Your last generator Maintenance Run
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daugen
Epic Contributor
part of their 80% increase in electricity costs is being used to pay somebody else to take free power.
geez doesn't sound like good long range planning...can't they just idle a few of the hydro gens? I'm just guessing but there's probably five or six water turbine generators on a big dam, can't they idle a few of them, redirect the water?
Usually when you make lots of power, industry follows.
good thing we only have to worry about dosing our little gens with Sea Foam...
time to change the oil on my big Generac, it's been a year, but seems silly to throw out that perfectly clean oil,
and I still have a hard time seeing the oil level it is so clean, partially I assume due to a good oil filter.
A Generac engine is a clone of a Briggs Vanguard, which I also own. Nice to have parts interchangeability.
I have to believe Briggs makes their engines, (blocks?) and then Generac relabels. I never thought Generac built engines,
despite their ads as to the durability of their engines. Does anyone know?
The 22kw Generac even comes with an oil drain hose, though I'm not sure the last bit of oil drains out due to the angle of the hose.
geez doesn't sound like good long range planning...can't they just idle a few of the hydro gens? I'm just guessing but there's probably five or six water turbine generators on a big dam, can't they idle a few of them, redirect the water?
Usually when you make lots of power, industry follows.
good thing we only have to worry about dosing our little gens with Sea Foam...
time to change the oil on my big Generac, it's been a year, but seems silly to throw out that perfectly clean oil,
and I still have a hard time seeing the oil level it is so clean, partially I assume due to a good oil filter.
A Generac engine is a clone of a Briggs Vanguard, which I also own. Nice to have parts interchangeability.
I have to believe Briggs makes their engines, (blocks?) and then Generac relabels. I never thought Generac built engines,
despite their ads as to the durability of their engines. Does anyone know?
The 22kw Generac even comes with an oil drain hose, though I'm not sure the last bit of oil drains out due to the angle of the hose.
I had the impression a while ago that Generac was making some of their bigger small engines (if that makes sense) in the USA. But that was a while ago, and things can change as fast as a bean-counter's spreadsheet....
Your gen gets the opposite life :thumbsup: of the customers grs has described.... you are so on top of the maintenance that I'd say there is absolutely no risk (rare for me to say) if a tiny bit of oil doesn't drain.
Gotta roll soon, so I'll summarize this way.... the Liberal electricity policy was first and foremost (not hard to argue, exclusively) about social engineering. Electricity is embedded into our modern lives, but it's only part of the story......
I have friends running various small businesses here. Even at that level, the general govt legislation/oversight/reporting requirement burden here is onerous. Even if I could wave a magic wand and reset everybody's bills to 4cents/kwh with no fairy-tale fees here, most medium and heavy industry wouldn't be back.
Rgds, D.
buickanddeere
Super Member
Read back a page or two. We are spilling water past the turbines on hydro electric sites which can generate for 5 cents per Kwh. At the same instant in time we are wholesale paying gas plants 17 cents, wind 13.5 cents and solar and average of 40.2 cents while paying NY and Michigan to take the surplus power.
Wind, solar and gas are guarantied the right to generate no matter if the power is required or not.
Cheap power, has to be low cost power, not the most expensive power in North America. Industry will leave, and it has.
As far a planning it is brilliant. Eliminates jobs and makes more voters dependent on loyal voters who want hand outs. The anti nuclear protestors have the nuclear plants shut down, not due to age or safety, but due to not making enough $$$ earned to operate the nuclear plants by making the wholesale price of power too low.
90cummins
Veteran Member
Lost power last night for 4 hours and finally had a chance to actually use my 4kw battery backup system to power the house.
There's nothing like a real outage to appreciate and see how a system works.
When it's dark out and the winds blowing & raining with tornado warnings the wife paid attention to what I was showing her.
My 4kw system is enough to allow use of all circuits except the dryer.
Still as with a small generator I monitor the wattage draw on the system with the system monitor.
With all essential household appliances TV, heat & lights being used I was around 400 watts max load which I could sustain for several hours or more.
It was nice to throw a switch rather than pull the generator out start and run cords.
Generators were running up & down the street making quite a lot of noise but I was silent.
90cummins
There's nothing like a real outage to appreciate and see how a system works.
