Still dealing with replacing portable generator, I was slow in coming to a decision but now with utility company declaring 'public safety alerts' where they will be shutting down the power grids based on the weather forecast.

Generac 5000w purchased 17 years ago bit the dust w/in 1/2 hour of a 4-day power outage. The 2nd round of a 3-day outage checked local suppliers only to find item out of stock. Meantime narrowed selection to a couple of options, both cost about the same. Over these many years, only used the Generator during outages, usually once or twice a year, running anywhere from a few hours to 1 to 3 days or approx. 15 hours/year.

Honda EU2200i inverter.
Pros: lightweight, local Honda service center and support.
Cons: gasoline only, limited power supply probably only be able to provide power to 2-3 appliances.

Champion 7500-Watt Dual Fuel Portable Generator with Electric Start .
Pro: Dual fuel with propane option. I could run the entire house off the generators 220 circuit; hot water, lights, appliances, limited entertainment, and computer.
Con: Champion service center and support.qestionable. The supplier, big box home supplier offers extended warranty but doubt they would make repairs, likely still faced with delivering generator for repairs and downtime?

Anyhow, I thought I would check w/ member's who possibly have experience with portable generators and offer comments and or suggestions on either of the 2 mentioned or another alternative.

Thank you in advance! dave

 

i use an Onan. only other genset i would even think about would be a Kohler.
and i go minimum 10KW and 1800 rpm. the 3600 rpm units are noisy fuel guzzlers.
the higher the load, the more fuel it uses. if you go around 75% load capacity it will be most efficient.

 

Tom, thank you for the suggestions. I believe the units mentioned would be overkill for my 1200 sq. ft. cabin; also, I hope to be able to move out of Ca. when I can afford it. I would prefer a large unit but my primary concern is where the manufacturer's repair and service center are located, with Champion I would pay the cost shipping the item and then there is the downtime; on the other hand, if I decide to go with Honda their dealership, service, and repair center is local. I still need to do the research on both the EU2200i and perhaps later consider their companion; although for the cost not sure there would be much of an advantage?

Again, thank you for the info!

 

champion is a cheap china unit like a genecrap.
Hondas are good, but very expensive. i would go for at least a 5000 watt Honda.
a used Onan or Kohler will be pretty good priced too because they just don't break if taken care of.
i have a 10KW Onan that is 40 years old and has only needed oil changes.
my other 10KW Onan is actually a Miller Bobcat gas welder. it is also about 30 years old.

i also have a 3400 watt Yamaha inverter i use for the parents condo to make sure dads oxygen generator will still work if power goes out.
the 2200 watt will probably work, but it will be at it's load limits

 

After further research and review, I am seriously considering the Honda EU7000i,

I thank you for your input!

 

you will not regret the EU7000I. keep the oil clean and change it at 75% of the recommended change cycle and it will last you forever.
if i remember correctly that unit is like my yamahopper where it sets it's own RPM. at idle it will be around 300 RPM, and as load increases the RPM's will also.
plus being an inverter unit, if you overload it it will trip the built in circuit breaker and not burn up like the cheaper portable gensets will.

 

I have a Honda 3000is inverter. After super storm Sandy I ran my entire single family house on it 24/7 for 6 days without problems. Lights, TV, 2 refrigerators, furnace, etc. With the eco-throttle and an inverter it only runs as fast as it needs to in order to service the load. It easily ran all night on 3/4 tank of gas (3.7 gal tank). Only shut it down to refuel and the only limitation I had was I couldn't run the microwave oven while my wife was using her hair dryer. After 6 days of constant running it hadn't used a drop of oil. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Honda.

 

Going to have to say the Predator 3500 that is sold at harbor freight is a good unit for the price and is about 2k cheaper than the Honda. If you need the full 5500 watts of the Honda its pretty much the only inverter generator in that class and it is very nice. I picked up two used Kubota MQ light plants at the RB auction for my backup use. I had both running for the last 5 days here after our power was turned off on Saturday. I picked the light plants up for under 1800.00 each at the Bar None Auction. With the 3 cyl Kubota and a 6kw head running 80% load I got 3 days on each unit before filling ( .44 gallons hr & 32 gallon tanks).

 

the problem with using light plants for backup power is they are not designed to be used for that . Light towers generally have a capacitor regulated generator. The regulation and waveform aren't as good as an Automatic Voltage Regulator generator, and certainly not as good as an inverter generator. because of this, they tend to not play well with computerized circuits like the newer furnaces, stoves, refrigerators and washing machines have in them.

 

I have seen that in much older ones but the ones I bought do have fairly stable voltage and frequency. Both do have AVR one head is a Marathon the other is a Leroy Somer. Pretty common for us to run our field offices off them at work and I haven't had any issues with electronics. The biggest issue I see is with people light loading a generator or having non linear loads connected which causes lots of issues. I know on the bigger units at work we are not allowed to have a diesel generator at less than 30% load and the natural gas generators can't be below 50% load at all.

 

I can tell you this, with few exceptions, Onan generators are the ones used on most every fire/haz-mat/emergency service & public safety command vehicle

 

Yes this is true for lots of applications, those units are also minimum 10k new and are all diesel powered by Kubota 3cyl engines and various head manufacturers, lots of these units are repackaged by MQ power.

 

I currently have a 2004 model Craftsman with a 10HP Briggs engine. It rated for 8500 surge watts and 5500 sustained. I've run the entire house on it minus a/c and it does great. It burns about 5 gallons of gas in 20 continuous hour of run time.

Over the years I've had to replace the on/off switch and the coil, no other issues besides it's a bich to start when it's cold.

Sadly it won't provide clean enough power to operate the automatic ignitor in my furnace. This is an issue and is the reason why I'm researching gas standby models.

 

look at the hondas too. they are pretty much top of the line

 

I wonder if there's a filter that could clean up the output for those ignitors. It should be possible, but I don't know if anynbody makes one. I understand that the inverter output types are the cleanest. I don't know how much power the ignitors need, but maybe you could add a 2nd gen just for that -- if the Craftsman is still in good shape.

hj