Generac Generator Inop

[MuseChaser]

Our power goes out frequently where we live, but we've taken an alternate method of coping. Alcohol stove for cooking, woodstove for heat in the winter, water filter for drinking water from stream in backyard, buckets to aforementioned stream for flushing toilets, candles and lamp oil/kerosene lanterns for light, a very small 12v fridge/freezer w/ solar backup for beer and cherished foodstuffs if the outtage is more than 12 hours, and a BUTTLOAD of smiles because we're enjoying each other's company instead of watching TV. I LOVE it when the power goes out. Some of our best meals and most cherished nights have been eating coq au vin (au alchohol or woodstove) by a fire playing games by candlelight. One of these days... TOTALLY off the grid.

 

[SoonerAviator]

Propane doesn't go bad, diesel deteriorates. You have the perfect set up imo.

Perfect for me would be one that ran on the natural gas already plumbed in the house. No need to worry about filling up a propane tank or having one sitting near the house.

 

[NHWannabe]

Perfect for me would be one that ran on the natural gas already plumbed in the house. No need to worry about filling up a propane tank or having one sitting near the house.

My mother lives on Staten Island, when Sandy hit and homes were flooded they cut the power and natural gas to her neighborhood and a lot of others.

 

[Ted]

Our power goes out frequently where we live, but we've taken an alternate method of coping. Alcohol stove for cooking, woodstove for heat in the winter, water filter for drinking water from stream in backyard, buckets to aforementioned stream for flushing toilets, candles and lamp oil/kerosene lanterns for light, a very small 12v fridge/freezer w/ solar backup for beer and cherished foodstuffs if the outtage is more than 12 hours, and a BUTTLOAD of smiles because we're enjoying each other's company instead of watching TV. I LOVE it when the power goes out. Some of our best meals and most cherished nights have been eating coq au vin (au alchohol or woodstove) by a fire playing games by candlelight. One of these days... TOTALLY off the grid.

I can appreciate that. In this case, the house came with the generator so what I'm really trying to do is fix what came with the house and maintain the same level of functionality. I don't care about the generator so much, but I don't like having something around that's inop like that.

Perfect for me would be one that ran on the natural gas already plumbed in the house. No need to worry about filling up a propane tank or having one sitting near the house.

Agreed, but we don't get natural gas out here. So for us it was nice to have the propane already.

 

[PaulS]

Winter would be a piece of cake. I might need an extra sheet at night, and perhaps wear a t-shirt to bed. But summer without power can cause death.

Yes, pretty much the opposite here, plus we need to worry about frozen pipes, really makes a mess.

 

[PaulS]

Perfect for me would be one that ran on the natural gas already plumbed in the house. No need to worry about filling up a propane tank or having one sitting near the house.

That's ideal, unless you end up with Nhwannabe's mother's situation.

 

[Shepherd]

Field windings have become demagnetized. Got an electric motor handy? Crank up the generator, plug in the motor and give it a spin by hand. The motor should "flash" or generate enough juice to excite the field and get you back in bidness.
You need to run the genny at least annually to keep it "excited".
Had this happen on a Lincoln ugly duckling welder/generator in the past.

This is a "thing" with Lincoln welders. Probably others as well.
I got my 9KW Lincoln Welder/Generator for the cost of hauling it away because the previous owner couldn't be bothered to read his manuals, or know this trick.
There are other methods of exciting the field, but the motor trick is cheap and if you have a large enough chuck in your battery powered drill you can use that to spin it.

 

[Zeldman]

Our power goes out frequently where we live, but we've taken an alternate method of coping. Alcohol stove for cooking, woodstove for heat in the winter, water filter for drinking water from stream in backyard, buckets to aforementioned stream for flushing toilets, candles and lamp oil/kerosene lanterns for light, a very small 12v fridge/freezer w/ solar backup for beer and cherished foodstuffs if the outtage is more than 12 hours, and a BUTTLOAD of smiles because we're enjoying each other's company instead of watching TV. I LOVE it when the power goes out. Some of our best meals and most cherished nights have been eating coq au vin (au alchohol or woodstove) by a fire playing games by candlelight. One of these days... TOTALLY off the grid.

I had a solar power unit for emergencies. I took it down a few years ago when I thought I was moving to Montana. It charged the batteries which connected to the inverter and when I needed it I ran an extension cord in the house to power a few lamps, the Tv and satellite and a couple fans. A propane heater for winter to stay warm. My stove is propane and doesn't need electricity. And yes, we have had some cozy nights when the power is down.

