There is a major issue mostly to do with the brushes and rotor on the ones built mid 2021 through 2023. They are all failing for this same reason. Generac knows and should have been pro-active about it. I have an early 2020 build pre-covid and has ran for many outages without issue.
UPDATE: There’s now a class action lawsuit regarding this exact issue. I knew I couldn’t be the only one: topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/household/generac-class-action-alleges-some-models-have-alternator-defect/ Update.... Just spoke with a Generac technician (Guardian Generators in Tampa) He helped me by allowing me to send video of the unit. He had me poke the video camera under the generator windings and diagnosed that the brushes in-fact failed upon visual inspection. He is on his way now and I will keep the thread updated.
I hope he can fix it in one visit! Funny, how a posted video on social media that calls out a company's product, results in a (relatively) quick and personalized response. Public exposure - and shaming - threatens sales, so forces them to react. Just ask Liz Amazing! No doubt you'll still need to cough up the "queue deposit", of course. Sorry, m8. 😢
@@HomesteadEngineering - That's four words... ;) Be careful with solar. Most systems require commercial power to keep the inverters energized. And solar cannot load share with anything else. Solar has its place, but the expense and maintenance is heavy.
We had a Kohler 20k installed on our new home when we bought it. Put in a 500 gallon propane tank as fuel as NG isn't available where we live in the country. It starts, runs and supplies power as advertised. We can run everything in the house with zero problems. It has run nonstop for as long as 5 days. We had to buy propane after 2 1/2 years as it was at 30%. I maintain it with regular maintenance, oil changes, spark plugs, air filters etc. Best purchase ever.
We have a Kohler 20K for several years. Regular maintenence. Still runs like a champ and has never let us down. After researching the Kohler and Generac, I made a few observations: 1) Most of the big box stores which sell Generac usually have a Kohler as their emergency generator (buy what they use, not what they sell). 2) Kohler has been in the generator business for over 100 years. A long and proven track record. 3) Generac wins the popularity contest - but what would you rather choose - the most popular or the most reliable? 4) The kicker - Generac engines require periodic manual valve lash adjustment. Kohler engines use hydraulic lifters. Manual valve lash adjustments are so 1970s.
@@dantesinfernopurgatory7826 The valve adjustment regimen was a major factor in our buying a Kohler. Reliability was also a major concern. Generac just doesn't make the grade. Plus their cost. I told the generac dealer what I wanted to install and they quoted a minimum of 20 grand. Plus the tank and piping. Uhhhh, no. I paid 12, for everything including tax. Not including the tank first fill......I calculate the 500 gallon tank will last about 2 1/2 weeks at a 24/7 run time.
I spent 17k on a Generac for a scenario like Milton. Like this fellow and millions of others, our power went off in the storm. NP, the Generac will kick on in a minute. NOTHING!!! The generator never went on. In the middle of the back half of the storm, I was outside getting pelted with tree limbs while trying to troubleshoot the problem (Thanks for nothing, Generac!) I had a "RPM Sensor Loss" message on the control panel. The manual says it could be several things, including a bad battery. After 18 months of weekly "exercise," the battery voltage was OK until the storm. I figured, WTF, if it is the battery, I'd try to jumpstart it. Thank God I had a handheld jumpstarter, and it worked! Without that, I would have been powerless for 5 days with a $17,000 paperweight from Generac! (Thanks for nothing, Generac!) The next day, I called Select Power in Sarasota, and I'm still waiting for a call back. Horrible company. The bottom line for anyone reading this is BUY A KOHLER!
I Was Glad To Read Your Comment And The Comment From @dantesinfernopurgatory7826. We Are Currently In The Process Of Having A 38k Kohler Installed. Learning Of The Issues With Some Generac Generators Had Me Questioning Our Decision.
I lived through 3 hurricanes in south Florida, I was 17 days in Hollywood without power fortunately I purchased a broken-down motorhome with a 12kw Kohler diesel generator that I bought just for the Generator. I had removed the Generator and Built a smally encloser that held it and my two fuel drums, I had everything ready about a week and a half before Andrew came through, Thank God I did. i helped my neighbor power his refrigerator and a couple fans and powered my house. I thought about installing a new Generac in my house and then heard nothing but bad reports from a friend that services them. I'll stick to my 30 yr old unit that works fin/
Well done... About a year ago I installed a transfer switch and I got a salvage Honda EU3000is inverter Generator that I repaired. Recently I installed an interlock kit and bought a Champion 9KW inverter generator that has 240V. With a soft start kit on my A/C, I can run the A/C. I test both generators monthly without fail. I've got probably 4 days worth of gas that I rotate and treat. Living in North Texas we have a lot of spring storms and fall storms as well as a grid that's not the greatest so I wanted to be prepared. No Hurricanes but we do have our share of bad weather. I feel for all of you having to go through all that but other than the Starlink I think I'm as prepared as I can be (famous last words as you know) Great job on the video and good luck!
I live in Alaska and built our house including electrical. I put a sub panel with lights,fridge, freezer and Toyo heater connected to it. A Honda 2000 will power that on less than a gallon of gas in 10 hours. We have a whole house transfer switch I hook a 7.5Kw Champion to that we can remote start with a FOB when we need to run heavy loads like our well pump. We get a few outages most winters some lasting a few days. I have a box that holds both generators so the Honda will keep the Champion warm on the below zero days.
@@Chris_at_Home We don't have the cold problems in Texas that you have (it occasionally does get down to zero here but generally only in the teens, which is cold enough) but I keep my generators in the garage. I've got a 10 circuit transfer switch for the refrigerators, and other 120v necessary circuits. My plan is to use the Honda 3000is for that whenever we don't need A/C. It's super quiet and efficient on the gas. If the situation is such that it's 95-100 degrees and we need A/C, I'll use the larger Champion generator (120v/240v) and the interlock device to power the house. I have redundancy and the situation will dictate whether not I try to power everything or just the necessities.
We bought our 22k Generac, in 2017 so far so good, I service it every June, it comes on every Thursday for 15 minutes and has helped us through 3 power outages. We love it!
Living in FL and dealing with Hurricanes for the past twenty years, here's what we do: 1. We have a natural gas home, with an on-demand Rinnai water heater. The water heater needs 120V and minimal amps. to work, we are also on city water. If I had a well, I would have to make power decisions to accommodate the well. 2. We have a DuroMax tri fuel generator with a NG line plumbed near our electric panel. With the necessary cables and hoses to generate power and distribute it. Check connections for cables, there are two different types. 3. The electric panel has an interlock and a 50-amp plug/breaker available to plug my DuroMax into my panel. 4. We have a new inverter A/C unit that can ramp up required power over time and run from our generator. Before the new A/C unit I had a Micro-Air Easy Start AC Soft starter ($400 and can be installed DIY) installed to our A/C, which does two things. (1) Instead of the A/C capacitor slamming the compressor every time with power on startup it slowly sequentially starts the A/C components in a sequence, prolonging the A/C compressor life. (2) It allows the 4-ton A/C to be run from a portable generator as small as 7500 W - yes, I tested it. The time to set these things up is now, well before the next storm comes. If natural gas is not available in your area, it may be time to start thinking of installing large propane tanks, larger than the 100lbs one in the video. The DuroMax generators are a great purchase for $1500 or less, especially for what they deliver. Can be stored in a dry garage away from FL salt air and humidity, are simple to run compared to a $20k Generac, and are easily serviced.
We basically have this and has got us through Ian, Helene, and Milton (Tampa). Champion trifuel, continuous NG fuel source, gas stove tankless rinnair, etc. running power cables galore, and 2 window AC units. If I get a 50A generator (our champion is 30) will do transfer switch/interlock to feed panel and then run AC with the smart start, etc
My neighbor has the same unit, purchased right before the freeze we had in 2022. When we had Beryl come through this summer, the same thing happened. He ended up coming over to our house, which we ran off our 6500watt portable, no A/C but at least we had some power. His service tech came and said it was the rotor and that they had replaced a bunch of the Generac rotors made after Covid. It’s back up and running, I hear it every Wednesday on its maintenance cycle. Not sure how many hours he had on it but he paid big $ for the maintenance plan, so it’s being taken care of per the schedule. Hopefully Generac can get these issues resolved.
@condor5635 this owner was smart ass. Runs every week for 15 mins. Not under any load. 2 hours under load smoked it from the inside out. And to top it off. Look it up. Major issue. So much so there’s a class action on it. So think before you type.
@ as stated in my reply, it runs every Wednesday, my wife or myself hear it. Funny thing is, he had the yearly service done two weeks before the storm. I know because the truck blocked my driveway and I had to go ask the tech to move so I could back out. Not all failures have to do with poor maintenance as all the keyboard warriors preach. All I know is at 6am when I was setting mine up as the storm was getting crazy, I heard it running, then stop.
Your point about having a backup plan to the backup plan is good. We installed a whole-house 24 kW Generac very similar to yours with an automatic transfer switch. Ours runs on natural gas. Prior to that we had a gasoline fueled Generac 8 kW roll up with a manual transfer switch. I instructed the electrician to leave the manual transfer switch in place as they installed the new 24 kW unit. I’m an electrical engineer with over 45 years of experience in utility grid management. Redundancy is key to having reliable power to your home during a grid outage. If our automatic Generac should fail during a power outage I can easily use our 8 kW roll up generator. I keep around 40 gallons of gasoline on hand for mowing, etc. and fueling the roll up if it should become necessary. We also can access the gasoline in the tank of our jeep by attaching a hose to the fuel rail of the engine and filling gas cans. We live in the country and have a well for our water supply. We are fortunate to have natural gas available to our home. Natural gas service is generally very reliable. BTW - We did have to upgrade our natural gas service meter to handle the whole-house generator. Our whole house generator has been reliable and served us through about 30 hours of outages.
Do you have an estement of the cost of the natural gas used during the power outage ? I have the smaller portable generators and know what they use but have not seen the cost of the fuel of a natural gas gen.
@@ralphmowery2898 One of our longest power outages, about 18 hours, was during a winter ice and snow storm. We have two gas furnaces and a 50 gallon gas water heater. Therefore, I had no direct way to assign a fuel use to the generator. I did some research regarding the fuel use efficiency of these small generators using natural gas. As I recall the bottom line regarding fuel use alone was for each kilowatt-hour equate to an electricity production cost of about $0.45 per kilowatt-hour. This compares to about $0.18 per kilowatt-hour from our utility across a year. So, a little over 2 times the utility cost, but well worth it to have electricity during an outage in my opinion. Hope that’s helpful.
@@RobertReynolds-b9p As out electric power is only slightly less at only 3 times the power bill will not be too much for the comfort for a week or two. Unlike some of the $ 200 or more per day that some are reporting for the very large generators. As I only have propane or gasoline to use here I need to stay with just the smaller gen sets to keep my cost reasonable.
Some areas shut down natural gas when bad storms are coming down South. Quite the shock to learn that as I figured it would be perfect for backup but locals warned me.
@@BLKMGK4 This is the reason I would rather invest in a portable generator that runs on either Diesel, gasoline or propane. My preferences would be Honda, Kubota and if neither of those are available, maybe a Champion. After a tornado we had 13 years ago (August 2011) I remember smelling that sulfur smell they put in gas and propane and they had to shut it down too. This is why I think natural gas standby units may be an exercise in futility. You would be better off using Diesel, gasoline or propane.
Biggest issue to remember if at any point you have a generator powering your home make certain that the main breaker is off, two things if this isn’t done properly you 1 could kill a lineman or 2 if a lineman is restoring power you will burn up your generator or appliances in your home. No im not a licensed electrician just very knowledgeable about electrical work this video is well laid out and totally accurate
@brentschuler2795 this is where transfer switch comes in to play ,you can switch from main line to generator just by flipping the switch and vice versus...transfer switch by Reliable.
22 KW bought in early 2020. It now has 68 hrs on it and recently racked up 32 hrs after Helene. No issues and doesn't really burn any oil. Another key point, if you keep one of those portables, make sure you do a maintenance run once-a-month and put a load on it, like an electric drill or portable lights. The usual problem is they sit for a year and the old gas in the carburetor gets varnished up and then it won't run.
@@stevem6711 I have a 10,000W Duramax 2fuel ,never used gas because of issues you mention I only run propane, easy to store last way longer than gas and won't gum up carburetor now I do store gas and use sta-bil to h e lp stabilize for long storage or for emergency, thanks for sharing👍
We have an older 17kw guardian series from 2010 . I’ve done bi annual maintenance on it . Oil , filters , and plugs and it’s never skipped a beat . I’ve replaced a fuel sensor and a battery . Run your weekly test runs and you’ll be ok. We live in the hurricane prone NC and have used it for days on end with no hiccups .
We purchased 2 Champion Generators 3 years ago and when we have a power outages We start the small Champion which is only 2500 and next the 5000 Champion. They won't run the Heat or A/C but with several extra fans and in the winter we have 3 portable electric heaters. They kept us warm in the winter and fairly cool in the hot summer. 2 of our neighbors had Generac that cost them over $10,000 and have failed. This past summer we had 3 days with electrical due to a tree knocking down a main power line. Our portable Champion generators never failed!!!
Thanks for sharing your story on here. I think this thread will be an excellent PSA of real world users and perhaps a wake up call to generac to make shit better and stop packing in so much tech into things that folks depend on in life and death situations.
Wish I could afford a whole house generator. We are poor and can only afford a 5kw Baldor generator. It got my family and the neighbor through 5 days of no power. We have a pull start generator and I manually load and unload using the breakers in the breaker box. We are in the woods with a well for water but no natural gas. We had hot water, lights, internet and small 120v appliances. We shut all down while sleeping. I did get up in the middle of the night and ran generator for 30 minutes to ensure refrigerator temperatures remained safe. I wired the break before make wiring and cable myself. We have the required manual interlock on the utility incoming breaker and generator feed as specified in the codes. We used less than 10 gallons of gasoline in each 24 hour period. I do several runs and loads each year to ensure my generator works. I don’t keep ethanol gas in the tank and always use Stable in the gasoline. This is just to show that you don’t have to be wealthy to provide for your family when disaster strikes. There are viable options if you plan.
Even a 3000 watt generator is a life saving investment. Happy to hear that you were able to at least get by. A big tip.. The old school electric blankets draw very little power, and in a deep freeze like we had in Texas, using these with your generator can be a life saver.
I have an IPOWER genny 2000 watts. Runs 8 hours on one gallon of gas. Start it every month. Did have a carb blockage and they sent me a new one free-out of watrrnty. QUIEST on at 53db.
@@DanThomas-n1e Even a 2000 watt generator will run a typical home gas furnace. Many people are buying big backup batteries, but these are hugely expensive, and will only run a house for maybe a day, less in hot months. I am building a new home, and this time, I am putting in a 13kw natural gas generator. I am beginning to worry about rolling blackouts in Texas.
