Home standby generators
 

Anyone have experience with Generac?
Are they worth it in the villages.

Lots of threads on this subject. Do a search and you will see lots of comments.

In the four years I have lived here full time I remember once when the power was out for an hour or so. I don't remember it being four hours. I don't remember more than two or three times that it was out for even a minute.

If it ever does go out for an extended period of time you will be glad you have the whole house generator. You could have a long wait before that day happens.

I am sorry posters just say look it up, even though those posts can be multi years old.

Up north we have whole house Generac. It cycles every Friday, and requires once a year maintenance. That said we are country living in a small neighborhood setting with acres of land. Our power grid is great then it’s not. We loose power 4-11 times a year for up to 10 days. So well worth the thousands we paid.

Since 2007 in TV living in 4 different villages, we have lost power for 15 minutes total. Friends in St Catherine have a Generac in 4 years it has kicked in twice for less than an hour.

In my opinion, it is not worth it. A house on my street has one, and it is very noisy, and can be heard 5 houses away. I often wonder what it would be like if every house had one. I would probably need to leave my house during a power outage because the noise would be unbearable.

Infrastructure is underground here in The Villages. Better than a 99% chance you will never need it.

No, unless you have medical problem that requires 24 -7 power. I’ve been here 10 year and never had power lost more than couple hours and I’m still reasonably good shape to coop. generac highly rated.

Wow it must need serious maintenance. It should only recycle once a week for less than 5 minutes. We can hardly hear ours that is next to 2nd master with 22’ ceilings. Even running for 5-10 days when power is out is nothing like running our 220 contractors generator.

Maybe it’s not Generac?

There must be different types of Generac generators, because this one is very noisy, and it has been that way ever since it was installed at least 3 years ago. Whenever there is a power outage, I walk around the block and I can hear it from 5 houses away. I don't think it needs maintenance. It is just plain noisy.

I'd get a big battery, like the Anker Solix: Anker SOLIX F3800 | Minimum Effort, Maximum Power - Anker US
or Tesla Powerwall https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

Or a car that can feed power back into your house like the Tesla Cybertruck: https://www.tesla.com/support/powershare
No need for a noisy generator, fuel and maintenance.

Not needed, power is very stable here.

Losing power here is much lower likelihood/risk than being hit by lightening.

Motel is cheaper.

Storm coming?
Call ahead in the area were there's no path from the storm and book a room
a couple days in advance.

Just make sure you can cancel your reservation anytime.

Your Welcome

We thought of going the permanently installed standby generator but the cost of getting the unit and having it professionally installed (high) vs. the probability of ever having to use it for any extensive length of time (low) decided us against it. Instead we purchased a portable inverter generator, specifically a Westinghouse iGen 2500. I forget the cost ($750.00 maybe?) but at less than 50 lbs you can take it anywhere, and a couple of trial runs showed that it will run everything in the house except the A/C--and we have enough fans to keep us reasonably cool in the interim.

Inverter is important: non-inverters can generate more power for the same money but can injure anything that has a computer brain and as that includes everything but probably electric lamps, fan and maybe toothbrush we took the safe route.

Upkeep is simple. I run it once a month or so, usually mowing the lawn and doing other lawn work such as edging and trimming the hedge, make sure the oil is clean and keep the gas reasonably new, and it never gives any problem.