When it's dark out and the winds blowing & raining with tornado warnings the wife paid attention to what I was showing her.
My 4kw system is enough to allow use of all circuits except the dryer.
Still as with a small generator I monitor the wattage draw on the system with the system monitor.
With all essential household appliances TV, heat & lights being used I was around 400 watts max load which I could sustain for several hours or more.
It was nice to throw a switch rather than pull the generator out start and run cords.
Generators were running up & down the street making quite a lot of noise but I was silent.
90cummins
There is a lot to be said for pairing a generator with a battery bank - been done in the industrial world for a long time. Generators are great at shouldering heavy loads - why have even a 5kw generator spinning away just to power a few hundred watts ? In the last 20 years high-power inverters have become relatively inexpensive, removing another obstacle to implementation.
In an extended outage, hybrid systems can help extend fuel resources. Aside from being audibly enjoyable, quiet helps avoid advertising the presence of a generator.
Some people view battery bank maintenance as a big deal, but I don't see that as a problem for someone with even basic DIY skills.
Nicely done 90.
Rgds, D.
Gale Hawkins
Super Star Member
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Our DuroMax XP10000EH 10,000 Watt 18.0 Hp Dual Fuel HYBRID Generator w/ Electric Start that shipped last Friday FedEx Freight delivered it yesterday (Tue) morning. My son put the wheels on it and we fired it up on propane about 5 PM and it ran fine. Last night I went to town and picked up 4 gallons of $3.09 gas that is alcohol free premium. I poured in about half of a gallon and could not get it to run well at all but when I would switch back to propane all was fine. The tornado was moving in fast so I dumped the 4 gallons into the 8.3 gallon tank. Then it ran fine on gasoline. This AM I fired it up on gasoline just fine and ran smooth. Temp was 57F but I think it would be fine at 0F.
The price has gone back up by $350 today on Ebay to $999. It is an 18 HP single cylinder with a steel sleeve but does not have an oil filter so I guess it may have a splash system vs an oil pump. In fact it is the same configuration of the 4400 DuroMax we bought 10 years ago. I really like it and am working on putting 5 hours of very light load on it this week so I can change out the oil and look for metal, etc. 10 years ago the DuroMax manual called for a 5 hour break-in period plus it is just covered for one year on replacement parts so I want to run it some under full load ASAP after the break in. The 4400 had a bad voltage regulator (high voltage) but after a phone call the part was in my mailbox in less than a week.
If I get a chance to pick up some larger propane tanks like 40-100 pounds at a good price I will over time but I know it runs fine one gas which I tend to keep around the place. For people that heat with propane it would make an awesome back up solution since you would not have to handle any fuel. The low oil shut off feature should protect the engine in the case of long outages.
At $649 to the door price for a dual fuel generator it was a great birthday gift to me.
The price has gone back up by $350 today on Ebay to $999. It is an 18 HP single cylinder with a steel sleeve but does not have an oil filter so I guess it may have a splash system vs an oil pump. In fact it is the same configuration of the 4400 DuroMax we bought 10 years ago. I really like it and am working on putting 5 hours of very light load on it this week so I can change out the oil and look for metal, etc. 10 years ago the DuroMax manual called for a 5 hour break-in period plus it is just covered for one year on replacement parts so I want to run it some under full load ASAP after the break in. The 4400 had a bad voltage regulator (high voltage) but after a phone call the part was in my mailbox in less than a week.
If I get a chance to pick up some larger propane tanks like 40-100 pounds at a good price I will over time but I know it runs fine one gas which I tend to keep around the place. For people that heat with propane it would make an awesome back up solution since you would not have to handle any fuel. The low oil shut off feature should protect the engine in the case of long outages.
At $649 to the door price for a dual fuel generator it was a great birthday gift to me.
grsthegreat
Super Star Member
yes generac builds their own engines complete including valves and alternators. They produce their own windings. The engine is basically the vangard.
daugen
Epic Contributor
most interesting, particularly if they spec a higher grade valve. I always wondered if they put an extra oil control ring in the piston, Generacs are known for very low oil consumption, obviously a good trait for something that might run for days on end. Not sure if Vanguard has same reputation. Good that Generac makes the alternator, can control the quality of the product. Usually don't hear of an alternator failing.