@@shenmisheshou7002 I have 2000 watts of solar any my elec bills are 80 a month in the summer. I see LA its more like 800 a month. BUT THEY ARE SAVING THE EARTH!!!
Use ethanol shield if u do...u can also use seafoam in place of stabil.. Seafoam does it better and works in diesel and gas but ethanol shield has great review from chicanic. And testing...very good stuff..
I’ve always kept a Gen set ready. You’re right, the pre-work is critical. I put in an exterior power port, a transfer switch from main service to port, and a sub-panel that feeds only the critical systems. The middle of a storm is no time to be taking your main panel apart.
We are in Florida, Milton was hard being without power right now. we're on the 6th day without power. My husband got us running off of 6800 old school generator have been considering a Generac. or Kohler 20k. Thank you sharing.
We have a 13.5 Kw Duro Max duel fuel generator that we use for power outages and have been very happy with it. Put a soft start on our 4 ton heat pump and can run it with no problems, it’s hard on the generator without the soft start though. Glad you and family pulled through this disaster.
Sorry to hear of your problems. I've been running a Generac 12KW generator for about 20 years with no problems. Four years ago I upgraded to a 16KW. Here in Northern CA, we are prone to power outages lasting a day to weeks due to fires or snow. Not one problem with either.
For all the people that are questioning if the homeowner did all the necessary maintenance; there are many videos just like this one regarding the failure of Generac generators.
The problem with this comment, and I'm NOT being critical of the comment at all, I appreciate this viewers opinion. However, I'm certain there are many, many more Generac customers out there that are 100% happy and satisfied with their purchase and the service they have received from their unit, and Generac, that we will never hear from because not everyone views and/or posts videos on TH-cam, nor does everyone post comments, be they positive or negative. The part "there are many videos just like this one regarding the failure of Generac generators" is and can be somewhat misleading to viewers. I'm a prime example of that. I don't post videos, nor do I comment very often but I watch A LOT of TH-cam videos. I've been researching whole house generator units for at least 6 months. The main players in this space are Generac, Cummings and Kohler. I'm leaning toward Generac. The major reason is SERVICE, which many people overlook. Our nearest Generac dealer is 20 minutes away, the others, 2 to 3 hours, they don't travel for free. Those numbers mean something and have value, at least to me. I have a brother in Georgia who has had this same unit for a little over 2 years, very satisfied after numerous outages, but he doesn't post any videos or comment, ever, on TH-cam, although he does watch videos, so no one has benefit of his satisfaction opinion. Bottom line .... do your research carefully and don't rely solely on TH-cam videos as your sole source of information on which to base your purchasing decision.
He claims only 2 hours of run time so it's not a neglected maintenance issue. Reading in the comments it does seem like he's got a real warranty problem. BTW, I worked near 25 years for a large dealer and 90% of issues on newer units go back to an installation problem.... either wiring, fuel, or location / clearance. Electricians can wire them but they don't know anything about fuel or other mechanical stuff. This is where going through a dealer is your best bet.
@@rupe53 And this is the reason I would invest money into a good Honda generator. These things are used daily for at least 8 hours a day on construction sites, both the inverter and open frame units. That should tell you there why you would invest in something like that. Generac may be a recognized name in the industry but may not be what it used to be before Briggs briefly owned it. All I can say is, I have a Honda commercial mower, had Honda power equipment since I was 8 and all I can say is that will be my next generator. Another place to look is also at a Kubota diesel generator as those things are of industrial quality as well.
@@WJCTechyman I recognize the quality of Honda gear but it's not comparing apples to apples. Honda does NOT make a standby unit and fully automatic units stand by themselves for different reasons. Yes, B&S was in bed with Generac for a few years and in that time they also shared some similarities. (we sold both) I can safely say we never had an engine problem with a B&S. The flip side is about 50% of their 20Kw air cooled units burned out the electrical end after only a few years. They also had a chronic problem with a temp sensor telling the control it was overheating and randomly shutting things down. The interesting thing was all the B&S units from 12 Kw (air cooled) through 45 Kw (liquid cooled) used the same control board. As for diesels, they are usually 50% more money for similar features and even though they may last more engine hours total, there are some things the average DIY guy can't service.
I currently have no generator, rode out Helene and Milton. We've converted our mobile home to all electric everything, leaving the old propane tank in the backyard just sitting. I was all on board for a Generac whole house system, however this video changes my mind. Definitely going to hire an electrician, have a solid wood framed shed with ventilation I can store/use a generator in safely. I may have to ration power as you did but the central AC is a must, along with the refrigerator.
I am in Valdosta. I was also hit by Helene. Waited a year in a half on a waiting list for a Generac. But after Helene I was tired of waiting and bought a 28000 peak Westinghouse portable generator. Over 600 pounds. Will never have to worry about power again.
I maintain an old Generac at my parents house. It is a 2005 model 15kw and still runs great today. I also maintain 3 Generac 22kw models at my home and in-laws. They must be installed correctly and maintained properly.
Maintenance and weekly test runs are crucial for generacs . People think it’s going to run fine after sitting there for two years . 90% of the problems can be alleviated by the weekly test runs . They are machines and meant to be run . It’s amazing how many people give you a blank stare when you ask if they run weekly tests .
Part of that maintenance includes performing a power -off test of the SYSTEM. The little air cooled unit have dumb switches (ATS) that are controlled by the generator controller, you also need to make sure the automatic transfer switch operates properly. Ideally, a few days BEFORE the projected storm rolls in.
@@bobbygene8274 Just pull the plug with the sense wires and see if she performs! It really is simple. Most owners just do not know. They also need to know how to manually flip the ATS.
This storm season has changed how many families are setting up for future outages for sure. In South Carolina we lost power for 5 days. We bought a briggs 5500 back in 2000 and it may have got used 3 times in 24 years. But can’t run a whole house off it. But we were one of the first houses with generator power when the power went out. Now I would say 7 out of 10 families locally own a generator. I too just bought a duramax 13000HX, but I am keep my original briggs generator as a backup.
I have 2 of that exact duramax generators. I have the 50 amp interlock system also. In June I got a couple of 40 lb propane tanks for the generator and 6 5 gallon cans of gas with fuel additive in them also. I have a trane high efficiency AC unit that starts up with hardly any amps so that duramax 1300 powers that plus fridge and all lighting in the house. Got me thru Milton for 3 days no problem. Also make sure you top off your car and get an electric fuel siphon in case you have to draw gas from your car. The 2nd Duramax is just a backup in case one of them doesn’t start. I am like you and always have plan B.
Good luck getting gas out a car as most have a rollover valve in the filler neck these days, which means you can't get a hose into the tank. If you do get a hose in there you risk getting it stuck.
Just came across your video here. I live where Helene hit here in North Eastern Tennessee. Literally 2 weeks before we got hit with no grid, we had saved enough money to pay an electrician that wired and installed a 30amp connector to our side of the house breaker box. The timing was incredible. We had water from our well, we had 240 volt power that ran our 2300 sq ft home from a single gas powered 6500 watt harbor freight 400 plus dollar preditor generator. Awesome! The electrician did take from our cash flow savings, under 2 k to wire the house and our well house. All I can say, thank God for His wisdom to my family for prepping without knowing what soon was going to hit us. I hope your video can warn people to not risk their lives due to last minute frantic decisions. Prep, prepare and do not go into debt...
I bought the 18kw Generac 2 1/2 years ago, and it runs every Monday for 20 mins. I live where it's still flooded in Hernando county and mine ran 69 hours straight during Hurricane Milton, and 28 with Helene. I did shut it down about 9 hours the last night to check oil and give it a break. Sorry you are having those issue's.
I have an old generact.That's rusted all the way down to the concrete...China Steel ?? Always blowing the glass fuse, 30 hours on it ? I invested it in a Lincoln gas welder , which has works really good for me over the years.Its a tool it will always hold it value ! It's. Noisy, it will always start . keep the battery disconnected when you're not using it.stable in the Gas.Thanks for the heads up on the icing up LP .
Find a large container that the tank will fit in and fill with water. That will stop your tank from icing up. Also don't waste your money on a battery, buy a jump start unit instead
After Milton I finally decided to spend some money and get prepared for next season. I bought a duel fuel generator and purchased a 40lb propane tank. I'll be picking up another one later and my manual said the max is 40lb. At my age I don't think i can handle anymore weight than the 40lb. My electrician is going to install the interlock system in a couple of weeks. Thank you for sharing your story.
I have 18 000 watt portable Generac which runs on propane. I have it permanently mounted on pad with roof. I run it 15 minutes every month. Change oil after 65 hours running. Battery start. Electrician wired what I need, not whole house. 6 years old. Has runs continuously for 38 to 90 hours about three times since owning it. No problems yet.
That is insane!!! After spending that kind of money, it SHOULD NOT have failed you. I don't care what people say, I can tell you did everything right. The point is, you purchased their product, you took care of it, and it failed you when you needed it! Plain and simple. Thanks for the warning, I will be looking at getting me a 6500-watt inverter-generator for my family. Hurricane Helene took us down for 6 days up here in the NC foothills and it sucked.
Thank you my friend, this was the feeling I had when it all happened and hence the video. I am not asking for a penny back, i will own the fuck up. I just need to have the right protocols in place that work. This garbage can isnt the ticket. It is a toy
Definitely please keep us upto date on this. I just place a call for an estimate just before seeing your video to get a whole generac installed. Stay safe, also in Tampa.
Brushes were eaten. If you’re going to have anyone in Tampa do it. Call Angel at guardian because service is more important than the sales process he owns the company. (727) 853-4271 tell him you saw this video.
In an emergency, the first person that knocks at your door will be Mr. Murphy, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. To get around this in good weather turn your power off and test the system for 24 to 36 hours. A stress test will bring out major problems. It’s also a good idea to have a small generator as a back up. I like the Honda EU 2200 with a 6 gallon extended run fuel tank. Can run 24/7 for a few days powering lights, refrigerator,internet etc.
Been there/done that (Hurricanes Andrew, Irma, Charley), but just wanted to comment a BIG THANK YOU for this video. You no doubt, have helped multiple people from going through what you and I have.
Did your installers upsize your natural gas meter and pipes to your whole house generator to handle the increase in natural gas flow a whole house generator requires? If there is not ample gas flow, the generator is fuel starved and will not run at the correct RPM's to produce the correct voltage/ frequency and shut down. Also did the installers check the gas pressure supplied because there is also require a minimum gas pressure needed to run correctly. All this information is in the owner's manual. Just curious if this was checked or brought to you attention by the installers.
Yes. This was a major to-do when the house was built new to code in 2022. We had to wait for 2 weeks for the gas company to install the LP system sized to the generac’s demand.
@kens.3729 Home Depot didn’t install it. My licensed electrician who wired my entire new construction house in 2022 wired it. Load tested it 3 times and the county tested it prior to signing off on the electrical and generator permit that must be issued when you build here in Tampa FL
That doesn't matter. Generac can't make a good natural gas generator. We had an industrial Natural Gas generator that Generac could NEVER get starting properly for the 10 years we had it.
Great video thank uou for posting also here in SWFL for my guest home. I installed the a 30amp inlet with a interlock. I have the cord prementally mounted in waterproof box the other end is ran into a storage room. For easy connections. Generator is a UST 7500 from walmart back jn 2014. Other than basic stuff i have had zero issues. Regular testing oil, draining the fuel, fuel filter lines. Again my guest home is 650sf with Mini Split 12kbtu 21.1 seer. Led lights so it dont require alot of power. 10 years this has worked prefectly. We also have to the same setup on the main house 30amp 9500watt generator to keep the lights on and well pump. And ac . I think we learn from every storm. We was talking about upgrading to thar same unit but after many videos you video made me say no. Why change sonething that has worked for 10+years.. 800-1000 to replace generator if needed i cant justify 12k+. I also have a 500 watt solar battery system befor each storm i sinpmy remove than panel wait for storm to pass that way way i always have power its a basic and cheap system used only with led light strips and a 1200 watt ac inverter runs rhe tv and keeps all phones charged. I am going to look into the starlink great video
I'm currently out of power from Milton and was researching generators thanks for the video was considering whole home vs portable thanks for saving me the trouble
Living within a mile of the Atlantic Ocean, we experienced a lot of power outages. I bought a (small) trailer mounted 15 KW gen set that ran of of my tractor's power take off drive. I wired alll of my important stuff into a manual 100 amp disconnect, and then to a 100 amp subpanel for: (water pump, a lighting circuit for each room, two A/C heat pumps and gas fired furnace -for winter ice storm outages- and my able modem router and computer desk, I also wired my detached garage into the sub panel so I could have some light in the garage if needed. I could only rung 1 of the a/c systems-either master bedroom suite, or rest of the house at a time unless I shut off everything else. I hard wired a 15 foot run of COPPER 4 AWG 3 wire + ground cable -$10.00/ft in 2020- into a 100 switch rated breaker that fed int to the GEN side of the transfer switch, and a HD twist lock plug for the gen. I kept a 500 gal. tank of diesel at least half full all the time. I could run 24 hours at FULL load on18 gal of diesel of course I mostly ran at 50% load..
I have 4 - 22KW generac's. Two @ my house, One in Florida, One @ my business. All work fine. They auto test each week. Yearly maintenance on each. One issue is on long run times they did run out of oil over 2 days. After a lot research I found out that running a load stress them to seat rings in engine helped solve oil issue. Done by a professional with a load bank.
An emergency power generator is for an emergency. My wife and I have gone through a few hurricanes and managed to get through a few days with a small power generator running extension cords. Each one of us has experienced enough what are the basic things we need to get through until power is restored and this works for us. Watching your video confirms that we’ve had it right all along thus far. I am going to get another generator and larger bottles of propane to get me through the “emergency” period. Thank you for sharing by your ordeal.
Speaking of network and internet, I am located in polk county FL and have a blue stream fiber connection. I was very impressed the network stayed up through the storm. The fiber lines are underground, and the J boxes are not powered. I think as long as they have the main node downtown powered we are all good! Previous storms on coax service network had huge down time.
Yeah, but when fibre gets damaged, then what? Besides, the crappy ribbon fibre the land line companies (like Bell Canada, AT&T and Verizon) use for fibre to the home need repeaters anyway, which are electrically powered. It's easier to fix coax connections than re-splicing cheap ribbon fibre for repairs. Also, that fibre also needs something to turn it back into coax or Ethernet in your home that usually requires power anyway. Also, not all fibre is buried beneath the surface, some of it rides up on utility poles as well. Coax is pretty resilient stuff as I accidentally mangled our coax drop in my roto-tiller one Spring and with the dielectric and braid being breached, I was still able to connect to the Internet and able to make a call on that coax to our cable company to get it repaired. To me fibre is a big gimmick and the coaxial cables that cable TV companies have been using for 20+ years hold up. Besides, our company has fibre to the community. It's the industrial glass stuff, not the poly or low-grade stuff that the others use to the home.
