Generator Advice

[bruce69camaro]

I'm looking to buy a generator to do two functions, one for power at the race track and two, in case of a power outage at home.

I was looking at All Power APG3002S 3500w.

If there would be a power outage at our house, what would a 3500w generator be able to run?

My house is total electric, 961 sq ft, of living area which of course would not all need to be heated but I'd like to be able to supply power to a refrigerator and at least one room of heat as well as a tv/ radio.

Thank you.

 

[EOC_Jason]

Volts x Amps = Watts

So you are talking roughly 29 Amps @ 120v...

Check the Amp ratings for your devices, but also be aware of the startup / inrush current for things with motors (like your refrigerator)...

When you say one room of heat? With what, a portable electric heater?

 

[bruce69camaro]

I have a space heater that we can use. It's not a large space heater but at least it would give us something until the power would come back on.

I would just like to be able to run a fridge, a TV or Radio and a space heater. Maybe not all at the same time, but as long as it would give us some power, that would be my only want in case of an emergency.

Thank you

 

[StingRay]

A 3500 is on the thin side of providing back up power. Better than nothing for sure. 5000 is generally considered the minimum size for being able to run the basics in a cold climate and at that you will be swapping loads to keep heat on and the fridges and freezers cold. If you are rural then also consider the water supply and septic pumps as potentially critical loads. It's not just about what the items draw while running either. Remember that anything with a motor can have significantly larger starting currents. My experience is also that most consumer type generators are somewhat overstated in how they are named. My 5000 is really about 4200.

 

[bruce69camaro]

I have city water, so I don't need to worry about those items.

Thank you, that is good advice.

 

[Shoester]

Been considering this as well lately. Neighbor came over the other night and exclaimed that he heard we would be getting 20x more snow than last year (Kansas City area). I did some google'ing and can't seem to find anything that supports that theory, but nonetheless it has got me thinking about picking up a generator for emergency backup use.

I have my eye on a generac model from HD:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Generac-...se&gclid=CMjdnP_098ACFVNT7AodVFYAuQ&gclsrc=ds

8kw, seems plenty to run a fridge/freezer, couple of lights, and a couple space heaters.

 

[bruce69camaro]

The reason I was looking at the 3500w unit is mainly for power at the race track and I was hoping to be able to use it at home in case of a power outage.

That is a nice unit but a bit too big to drag around to the track.

 

[theoldwizard1]

I'm looking to buy a generator to do two functions, one for power at the race track and two, in case of a power outage at home.
My house is total electric, 961 sq ft, of living area which of course would not all need to be heated but I'd like to be able to supply power to a refrigerator and at least one room of heat as well as a tv/ radio.
.

I have a space heater that we can use. It's not a large space heater but at least it would give us something until the power would come back on.

I would just like to be able to run a fridge, a TV or Radio and a space heater. Maybe not all at the same time, but as long as it would give us some power, that would be my only want in case of an emergency.

People around here go for overkill on generators, especially portable generators.

If you are willing to use heavy duty extension cords and are willing to not run more than 1 heavy load at a time (no microwave and heater at the same time), 3000+ watts is plenty of power for what you described.

Get 2 50-100' 12 gauge extension cords. Also get a 12 gauge "triple tap". Use one of the cords for your heater and then the other can be split 3 ways.

Now here is where things get tricky ! Most generators over 300 watts have a 240V outlet. The question is, do the 120V outlets each use one half of that 240V. If there are 2 120V circuit breaker, then the answer is yes. Plug one cord into one outlet and the other into the other outlet.

If you only have 1 circuit breaker, your 3000+ watt generator likely has a "RV" outlet. Skip the 2 12 gauge extension cords and get 1 10 gauge extension cord. You will also need an adapter from the RV style to regular 120V outlet.

Another one to consider. Champion 3500/4000 watt generator. Like most portable generators it is made in China, but the company is based in the US and stocks all of the parts "on shore".

 

[StingRay]

For a really portable unit I'd look at a good inverter type unit. More expensive but super quiet and really accurate frequency control. It's nice not to have to be camped out next to a roaring gen set all day.

 

[Highbeam]

I use a 3500/4000 surge champion genset for backup power at my house and also for camping duties to run the RV's AC unit.

