Seeking recommendations on generator

tanstaafl72555

tanstaafl72555

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I know precisely ZERO about these things. I would love to have a generator that I can run off propane/woodgas, and that has an inverter to power bank of solar batteries. I want one dirt cheap and extremely reliable :) haha.

Any one have any suggestions on what to use? I will consider diesel. Because of gas storage issues, I do NOT want a gasoline powered unit. Would like to stay under a thousand dollars, but I am the world's cheapest individual, so Horror Fright units are acceptable.

Any help here?
 
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We just went thru this here at the house.. Ol lady teleworks and hasta have constant internet. And we have her elderly Mom here.
After a lot of research we ended up with a Duromax 9000IH and a transfer switch. Thus far we've just ran it thru the break in and no problems. But when we got it, the shipper had beat the box up pretty good and one of the tupperware parts had a lil chunk missing from it.
Called their TS and they were very helpful. Just a few "press-this-for-thats" and I was on the horn with a native American speaking TS person.
Got a service ticket going and then dealt with the TS manager from there on out. The problem was purely cosmetic so we were a lil lackadaisical about it but Homer kept checkin in with us. He was up front that it would take "a few months" to get the part in so I'm thinkin it's still a Chi-com genset although they claim to be made in Kalifornicate. Hard ta tell any more.
.. But either way we're happy with how it played out thus far. We wanted to go with Champion since they had such good TS on my lil 2k genset I use at camp. But they didn't have anything this big in an inverter.
..There's a ton of information on this subject. This seemed like a viable solution for our situation and we also have another more basic genset for backup.
..Best of luck to ya.. :cool:
 
Bought 2 of these and a parallel kit to hook them together for 4000w earlier today. Used the coupon on both generators even though it says limit 1.

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What made it a bitova pain in our decision was wanting 220v to run the well. While there is a creek crossing the property, it's much easier to keep the well going. For the usual short term outages anyways.
That and the girls will be liking a hot shower after a few days w/o. Got one of the lil portable instant hot water tanks that uses propane. That thing was most welcome after 4 days of an outage. šŸ˜Š
 
Look at WEN. Just bought one. It's 11000 surge 8500 run. It dual fuel ( propane/ gas ). Very high rating for durability and performance. No matter what you buy, it's the break-in that matters . Take the time and do IT right !!! Oh it was $905.00.
 
If you have a decent tractor, I'd recommend a harbor freight 15k watt PTO generator. I bought one the other year and it pulls the whole damn house within reason. I have it on a transfer switch.

I went this route due to mixed reviews on duromax and the like. The common issue seemed to be the gas engines and inability to find parts/ lack of customer service. None of the bad reviews said anything about the actual generator, just the motor. I figured by going the pto route I took a knock off motor out of the equation and replaced that variable with a diesel tractor I'm confident in.

*Also, I don't like duromax because they play off the name "Duramax". I saw it as stealing an existing brand's reputation by changing a letter in the name.
 
What are your wanting a generator for? True emergency power, meaning youā€™d be fine with drop cords to keep a fridge going or ā€I donā€™t want to be inconvenienced regardless of time of year?ā€. Both are possible.

Do you have utility NG available? It makes a big difference. Note, the Iā€™m not inconvenienced is possible but at great fuel cost. Loads versus fuel are pretty well linear in terms of consumption, but not cheap or low volume. Usage and fuel availability are factors, as is energy density. In other words 500 gallons of diesel will go farther than 500 gallons of propane, but isnā€™t as easy to store.

As far as technology goes, there are ā€œinverterā€ generators that put out a more pure sine wave, maybe, compared to pulse width ones. This may impact what you can power safely, but most electronics convert the AC to DC anyway.
 
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OP, fwiw, fyi:

Costco Firman 3200W / 4000W Peak Dual Fuel Inverter Generator $600 + tax

Grabbed off another forum: Costco is putting their Firman 3200W Running / 4000W Peak Dual Fuel Inverter Generator (Gasoline & Propane) on sale for $599.99 + Tax starting March 9th. You can buy it today at your warehouse and go back and price match it on the 9th if you don't want to wait...
carolinafirearmsforum.com carolinafirearmsforum.com
 
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