When we build the house the plan is to be able to be completely off the grid and use the electric company if the solar/wind power unit goes down.

 

[wsuffa]

Kohler makes good generators. Onan, now Cummins, makes even better stuff. We used to spec Onan for all the critical facilities - they also made some good RV and stuff installed in vans/trucks with good electronics.

You see Kohler at a lot of commercial properties, and better homes.

If you get a new one these days, get one that produces clean power that's regulate in both voltage AND frequency. Some HVAC stuff doesn t play well with older and unregulated stuff. Computers tend not to either.

 

[jsstevens]

Kohler makes good generators. Onan, now Cummins, makes even better stuff. We used to spec Onan for all the critical facilities - they also made some good RV and stuff installed in vans/trucks with good electronics.

You see Kohler at a lot of commercial properties, and better homes.

If you get a new one these days, get one that produces clean power that's regulate in both voltage AND frequency. Some HVAC stuff doesn t play well with older and unregulated stuff. Computers tend not to either.

Good points and some of the small stuff produced square waves rather than sine which also could play havoc with electronics. Turns out incandescent bulbs were pretty forgiving. Who knew?

 

[flyingron]

I've got an 80 KVA Generac. The best thing I did is put this Raspberry Pi monitor called genmon on it. I can see in real time what the thing is doing and why. I did this after I found out the car battery that starts the thing and powers the control system had died and I hadn't noticed (the thing has a feeping sonalert to warn you all is not well, but it's sufficiently out of the way that it escapes my notice).

Mine is over ten years old and hasn't really had any problems other than needing the battery replaced and the fluids serviced. It's also propane. The thing does run for a good long time after it detects the utility power back. I suppose there's good reason. There's no simple way (short of reaching in and turning it off) to tell it to go back to standby until it runs its course. The "RETURN TO NORMAL" button doesn't seem to clear the timer like advertised.

It is fun yanking down on the monster 400A switch and watching the thing fire up...

 

[flyingron]

Good points and some of the small stuff produced square waves rather than sine which also could play havoc with electronics. Turns out incandescent bulbs were pretty forgiving. Who knew?

Why not, they're resistive only. You could feed DC into them and they'd work as well. Most traditional semiconductor dimmers (and some other esoteric technologies) work by intentionally distorting the waveform. They very nicely integrate the power over several cycles.

 

[jsstevens]

Why not, they're resistive only. You could feed DC into them and they'd work as well. Most traditional semiconductor dimmers (and some other esoteric technologies) work by intentionally distorting the waveform. They very nicely integrate the power over several cycles.

Yep. I'm quite aware. I've been an electrician, an industrial control designer, done audio engineering and spent most of my "real" career as a software engineer who keeps getting dragged into hardware and power issues because I understand them... (Dilbert's "the curse of competence").

 

[SoonerAviator]

That's ideal, unless you end up with Nhwannabe's mother's situation.

True story. That's why it would be ideal for me, but coastal areas may want something different. I can't think of a lot of reasons they'd turn off the gas lines for most people in the central plains region of the US unless there was a tornado that somehow damaged pipeline infrastructure. Even with the heavy t-storms and winds in OK, my power rarely goes off. When it does, it's usually only off for a minute or two, maybe a couple hours at most once or twice a year. If I were building a new home, I'd probably wire it for the genset, but it's hard to justify the expense with the grid stability I have.

 

[RJM62]

I have a similar set up 7500 watts/8500 peak. I start mine every couple of months and throw the shop vac and the hair dryer on to make sure it can handle an electrical load.
I got mine after the 2007 ice storm after spending 3 days with no electricity or heat. Didn't need it for about 5 years and I think I've used it half a dozen times total.

I think it's a pretty good way of going about it, and certainly an inexpensive one. The computers and a few other things are on their own battery backups, so the only bad consequence of the delay while I started up the generator would be having to reset a few clocks.

There's an aftermarket dual-fuel gasoline/propane conversion kit for the generator I have. When the warranty expires I might install it. It would be easier to tap off the propane or install another tank than to keep 30 gallons of gasoline on hand all the time. The trade-off would be somewhat less capacity due to the lower energy density.

Rich

 

[flhrci]

Yep. I'm quite aware. I've been an electrician, an industrial control designer, done audio engineering and spent most of my "real" career as a software engineer who keeps getting dragged into hardware and power issues because I understand them... (Dilbert's "the curse of competence").

Should've played dumb.

 

[jsstevens]

Should've played dumb.

Yeah. I tried once until my employer was going to buy many 10’s of thousands worth of UPSs that weren’t going to solve the problem.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

Whatever happened to roughing it when the power goes out? LOL

I live in an apartment with no backup. I have survived several power and internet outages.

