Generac home standby generator ?

[coobie]

I am currently looking at buying a generac 17kw standby generator (LP)model 5504 or 5505.I am looking for input from folks who owned and one of these units.How have they held up long term?Thanks for any information.coobie

 

[DarinRay]

We have had a 12KW model installed for about 4 years and it's been a great investment when you live in the country like we do. The newer models have the electronic governor and my manual one was a pain in the butt at first. Now that I took the big load (hot tub) off it seems to handle it all fine now. These sure beats the pants off of hooking up extension cord and going to get the generator out of the barn during a storm (really the only time the power goes out).

One of these days I'll sell this one so I can get the bigger and better one like you are looking at.

Darin

 

[kennyd]

I have the older 15kw version of that same unit...I installed it myself and now it has 92+ hours on it (I also installed a hour meter) and it has been flawless. My only issue is the steel enclosure is not holding up well-but they now offer an Aluminum one that should be better.

I bought mine from Norwall Power Systems.

 

[Slice]

I have same one you are buying, ran for 350 hrs ( new home construction) threw rod thru block. since it was only 6 months old, had new motor replaced under warranty, ran great thru hurricane IKE, I use mine as whole house back up.. no auto switch over, this way I can choose which breakers to use, I have a 400 amp service big house,, designed with small a/c units, ( 3) so they generator could run them.. unit runs every sudnay for 12 minutes to exercise its self, no complaints.... uses about gallon and half propane every hr. I have a 500 gallon tank.

 

[coobie]

I have same one you are buying, ran for 350 hrs ( new home construction) threw rod thru block. since it was only 6 months old, had new motor replaced under warranty, ran great thru hurricane IKE, I use mine as whole house back up.. no auto switch over, this way I can choose which breakers to use, I have a 400 amp service big house,, designed with small a/c units, ( 3) so they generator could run them.. unit runs every sudnay for 12 minutes to exercise its self, no complaints.... uses about gallon and half propane every hr. I have a 500 gallon tank.

I have (LP)propane also(500 gal.)tank.Thanks for the information on how many gal.you use per hour,I was curious about how much it would use.coobie

 

[firefighter9208]

So at $2.00 a gallons that's $3.00 an hour or $72.00 a day (ouch). .

I think I'll stick with my 8500 watt portable for the few power outages we have.

Chris

 

[kennyd]

So at $2.00 a gallons that's $3.00 an hour or $72.00 a day (ouch). .

I think I'll stick with my 8500 watt portable for the few power outages we have.

Chris

Those are MAX load figures, the generator is generally not run that way for long periods of times.

 

[coobie]

So at $2.00 a gallons that's $3.00 an hour or $72.00 a day (ouch). .

I think I'll stick with my 8500 watt portable for the few power outages we have.

Chris

I hear ya !! I ran my Kubota 6500 watt(gas gen) at $3.99 gal. for five days straight about 2 years ago.Talk about OUCH!!Propane prices around here were $1.49 this summer when I filled up.I heat with wood pellets and only use about 350 gal.of propane a year.coobie

 

[BobRip]

I hear ya !! I ran my Kubota 6500 watt(gas gen) at $3.99 gal. for five days straight about 2 years ago.Talk about OUCH!!Propane prices around here were $1.49 this summer when I filled up.I heat with wood pellets and only use about 350 gal.of propane a year.coobie

It makes you appreciate the power company prices. I maintain that after spending several thousand dollars on a system, to pay a few hundred dollars once every 10 years for that very rare long outage is not big deal. In 10 years you will probably need a new generator anyway and the fuel cost is still low compared the to system cost. Running out of fuel is the big deal when there is an outage.

 

[coobie]

It makes you appreciate the power company prices. I maintain that after spending several thousand dollars on a system, to pay a few hundred dollars once every 10 years for that very rare long outage is not big deal. In 10 years you will probably need a new generator anyway and the fuel cost is still low compared the to system cost. Running out of fuel is the big deal when there is an outage.

I work for the local power company as a electric lineman and I agree electricity is cheap compared to fuel,LP or natural gas.Try telling that to folks who have been without power for 5 days,LOL.coobie

 

[tomd999]

Hiya,

I have the 17KW LP unit hooked to a 1000G tank. No issues so far in 3 years. We were without power for 10 days during the ice storm of '08, used about $500 worth of propane running the genset about 5 to 6 hours a day.