I backfeed the house through the panel using an interlock kit and it does great for the refer, freezer, and small beer fridge plus lights, TV, and even the microwave. The biggest load is the microwave. I have even run the coffee pot and cooked on the electric range. These last three are one at a time. The refers cycle on their own whenever.

What it can't do is run the water heater or the hot tub so I shut those breakers off.

Oh and I shut the thing off overnight as it is not as quiet as a Honda. The refers stay cool just fine overnight. We are all electric but heat with wood.

If I need a hot shower then I take shelter in the RV which has an oven, hot water, furnace, etc.

 

[MFolks]

During power outages, the thieves are looking for generators to steal, running or not. If you can secure your generator in an out building, it's reduce the chance of theft. Also, do not have a running generator close by the house, as the exhaust fumes from the gas engine, can kill you, or make you suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

[bruce69camaro]

Thanks for all the great advice.

The Champion 3500/4000 is a unit I am looking at.

Maybe I should consider this one to be my first choice.

Thanks again

 

[p_mori7]

I have a 5000w running / 6250 surge.

It's a Powerstroke model from Home Depot, has a Chinese Honda clone engine.

It runs great.

Had a 3500w Coleman many years before, and it was very marginal for my needs. Had to constantly manage the loads.

 

[Falcon67]

Thanks for all the great advice.

The Champion 3500/4000 is a unit I am looking at.

Maybe I should consider this one to be my first choice.

Thanks again

Have one that we use in the race trailer. Runs the lights, radio, computer and AC just fine. AC pulls 17a in 100f weather. Runs about 6 hr at that load. Run about 15 gallons through it this year and didn't buy it till June. Get the wheel kit.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Thanks for all the great advice.

The Champion 3500/4000 is a unit I am looking at.

The only downside on that unit might be no 240V, so you can't run a water pump or water heater or stove.

 

[38Chevy454]

When I was racing I used a small Honda generator for the track. Little 2-stroke engine and I think it is 350 watts? I had std open car trailer, so it was just to keep the car battery charged and run the water pump and fans to cool down between rounds. Could also run a couple lights if needed. Nice small generator about the size of a lunchbox. Real quiet, used very little fuel. Takes up no space or weight to haul around. It was perfect for what I needed at the track.

For home I bought a 6000 watt unit. That has enough to run the main appliances and some lights, TV, etc. hauling a large 3500-7000 watt size generator around tot he track would be too much work, unless you have enclosed trailer and keep the generator in the trailer all the time.

 

[Blk88GT]

I just went through this, I wanted a generator for the track and to provide some backup for home (sump pump/fridge/freezer etc)

I bought this one: http://www.yamahamotorsports.com/outdoor/products/modelhome/444/0/home.aspx

I let it run all weekend at the track within an hour of buying it, powering two trailers and it used ~7 gallons of fuel. It's perfect for what I need.

 

[theoldwizard1]

I just went through this, I wanted a generator for the track and to provide some backup for home (sump pump/fridge/freezer etc)

I bought this one: http://www.yamahamotorsports.com/outdoor/products/modelhome/444/0/home.aspx

I let it run all weekend at the track within an hour of buying it, powering two trailers and it used ~7 gallons of fuel. It's perfect for what I need.

Unquestionably that is a very nice generator, especially with boost capability.

Unfortunately it is 8 TIMES more expensive than the Champion 3500/4000 watt generator.

 

[JerryC]

I have a 3200w Harbor Freight Predator generator.

It has two separate 120v circuits that are 13 amps each. I've tested it with my 20+ year old 25cu/ft Sears fridge on one circuit and both of my gas furnaces running on the other.

The fridge uses almost no power when running, the only concern is the surge during start up of the compressor, but I could not measure that surge with a kill-a-watt or DVM. Combined the furnaces run at 11 amps, but you have to start them one at at a time due to surge at start up of the blower motors.

I've also tested it with a 5000btu and a 10000btu windows units on one circuit and a 1500 watt heater on the other.

Bottom line, the gen you are looking at will do what you want it to do.

