland metro area left my home without electricity for almost 4 days. Luckily I bought a small generator this past summer during the outages in relation to forest fires. My little $300 generator was good to run our fridge, a space heater, a lamp and even the tv/WiFi but I want to upgrade!

I own a 680 sq foot house that is all electric. No gas. I've got a normal fridge, a small reach in freezer, a 4 burner oven, hot water heater, washer, dryer, dishwasher, 3 cadet heaters, lights, tv, WiFi and some lights and plugs in the shed I call my shop.

All that said. What size Generator should I buy? Let me hear some opinions on the dual fuel generators, and how much Is a reasonable amount to pay to have a transfer switch installed in my house?

Also, maybe there's an electrician reading this who wants to take the gig. If so send me a private message.

I hope this thread promotes some good discussion on the topic and maybe next time more of us will be comfortable when the power goes out again.
 
You'll need a 220v generator fo3 the stove and water heater.

you're probably looking at at least a 15kw to run all that at the same time.

You need to prioritize what you need during an outage. The dishwasher should not make this list.
 
I would look into switching to natural gas for some of your appliances. You can get credit rebates to help out the upfront costs.
Then you wouldn't need such a larger generator.
 
I'm a mechanic at Prairie Electric inc in Vancouver, i know we're Kohler certified to install and service them not sure how much this all costs.....
You'd have to call in or email.
Matt
 
Quiet is important. There are plenty of youtube vids showing how to make the gen somewhat stealthy and also the hows and whys of transfer switches and interlocks.

If you have NG to your house you can buy or retrofit the gen to run on NG or propane.

We have a Honda Super Quiet gen that I setup to run off propane as well as gasoline. oddly enough it rarely gets used unless I start it up and run it for an hour or so.
 
With the list of unessential (during a power outage ) items you list how many gallons of fuel a day do you want to have to pay for?
For my way of wife 80% of the items you list would remain unused.
 
every appliance you use will have a watts required and voltage needed sticker/ stamp on it. it's your choice to decide what to run and when. coleman, camp chef and lodge cast iron are your friend when cooking. water heaters, ranges, dryers, and central air will pop your generator breakers at your least convienance. just do a little common electrical research before buying a genset. if you want to run the whole house like nothing ever happened, generac commercials on tv will gladly take your card.
 
Thanks for the input. I don't actually see myself running the dishwasher or laundry during an outage. I just figure if I'm gonna have the transfer switch put in that I should buy a big enough generator to power the whole house. I did some internet research and it seems I'll want atleast a 7500 watt output generator with a 220 output.
 
I am an electrician and have a whole house generator with automatic transfer switch at my house. I have gas appliances (central heat, range/oven, water heater) and have a 16kW generator. My biggest loads are central air conditioner and dryer, but I can run everything at the same time (including 2 fridges and 2 freezers). Like baldboy said, you are much better off going with an interlock and using just what you need. When shopping for a generator, pay attention to rated watts vs. surge watts. Marketing can be misleading. You need to figure out what you really need/want and add up all the loads to decide how big a generator you need. 7500 watts is relatively small as a range can use as much as 5,000 watts.
 
3. Use your dryer plug. Turn off your main breaker in your electrical panel separating you from the utility and plug your generator into your dryer plug. Your electrical loads would be limited to the essentials because you would only be feeding 30 amps at 240 volts. You could also use your range plug which would let you feed more amperage.

Terrible advice...
You do NOT want to create the possibility of back feeding the grid. While I am very well aware of what you are suggesting I would not want to risk the liability of suggesting this as a solution.

Mods feel free to delete / edit this post.
 
By the way, our 16kW generator is natural gas. We lost power for nearly 4 days during the snowstorm. I just looked at my gas meter and it looks like it will end up costing us about $23/day to run the generator. I was looking at a portable generator roughly 9kW for my mother-in-law that runs on gasoline. To run it 24 hours a day, it would use roughly 15 gallons of gasoline at 50% load and have to be filled up every 8 hours (approx).
 
Terrible advice...
You do NOT want to create the possibility of back feeding the grid. While I am very well aware of what you are suggesting I would not want to risk the liability of suggesting this as a solution.

Mods feel free to delete / edit this post.
edzz is correct. At a minimum you need to install a 30 amp or 50 amp 2 pole breaker in your panel with an interlock to the main breaker. What this does it only allow one or the other to be on at a time. Linemen can get killed by people who illegally back feed. You don't want to be that person.
 
Terrible advice...
You do NOT want to create the possibility of back feeding the grid. While I am very well aware of what you are suggesting I would not want to risk the liability of suggesting this as a solution.

Mods feel free to delete / edit this post.
Not to mention having a live male end on both ends of the generator cord...just waiting to stop grandpa's pacemaker
 
Something to consider is the rpm the generator runs at. A good diesel/duel fuel generator will last alot longer as its running at 1800rpm vs 3600 on cheap units. Pay attention to the rpms.....
 
Something to consider is the rpm the generator runs at. A good diesel/duel fuel generator will last alot longer as its running at 1800rpm vs 3600 on cheap units. Pay attention to the rpms.....
Ours has a manual/auto switch. In auto it ramps up or down based upon the load.
 

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