Home generator, which one?

[HD-Ghost]

Looking into have a natural gas generator installed at my parents' home.
The choices are Generac, Cummins, and Kohler.
What are your recommendations?

 

[ILexpatriot]

Looking into have a natural gas generator installed at my parents' home.
The choices are Generac, Cummins, and Kohler.
What are your recommendations?

It depends. If money is no concern, then Cummins or Kohler. Do they have, or in the future may have medical conditions that need constant power? Cummins or Kohler. Are they somewhere with frequent power disruptions? Cummins or Kohler. See the pattern?
As an electrician I installed and serviced several different sets. Generacs are ok. And in my experience generally fail pretty immediately, or last fairly well. In fact my mother in law has a 20kw generac that has been pretty trouble free. But for peace of mind for anyone that I cared about that I wasn't able to immediately help myself, it would be Cummins or Kohler.

 

[oldag]

In an industrial setting (e.g., units probably twice as big as the typical home installation), we never had a Generac fail. Just perform the annual maintenance. But that experience is probably not as big a sample size as I's.

 

[Havok1]

When I was looking at generators a couple years ago, Kohler seemed to be the way to go.

 

[ILexpatriot]

In an industrial setting (e.g., units probably twice as big as the typical home installation), we never had a Generac fail. Just perform the annual maintenance. But that experience is probably not as big a sample size as I's.

The generac commercial series are abit of a different animal. But they also put you into a price point that's Cummins or Kohler territory..
The biggest take away is, don't cheap out on a backup generator unless you have the ability to fix it/nurse it along your self as needed. If it's for something important, buy what works..

 

[ILexpatriot]

We installed a 30kw generac commercial unit for a farmers house. It was a Fiat (iirc) straight 4 or 6. It ran 30 min before dumping all its coolant then going into shutdown. I don't think I ever heard what the issue was, and that generac themselves came out to sort it out.
There was another unit similar, that we didn't install that we looked at. It was a few years old, and would not start, then lock itself into overcrank and not even try. I don't think I ever saw the conclusion of that one either.
That's not a knock on generac per se. But I was going to say i'd never seen a generic commercial model fail till I remembered these..

 

[ILexpatriot]

I should mention that I'm not a trained tech from any of the above companies. Just an electrician from the backwoods that got to monkey with a lot of these things..

 

[Brains]

Oh man people will get straight up religious about generator brands, all while knowing nothing about them beyond the name on the side and what they regurgitate from other shit online. Ask them to change the oil and they don't even know they use oil. So ... Get ready

There's two major classes of standby generator: Air cooled 3,600 RPM gaseous, and water cooled 1,800 RPM gaseous or diesel. The former mostly use two cylinder engines around 1 liter total displacement, and require much more frequent attention and maintenance. The water cooled units will be 4 or more cylinder engines, often sourced from well proven automotive history and now built under license by dedicated commercial power manufacturers. The alternators themselves aren't manufactured by the names on the side of the box, so that doesn't tell a full story either. But again, there's two major types of alternator - regular brushed, or self-excited / brushless. Ideally you'd want the second option from each category, but you're going to pay for it both in cost and in physical size.

Since most people go with smaller air-cooled 3,600 rpm generators, the choice would fall more to figuring out who is going to maintain it, who is going to fix it if something goes wrong, and other logistical questions. These things aren't rocket science at all. Just an engine coupled to an alternator with a controller making it all work. They all have roughly the same track record on reliability, and you'll see people point out some pretty clear errors. Like Generac had a bad batch of engines they had built on contract a couple years back, where the pushrods came through the rockers. Or the alternators they bought that were scoring the slip rings and burning up brushes almost immediately. Didn't stop me from buying a 26kW Generac though, and it's been solid for me. Ran my house well for just shy of 6 days through Beryl. One thing people don't often know with the air cooled units is they can't run non-stop for an extended duration. You HAVE to shut them down every day or so to check and top up the oil. The larger automotive engine based units can run for at least a week straight with no problem. Many of the small engines also have flat tappets and require a valve lash check and adjustment every now and again.

 

[Lead Belly]

I've had great luck with a bunch of surplus military MEP units, run on diesel fuel that can be stored longer. Parts are plentiful and they are built well.

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[smittyb]

NOT Generac.
Personally I would choose Cummins-Onan.

 

[mongoose]

When installing back up generators for Hospitals and Southwestern Bell ( AT&T now ), Cat and Cummins were the only Gen sets ever allowed..

 

[TEXAS "All or nothing"]

We have 4 generacs and all have failed 1 way or another. 1 just before warranty ran out, so they replaced the engine (their cost). All 4 lose oil like no other......doesn't leak, burn or go into the cooling system (water cooled 40kw generators) and the 22kw (air cooled) leaked oil after warranty ran out, but engine is still good (3 cylinder similar to a welder motor, non- inline). We've had a 200kw Waukesha that was the best. Losts of older model Kohler that used Ford, international, dodge and white engines, but none beat the waukesha.