Bought a 13k Generac in 2019 and my area gets about 3-4 outages per year (often well over a day) - never had a failure. Thing has been a tank, great investment.
Around 2014, after Hurricane Sandy........we got a 12kw Briggs. It can power about half the house.... the most important stuff. It does its job just fine fortunately. I change the oil/filter, each year... and I did have to replace the battery once so far. I don't consider the battery to be a failure. The generator does an "exercise" cycle weekly.... and I actually plan to be near it when it does, so I can hear the startup. When the startup sounded labored, I got the battery ordered. We've avoided basement floods, and spoiled food as a result of owning the standby generator.
My brother my heart goes out to you guys who are going through this problem. I went through the same situation in a storm myself. I’m also not an electrician. But I became aware of all I need to hook a generator up to my house. Keep in mind if you use ethanol gas you have to be careful with the gas generator. Because ethanol gas ⛽️ kill gas generators. I use non ethanol. Be careful be safe and God bless you guys. Get everything ready early and research before you buy anything.
Nitpicking, on 20:47, you showed and recommended SAE 30 weight motor oil, it's actually recommended by Generac and Duromax to use 10W30 motor oil. Today's overhead valves air cool engine uses multi weight. There are recommendations of using SAE 30 but that is for flat head air cool engine and basically old school engines.
30w oil is the correct choice based on his location, which is Florida. Multigrade oils are for varying climate conditions which are only experienced in extreme northern Florida. Oil provides most of the cooling of an air cooled engine so having a quality thick oil is important in 90+ temperatures.
Thanks for the heads up. I have same unit here in Michigan, gets used about 5 times a year, runs whole house like you. So far no issues, but I do have another portable like you that I can feed house with if the Generac fails like you. I installed a code approved hook up for the portable to run house if needed.
We use a portable 12k generator & have a backup 7k generator. We have a 50 amp inlet box & a 30 amp inlet box. Absolutely correct to keep the main breaker off & put tape with a note on the main breaker. Great video - thx
First off, I pray your family and neighbors are OK and recovering quickly. This was great information and it has me rethinking my current secondary plans. We have a 24kw Generac, on propane. We had it installed in 2019 when our home was built (upper NW VA). We purchased it through a local Generac authorized contractor/installer and have it serviced annually by them. Like you we have well and septic so we have a 400 amp service and a similar switch panel setup. When we first moved in power reliability was poor so the generator kicked in frequently for several hours at a time. The longest run was 20 hours. No issues other than the power lag when the AC kicks in. Still working to mitigate that. I have been considering a backup portable generator and having the required connection setup installed.
Same story here. My 24kw Generac had the same issue after 5 1/2 hrs. It had a complete failure of the rotor, stator, slip rings and the brushes. Took 4 months to get fixed under warranty. I suggest for all new Generac owners to run their unit for at least 25 hrs to see if they got one of the bad ones too. Let it fail before you need it! My service rep said he’s sees big failures with the other brands too.
As a generator service tech for more than 15 years, yes other brands have failures also. But when it comes down to it, seems to me, I work on more generacs than any other unit out there-for oddball stuff. Part of that is because there are more of them out there than any other unit, but part of it is also a quality issue. Generac in general is a decent machine, over all. But, it just seems that Generac just doesn't have the quality it used to, and in fairness others don't either, but I have not had ANY other brand, all of them combined (Kohler, B&S, GE, Cummins, (ONAN), Taylor, Cat, etc.) that would compete with the amount of "random" failure of major components. I can't explain it.
I replaced a 2007 16kW Generac with a 22kW 2022 model. So far it’s been great. I’m in Sumter county. We lost power for 3-1/2 days. I also have a smaller 5.5kW gas powered PowerBoss. I connected the small one the same you did, a breaker on the main panel. I turned off the main feed breaker of course. When I start the small one, the Generac senses it and shuts down.
First, I hope you and your family are OK and getting as back to normal as possible. I do have a question for you though. You said the generic went though all it's maintenance runs, did you also do failover testing? Is there a recommended schedule for failover testing? I hear your point about the unit not working when you most needed it most, and I don't want to detract from the frustration you feel. I you did everything you could for your family, and you should be proud of getting through all of this. My question is, now that you know the stator is failing, I'm wondering if that is a defective unit and can be replaced under warranty so it does work the next time you need it, and would failover testing have indicated there was a problem?
Yes. I recently purchased the DuroMax 13000 dual fuel. Installed the transfer/ lock out and wall inlet .. so far I am satisfied with the performance thank you for your video
Its much cheaper to get a transfer switch installed that will allow you to connect a traditional generator. Its not as convenient, but it gives you more options in a power outage. If one generator fails, you can connect another one. Hope this helps.
Yes, and with how everything is built these days, just wheel the old $400 generator to the curb (some junk collector will pick it up) and pick up a new one. Often you can actually buy one in the days after a hurricane. They’re a cheap commodity like window ac’s. Btw, every home should have a spare 5,000 btu unit. If you see one at a yard sale for $20, buy it. $50, maybe. At $75 I’d buy a new one for under $150.
Thanks so much for video and comments. I am so sorry you and so many more were hurt and many continue to suffer from Milton and Helene and Debby. You did your best to prepare and then quickly adapted after what should have been a dependable backup generator. I have two portable generators, one is an inverter type 2KW. It is 8 years old. The other is an open frame 5KW 35 year old generator with a Tecumseh engine. Both have been used in numerous power outages. Your point on oil change frequency is a critical one. Yes, as frequent as 24 hours of run time or even less. I have 14 quarts of oil on hand, plus basic spare parts for each generator. Each is started about every 6 months and stored in a clean and dry area where mice can't nest in the generator head or on the engine. Gasoline is drained from the tanks, and the carbs are run dry to help prevent carb problems. Both generators have their original carbs. I keep on hand as many do- carb cleaner, starting fluid, Stabil Techron, and Marvel Mystery Oil. I use a Mr. Funnel filter unit when adding gas. This filter can also remove water from gasoline. Most of the problems in using small generators for more than 60 years relate to carbs, bad fuel, and too infrequent oil changes. Keep the generator instructions handy. The best generators I found for emergency use were Onan water cooled. Their air cooled were well made too. Onan was purchased by Cummins. I have heard good reports on the Cummins Power Generation water cooled units. Kohler generators were good performers. The Onan generators were used in disaster response efforts and I do not remember ever having one fail us. The water cooled units ran at 1800 RPM so were much quieter. Your efforts to protect your family and others are fantastic. I wish you well in your recovery as I do all who are trying to get back to some kind of normal. So pleased to hear you had a licensed electrician as a neighbor. Take care and be safe.
Great video and the passion for keeping your family safe is amazing. Question, since you have a 200lb inground LPG tank - was it too difficult to plumb the DuroMax XP13000DX directly into that tank?
Glad you and yours made it through safely. I appreciate your input on this... I've hesitated buying a whole house generator because of all the issues people are reporting and the ridiculous cost. My neighbor put one in a few years ago and it has failed at least twice since then. I've waited, thinking they would work out the quirks, but it doesn't look like it. Please let us know what the resolution was for the current Generac Issue. Be safe!
Sorry to hear. It should easily be covered under warranty. Fortunately, my 2018 Generac 20kw has served me well here in south Florida for the past 6 years. If a storm is in the forecast, I like to turn off utility power and test the generator's abilities. This is because the automatic weekly tests never put the generator under a "load"...they only cycle the engine. I hope your issue is resolved in a timely matter.
Neighbor’s new 22kw generac generator put a rod thru the block after 24hrs of continued use during the aftermath of Helene…come to find out generac recommends turning off the unit for period of time….not made for continuous use..
@@joetrippi1603 the "period of time" is long enough to check the oil and see if the run time on the clock requires any other maintenance. Just remember that 24 hours is the same as driving your car from Boston to Miami without a stop to check anything. Who does that?
The caution for connecting the auxiliary generator is good for everyone. Having back up fuel ready is also very important. We maintain 27 gal of gas on standby all year around for our Firman 3600W inverter. The interesting part for me will be the Generac repair of the 24kw unit. Is it just the Generac Pannel on the generator or the crank sensor? When my mom's generic was struck by lightning(5 years ago), it blew out the generator panel, and destroyed the battery. After replacing the panel and the battery, the unit survived. The unit is now 15 years old and still runs fine. Generac has millions of standby generators so the odds of getting a bad one are like owning a Ford F150. Many age fine, but every once in a while, you have an issue. Since you are under a year, replacement might be a good option if this is the one in many that is a problem. Good luck.
@@Archifx My gas storage is pretty simple. I have 3- 5 gallon Metal Eagle cans and 2- 6 gallon poly cans.(I am converting to metal Eagle cans slowly). For storage, I go to a gas station that has non ethanol fuel (It's Premium non-ethanol). I add Stabil to the fuel cans, pump 2 gallons into the car to clean the pump and hose, then fill the gas cans. The fuel will sit for 6 months and every March and September, that canned gas is put into a car, and the cans are stabilized and refilled. The only turn over during the non use period might be some gas for the push lawn mower/chain saw, but those have their own 2 gal cans. All gas for use is stabilized and every machine run dry at the end of the season. The generators are held in long term storage mode until needed(process is in the generator manual). Mom's Generac is a 14 kw unit (2011), connected to a 100 gal propane tank. That is 3 days of full time running at full load. No AC needed in upstate NY. I am thinking of adding another 100gal tank because mom is 86.
We have a 20k generac whole house generator with a 500 gallon buried propane tank. Purchased it in 2014. (11yrs ago). My friend, who was an electrician, installed it along with some sort of a switch over panel, which we ordered with it. The unit exercises once a week for 15 minutes. I believe I had the oil and filter changed three or four times since I’ve had it. The spark plugs were changed I believe two times at most. The only problem I ever had with the unit was about four years ago it started running at a very high RPM. I called a generator repair shop, they came over checked it out, ordered a part, and three or four days later they installed the part. … and that solve the problem. I am happy to say that the unit has worked flawlessly ever since. I am sorry to say, but it appears to me that your unit was a lemon like many later models turned out to be. I would be interested in knowing whether or not your unit was finally repaired by Generac … and under the warranty.
This is an excellent informational video! Everyone thinks that they are ready until they are not. It’s wise to have a backup to the backup. Thanks again for the excellent tips and reminders!
I have had my Generac whole house generator for over 10 years and I just recently purchased the extended warranty for another 10 years. I have never ever had a problem with it. I have a company that comes out and services it for me every January. I am very, very happy with my Generac generator.
My dad had a Generac. It had 2 problems. First was some genius decided steel cases in Florida was a good idea. It rusted away in less than 5 years. They do have aluminum cases. The generac service guys replaced the rusted case with an aluminum case. The other problem is during the weekly self test the battery would occasionally explode. It happened 3 times. Diluting the acid with baking soda and washing it down got annoying. Other than that it was a good unit and ran weeks at a time on occasion
All Generac units have an aluminum cabinet these days. BTW, as a 25 years tech, I have seen that battery problem. Hopefully someone replaced the voltage regulator. Oh, our dealer has over 6,000 customers so I have seen just about every problem you can think of, over the years. Most of them are trouble free if maintained well.
@@rupe53 I think he bought it in 2005. He passed in 2018 and the generator stayed with the house of course. Besides the exploding battery it ran flawless. It would start up every week for it's 15 minutes like clockwork. Wish I knew about the voltage regulator when he was alive.
@@FauxQue-yk8dt I misspoke. Not the VR but the battery charger. (air cooled set I presume) I saw it only a few times but each one was the same situation where a new battery was being cooked dry so the gassing inside the cabinet (hydrogen gas) could be set off by the starter motor cranking it up. You'd only catch the over voltage problem if you watched a meter for like 10 - 15 minutes. I'd go do my paperwork and double check them after doing repairs. In each case the charger was VERY hot VERY quick.
@@rupe53 I have a 22KW installed in 21. After a year I got an RPM error message on the weekly exercise. My dealer actually called me to let me know as I pay for monitoring. I did manage to manually start it again. They replaced the starter. Generac issued a bulletin when this happens from heat (I'm in Florida) to replace the starter. It's been flawless since. I had a load shed board go out. I bypassed it and they came out with an updated blue board. My question is have you seen this low RPM starter issue?
@@scotts4125 I retired just as Covid hit so early 2020. I have seen the load shed module go out from a lightning strike and have seen low starter RPM on a hot restart but most of the time the codes are open to interpretation. IOW, you can get the same code for a "fail to start", meaning it cranks but never comes up to speed. (or no crank at all) I have seen gas issues, poor connections, and even the throttle body / air mixer as the cause. I replaced VERY few starters, because it was usually a bad connection at the battery cable at the starter assembly. Just tighten and done. BTW, we also did remote unit monitoring.
I run my 8kW/10kW on parallel 100lb tanks. You will never see an icing problem if you do this. ETA: Also, if you put a soft start on your HVAC, even a smaller gen will run it. The inrush is what kills it, the soft start drops the inrush dramatically
@@Captainpaulbtyhtr Tried to run my 4 ton heat pump with a 13KW Predator generator. Had to run full manual power to get the A/C to start. Put on the Micro Air soft start, and now the generator runs in auto mode and the A/C fires up when needed. That Soft Start really did the trick.
@@dn4816W Since it's an emergency situation, it may be better to have designated emergency common areas with a simple portable or window unit for that space so having the family all sleeping in one room would save significantly on energy. The same could be said for a living room. This is something to consider as investing in an 8-10 kW is quite pricey and if you can do it with a 5-6 kW unit may be easier as well as saving on fuel during times when trampling and fist fighting for fuel can be common.
I have a 20kW Generac whole house generator since 2014. Never had any problems with it on the few moments I've lost power that some times were over a few hours. The only issue I had with the generator wasn't the generator itself. Discovered the 12V battery was shot and had to replace it. I've done the oil/filter changes and that's it. Generator runs once a week for 15 minutes on schedule. There was an issue with a manifold that Generac identified about three years ago. Initially the generator had to be inspected to see if the manifold was affected by the defect and if it wasn't affected, I was out the inspection fee for the tech. But Generac changed their policy and just covered everyone. So I had the manifold replaced for free. Other than that, my install has two load centers included for the A/C and dryer. The electrician ran a full load test with both of those things running while on generator power and the generator handled it without issue. A comment was made about needing to possibly upgrade the gas meter. My install required it as I have a bunch of things running on natural gas: 3 fireplaces, furnace, hot water heater, and stove/range. A dedicated gas line was installed from the meter to the generator. ETA: 115 run time hours on my generator.
I am a qualified motor mechanic and a registered electrician and I had a business involving construction and leasing of gensets on trucks for films and tv. One of the major problems with off the shelf gensets is most sales people don't have a clue, don't care, just wanna pocket your dosh. I laugh when I hear people lauding on about gensets, using speech and concepts I know have been mercilessly told to them by a salesman who knows how to get your money into his pocket. People think he knows what he is talking about and hang on his words, using them to anthropomorphize it's characteristics in an attempt to anticipate an understanding of its conduct and usage. It is a machine and will work perfectly if it is placed in the correct environment that it and all of its systems have been designed to operate in. With your particular genset, I would suspect that it is too small to run your installation. OK so the smaller ones will run less load reliably most likely because they do not have the extensive self monitoring protection of the 24. Please update on the dealers diagnosis and repair of your machine.