A side of beef and 100 pounds of Hatch chilis in a freezer, plus a sewage lift pump / pit in the basement that will take only a few flushes from the kids (sorry, Dad, I forgot to not flush!) before the honey starts flowing across the finished floor makes a generator a wise investment.

 

[Ted]

Update on this (wow I really let this go a long time without fixing it).

I replaced the voltage regulator hoping that was the most likely thing wrong with it. Nope, it didn't fix the problem.

So then I call the Generac authorized service folks. Oh, they're too busy, so they refer me to another electrician. He actually seems good. He can talk me through what goes wrong on them, I told him what I did so far. He said it's probably the control board, which is $500, do I want to spend that on a 14 year old unit? Yeah sure, for $500 that's worth doing.

So he comes out today and tells me that the problem is the windings not the coil, they're physically burned, and that's going to be $2500 or so parts and labor to fix it.

A new 20kW generator from Generac is $4k and I can install it in place of what I have. Might need an adapter for the battery charger, that's it. But that keeps me at the 20kW generator which won't run the whole house. We have 400A service and the generator only runs one panel, not enough for the HVAC. Because of this, the generator has limited functionality as is.

In 4 years of living here, we've never had power loss that's that bad. Longest has been a few hours, not enough to spoil the food in the fridge or come close to worrying about breaking pipes. Honestly I think the heater going out for some reason is much more concerning at this point than the power going out long enough to be a problem. And the HVAC is the age of the house (14 years).

I don't think it makes sense to spend $2500 repairing an old generator that may have another item going out soon and that from what the guy said, is likely to break soon.

Given what the generator (doesn't) do for us, I'm inclined to just get rid of it. I lived without a generator for 10 years before moving here and I'm not convinced this one has paid for itself. I think my wife feels differently (more worried about the "what if"). So I could also look at upgrading to a larger generator that can actually do it all if we kept it.

Bah.

 

[MauleSkinner]

Given what the generator (doesn't) do for us, I'm inclined to just get rid of it. I lived without a generator for 10 years before moving here and I'm not convinced this one has paid for itself. I think my wife feels differently (more worried about the "what if"). So I could also look at upgrading to a larger generator that can actually do it all if we kept it.

The key that I’m seeing here is your wife likes having the backup, so backup is necessary.

Quite honestly, that’s why I have a generator switchout in my house.

From there, it’s just a matter of how much and how automatic you go with.

 

[Ted]

The key that I’m seeing here is your wife likes having the backup, so backup is necessary.

Quite honestly, that’s why I have a generator switchout in my house.

From there, it’s just a matter of how much and how automatic you go with.

I'm thinking that what might be the thing to do if we want to maintain generator capability is to just get a bigger generator and set it up for manual. We have a 500 gallon propane tank and we can effectively fit whatever size we want.

Reality thought is there's no reason why we need to.

 

[Ted]

Fortunately this resolved easy. My wife and I agreed the generator really hasn't done anything for us over the past 4 years we've lived here, and while it's nice to have, given that it really doesn't do what we want a generator to do, we're going to opt to leave it broken and maybe do a more significant upgrade in the future to make it what we'd actually want.

 

[Chip Sylverne]

Is there a rewind shop somewhere near you? You can get the stators rewound a whole lot cheaper than new parts, which is what that quote sounds like. The key is to diagnose why it burned up in the first place. Often it's lack of excitation.

If by chance you do lose power for nd extended period, maybe not perfect, but "good enough" is nice to have.

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

When you're ready for an upgrade I could probably get you a propane version of this:

 

[Ted]

Is there a rewind shop somewhere near you? You can get the stators rewound a whole lot cheaper than new parts, which is what that quote sounds like. The key is to diagnose why it burned up in the first place. Often it's lack of excitation.

If by chance you do lose power for nd extended period, maybe not perfect, but "good enough" is nice to have.

I'm sure there's a place that can redo the windings. You're correct that the quote was with new parts, not refurb'd. The electrician said it's a solid 8 hours of work to do the job. That sounds high, but I've never dug into one of these and he definitely sounded like he didn't want to work on it, so it may have been a "I don't want to do this" rate.

The thing for me is that I have a few other projects going on, and this profoundly does not interest me for as little as we actually have used it. So for now, we leave it there. If I get to the point where a bunch of my other household projects have been completed, maybe I work on digging into it.

When you're ready for an upgrade I could probably get you a propane version of this:

Can you get me one of those on a loaner basis?