 

[TEXAS "All or nothing"]

1 suggestion....make sure you get and keep up with the 5 year warranty and buy (if still offered) any longer extensions of warranties! You WILL need it if buying a generac! Also keep a drum of oil to resupply! The 2 I have dissipate/evaporate 5qts of oil in 36-48 hours of straight run time. Document everything!

 

[thescoutranch]

Couple months ago, I was looking into which generator to get. After a couple searches on the Internet, the Generac seem to have a huge number of bad reviews on reliability, electronic faults and customer service. So many reviews reported of it running once or twice correctly and then not starting the next power outage.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/generac-power-systems.html?page=2#sort=recent&filter=1

I’ve decided to go down the road of Cummins generator

 

[BuzzinSATX]

In an industrial setting (e.g., units probably twice as big as the typical home installation), we never had a Generac fail. Just perform the annual maintenance. But that experience is probably not as big a sample size as I's.

Another Generac owner. Ours is 22Kw and runs on propane (500 gal house tank) Installed ours in 2021 and it’s been good. Of course, longest power outage since installing it has been a bit over an hour so only has 6 run hours.

I do the PM. Changed the oil at 24 months (probably didn’t need to but did). I check and clean the battery terminals every 6 months. Easy stuff.

It’s peace of mind…

I bought mine from Home Depot with free delivery and a switch. Had it installed. I use the app so that came with a 5 year warranty. So far so good.

 

[ILexpatriot]

I've had great luck with a bunch of surplus military MEP units, run on diesel fuel that can be stored longer. Parts are plentiful and they are built well.

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MEPs are wonderful, tough generators. But typically aren't "Joe Homeowner" friendly. For a "younger" guy, with some skills, they are fantastic. But a redi-made, solution in a box, they are not. There is no "factory support network". And unless you have a military gen tech for a neighbor, or local electrician, you better know how to install, and operate it yourself.
This is how Generac has become the "go to". It's a "solution in a box", with a large network, reasonable prices and reliability.
But when someone says "for my parents", I automatically go to the mindset of a retired banker that's never even changed a tire, on oxygen, and in a wheelchair. Maybe that's not the case today, but no one ever gets younger or more mobile in their twilight years..

 

[BuzzinSATX]

Another Generac owner. Ours is 22Kw and runs on propane (500 gal house tank) Installed ours in 2021 and it’s been good. Of course, longest power outage since installing it has been a bit over an hour so only has 6 run hours.

I do the PM. Changed the oil at 24 months (probably didn’t need to but did). I check and clean the battery terminals every 6 months. Easy stuff.

It’s peace of mind…

I bought mine from Home Depot with free delivery and a switch. Had it installed. I use the app so that came with a 5 year warranty. So far so good.

I’ll also add, the electrician who installed it was NOT a “Generac” tech at the time but has since sent a couple of his guys to the certified Generac program and now is. But his outfit had a very good rep for installing them so I went with them. Glad I did. Great work (other than one small oversight).

I had them come out and just do a “3 year check” and they actually discovered that they had not set the “propane-Nat gas” selector right. They corrected it and it’s good. I had no idea it was on wrong. Things seemed to run fine when it exercised weekly.

We talked about the generators and what they were seeing. His experience (3 years) was Generacs were generally fine, but there were “lemons” from time to time. His limited experience was that the f it was trouble free for the first year you were probably okay, but recommended I keep the warranty and renew at year 5 (I plan to…I do the same with my HVAC and that saved me several thousand dollars).

YMMV

 

[ILexpatriot]

I’ll also add, the electrician who installed it was NOT a “Generac” tech at the time but has since sent a couple of his guys to the certified Generac program and now is. But his outfit had a very good rep for installing them so I went with them. Glad I did. Great work (other than one small oversight).

I had them come out and just do a “3 year check” and they actually discovered that they had not set the “propane-Nat gas” selector right. They corrected it and it’s good. I had no idea it was on wrong. Things seemed to run fine when it exercised weekly.

We talked about the generators and what they were seeing. His experience (3 years) was Generacs were generally fine, but there were “lemons” from time to time. His limited experience was that the f it was trouble free for the first year you were probably okay, but recommended I keep the warranty and renew at year 5 (I plan to…I do the same with my HVAC and that saved me several thousand dollars).

YMMV

Installing them is easy. Honestly, most anyone with any good sense and mechanical ability "could" do it themselves.
The real benefit of the "training" is access to the troubleshooting library. We had a "trained" guy come to work for us, that brought the pile of manuals, who was amazed at how far a dumb old farm kid could get along without it. But he grew up in the city, and had gone as far as changing his own car oil, once..

 

[oldag]

Great info here.

 

[BuzzinSATX]

Installing them is easy. Honestly, most anyone with any good sense and mechanical ability "could" do it themselves.
The real benefit of the "training" is access to the troubleshooting library. We had a "trained" guy come to work for us, that brought the pile of manuals, who was amazed at how far a dumb old farm kid could get along without it. But he grew up in the city, and had gone as far as changing his own car oil, once..

Agree! I’m a simple guy…I can do most remove replace PM stuff, but I am not real comfortable with electricity…and happy to pay someone who won’t fry my home!

I like my electrician company a lot, and would stick with him regardless, but being a “Generac Certified” outfit makes warranty work seamless.