I put in a 24kw in dec of 22 and it has been a beast. Has ran over 100hrs this year getting me through severe storms and a huricane. Have the 10 year warranty and so far no issues
@@Archifx be aware that the tank will float and still possibly freeze above the water line, but the water will buy you some time. BTW, the problem is actually lack of "vapor pressure" (that's what it's called) due to the small size of those tanks. There's a chart available to tell you the max rate of use based on tank size and it's obvious that you are going beyond that point. Even that 100 pound tank is marginal for the max rate on the 13Kw gen set. (marginal if the temp is below 70 degrees outside)
You learn so much when you experience a total infrastructure collapse. Thank you for sharing “lessons learned”. I had no idea the propane tanks would ice up in warm weather! Thanks for the heads up on that. I like the idea of having multiple generators in the mix. For small loads, the lower wattage inverter generators are fine. Bigger generator for well pump and high loads as needed. You have to match the generator to the load……otherwise you are burning a ton of fuel running the large generator all day when you don’t need that capacity. Other idea is to get some marine batteries and inverters run smaller loads. Get 12 volt battery chargers to recharge batteries. Also have a couple 100 watt solar panels. I call this a distributed power solution. No one is coming to help you! Get prepared!
My father-in-law has a generac and when he looses powers my guess would be 50/50 if it will come on, when we decided to get one the company we talked to said most of they’re service calls during bad weather is these Generacs, the company guy worked for said they stopped recommending them, they had moved to Cummings. We’ve had them install one of the Cummings and have had it save us half dozen times and never issue
We bought a propane fed 18k Generac whole-house generator when we built the house in 2008. The only trouble we've had with it is an over-crank problem from time to time. It has saved us during several short and long duration power outages. It's been a good investment for us.
This video and your experience has taught me several things. I need a 100 pound container of Propane! Also have a back up for your backup. 1 is none, 2 is one and 3 is better. I panic purchased a tri fuel generator after hurricane Berly! Then my friends and family complained I should have got a Honda. I now have 3 gas generators. I went 8 days without power, never again.
I had one installed in 2020, whole house 22K on NG and it's runs like a champ, no problems. I also got a free 10 year warranty with mine that Genrac offered for a short time as a special deal. Genrac is a great generator.
We are all goin through it. This sucks so bad. I went Westinghouse 7500 for $650 and 10 baby bottles. My wife would get mad evertime I would bring home a new tank. How you like me NOW Wifey!!!!??? Drinking freezing cold wine and doing your makeup before work (not in that order)
Im not sure if you ever load tested your generator prior to this storm or not. I have had my standby for a few years now with no issues. I periodically test run it under a load. I switch off the breaker at the transfer switch and turn on everything in my home. This will determine if you can all or some of the things you may need during a outage. I bought the 24kw which is oversized for my home. I can run everything without much strain on my generator. I also check the oil more frequently than recommended and keep extra oil and filters incase i have to run for long periods of time. We live on the Texas gulf coast and are very familiar with the destruction of hurricanes. We learned from experience the tricks needed to survive during emergency situations. I hope this helps someone
@Archifx i will also say that the battery terminals on the generators are horrible and cheap. The corrode alot. I recommend cutting them off and replacing them with something more heavy duty. I just replace my battery and noticed how bad the terminals were. I cut and rewired the terminals myself in about 10 minutes.
Proper planning and installation will help ensure long life. Ours included the maintenance plan and they're out twice a year. They've replaced battery and two other components over the years even though it was working. We go to backup power 10+ times a year.. I selected a large Generac dealer that was outside of our area but served our area with fully stocked truck. Reason behind this is if I picked a local electrician and we got hit with a cat5 they would be in the same boat.. We still have a old cord system for our Honda3000
Kohler. I did 100 hours of research on every residential generator made, and Kohler was the clear choice for my use case. Went with the new 26KW-RCAL purchased a year ago. Connects to one 200-amp panel and one 100-amp panel. Load calc was 110-amps total (there are 50-amp hot tub, 50-amp workshop, 30-amp clothes dryer, and 30-amp range that aren't used (I installed a gas dryer and range). Running on natural gas it only outputs 24KW, but that's sufficient. If i decide to get a hot tub, turn on the workshop, or add circuits such as a 50-amp EV charger, I'll install a load shed kit. Weekly Full Load Tests are scheduled (not just the basic no-load test). There's not enough space here to explain why Kohler Whole Home Generators are superior to every other similar sized and priced option out there. PS, I did the install with an electrician's assistance (because of the dual panel setup which is way more complicated than the Generac, but worth it because Kohler does it right). Hope that helps.
Also, use non ethanol gas only if possible and run it dry after shutting the fuel off. Put a fuel shut off on it if yours doesn't have one. Then drain the gas out of it, and clear the bowl for storage.
Many Generac units not producing power can be repaired with the insallation of a Field Boost Upfit Kit. My particular 13k model used part number 0H07850SRV. A/C units and generators will be greatly benefitted with the installation of a soft start to the A/C condensor unit.
that kit only fits two specific air cooled units of that era. (13 & 15 KW?) It also only solves one particular problem, which was a weak field boost at start up. (flashing overspeed light) Most of those units are water under the bridge and nearing the end of life. I installed many of those kits in my day.
Sorry to hear of your troubles. It sucks and greatly increases the stress levels when you expect to depend on something that is expensive and essentially new and have it fail yet it's happy to pass weekly exercise tests. Glad your neighbor is an electrician. I live in south Louisiana (hurricane prone) and I have a Generac 38KW 1800 rpm liquid cooled propane quiet source unit I bought and had installed new a couple years ago. So far it has worked just fine on weekly exercise but has only 4 hours actual loaded outage time on it. I'm not sure I fully trust it if needed 24/7 for a week or so as it has not been really proven. I did have a 50amp portable generator receptacle box installed and a cord that I can use to connect my 12kw portable into the panel if the whole house generator fails. It can run the necessary essentials and well pump, lights but it runs on that unobtainable after hurricane stuff called gasoline.
Propane. If your generator is powered by a Honda or Honda clone a tri-fuel carb is like 30 bucks on Amazon and propane lasts until the tank rusts out. Propane is easy to find before and after a storm and no gummed up carburetor.
@@elviraraff6809 Agree. something else to consider is with more and more whole house generators being installed, the ones that are connected to natural gas suffer from not being able to run or run at capacity due to low gas pressure which is due to excessive demand placed on gas infrastructure that has not kept up with actual demand. This has been a real issue here in South Louisiana as well as recent hurricane hit areas such as Florida Sc Georgia.
Mep 803A diesel.......10kw but can produce much more. We have two 4 ton AC units and starts and runs both at the same time as well as an ice machine, hot water tank, TWO well pumps and normal house stuff. We don't turn off any breakers it just runs and never gets over 65% load. Government paid $25,000 per unit and got ours for 5k with only 7 hours on it. We just ran for 4 days on it 24 hours a day off of a 55 gallon drum of diesel. It drinks about 1/2 gallon an hour. The diesel it was using was 5 years old. You can hook them up to run automatically but I just use an Ipad to start it and run/monitor it. When the 9 gallon on board tank gets low it refills itself from the drum automatically. They are even EMP proof.
I have a 13kw diesel gen it runs our whole house it too can run start up loads much higher then its 13kw continuse stated. Ours is an Auroua gen its made here in Canada. It is very good on fuel, it will run 24 hrs. on the 9 gallon tank that is built in. Have never had a minutes trouble with it in the 12 years we have owned it. We just do oil changes and survice runs about once every 6 weeks.
Thank you for this video, for years i wanted a generac and almost got one if not for the price tag... But this leads me to the question of how are we in the 21st century and still dealing with power outages when the wind blows just a little and hurricane strenght?
while I agree, that stuff is 50 year old technology and nobody sells it these days. BTW, that control is not encrypted but it is a proprietary part that fits nothing else.
@@rupe53 so u are telling me its open source!? U do know even a inverter generators are just wires and magnets then it is sent into a innverter. All generators are magnets and wires first. Then engineering created more complex arrangements. But the basic magnets and wires generator is still sold to this day
@@herewegoagain4041 Magnets? How about electromagnets? Not sure about any programming being available (open source) but the factory techs have access to a thumb drive if anything needs a factory update. These new units have a USB port on the face but I never got into it before retiring. Have no idea what you can see with a laptop. The flip side is replacement controls are preprogrammed so plug n play other than setting the clock / calendar.
My Generac Standby Generator saved me during the last 4-day outage during Beryl. However, I upgraded from a portable generator with an NG conversion and interlock kit to power the house. If you have 200 gallons of propane in the ground, you can create a hook-up to run the portable off of that. (I assume your Generac was running on propane). I kept the portable as a backup to the Generac. My neighbor gave me a hard time about keeping my portable generator once I got the Generac...I need to send him this video :) Thanks,
We're going solar with battery...with portable inverter generator backup. That $12K could have gone a long way on a decent solar set up. But 400a panel? Do you have a growhouse or something?
HAHAHA its overkill my friend, Hous draw is just a little over the 200A threshhold so in Tampa they make you oversize. The house had to have 2 additional A/C units which are never run normally. Its a home / office.
I was literally about to buy one 6 months befor Milton until they hit me with a 20 thousand dollar price. I have since found a set up that will do everything I need for 1600 bucks.
This is a great video on needing redundancy. Just a FYI it you are looking for a portable generator spend a little more money and get one with LOW THD "total harmonic distortion" less than 5%.
I have a Predator 9000 watts since 2015 we used several times true a winter storms and 2 weeks ago I run this generator for a whole week after hurricane helene get western North Carolina and no issues yet
I have been telling everyone for years, stay away from those pieces of shit. I went thru hurricane Andrew and have had generators ever since. I learned long ago to stay clear of those. Especially the air cooled ones. My neighbor had a 12kw generac . He needed to have two 500 gallon propane tanks to run it for more than a week. He was so mad at the fuel burn and reliability, that he tore it out after the storm. No one would buy it. In fact, he couldn’t even give it away. No one wanted to deal with that kind of fuel burn. I have since moved to north central Florida and now have a 20 kw diesel with a 100 gallon sub base fuel tank. This has been the best money I have ever spent . These things are bullet prof! I spent $ 11,700 for the generator. $1300.00 for the fuel tank, $ 1100,00 for the transfere switch, then another $1000.00 for the wiring . Oh, I almost forgot. I had to rent a bobcat to lift the thing in place. At 1500 lbs , nothing else would lift it and the slab was maybe a hundred bucks. Did it all myself except the connection to the house.8 years now and I haven’t had a single problem. This generator will last me an easy 40 years. Get diesel and be over it all. Dead serious, you will be watching videos like this and just start smiling because you made the right decision long ago. Brother, I hope you get those issues fixed soon. When the time is right, get that diesel!
The large whole house generators will burn a lot of fuel. The diesel ones seem to be better for using less fuel. I would not go over a 5 kw and just be satisfied to just run a small amount of items in the house. I have a 3200 watt generator that is propane and gasoline. Use it only on propane. Also have a 5 kw generator that is gasoline power that I use if I run out of propane or need to power up more of the house. I am not sure how how the cost of a natural gas unit would be as fas as the fuel cost if one does have natural gas .
@@stargazer7644 energy may be energy, but the efficiency of the motor and how much of that energy you are wasting as heat loss makes a huge difference in the amount of fuel you need to produce a certain amount of energy. Early gasoline engines struggled to even make 10% efficiency with modern ones these days being 30-35% efficient. Diesel is significantly more efficient with modern engines having 40-45% efficiency. So you can generally expect to use a lot less fuel to create the same amount of electricity when using a diesel generator versus gas or propane because you're not wasting as much of it.
I have been thinking about getting one for a while. But I started seeing a bunch of low hour generics for sale. When I inquired about them I was told that most had been removed and repaired. That made me think if they are any good at all why is there so many repaired ones sitting for sale. I ended up getting an electrician to wire up a plug and an interlock so I can use any good sized generator, and at night I can switch to an ecoflow to run the heater and some small electronics if needed.
There is a major issue mostly to do with the brushes and rotor on the ones built mid 2021 through 2023. They are all failing for this same reason. Generac knows and should have been pro-active about it. I have an early 2020 build pre-covid and has ran for many outages without issue.
UPDATE: There’s now a class action lawsuit regarding this exact issue. I knew I couldn’t be the only one: topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/household/generac-class-action-alleges-some-models-have-alternator-defect/
Update.... Just spoke with a Generac technician (Guardian Generators in Tampa) He helped me by allowing me to send video of the unit. He had me poke the video camera under the generator windings and diagnosed that the brushes in-fact failed upon visual inspection. He is on his way now and I will keep the thread updated.
I hope he can fix it in one visit!
Funny, how a posted video on social media that calls out a company's product, results in a (relatively) quick and personalized response. Public exposure - and shaming - threatens sales, so forces them to react. Just ask Liz Amazing!
No doubt you'll still need to cough up the "queue deposit", of course. Sorry, m8. 😢
My electrician but in a separate panel so I have plug outside of house one cable house to generator then just flip on separate panel
One word: battery backed solar power. :)
@@HomesteadEngineering - That's four words... ;) Be careful with solar. Most systems require commercial power to keep the inverters energized. And solar cannot load share with anything else. Solar has its place, but the expense and maintenance is heavy.
We had a Kohler 20k installed on our new home when we bought it. Put in a 500 gallon propane tank as fuel as NG isn't available where we live in the country. It starts, runs and supplies power as advertised. We can run everything in the house with zero problems. It has run nonstop for as long as 5 days. We had to buy propane after 2 1/2 years as it was at 30%. I maintain it with regular maintenance, oil changes, spark plugs, air filters etc. Best purchase ever.
We have a Kohler 20K for several years. Regular maintenence. Still runs like a champ and has never let us down. After researching the Kohler and Generac, I made a few observations:
1) Most of the big box stores which sell Generac usually have a Kohler as their emergency generator (buy what they use, not what they sell).
2) Kohler has been in the generator business for over 100 years. A long and proven track record.
3) Generac wins the popularity contest - but what would you rather choose - the most popular or the most reliable?
4) The kicker - Generac engines require periodic manual valve lash adjustment. Kohler engines use hydraulic lifters. Manual valve lash adjustments are so 1970s.
@@dantesinfernopurgatory7826
The valve adjustment regimen was a major factor in our buying a Kohler. Reliability was also a major concern. Generac just doesn't make the grade. Plus their cost. I told the generac dealer what I wanted to install and they quoted a minimum of 20 grand. Plus the tank and piping. Uhhhh, no. I paid 12, for everything including tax. Not including the tank first fill......I calculate the 500 gallon tank will last about 2 1/2 weeks at a 24/7 run time.