 

[Eaglewolf]

First question, do you have an enclosed trailer? If yes would you be willing to mount a generator either on the tongue(not recommended too much tongue weight) or cut a hole in the side of the trailer and put an rv generator in? You can typically pick up a good used low hour rv generator for $500-$1000 for a 4kw-7kw generator, Keep the fuel hose to the fuel pump long and insert it into a gas/diesel can. The unit can be mounted to a trailer, or built onto a skid and bolted down, and yet easy to unbolt. Or in the case of an enclosed trailer when you find the generator tell them you need the louvered door from the rv that's being parted out, and install it on the trailer. Build a workbench over the top and place insulation to keep the temperature down inside the trailer. I personally would run the output to a small 220 breaker panel, If you found a 7kw unit it would power your heater/or fridge, tv, lights, space heater etc. you would need a 10g 4 wire (power, power, neutral, ground) power cord(for 7k). a 4kw generator would not be able to power the heater at all. and would require a 10g 3 wire(power, neutral, ground) cord if it provides all power on 1 circuit. or a 12g 4 wire cord if it provides 2 circuits. With the 7kw you have probably have 2 power circuits. So what you could do instead of installing an expensive automatic transfer switch. is simply install a male power receptical of the appropriate number of conductors into a 30 amp single or double breaker. turn off the main breakers, and turn on the 30 amp breaker. make sure if you use a single breaker that all of the items you want to use are on that leg in the breaker panel.

 

[jrcampbe]

The government is getting rid of the last remaining of the previous generation "Mobile Electric Power" units they have. I bought one that had been overhauled and then put in dry storage. It has 11 hours on it. The units are available from 5KW to 100KW and larger. But this is no ordinary 5KW generator. It's rated for 5KW at 100% duty cycle at 10,000 ft above sea level. It will handle a 15KW spike no problem. Because of how overbuilt these things are, you can weld off of them and they just crank along.

These are incredible generators that cost the government about $12,000. I paid $650 and it's basically new.

As a HUGE bonus, they can be connected to provide 3-phase power for shop equipment. A switch on the front toggles between 120 single-phase, 240 split-phase (what your house has), and 208 3-phase. They burn diesel and only spin at 1800 RPM.

This kind of generator was used to power tent cities or field hospitals.

Mine is an MEP-002a, which is the 5KW unit, powered by a 2-cylinder air-cooled diesel. The 10KW unit is called an MEP-003a and is the same generator with a 4-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine. The MEP-004a is a 15KW liquid cooled and they go bigger from there.

Check out this site to learn more about these incredible machines:

http://greenmountaingenerators.com/

(no affiliation and I don't recommend buying from there necessarily -- buy from govliquidation.com auction, but be aware you may need to do some minor repairs. I had to put batteries in mine and some knucklehead shorted the starter motor + lead to the frame so there was an easy-to-fix short). They run two 12V batteries for a 24V system. They have intake air preheaters, glow plugs and starters that work down to -30F. There is even a secondary fuel pump to pump fuel from a truck tank or barrel or whatever.

There is nothing available that can touch these things for the money. The downside is they are pretty heavy.

Jim

 

[theoldwizard1]

There is nothing available that can touch these things for the money. The downside is they are pretty heavy.

... and HUGE !

 

[Falcon67]

First question, do you have an enclosed trailer? If yes would you be willing to mount a generator either on the tongue(not recommended too much tongue weight) or cut a hole in the side of the trailer and put an rv generator in?

Why. We wheel our out of the trailer and park it in front of the truck. I use a 35' RV cable with a regular 20A plug on the end stuck through a cord port in the side of the trailer. Gets the noise, heat, smell, etc away from the trailer. I see gen boxes in 30' trailers, never in a 24' tag like most economy racers use. Takes up too much space. If I have time I'll wire the trailer this winter, but a 3 way and cords worked pretty well this year.

 

[randyny]

During hurricane Sandy I did not have a generator and was powerless for 6 days. Vowed to finally get a generator. My area was still out of power during Halloween. Bringing the kids around trick-or-treating, we passed many generators. 10 of them were the Home Depot standard ones. Always running at 3600 rpm and loud like you wouldn't believe. One we passed was a Honda 4000 inverter. Purred like a kitten. After agonizing for months, I went with a pair of Yamaha EF2000is sets.

My requirements/reasons:

- Low gas usage. lots of folks love the big 8-10-12kw generators, but during extended outages like Sandy, trying to get gas was a hardship. Seriously. I saw the people with the 5-gallon containers all over the place. Plan ahead, sure, but who would have expected 6-30 days without power? I even considered a diesel unit to hook up to my oil tank and have unlimited run time but I only found an expensive Chinese unit that I wasn't comfortable with. The Yamaha units run 11 hours at 1/4 load on a 1.1 gallon tank of fuel. x2 when both hooked up together to get the 4k output.

