Courtyard Villa's generator experience
 

Has anyone in a courtyard villa had a whole house generator installed? I would be interested in hearing anyone's experience as an owner or as a neighbor affected by a generator in a CYV.
It would be very helpful if you could provide the year of your experience in your reply.
Thanks so much!

With underground utilities, I don't see a need for a generator as the electric doesn't ever go out (yet - knock on wood). But I expect you'll get a few replies. Good luck.

My next door neighbor had a generator company come over, but he said the only legal place to install it was outside of his gate and adjacent to my front door. The Villages would not allow it to be installed in that location, and I certainly didn't want it there. Apparently, all locations inside of the gate were too close to a window.

Seems like a lot of money for very little need. As stated earlier, all utilities are under ground and very stable.

Only reason to have a generator installed is if u have medical equipment that needs electricty.

No need down here...unless your mind stll lives in the North with terrible storms. Then spend the money to never use it

In the event of a hurricane that knocked out power for a period of time can see need for one but why whole house?

Buy a portable 5000w. Your neighbors won't complain a bit when they smell the coffee.

We let others use to keep their refrigerators going. Kept three houses going. Not all at once. Just have to share the time. Use long extension cords.

The whole house generators are loud but then you have the windows open because the A/C is off. I would not worry about the noise.
You do have to pay attention to how close the generator is to the overhang of the roof so fumes do not enter the home.
You need some type of emergency pressure value (not sure I am using correct terms). You have this with your current service. This can be moved at little expense so I do not know why you could not locate the generator behind the wall.
I guess the Villages are unique if they have underground electric lines from the generating plant to your home.

Ask someone who lives in parts of Lake County in The Villages how log the power was out after the hurricane a couple of years ago. I think 4 days.

OP, if you have a medical need, determine the load of the medical equipment, and buy one of the inverter type generators, these tend to be very quiet and easy to operate. Now these will NOT supply your air conditioning, hot water, etc, but will handle a CPAP, and similar equipment. As not above the newer areas of TV had no outages or very limited outages, including IRMA over the last several years. Yes the older section with overhead lines had extended outages due to debris and tress down into the lines. I would not consider a generator, we are between 466a and 44.

It's more than just the utilities are underground in TV. All the supply lines feeding TV are above ground, so there's that problem to deal with in a bad storm. Also, if you don't have gas lines in your neighborhood, you'll need to have a supply of gasoline around. You'll also want ARC approval, as the generator will be noisy and your neighbors may not like it. The noise isn't just when there's an outage...the generator has to be run every week to exercise it.

They are noisy but in 8 years we have never had a power failure , a friend has one and had issues with maintenance since it was never needed. Personally I would save the money or get a small portable generator.

Unless you have a medical issue I wouldn’t waste the money. In 10 years maybe we have lost electricity 2-3 times no more than 1 hr. Can not say it will not happen.

Our home in NJ has a whole house standby genset that I installed in 2012. It has had a number multi-day runs after ice storms, Sandy and other severe weather events.

The longest outage we've had in our CYV in TV was last Thursday. Power went out at 4:15 and was back on around 6:15. Woke up and the clocks were off.

When we eventually move down full time, I'll get a Honda EU2000 inverter generator. They are whisper quiet and are plenty to run the fridge.

If we needed it for medical purposes, I would consider a Tesla Powerwall or one of those competitors. They use solar panels to charge and can give you days of power.

Our 14kw standby is pretty loud and since CYVs are on top of each other, it would probably annoy most of the neighbors, so I wouldn't do it just for that reason. Even the best enclosure will only mute the sound a little. Big generators are LOUD.

A Tesla Powerwall, Sonnen or LG chem backup are lithium batteries. They aren't known for noise during use :)

And it does go out more than it should here. Sometimes it is just a few flickers, but sometimes it is out for hours. The power blips also seem to cause Comcast issues.