@@airmecher Great minds think alike 😎
I spent 17k on a Generac for a scenario like Milton. Like this fellow and millions of others, our power went off in the storm. NP, the Generac will kick on in a minute. NOTHING!!! The generator never went on. In the middle of the back half of the storm, I was outside getting pelted with tree limbs while trying to troubleshoot the problem (Thanks for nothing, Generac!) I had a "RPM Sensor Loss" message on the control panel. The manual says it could be several things, including a bad battery. After 18 months of weekly "exercise," the battery voltage was OK until the storm. I figured, WTF, if it is the battery, I'd try to jumpstart it. Thank God I had a handheld jumpstarter, and it worked! Without that, I would have been powerless for 5 days with a $17,000 paperweight from Generac! (Thanks for nothing, Generac!) The next day, I called Select Power in Sarasota, and I'm still waiting for a call back. Horrible company. The bottom line for anyone reading this is BUY A KOHLER!
I Was Glad To Read Your Comment And The Comment From @dantesinfernopurgatory7826. We Are Currently In The Process Of Having A 38k Kohler Installed. Learning Of The Issues With Some Generac Generators Had Me Questioning Our Decision.
I lived through 3 hurricanes in south Florida, I was 17 days in Hollywood without power fortunately I purchased a broken-down motorhome with a 12kw Kohler diesel generator that I bought just for the Generator. I had removed the Generator and Built a smally encloser that held it and my two fuel drums, I had everything ready about a week and a half before Andrew came through, Thank God I did. i helped my neighbor power his refrigerator and a couple fans and powered my house. I thought about installing a new Generac in my house and then heard nothing but bad reports from a friend that services them. I'll stick to my 30 yr old unit that works fin/
Well done... About a year ago I installed a transfer switch and I got a salvage Honda EU3000is inverter Generator that I repaired. Recently I installed an interlock kit and bought a Champion 9KW inverter generator that has 240V. With a soft start kit on my A/C, I can run the A/C. I test both generators monthly without fail. I've got probably 4 days worth of gas that I rotate and treat.
Living in North Texas we have a lot of spring storms and fall storms as well as a grid that's not the greatest so I wanted to be prepared. No Hurricanes but we do have our share of bad weather. I feel for all of you having to go through all that but other than the Starlink I think I'm as prepared as I can be (famous last words as you know)
Great job on the video and good luck!
I live in Alaska and built our house including electrical. I put a sub panel with lights,fridge, freezer and Toyo heater connected to it. A Honda 2000 will power that on less than a gallon of gas in 10 hours. We have a whole house transfer switch I hook a 7.5Kw Champion to that we can remote start with a FOB when we need to run heavy loads like our well pump. We get a few outages most winters some lasting a few days. I have a box that holds both generators so the Honda will keep the Champion warm on the below zero days.
@@Chris_at_Home We don't have the cold problems in Texas that you have (it occasionally does get down to zero here but generally only in the teens, which is cold enough) but I keep my generators in the garage. I've got a 10 circuit transfer switch for the refrigerators, and other 120v necessary circuits. My plan is to use the Honda 3000is for that whenever we don't need A/C. It's super quiet and efficient on the gas. If the situation is such that it's 95-100 degrees and we need A/C, I'll use the larger Champion generator (120v/240v) and the interlock device to power the house. I have redundancy and the situation will dictate whether not I try to power everything or just the necessities.
We bought our 22k Generac, in 2017 so far so good, I service it every June, it comes on every Thursday for 15 minutes and has helped us through 3 power outages. We love it!
Living in FL and dealing with Hurricanes for the past twenty years, here's what we do: 1. We have a natural gas home, with an on-demand Rinnai water heater. The water heater needs 120V and minimal amps. to work, we are also on city water. If I had a well, I would have to make power decisions to accommodate the well. 2. We have a DuroMax tri fuel generator with a NG line plumbed near our electric panel. With the necessary cables and hoses to generate power and distribute it. Check connections for cables, there are two different types. 3. The electric panel has an interlock and a 50-amp plug/breaker available to plug my DuroMax into my panel. 4. We have a new inverter A/C unit that can ramp up required power over time and run from our generator. Before the new A/C unit I had a Micro-Air Easy Start AC Soft starter ($400 and can be installed DIY) installed to our A/C, which does two things. (1) Instead of the A/C capacitor slamming the compressor every time with power on startup it slowly sequentially starts the A/C components in a sequence, prolonging the A/C compressor life. (2) It allows the 4-ton A/C to be run from a portable generator as small as 7500 W - yes, I tested it. The time to set these things up is now, well before the next storm comes. If natural gas is not available in your area, it may be time to start thinking of installing large propane tanks, larger than the 100lbs one in the video. The DuroMax generators are a great purchase for $1500 or less, especially for what they deliver. Can be stored in a dry garage away from FL salt air and humidity, are simple to run compared to a $20k Generac, and are easily serviced.
We basically have this and has got us through Ian, Helene, and Milton (Tampa). Champion trifuel, continuous NG fuel source, gas stove tankless rinnair, etc. running power cables galore, and 2 window AC units. If I get a 50A generator (our champion is 30) will do transfer switch/interlock to feed panel and then run AC with the smart start, etc
My neighbor has the same unit, purchased right before the freeze we had in 2022. When we had Beryl come through this summer, the same thing happened. He ended up coming over to our house, which we ran off our 6500watt portable, no A/C but at least we had some power. His service tech came and said it was the rotor and that they had replaced a bunch of the Generac rotors made after Covid. It’s back up and running, I hear it every Wednesday on its maintenance cycle. Not sure how many hours he had on it but he paid big $ for the maintenance plan, so it’s being taken care of per the schedule. Hopefully Generac can get these issues resolved.
@condor5635 this owner was smart ass. Runs every week for 15 mins. Not under any load. 2 hours under load smoked it from the inside out. And to top it off. Look it up. Major issue. So much so there’s a class action on it. So think before you type.
@ as stated in my reply, it runs every Wednesday, my wife or myself hear it. Funny thing is, he had the yearly service done two weeks before the storm. I know because the truck blocked my driveway and I had to go ask the tech to move so I could back out. Not all failures have to do with poor maintenance as all the keyboard warriors preach. All I know is at 6am when I was setting mine up as the storm was getting crazy, I heard it running, then stop.
Your point about having a backup plan to the backup plan is good. We installed a whole-house 24 kW Generac very similar to yours with an automatic transfer switch. Ours runs on natural gas. Prior to that we had a gasoline fueled Generac 8 kW roll up with a manual transfer switch. I instructed the electrician to leave the manual transfer switch in place as they installed the new 24 kW unit. I’m an electrical engineer with over 45 years of experience in utility grid management. Redundancy is key to having reliable power to your home during a grid outage. If our automatic Generac should fail during a power outage I can easily use our 8 kW roll up generator. I keep around 40 gallons of gasoline on hand for mowing, etc. and fueling the roll up if it should become necessary. We also can access the gasoline in the tank of our jeep by attaching a hose to the fuel rail of the engine and filling gas cans. We live in the country and have a well for our water supply. We are fortunate to have natural gas available to our home. Natural gas service is generally very reliable. BTW - We did have to upgrade our natural gas service meter to handle the whole-house generator. Our whole house generator has been reliable and served us through about 30 hours of outages.
Do you have an estement of the cost of the natural gas used during the power outage ? I have the smaller portable generators and know what they use but have not seen the cost of the fuel of a natural gas gen.
@@ralphmowery2898 One of our longest power outages, about 18 hours, was during a winter ice and snow storm. We have two gas furnaces and a 50 gallon gas water heater. Therefore, I had no direct way to assign a fuel use to the generator. I did some research regarding the fuel use efficiency of these small generators using natural gas. As I recall the bottom line regarding fuel use alone was for each kilowatt-hour equate to an electricity production cost of about $0.45 per kilowatt-hour. This compares to about $0.18 per kilowatt-hour from our utility across a year. So, a little over 2 times the utility cost, but well worth it to have electricity during an outage in my opinion. Hope that’s helpful.
@@RobertReynolds-b9p As out electric power is only slightly less at only 3 times the power bill will not be too much for the comfort for a week or two. Unlike some of the $ 200 or more per day that some are reporting for the very large generators. As I only have propane or gasoline to use here I need to stay with just the smaller gen sets to keep my cost reasonable.
Some areas shut down natural gas when bad storms are coming down South. Quite the shock to learn that as I figured it would be perfect for backup but locals warned me.
@@BLKMGK4 This is the reason I would rather invest in a portable generator that runs on either Diesel, gasoline or propane. My preferences would be Honda, Kubota and if neither of those are available, maybe a Champion. After a tornado we had 13 years ago (August 2011) I remember smelling that sulfur smell they put in gas and propane and they had to shut it down too. This is why I think natural gas standby units may be an exercise in futility. You would be better off using Diesel, gasoline or propane.
Biggest issue to remember if at any point you have a generator powering your home make certain that the main breaker is off, two things if this isn’t done properly you 1 could kill a lineman or 2 if a lineman is restoring power you will burn up your generator or appliances in your home. No im not a licensed electrician just very knowledgeable about electrical work this video is well laid out and totally accurate
@brentschuler2795 this is where transfer switch comes in to play ,you can switch from main line to generator just by flipping the switch and vice versus...transfer switch by Reliable.
lol clearly you’re not an electrician
Trans switch and lockout Essential so it’s idiot proof
22 KW bought in early 2020. It now has 68 hrs on it and recently racked up 32 hrs after Helene. No issues and doesn't really burn any oil. Another key point, if you keep one of those portables, make sure you do a maintenance run once-a-month and put a load on it, like an electric drill or portable lights. The usual problem is they sit for a year and the old gas in the carburetor gets varnished up and then it won't run.
@@stevem6711 I have a 10,000W Duramax 2fuel ,never used gas because of issues you mention I only run propane, easy to store last way longer than gas and won't gum up carburetor now I do store gas and use sta-bil to h e lp stabilize for long storage or for emergency, thanks for sharing👍
We have an older 17kw guardian series from 2010 . I’ve done bi annual maintenance on it . Oil , filters , and plugs and it’s never skipped a beat . I’ve replaced a fuel sensor and a battery . Run your weekly test runs and you’ll be ok. We live in the hurricane prone NC and have used it for days on end with no hiccups .
We purchased 2 Champion Generators 3 years ago and when we have a power outages We start the small Champion which is only 2500 and next the 5000 Champion. They won't run the Heat or A/C but with several extra fans and in the winter we have 3 portable electric heaters. They kept us warm in the winter and fairly cool in the hot summer. 2 of our neighbors had Generac that cost them over $10,000 and have failed. This past summer we had 3 days with electrical due to a tree knocking down a main power line. Our portable Champion generators never failed!!!
Thanks for sharing your story on here. I think this thread will be an excellent PSA of real world users and perhaps a wake up call to generac to make shit better and stop packing in so much tech into things that folks depend on in life and death situations.
That s fine if your home when the power goes out!
Do you not have a furnace? Your generators should be enough to run a furnace.
Most people down south here that I know have heat pumps with electric resistive "second stage" heating on the HVAC unit. @@youtubechampion9377
Get an easy start kit for your a/c. That 5k generator should run it.
Wish I could afford a whole house generator. We are poor and can only afford a 5kw Baldor generator. It got my family and the neighbor through 5 days of no power. We have a pull start generator and I manually load and unload using the breakers in the breaker box. We are in the woods with a well for water but no natural gas. We had hot water, lights, internet and small 120v appliances. We shut all down while sleeping. I did get up in the middle of the night and ran generator for 30 minutes to ensure refrigerator temperatures remained safe. I wired the break before make wiring and cable myself. We have the required manual interlock on the utility incoming breaker and generator feed as specified in the codes. We used less than 10 gallons of gasoline in each 24 hour period. I do several runs and loads each year to ensure my generator works. I don’t keep ethanol gas in the tank and always use Stable in the gasoline. This is just to show that you don’t have to be wealthy to provide for your family when disaster strikes. There are viable options if you plan.
Even a 3000 watt generator is a life saving investment. Happy to hear that you were able to at least get by. A big tip.. The old school electric blankets draw very little power, and in a deep freeze like we had in Texas, using these with your generator can be a life saver.
I have an IPOWER genny 2000 watts. Runs 8 hours on one gallon of gas. Start it every month. Did have a carb blockage and they sent me a new one free-out of watrrnty. QUIEST on at 53db.
@@DanThomas-n1e Even a 2000 watt generator will run a typical home gas furnace. Many people are buying big backup batteries, but these are hugely expensive, and will only run a house for maybe a day, less in hot months. I am building a new home, and this time, I am putting in a 13kw natural gas generator. I am beginning to worry about rolling blackouts in Texas.
@@shenmisheshou7002 I have 2000 watts of solar any my elec bills are 80 a month in the summer. I see LA its more like 800 a month. BUT THEY ARE SAVING THE EARTH!!!
Use ethanol shield if u do...u can also use seafoam in place of stabil.. Seafoam does it better and works in diesel and gas but ethanol shield has great review from chicanic. And testing...very good stuff..
I’ve always kept a Gen set ready. You’re right, the pre-work is critical. I put in an exterior power port, a transfer switch from main service to port, and a sub-panel that feeds only the critical systems. The middle of a storm is no time to be taking your main panel apart.
We are in Florida, Milton was hard being without power right now. we're on the 6th day without power. My husband got us running off of 6800 old school generator have been considering a Generac. or Kohler 20k. Thank you sharing.
Have had a Generac whole house generator for 3 years, it has performed flawlessly. Fortunately only needed it 3 times.
We have a 13.5 Kw Duro Max duel fuel generator that we use for power outages and have been very happy with it. Put a soft start on our 4 ton heat pump and can run it with no problems, it’s hard on the generator without the soft start though. Glad you and family pulled through this disaster.
Sorry to hear of your problems. I've been running a Generac 12KW generator for about 20 years with no problems. Four years ago I upgraded to a 16KW. Here in Northern CA, we are prone to power outages lasting a day to weeks due to fires or snow. Not one problem with either.
For all the people that are questioning if the homeowner did all the necessary maintenance; there are many videos just like this one regarding the failure of Generac generators.