- Lightweight. I too bring one to the racetrack. These things carry like a suitcase. Easy to throw on the truck, etc. I actually pull the generator out to the backyard if I need power further than, say, a 100ft extension cord can reach. Just easier this way.

- Quietness. As inaudible as can be. At the track, we sleep in the trailer with the genny running outside. Not obtrusive at all, and it doesnt bother the other campers. And during Sandy, you can hear regular generators a mile away, all running at full speed. Annoying to have outside your window I bet.

- Quality. Certainly the Honda/Yamaha sets are an order of magnitude better than the standard sets. I went with Yamaha because of minor differences like gas gauge, easy to drain carb, slightly longer run time. And blue is cooler than red. Otherwise they are compatible.

- Extra benefit of having the ultimate in reliability. If one dies for whatever reason, say a bad spark plug or something not obtainable during an outage, another one is there. Obviously watts go down by half, but 2000 can run quite a bit just by itself. Like the fridge, and tv, and phone chargers. Or I can bring one to my mother's house if needed.


Downsides:
- Cost. 1900 for the pair is alot, no doubt, but how often on this forum is it
stated "The sting of low quality always last longer than the thrill of a cheap deal" or something like that. I applied that.

- Capacity. No 240v here. This is a deal-breaker for many. Not me so much. The object for me is not to replace utility power, but to make power outages, even long ones, livable.

That's my reasons. Happy so far.
-randy

 

[theoldwizard1]

My requirements/reasons:

- Low gas usage. lots of folks love the big 8-10-12kw generators, but during extended outages like Sandy, trying to get gas was a hardship.

I don't understand that either ! Bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to generators, even whole home generators.

I lived through the big Notheast/Midwest black out which was only a couple of days. I had to drive 30 miles one way and wait in line for over 30 mintes to fill up a couple of cans !

After agonizing for months, I went with a pair of Yamaha EF2000is sets.

Why the pair of EF2000is instead of the EF2800i or EF3000is ?

 

[randyny]

vs ef3000, Weight, 136 lbs vs 44 pounds (88 for two). 44 pounds is an easy suitcase carry. 136, not so much. quieter, redundancy & flexibility.

 

[LEVE]

Heck, I just use on of my Prius as a generator....

 

[theoldwizard1]

vs ef3000, Weight, 136 lbs vs 44 pounds (88 for two). 44 pounds is an easy suitcase carry. 136, not so much. quieter, redundancy & flexibility.

Good logic, but $$$ !

 

[randyny]

actually, 2 ef2000s compared to 1 ef3000 is about the same price, but 33% more capacity.

 

[crucible]

That's my reasons. Happy so far.
-randy

For many of the same reasons I "downgraded" my generator to a Yamaha
2400iSHC: very low gas usage, very very quiet, but capable enough to run a refriderator, my (gas) furnace in the winter or a smaller window a/c unit in the summer and/or several other needs to make a potentially extended outage liveable and not miserable.

I keep 20 gallons of gas on site, stabilized and rotate every year, and figure with this generator, I'm good for a week+ of constant usage.

I'm about to install a hardwired transfer circuit switch for my furnace this year so my wife can easily use connect to it if I'm not around. http://heezy.com/products/hts15-man-generator-furnace-single-circuit-transfer-switch/
(No affiliation.)

C-

 

[EOC_Jason]

Funny how people up north keep them for the winter storms, while people down south keep them for hurricanes...

There should be a generator exchange program... lol..

 

[Falcon67]

We decided that we could put up with 73~75dB @ 20' for $299 vs hushy-hushy Honda for $2000.

 

[Blk88GT]

Unquestionably that is a very nice generator, especially with boost capability.

Unfortunately it is 8 TIMES more expensive than the Champion 3500/4000 watt generator.

Maybe so, but it's so quiet I can leave it running at the track overnight without disturbing anyone, parts are available at any Yamaha dealer etc.

I bought the Yamaha because of the boost feature and the wheel kit was included wheer the Honda was extra.

I've learned my lesson buying cheap stuff in the past and was willing to spend more to get something reliable. If I don't have power when I need it, that could be a problem.