Portable Generator For Sale

Opinion on buying a generator for a house?

I am curious what others think about the quality and efficiency of emergency generators that are used for houses. I am not talking about portable generators Also what are the best brands... bang for your buck?

Public Comments

1. I have a portable generator and I live in Canada where there was a power failure for over 12 weeks for some people during an Ice Storm, I was out for 12 hours. Some of our neighbours were out for 8 days in below freezing weather. But I do not think that the cost of an emergency generator for my whole house would be a good economical decision. Depending upon your requirements, and where you live an emergency generator is a very good idea. But if you live a temperate climate and your power failures are not of long duration, then you do not really need a generator. You could purchase some UPS units that would use batteries to keep some of your essential services on line. If you decide that you need one then you need to have one that can be serviced by local people, so that is an important consideration on the suitability of the brand.
2. A permanently installed generator will be very expensive, especially when you consider the wiring necessary to go with it. Unless you have frequent outages, they are not worth the cost.
3. to add to the first two posts- built in standby generators are IMHO a vastly oversold item. a typical 10K unit can cost several thousand bucks by the time you install it and make the changes to your wiring. then there's the maintenance required. they should be test run monthly and under load at least semi annually. oil changes every 3 to 6 months, new battery every couple years, fighting off hornets and other critters that just love that nice enclosure. all this to cover the perhaps few hours or a day or two without power. a portable is more that enough for 99.99% of the time. another small detail that salesmen never mention is that many generators do not supply "clean and stable" power. add or drop a large load [ stove, hot water heater] and the voltage and frequency can vary a lot. this is not good for electronics and can damage other loads as well. unless you have a real need [ medical , business, or other] its hard to make the case for standby generators without using scare tactics
4. "I am NOT talking portable generators" Does that mean you intend to do a cut-off interface with the utility company to power the whole house? You might want to discuss what it is you are trying to accomplish with an electrician. The equipment you are talking about would be a huge expense. Many of these set-ups use battery bank buffers for clean and stable current. Then you can write more big checks. Then you will be stuck with periodic maintenance and testing of both a big generator and a battery bank. The size, type, brand and cost are meaningless until you (a) define what it is you want to accomplish and (b) look at all the ways those objectives can be accomplished with the guidance of an electrician. Objective 1; Power for a few lights. Objective 2: Power to run the blower motor on a gas furnace. Objective 3: ?
5. Those portable generators are also available in trifuel versions for the same costs. I would imagine that a portable trifuel version could be dragged out after the storm, hooked up to the transfer switch and a fitting on the natural gas line that you keep padlocked shut and then run off the natural gas, should the natural gas be interrupted, you could run it off propane cylinders and if those aren't available you could run it off gasoline. The permanently installed natural gas ones are convenient in that they will kick on automatically but they are outside exposed to the extreme weather that is causing the outages in the first place, also they run only on natural gas so in the unlikely event that the natural gas supply is also disrupted, you have no other options. I think it would be better to have the transfer switch, natural gas fittings and a pad installed with a chain anchor so that you can wheel out the emergency generator when needed, that way you could take the generator in for servicing instead of having a house call and there's less chance that the generator would be stolen for scrap metal.