The problem with this comment, and I'm NOT being critical of the comment at all, I appreciate this viewers opinion. However, I'm certain there are many, many more Generac customers out there that are 100% happy and satisfied with their purchase and the service they have received from their unit, and Generac, that we will never hear from because not everyone views and/or posts videos on TH-cam, nor does everyone post comments, be they positive or negative. The part "there are many videos just like this one regarding the failure of Generac generators" is and can be somewhat misleading to viewers. I'm a prime example of that. I don't post videos, nor do I comment very often but I watch A LOT of TH-cam videos. I've been researching whole house generator units for at least 6 months. The main players in this space are Generac, Cummings and Kohler. I'm leaning toward Generac. The major reason is SERVICE, which many people overlook. Our nearest Generac dealer is 20 minutes away, the others, 2 to 3 hours, they don't travel for free. Those numbers mean something and have value, at least to me. I have a brother in Georgia who has had this same unit for a little over 2 years, very satisfied after numerous outages, but he doesn't post any videos or comment, ever, on TH-cam, although he does watch videos, so no one has benefit of his satisfaction opinion. Bottom line .... do your research carefully and don't rely solely on TH-cam videos as your sole source of information on which to base your purchasing decision.
He claims only 2 hours of run time so it's not a neglected maintenance issue. Reading in the comments it does seem like he's got a real warranty problem. BTW, I worked near 25 years for a large dealer and 90% of issues on newer units go back to an installation problem.... either wiring, fuel, or location / clearance. Electricians can wire them but they don't know anything about fuel or other mechanical stuff. This is where going through a dealer is your best bet.
@@rupe53 And this is the reason I would invest money into a good Honda generator. These things are used daily for at least 8 hours a day on construction sites, both the inverter and open frame units. That should tell you there why you would invest in something like that. Generac may be a recognized name in the industry but may not be what it used to be before Briggs briefly owned it. All I can say is, I have a Honda commercial mower, had Honda power equipment since I was 8 and all I can say is that will be my next generator. Another place to look is also at a Kubota diesel generator as those things are of industrial quality as well.
@@WJCTechyman I recognize the quality of Honda gear but it's not comparing apples to apples. Honda does NOT make a standby unit and fully automatic units stand by themselves for different reasons. Yes, B&S was in bed with Generac for a few years and in that time they also shared some similarities. (we sold both) I can safely say we never had an engine problem with a B&S. The flip side is about 50% of their 20Kw air cooled units burned out the electrical end after only a few years. They also had a chronic problem with a temp sensor telling the control it was overheating and randomly shutting things down. The interesting thing was all the B&S units from 12 Kw (air cooled) through 45 Kw (liquid cooled) used the same control board. As for diesels, they are usually 50% more money for similar features and even though they may last more engine hours total, there are some things the average DIY guy can't service.
I currently have no generator, rode out Helene and Milton. We've converted our mobile home to all electric everything, leaving the old propane tank in the backyard just sitting. I was all on board for a Generac whole house system, however this video changes my mind. Definitely going to hire an electrician, have a solid wood framed shed with ventilation I can store/use a generator in safely. I may have to ration power as you did but the central AC is a must, along with the refrigerator.
Its a better use of your money and an absolutely bettter reliable way of powering.
Micro-Air Easy Start for the AC, problem solved.
We have owned a 20kw unit for 13 years, never any problems. Just ran for over 82 hours because of Helene
Older unit. Glad you have a good one
Had a 22kw installed almost 6 years ago. Have never had a problem. Ran 4.5 days continuous without any issues.
I am in Valdosta. I was also hit by Helene. Waited a year in a half on a waiting list for a Generac. But after Helene I was tired of waiting and bought a 28000 peak Westinghouse portable generator. Over 600 pounds.
Will never have to worry about power again.
@@davidtranmedia5112That’s hilarious. There’s a reason why the concept of Murphy’s Law exists.
I maintain an old Generac at my parents house. It is a 2005 model 15kw and still runs great today. I also maintain 3 Generac 22kw models at my home and in-laws. They must be installed correctly and maintained properly.
Maintenance and weekly test runs are crucial for generacs . People think it’s going to run fine after sitting there for two years . 90% of the problems can be alleviated by the weekly test runs . They are machines and meant to be run . It’s amazing how many people give you a blank stare when you ask if they run weekly tests .
Part of that maintenance includes performing a power -off test of the SYSTEM. The little air cooled unit have dumb switches (ATS) that are controlled by the generator controller, you also need to make sure the automatic transfer switch operates properly. Ideally, a few days BEFORE the projected storm rolls in.
@@bobbygene8274 Just pull the plug with the sense wires and see if she performs! It really is simple. Most owners just do not know. They also need to know how to manually flip the ATS.
This storm season has changed how many families are setting up for future outages for sure. In South Carolina we lost power for 5 days. We bought a briggs 5500 back in 2000 and it may have got used 3 times in 24 years. But can’t run a whole house off it. But we were one of the first houses with generator power when the power went out. Now I would say 7 out of 10 families locally own a generator. I too just bought a duramax 13000HX, but I am keep my original briggs generator as a backup.
I have 2 of that exact duramax generators. I have the 50 amp interlock system also. In June I got a couple of 40 lb propane tanks for the generator and 6 5 gallon cans of gas with fuel additive in them also. I have a trane high efficiency AC unit that starts up with hardly any amps so that duramax 1300 powers that plus fridge and all lighting in the house. Got me thru Milton for 3 days no problem. Also make sure you top off your car and get an electric fuel siphon in case you have to draw gas from your car. The 2nd Duramax is just a backup in case one of them doesn’t start. I am like you and always have plan B.
Good luck getting gas out a car as most have a rollover valve in the filler neck these days, which means you can't get a hose into the tank. If you do get a hose in there you risk getting it stuck.
We got ours in 2018 and it's worked perfectly including a few multi-day power outages.
Just came across your video here. I live where Helene hit here in North Eastern Tennessee. Literally 2 weeks before we got hit with no grid, we had saved enough money to pay an electrician that wired and installed a 30amp connector to our side of the house breaker box. The timing was incredible. We had water from our well, we had 240 volt power that ran our 2300 sq ft home from a single gas powered 6500 watt harbor freight 400 plus dollar preditor generator. Awesome! The electrician did take from our cash flow savings, under 2 k to wire the house and our well house. All I can say, thank God for His wisdom to my family for prepping without knowing what soon was going to hit us. I hope your video can warn people to not risk their lives due to last minute frantic decisions. Prep, prepare and do not go into debt...
I bought the 18kw Generac 2 1/2 years ago, and it runs every Monday for 20 mins. I live where it's still flooded in Hernando county and mine ran 69 hours straight during Hurricane Milton, and 28 with Helene. I did shut it down about 9 hours the last night to check oil and give it a break. Sorry you are having those issue's.
I have an old generact.That's rusted all the way down to the concrete...China Steel ?? Always blowing the glass fuse, 30 hours on it ? I invested it in a Lincoln gas welder , which has works really good for me over the years.Its a tool it will always hold it value ! It's.
Noisy, it will always start . keep the battery disconnected when you're not using it.stable in the Gas.Thanks for the heads up on the icing up LP .
Find a large container that the tank will fit in and fill with water. That will stop your tank from icing up. Also don't waste your money on a battery, buy a jump start unit instead
After Milton I finally decided to spend some money and get prepared for next season. I bought a duel fuel generator and purchased a 40lb propane tank. I'll be picking up another one later and my manual said the max is 40lb. At my age I don't think i can handle anymore weight than the 40lb. My electrician is going to install the interlock system in a couple of weeks. Thank you for sharing your story.
I have 18 000 watt portable Generac which runs on propane. I have it permanently mounted on pad with roof. I run it 15 minutes every month. Change oil after 65 hours running. Battery start. Electrician wired what I need, not whole house. 6 years old. Has runs continuously for 38 to 90 hours about three times since owning it. No problems yet.
Have had one for 10 years no issues at all. I do regular maintenance myself
That is insane!!! After spending that kind of money, it SHOULD NOT have failed you. I don't care what people say, I can tell you did everything right. The point is, you purchased their product, you took care of it, and it failed you when you needed it! Plain and simple. Thanks for the warning, I will be looking at getting me a 6500-watt inverter-generator for my family. Hurricane Helene took us down for 6 days up here in the NC foothills and it sucked.
Thank you my friend, this was the feeling I had when it all happened and hence the video. I am not asking for a penny back, i will own the fuck up. I just need to have the right protocols in place that work. This garbage can isnt the ticket. It is a toy
Definitely please keep us upto date on this. I just place a call for an estimate just before seeing your video to get a whole generac installed. Stay safe, also in Tampa.
Brushes were eaten. If you’re going to have anyone in Tampa do it. Call Angel at guardian because service is more important than the sales process he owns the company. (727) 853-4271 tell him you saw this video.
In an emergency, the first person that knocks at your door will be Mr. Murphy, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. To get around this in good weather turn your power off and test the system for 24 to 36 hours. A stress test will bring out major problems. It’s also a good idea to have a small generator as a back up. I like the Honda EU 2200 with a 6 gallon extended run fuel tank. Can run 24/7 for a few days powering lights, refrigerator,internet etc.
Been there/done that (Hurricanes Andrew, Irma, Charley), but just wanted to comment a BIG THANK YOU for this video. You no doubt, have helped multiple people from going through what you and I have.
Did your installers upsize your natural gas meter and pipes to your whole house generator to handle the increase in natural gas flow a whole house generator requires? If there is not ample gas flow, the generator is fuel starved and will not run at the correct RPM's to produce the correct voltage/ frequency and shut down. Also did the installers check the gas pressure supplied because there is also require a minimum gas pressure needed to run correctly. All this information is in the owner's manual. Just curious if this was checked or brought to you attention by the installers.
This is an absolute "must do" !
Yes. This was a major to-do when the house was built new to code in 2022. We had to wait for 2 weeks for the gas company to install the LP system sized to the generac’s demand.
Absolutely 100% NO question about it. If a Home Depot Installer installed it, I would Bet the Natural Gas Meter was NOT Updated to a “Pounds Meter.
@kens.3729 Home Depot didn’t install it. My licensed electrician who wired my entire new construction house in 2022 wired it. Load tested it 3 times and the county tested it prior to signing off on the electrical and generator permit that must be issued when you build here in Tampa FL
That doesn't matter. Generac can't make a good natural gas generator. We had an industrial Natural Gas generator that Generac could NEVER get starting properly for the 10 years we had it.
Great video thank uou for posting also here in SWFL for my guest home. I installed the a 30amp inlet with a interlock. I have the cord prementally mounted in waterproof box the other end is ran into a storage room. For easy connections. Generator is a UST 7500 from walmart back jn 2014. Other than basic stuff i have had zero issues. Regular testing oil, draining the fuel, fuel filter lines. Again my guest home is 650sf with Mini Split 12kbtu 21.1 seer. Led lights so it dont require alot of power. 10 years this has worked prefectly. We also have to the same setup on the main house 30amp 9500watt generator to keep the lights on and well pump. And ac . I think we learn from every storm. We was talking about upgrading to thar same unit but after many videos you video made me say no. Why change sonething that has worked for 10+years.. 800-1000 to replace generator if needed i cant justify 12k+. I also have a 500 watt solar battery system befor each storm i sinpmy remove than panel wait for storm to pass that way way i always have power its a basic and cheap system used only with led light strips and a 1200 watt ac inverter runs rhe tv and keeps all phones charged. I am going to look into the starlink great video
I'm currently out of power from Milton and was researching generators thanks for the video was considering whole home vs portable thanks for saving me the trouble
Living within a mile of the Atlantic Ocean, we experienced a lot of power outages. I bought a (small) trailer mounted 15 KW gen set that ran of of my tractor's power take off drive. I wired alll of my important stuff into a manual 100 amp disconnect, and then to a 100 amp subpanel for: (water pump, a lighting circuit for each room, two A/C heat pumps and gas fired furnace -for winter ice storm outages- and my able modem router and computer desk, I also wired my detached garage into the sub panel so I could have some light in the garage if needed. I could only rung 1 of the a/c systems-either master bedroom suite, or rest of the house at a time unless I shut off everything else. I hard wired a 15 foot run of COPPER 4 AWG 3 wire + ground cable -$10.00/ft in 2020- into a 100 switch rated breaker that fed int to the GEN side of the transfer switch, and a HD twist lock plug for the gen. I kept a 500 gal. tank of diesel at least half full all the time. I could run 24 hours at FULL load on18 gal of diesel of course I mostly ran at 50% load..
Just had the 22kw installed, ran 9 hours when the power went out during the hurricane. I also opted for the maintenance plan.
I purchased the 10 year warranty. Had it for 3 years now so far so good!
I have 4 - 22KW generac's. Two @ my house, One in Florida, One @ my business. All work fine. They auto test each week. Yearly maintenance on each. One issue is on long run times they did run out of oil over 2 days. After a lot research I found out that running a load stress them to seat rings in engine helped solve oil issue. Done by a professional with a load bank.
I was upset my cummins RS20 used a half quart of oil after running a full week, I guess I shouldn't. 😊
An emergency power generator is for an emergency. My wife and I have gone through a few hurricanes and managed to get through a few days with a small power generator running extension cords. Each one of us has experienced enough what are the basic things we need to get through until power is restored and this works for us. Watching your video confirms that we’ve had it right all along thus far. I am going to get another generator and larger bottles of propane to get me through the “emergency” period. Thank you for sharing by your ordeal.
Speaking of network and internet, I am located in polk county FL and have a blue stream fiber connection. I was very impressed the network stayed up through the storm. The fiber lines are underground, and the J boxes are not powered. I think as long as they have the main node downtown powered we are all good! Previous storms on coax service network had huge down time.
Yeah, but when fibre gets damaged, then what? Besides, the crappy ribbon fibre the land line companies (like Bell Canada, AT&T and Verizon) use for fibre to the home need repeaters anyway, which are electrically powered. It's easier to fix coax connections than re-splicing cheap ribbon fibre for repairs. Also, that fibre also needs something to turn it back into coax or Ethernet in your home that usually requires power anyway. Also, not all fibre is buried beneath the surface, some of it rides up on utility poles as well. Coax is pretty resilient stuff as I accidentally mangled our coax drop in my roto-tiller one Spring and with the dielectric and braid being breached, I was still able to connect to the Internet and able to make a call on that coax to our cable company to get it repaired.
To me fibre is a big gimmick and the coaxial cables that cable TV companies have been using for 20+ years hold up. Besides, our company has fibre to the community. It's the industrial glass stuff, not the poly or low-grade stuff that the others use to the home.
Bought a 13k Generac in 2019 and my area gets about 3-4 outages per year (often well over a day) - never had a failure. Thing has been a tank, great investment.
Around 2014, after Hurricane Sandy........we got a 12kw Briggs. It can power about half the house.... the most important stuff. It does its job just fine fortunately. I change the oil/filter, each year... and I did have to replace the battery once so far. I don't consider the battery to be a failure. The generator does an "exercise" cycle weekly.... and I actually plan to be near it when it does, so I can hear the startup. When the startup sounded labored, I got the battery ordered. We've avoided basement floods, and spoiled food as a result of owning the standby generator.
Don't forget your valve adjustments !!
My brother my heart goes out to you guys who are going through this problem. I went through the same situation in a storm myself. I’m also not an electrician. But I became aware of all I need to hook a generator up to my house. Keep in mind if you use ethanol gas you have to be careful with the gas generator. Because ethanol gas ⛽️ kill gas generators. I use non ethanol. Be careful be safe and God bless you guys. Get everything ready early and research before you buy anything.