Tom

 

[RonMar]

For casualty power, for which you need to store and provide all the fuel, less is definitely more. 17KW? You live in a mansion or something coobie? That is a lot of power, especially up north where you probably don't need to power a monster A/C unit... With a little bit of planning/preparation, you could probably provide for all the comforts with a whole lot less generator...

 

[BobRip]

I work for the local power company as a electric lineman and I agree electricity is cheap compared to fuel,LP or natural gas.Try telling that to folks who have been without power for 5 days,LOL.coobie

I was so happy to see those guys after 7 days of no power from hurricaine Isabel and I had a generator and a wife who likes to not have power. The generator keeps you busy.

 

[coobie]

For casualty power, for which you need to store and provide all the fuel, less is definitely more. 17KW? You live in a mansion or something coobie? That is a lot of power, especially up north where you probably don't need to power a monster A/C unit... With a little bit of planning/preparation, you could probably provide for all the comforts with a whole lot less generator...

Ron,I wished I lived in a manison.LOL.I was looking at a 8kw but was told by my generator installer that a 8kw would not start my 3 ton central air condition unit,he also said this 17 kw will use twice the propane compared to the 8kw unit.The wife and I are getting ready to retire in about 3 more years and want to make sure we buy the correct unit for our needs now verses regret later on we bought the wrong unit.coobie.

 

[RonMar]

Ron,I wished I lived in a manison.LOL.I was looking at a 8kw but was told by my generator installer that a 8kw would not start my 3 ton central air condition unit,he also said this 17 kw will use twice the propane compared to the 8kw unit.The wife and I are getting ready to retire in about 3 more years and want to make sure we buy the correct unit for our needs now verses regret later on we bought the wrong unit.coobie.

The first KW always costs the most to make IRT fuel, as it has all the engine internal mechanical loads and generator air pumping loads included in it. Subsequent killowats are cheaper. The larger the genset, the greater the cost of that first KW. A 17KW droning away feeding a 2-3KW load is consuming a large ammount of fuel compared to a 8KW feeding the same average load.

In your situation, I would look at a way to not need that central 3 ton A/C in an emergency. The difference in fuel burn between the 17 and the 8KW for a weeks runtime will be several hundred dollars, and I don't see fuel costs going down anytime in the future. The cost difference would perhaps be enough to pay for 2 smaller localized A/C's that the smaller genset would be able to power... Plus the smaller genset will cost less. As a further justification, the smaller A/C units could also be a backup for if/when you have a 3 ton central A/C failure...

My .02, Good Luck.

 

[BobRip]

Ron, good points above. When you are running on a generator you are in a crisis mode and should be glad to have any electricity. Water, refrigeration, lights, heat, and communications are your emergency needs. You could get one or two window AC units and install then during the outage if you needed. Again they are good backups if the main unit is down. A fan can also work. It's low power to.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Wish I had an automatic generator, my power has been out for about 6 hrs now..
I heard what sounded like a loud shotgun blast when it went off, there's a fused cutout on the line one pole before it feeds my house. We had strong winds all night, probably took a tree down on the line.

 

[schmism]

So at $2.00 a gallons that's $3.00 an hour or $72.00 a day (ouch). .

I think I'll stick with my 8500 watt portable for the few power outages we have.

Chris

what do you think your 8500w version cost to run? my 4500w is about a gal an hr so 1.5-2g an hr for your 8500w..... at $3 a gal gas.... 4.50-$6 a hr.

so it cost him roughly half your cost, for twice the output?

 

[eepete]

Fuel consumption on generators is very model dependent. Mine idles with no load at about 1.25 gal/hour. With a "typical" load of the house (winter or summer), it runs at just under 2 gallons an hour. If I had an outage in the winter when it was 10 degrees out and no sun or at night, I'd hit 3 gal/hour. At it's maximum rating it's 4 gallons/hour, but I'll never see that for sustained periods. It runs on propane, have 1000 gallon tank, so can have up to 800 gallons on site. I refill at the 600 gallon point, in 2 years I've used 2% of the tank with a few small outages and a lot of burgers on the grill.

How big is the generator? This is a 45 KW Onan generator, the engine is a 3 liter in-line Ford V6 like old school busses and some saw mills had.

So some extrapolations of consumption based on generator KW rating might be a good 1st guess, but it is very model dependent.

Pete

 

[TheGoose]

45KW? That's a lot of juice. You could supply half the neighborhood LOL.