Nitpicking, on 20:47, you showed and recommended SAE 30 weight motor oil, it's actually recommended by Generac and Duromax to use 10W30 motor oil. Today's overhead valves air cool engine uses multi weight. There are recommendations of using SAE 30 but that is for flat head air cool engine and basically old school engines.
30w oil is the correct choice based on his location, which is Florida. Multigrade oils are for varying climate conditions which are only experienced in extreme northern Florida. Oil provides most of the cooling of an air cooled engine so having a quality thick oil is important in 90+ temperatures.
Thanks for the heads up. I have same unit here in Michigan, gets used about 5 times a year, runs whole house like you. So far no issues, but I do have another portable like you that I can feed house with if the Generac fails like you. I installed a code approved hook up for the portable to run house if needed.
We use a portable 12k generator & have a backup 7k generator. We have a 50 amp inlet box & a 30 amp inlet box. Absolutely correct to keep the main breaker off & put tape with a note on the main breaker. Great video - thx
explain why you need two inlets. I don't believe you can hook up two cords from the same generator powering the same panel but I may be incorrect
First off, I pray your family and neighbors are OK and recovering quickly.
This was great information and it has me rethinking my current secondary plans. We have a 24kw Generac, on propane.
We had it installed in 2019 when our home was built (upper NW VA). We purchased it through a local Generac authorized contractor/installer and have it serviced annually by them.
Like you we have well and septic so we have a 400 amp service and a similar switch panel setup.
When we first moved in power reliability was poor so the generator kicked in frequently for several hours at a time. The longest run was 20 hours. No issues other than the power lag when the AC kicks in. Still working to mitigate that. I have been considering a backup portable generator and having the required connection setup installed.
Load shed your AC-Smart Managment Module...
Same story here. My 24kw Generac had the same issue after 5 1/2 hrs. It had a complete failure of the rotor, stator, slip rings and the brushes. Took 4 months to get fixed under warranty. I suggest for all new Generac owners to run their unit for at least 25 hrs to see if they got one of the bad ones too. Let it fail before you need it! My service rep said he’s sees big failures with the other brands too.
Good advice. Test it under load before you need it.
Of course he said that about the others so you would buy his piece of crap. But he lied.
As a generator service tech for more than 15 years, yes other brands have failures also. But when it comes down to it, seems to me, I work on more generacs than any other unit out there-for oddball stuff. Part of that is because there are more of them out there than any other unit, but part of it is also a quality issue. Generac in general is a decent machine, over all.
But, it just seems that Generac just doesn't have the quality it used to, and in fairness others don't either, but I have not had ANY other brand, all of them combined (Kohler, B&S, GE, Cummins, (ONAN), Taylor, Cat, etc.) that would compete with the amount of "random" failure of major components. I can't explain it.
I have sold both Kohler and Generac, but if I was to buy one for my home, it would be a Kohler, over-built and much higher quality!!
@ let’s hear it! What is the quality difference?
I replaced a 2007 16kW Generac with a 22kW 2022 model. So far it’s been great. I’m in Sumter county. We lost power for 3-1/2 days. I also have a smaller 5.5kW gas powered PowerBoss. I connected the small one the same you did, a breaker on the main panel. I turned off the main feed breaker of course. When I start the small one, the Generac senses it and shuts down.
First, I hope you and your family are OK and getting as back to normal as possible. I do have a question for you though. You said the generic went though all it's maintenance runs, did you also do failover testing? Is there a recommended schedule for failover testing? I hear your point about the unit not working when you most needed it most, and I don't want to detract from the frustration you feel. I you did everything you could for your family, and you should be proud of getting through all of this. My question is, now that you know the stator is failing, I'm wondering if that is a defective unit and can be replaced under warranty so it does work the next time you need it, and would failover testing have indicated there was a problem?
Yes, we had to load it for the generator permit to be cleared.
Yes. I recently purchased the DuroMax 13000 dual fuel. Installed the transfer/ lock out and wall inlet .. so far I am satisfied with the performance thank you for your video
Thanks for sharing
Its much cheaper to get a transfer switch installed that will allow you to connect a traditional generator. Its not as convenient, but it gives you more options in a power outage. If one generator fails, you can connect another one. Hope this helps.
Yes, and with how everything is built these days, just wheel the old $400 generator to the curb (some junk collector will pick it up) and pick up a new one. Often you can actually buy one in the days after a hurricane. They’re a cheap commodity like window ac’s. Btw, every home should have a spare 5,000 btu unit. If you see one at a yard sale for $20, buy it. $50, maybe. At $75 I’d buy a new one for under $150.
Thanks so much for video and comments. I am so sorry you and so many more were hurt and many continue to suffer from Milton and Helene and Debby. You did your best to prepare and then quickly adapted after what should have been a dependable backup generator. I have two portable generators, one is an inverter type 2KW. It is 8 years old. The other is an open frame 5KW 35 year old generator with a Tecumseh engine. Both have been used in numerous power outages. Your point on oil change frequency is a critical one. Yes, as frequent as 24 hours of run time or even less. I have 14 quarts of oil on hand, plus basic spare parts for each generator. Each is started about every 6 months and stored in a clean and dry area where mice can't nest in the generator head or on the engine. Gasoline is drained from the tanks, and the carbs are run dry to help prevent carb problems. Both generators have their original carbs. I keep on hand as many do- carb cleaner, starting fluid, Stabil Techron, and Marvel Mystery Oil. I use a Mr. Funnel filter unit when adding gas. This filter can also remove water from gasoline. Most of the problems in using small generators for more than 60 years relate to carbs, bad fuel, and too infrequent oil changes. Keep the generator instructions handy. The best generators I found for emergency use were Onan water cooled. Their air cooled were well made too. Onan was purchased by Cummins. I have heard good reports on the Cummins Power Generation water cooled units. Kohler generators were good performers. The Onan generators were used in disaster response efforts and I do not remember ever having one fail us. The water cooled units ran at 1800 RPM so were much quieter. Your efforts to protect your family and others are fantastic. I wish you well in your recovery as I do all who are trying to get back to some kind of normal. So pleased to hear you had a licensed electrician as a neighbor. Take care and be safe.
I was literally two clicks away from ordering one from Costco. Thanks and I hope your family is well.
Great video and the passion for keeping your family safe is amazing. Question, since you have a 200lb inground LPG tank - was it too difficult to plumb the DuroMax XP13000DX directly into that tank?
Glad you and yours made it through safely. I appreciate your input on this... I've hesitated buying a whole house generator because of all the issues people are reporting and the ridiculous cost. My neighbor put one in a few years ago and it has failed at least twice since then. I've waited, thinking they would work out the quirks, but it doesn't look like it. Please let us know what the resolution was for the current Generac Issue. Be safe!
Sorry to hear. It should easily be covered under warranty.
Fortunately, my 2018 Generac 20kw has served me well here in south Florida for the past 6 years.
If a storm is in the forecast, I like to turn off utility power and test the generator's abilities. This is because the automatic weekly tests never put the generator under a "load"...they only cycle the engine. I hope your issue is resolved in a timely matter.
My son is using his Generac Whole House Guardian 22 kW Generator for 3 days now and it has been running pretty much 24 hours/day. No issues at all.
I’m glad his didn’t shit its pants yet lol. Seriously happy he didn’t get a POS unit
Neighbor’s new 22kw generac generator put a rod thru the block after 24hrs of continued use during the aftermath of Helene…come to find out generac recommends turning off the unit for period of time….not made for continuous use..
@@joetrippi1603 My son's 22 kW Generac ran for 132 hours straight. They got power restored today.
@@joetrippi1603 the "period of time" is long enough to check the oil and see if the run time on the clock requires any other maintenance. Just remember that 24 hours is the same as driving your car from Boston to Miami without a stop to check anything. Who does that?
The caution for connecting the auxiliary generator is good for everyone. Having back up fuel ready is also very important. We maintain 27 gal of gas on standby all year around for our Firman 3600W inverter. The interesting part for me will be the Generac repair of the 24kw unit. Is it just the Generac Pannel on the generator or the crank sensor? When my mom's generic was struck by lightning(5 years ago), it blew out the generator panel, and destroyed the battery. After replacing the panel and the battery, the unit survived. The unit is now 15 years old and still runs fine. Generac has millions of standby generators so the odds of getting a bad one are like owning a Ford F150. Many age fine, but every once in a while, you have an issue. Since you are under a year, replacement might be a good option if this is the one in many that is a problem. Good luck.
Can you share how you are maintaining your gasoline?
@@Archifx My gas storage is pretty simple. I have 3- 5 gallon Metal Eagle cans and 2- 6 gallon poly cans.(I am converting to metal Eagle cans slowly). For storage, I go to a gas station that has non ethanol fuel (It's Premium non-ethanol). I add Stabil to the fuel cans, pump 2 gallons into the car to clean the pump and hose, then fill the gas cans. The fuel will sit for 6 months and every March and September, that canned gas is put into a car, and the cans are stabilized and refilled. The only turn over during the non use period might be some gas for the push lawn mower/chain saw, but those have their own 2 gal cans. All gas for use is stabilized and every machine run dry at the end of the season. The generators are held in long term storage mode until needed(process is in the generator manual). Mom's Generac is a 14 kw unit (2011), connected to a 100 gal propane tank. That is 3 days of full time running at full load. No AC needed in upstate NY. I am thinking of adding another 100gal tank because mom is 86.
We have a 20k generac whole house generator with a 500 gallon buried propane tank. Purchased it in 2014. (11yrs ago).
My friend, who was an electrician, installed it along with some sort of a switch over panel, which we ordered with it.
The unit exercises once a week for 15 minutes.
I believe I had the oil and filter changed three or four times since I’ve had it. The spark plugs were changed I believe two times at most.
The only problem I ever had with the unit was about four years ago it started running at a very high RPM. I called a generator repair shop, they came over checked it out, ordered a part, and three or four days later they installed the part. … and that solve the problem.
I am happy to say that the unit has worked flawlessly ever since.
I am sorry to say, but it appears to me that your unit was a lemon like many later models turned out to be.
I would be interested in knowing whether or not your unit was finally repaired by Generac … and under the warranty.
We only use a portable gennie to
Power our house through an 50 amp breaker wired to the 50 amp outlet basically interlock kit it’s easier to use
This is an excellent informational video! Everyone thinks that they are ready until they are not. It’s wise to have a backup to the backup. Thanks again for the excellent tips and reminders!
We had a 16kw Generac and it worked perfectly. Loved it!
16 thousand KW
I have had my Generac whole house generator for over 10 years and I just recently purchased the extended warranty for another 10 years. I have never ever had a problem with it. I have a company that comes out and services it for me every January. I am very, very happy with my Generac generator.
Great video, was thinking of purchasing one, now I need to research more. These are too costly to fail when needed.
Can't go wrong with a Generac as long as you get it installed by an authorized Generac Dealer
@Boeing767DriverAA bulllllllllllllllll shit
Our Generac 22kw unit has been flawless. I plan on getting another one for our cottage.
My dad had a Generac. It had 2 problems. First was some genius decided steel cases in Florida was a good idea. It rusted away in less than 5 years. They do have aluminum cases. The generac service guys replaced the rusted case with an aluminum case.
The other problem is during the weekly self test the battery would occasionally explode. It happened 3 times. Diluting the acid with baking soda and washing it down got annoying.
Other than that it was a good unit and ran weeks at a time on occasion
All Generac units have an aluminum cabinet these days. BTW, as a 25 years tech, I have seen that battery problem. Hopefully someone replaced the voltage regulator. Oh, our dealer has over 6,000 customers so I have seen just about every problem you can think of, over the years. Most of them are trouble free if maintained well.
@@rupe53 I think he bought it in 2005. He passed in 2018 and the generator stayed with the house of course. Besides the exploding battery it ran flawless. It would start up every week for it's 15 minutes like clockwork.
Wish I knew about the voltage regulator when he was alive.
@@FauxQue-yk8dt I misspoke. Not the VR but the battery charger. (air cooled set I presume) I saw it only a few times but each one was the same situation where a new battery was being cooked dry so the gassing inside the cabinet (hydrogen gas) could be set off by the starter motor cranking it up. You'd only catch the over voltage problem if you watched a meter for like 10 - 15 minutes. I'd go do my paperwork and double check them after doing repairs. In each case the charger was VERY hot VERY quick.
@@rupe53 I have a 22KW installed in 21. After a year I got an RPM error message on the weekly exercise. My dealer actually called me to let me know as I pay for monitoring. I did manage to manually start it again. They replaced the starter. Generac issued a bulletin when this happens from heat (I'm in Florida) to replace the starter. It's been flawless since. I had a load shed board go out. I bypassed it and they came out with an updated blue board. My question is have you seen this low RPM starter issue?
@@scotts4125 I retired just as Covid hit so early 2020. I have seen the load shed module go out from a lightning strike and have seen low starter RPM on a hot restart but most of the time the codes are open to interpretation. IOW, you can get the same code for a "fail to start", meaning it cranks but never comes up to speed. (or no crank at all) I have seen gas issues, poor connections, and even the throttle body / air mixer as the cause. I replaced VERY few starters, because it was usually a bad connection at the battery cable at the starter assembly. Just tighten and done. BTW, we also did remote unit monitoring.
Sorry to hear about your trouble. I purchased 3 medium sized portable generators. If # 1 doesn’t work, use #2 . If #2 does work, try #3. Redundancy.
I run my 8kW/10kW on parallel 100lb tanks. You will never see an icing problem if you do this.
ETA: Also, if you put a soft start on your HVAC, even a smaller gen will run it. The inrush is what kills it, the soft start drops the inrush dramatically
Hope so , just ordered one !
@@Captainpaulbtyhtr Tried to run my 4 ton heat pump with a 13KW Predator generator. Had to run full manual power to get the A/C to start. Put on the Micro Air soft start, and now the generator runs in auto mode and the A/C fires up when needed. That Soft Start really did the trick.
@@dn4816W Since it's an emergency situation, it may be better to have designated emergency common areas with a simple portable or window unit for that space so having the family all sleeping in one room would save significantly on energy. The same could be said for a living room. This is something to consider as investing in an 8-10 kW is quite pricey and if you can do it with a 5-6 kW unit may be easier as well as saving on fuel during times when trampling and fist fighting for fuel can be common.
I have a 20kW Generac whole house generator since 2014. Never had any problems with it on the few moments I've lost power that some times were over a few hours. The only issue I had with the generator wasn't the generator itself. Discovered the 12V battery was shot and had to replace it. I've done the oil/filter changes and that's it. Generator runs once a week for 15 minutes on schedule. There was an issue with a manifold that Generac identified about three years ago. Initially the generator had to be inspected to see if the manifold was affected by the defect and if it wasn't affected, I was out the inspection fee for the tech. But Generac changed their policy and just covered everyone. So I had the manifold replaced for free.
Other than that, my install has two load centers included for the A/C and dryer. The electrician ran a full load test with both of those things running while on generator power and the generator handled it without issue. A comment was made about needing to possibly upgrade the gas meter. My install required it as I have a bunch of things running on natural gas: 3 fireplaces, furnace, hot water heater, and stove/range. A dedicated gas line was installed from the meter to the generator.
ETA: 115 run time hours on my generator.
Yep, the comments all point to units before 2020 are the ones to have.
I am a qualified motor mechanic and a registered electrician and I had a business involving construction and leasing of gensets on trucks for films and tv. One of the major problems with off the shelf gensets is most sales people don't have a clue, don't care, just wanna pocket your dosh. I laugh when I hear people lauding on about gensets, using speech and concepts I know have been mercilessly told to them by a salesman who knows how to get your money into his pocket. People think he knows what he is talking about and hang on his words, using them to anthropomorphize it's characteristics in an attempt to anticipate an understanding of its conduct and usage. It is a machine and will work perfectly if it is placed in the correct environment that it and all of its systems have been designed to operate in. With your particular genset, I would suspect that it is too small to run your installation. OK so the smaller ones will run less load reliably most likely because they do not have the extensive self monitoring protection of the 24. Please update on the dealers diagnosis and repair of your machine.
I put in a 24kw in dec of 22 and it has been a beast. Has ran over 100hrs this year getting me through severe storms and a huricane. Have the 10 year warranty and so far no issues
Also, helps, if you're using a small tank to take a garbage can put water in it and set the tank in the water.
Damn good tip right there. Nice!!!
@@Archifx be aware that the tank will float and still possibly freeze above the water line, but the water will buy you some time. BTW, the problem is actually lack of "vapor pressure" (that's what it's called) due to the small size of those tanks. There's a chart available to tell you the max rate of use based on tank size and it's obvious that you are going beyond that point. Even that 100 pound tank is marginal for the max rate on the 13Kw gen set. (marginal if the temp is below 70 degrees outside)
You learn so much when you experience a total infrastructure collapse. Thank you for sharing “lessons learned”. I had no idea the propane tanks would ice up in warm weather! Thanks for the heads up on that. I like the idea of having multiple generators in the mix. For small loads, the lower wattage inverter generators are fine. Bigger generator for well pump and high loads as needed. You have to match the generator to the load……otherwise you are burning a ton of fuel running the large generator all day when you don’t need that capacity. Other idea is to get some marine batteries and inverters run smaller loads. Get 12 volt battery chargers to recharge batteries. Also have a couple 100 watt solar panels. I call this a distributed power solution. No one is coming to help you! Get prepared!
My father-in-law has a generac and when he looses powers my guess would be 50/50 if it will come on, when we decided to get one the company we talked to said most of they’re service calls during bad weather is these Generacs, the company guy worked for said they stopped recommending them, they had moved to Cummings.
We’ve had them install one of the Cummings and have had it save us half dozen times and never issue
Cummins is the way to go. Pricey, but reliable and in the end, wind up saving you money.
We bought a propane fed 18k Generac whole-house generator when we built the house in 2008. The only trouble we've had with it is an over-crank problem from time to time. It has saved us during several short and long duration power outages. It's been a good investment for us.
This video and your experience has taught me several things. I need a 100 pound container of Propane! Also have a back up for your backup. 1 is none, 2 is one and 3 is better. I panic purchased a tri fuel generator after hurricane Berly! Then my friends and family complained I should have got a Honda. I now have 3 gas generators. I went 8 days without power, never again.
he has a large tank right in his yard. (was in the video) He just needs to be able to connect it.
I had one installed in 2020, whole house 22K on NG and it's runs like a champ, no problems. I also got a free 10 year warranty with mine that Genrac offered for a short time as a special deal. Genrac is a great generator.
We are all goin through it. This sucks so bad. I went Westinghouse 7500 for $650 and 10 baby bottles. My wife would get mad evertime I would bring home a new tank. How you like me NOW Wifey!!!!??? Drinking freezing cold wine and doing your makeup before work (not in that order)
😂😂😂 I hope she said thank you, when you were proven right
Amen to that my friend. Everyone talks shit untill they need it. Appreciate the feedback.
@@mr.charles5589 Oh yeah! She is grateful.
Im not sure if you ever load tested your generator prior to this storm or not. I have had my standby for a few years now with no issues. I periodically test run it under a load. I switch off the breaker at the transfer switch and turn on everything in my home. This will determine if you can all or some of the things you may need during a outage. I bought the 24kw which is oversized for my home. I can run everything without much strain on my generator. I also check the oil more frequently than recommended and keep extra oil and filters incase i have to run for long periods of time. We live on the Texas gulf coast and are very familiar with the destruction of hurricanes. We learned from experience the tricks needed to survive during emergency situations. I hope this helps someone
Yeah we had to to get the generator permit passed.
@Archifx it's definitely a must to keep up with maintenance etc.
@Archifx i will also say that the battery terminals on the generators are horrible and cheap. The corrode alot. I recommend cutting them off and replacing them with something more heavy duty. I just replace my battery and noticed how bad the terminals were. I cut and rewired the terminals myself in about 10 minutes.
Proper planning and installation will help ensure long life. Ours included the maintenance plan and they're out twice a year. They've replaced battery and two other components over the years even though it was working. We go to backup power 10+ times a year.. I selected a large Generac dealer that was outside of our area but served our area with fully stocked truck. Reason behind this is if I picked a local electrician and we got hit with a cat5 they would be in the same boat.. We still have a old cord system for our Honda3000
Kohler. I did 100 hours of research on every residential generator made, and Kohler was the clear choice for my use case. Went with the new 26KW-RCAL purchased a year ago. Connects to one 200-amp panel and one 100-amp panel. Load calc was 110-amps total (there are 50-amp hot tub, 50-amp workshop, 30-amp clothes dryer, and 30-amp range that aren't used (I installed a gas dryer and range). Running on natural gas it only outputs 24KW, but that's sufficient. If i decide to get a hot tub, turn on the workshop, or add circuits such as a 50-amp EV charger, I'll install a load shed kit. Weekly Full Load Tests are scheduled (not just the basic no-load test). There's not enough space here to explain why Kohler Whole Home Generators are superior to every other similar sized and priced option out there. PS, I did the install with an electrician's assistance (because of the dual panel setup which is way more complicated than the Generac, but worth it because Kohler does it right). Hope that helps.
Also, use non ethanol gas only if possible and run it dry after shutting the fuel off. Put a fuel shut off on it if yours doesn't have one. Then drain the gas out of it, and clear the bowl for storage.
Or ideally run it only on propane
Stabil product add to keep the gas from going BAD !
Many Generac units not producing power can be repaired with the insallation of a Field Boost Upfit Kit. My particular 13k model used part number 0H07850SRV. A/C units and generators will be greatly benefitted with the installation of a soft start to the A/C condensor unit.
that kit only fits two specific air cooled units of that era. (13 & 15 KW?) It also only solves one particular problem, which was a weak field boost at start up. (flashing overspeed light) Most of those units are water under the bridge and nearing the end of life. I installed many of those kits in my day.
Sorry to hear of your troubles. It sucks and greatly increases the stress levels when you expect to depend on something that is expensive and essentially new and have it fail yet it's happy to pass weekly exercise tests. Glad your neighbor is an electrician. I live in south Louisiana (hurricane prone) and I have a Generac 38KW 1800 rpm liquid cooled propane quiet source unit I bought and had installed new a couple years ago. So far it has worked just fine on weekly exercise but has only 4 hours actual loaded outage time on it. I'm not sure I fully trust it if needed 24/7 for a week or so as it has not been really proven. I did have a 50amp portable generator receptacle box installed and a cord that I can use to connect my 12kw portable into the panel if the whole house generator fails. It can run the necessary essentials and well pump, lights but it runs on that unobtainable after hurricane stuff called gasoline.
Propane. If your generator is powered by a Honda or Honda clone a tri-fuel carb is like 30 bucks on Amazon and propane lasts until the tank rusts out. Propane is easy to find before and after a storm and no gummed up carburetor.
@@elviraraff6809 Agree. something else to consider is with more and more whole house generators being installed, the ones that are connected to natural gas suffer from not being able to run or run at capacity due to low gas pressure which is due to excessive demand placed on gas infrastructure that has not kept up with actual demand. This has been a real issue here in South Louisiana as well as recent hurricane hit areas such as Florida Sc Georgia.
Mep 803A diesel.......10kw but can produce much more. We have two 4 ton AC units and starts and runs both at the same time as well as an ice machine, hot water tank, TWO well pumps and normal house stuff. We don't turn off any breakers it just runs and never gets over 65% load. Government paid $25,000 per unit and got ours for 5k with only 7 hours on it. We just ran for 4 days on it 24 hours a day off of a 55 gallon drum of diesel. It drinks about 1/2 gallon an hour. The diesel it was using was 5 years old. You can hook them up to run automatically but I just use an Ipad to start it and run/monitor it. When the 9 gallon on board tank gets low it refills itself from the drum automatically. They are even EMP proof.
I have a 13kw diesel gen it runs our whole house it too can run start up loads much higher then its 13kw continuse stated. Ours is an Auroua gen its made here in Canada. It is very good on fuel, it will run 24 hrs. on the 9 gallon tank that is built in. Have never had a minutes trouble with it in the 12 years we have owned it. We just do oil changes and survice runs about once every 6 weeks.
@@dog_guy-c8x It is great peace of mind isn't it?
@@willscottrell6919 It surly is .I would never have any other kind of gen for sure
@@dog_guy-c8x Ours just ran for 3 days after Milton.
@@dog_guy-c8x yep!! I have the 20kw aurora . Same thing here. never had an issue and it sips fuel! I'll never go back to gas or any other fuel.
Thank you for this video, for years i wanted a generac and almost got one if not for the price tag... But this leads me to the question of how are we in the 21st century and still dealing with power outages when the wind blows just a little and hurricane strenght?
It has an encrypted circuit board. That means no-one with company computer can repair motherboard. The best generators are just wires and magnets.
I agree 😊
while I agree, that stuff is 50 year old technology and nobody sells it these days. BTW, that control is not encrypted but it is a proprietary part that fits nothing else.
@@rupe53 so u are telling me its open source!? U do know even a inverter generators are just wires and magnets then it is sent into a innverter. All generators are magnets and wires first. Then engineering created more complex arrangements. But the basic magnets and wires generator is still sold to this day
@@herewegoagain4041 Magnets? How about electromagnets? Not sure about any programming being available (open source) but the factory techs have access to a thumb drive if anything needs a factory update. These new units have a USB port on the face but I never got into it before retiring. Have no idea what you can see with a laptop. The flip side is replacement controls are preprogrammed so plug n play other than setting the clock / calendar.
My Generac Standby Generator saved me during the last 4-day outage during Beryl. However, I upgraded from a portable generator with an NG conversion and interlock kit to power the house. If you have 200 gallons of propane in the ground, you can create a hook-up to run the portable off of that. (I assume your Generac was running on propane). I kept the portable as a backup to the Generac. My neighbor gave me a hard time about keeping my portable generator once I got the Generac...I need to send him this video :) Thanks,
We're going solar with battery...with portable inverter generator backup. That $12K could have gone a long way on a decent solar set up. But 400a panel? Do you have a growhouse or something?
HAHAHA its overkill my friend, Hous draw is just a little over the 200A threshhold so in Tampa they make you oversize. The house had to have 2 additional A/C units which are never run normally. Its a home / office.
I was literally about to buy one 6 months befor Milton until they hit me with a 20 thousand dollar price. I have since found a set up that will do everything I need for 1600 bucks.
Can you tell us what you setup?
This is a great video on needing redundancy. Just a FYI it you are looking for a portable generator spend a little more money and get one with LOW THD "total harmonic distortion" less than 5%.
I have a Predator 9000 watts since 2015 we used several times true a winter storms and 2 weeks ago I run this generator for a whole week after hurricane helene get western North Carolina and no issues yet
I've had one for 13 yrs , solid service through many storms.
I have been telling everyone for years, stay away from those pieces of shit. I went thru hurricane Andrew and have had generators ever since. I learned long ago to stay clear of those. Especially the air cooled ones. My neighbor had a 12kw generac . He needed to have two 500 gallon propane tanks to run it for more than a week. He was so mad at the fuel burn and reliability, that he tore it out after the storm. No one would buy it. In fact, he couldn’t even give it away. No one wanted to deal with that kind of fuel burn. I have since moved to north central Florida and now have a 20 kw diesel with a 100 gallon sub base fuel tank. This has been the best money I have ever spent . These things are bullet prof! I spent $ 11,700 for the generator. $1300.00 for the fuel tank, $ 1100,00 for the transfere switch, then another $1000.00 for the wiring . Oh, I almost forgot. I had to rent a bobcat to lift the thing in place. At 1500 lbs , nothing else would lift it and the slab was maybe a hundred bucks. Did it all myself except the connection to the house.8 years now and I haven’t had a single problem. This generator will last me an easy 40 years. Get diesel and be over it all. Dead serious, you will be watching videos like this and just start smiling because you made the right decision long ago. Brother, I hope you get those issues fixed soon. When the time is right, get that diesel!
The large whole house generators will burn a lot of fuel. The diesel ones seem to be better for using less fuel. I would not go over a 5 kw and just be satisfied to just run a small amount of items in the house. I have a 3200 watt generator that is propane and gasoline. Use it only on propane. Also have a 5 kw generator that is gasoline power that I use if I run out of propane or need to power up more of the house. I am not sure how how the cost of a natural gas unit would be as fas as the fuel cost if one does have natural gas .
Energy is energy. The fuel burn is going to be proportional to the energy produced. Perhaps your complaint is with the cost of the propane?
@@stargazer7644 energy may be energy, but the efficiency of the motor and how much of that energy you are wasting as heat loss makes a huge difference in the amount of fuel you need to produce a certain amount of energy. Early gasoline engines struggled to even make 10% efficiency with modern ones these days being 30-35% efficient. Diesel is significantly more efficient with modern engines having 40-45% efficiency. So you can generally expect to use a lot less fuel to create the same amount of electricity when using a diesel generator versus gas or propane because you're not wasting as much of it.
Great idea, except California’s really nasty with diesel anything. Glad you’ve got a reasonable government.
@@ssaraccoii California is pretty restrictive - even the generator seen in this video is likely not CARB compliant and would not be allowed.
I have been thinking about getting one for a while. But I started seeing a bunch of low hour generics for sale. When I inquired about them I was told that most had been removed and repaired. That made me think if they are any good at all why is there so many repaired ones sitting for sale. I ended up getting an electrician to wire up a plug and an interlock so I can use any good sized generator, and at night I can switch to an ecoflow to run the heater and some small electronics if needed.