Which generator to buy?

[Royall]

Question on generators. When we get through with our house, I would like to get a generator just incase we are with out juice long enough to cause the food to spoil (or the beer to get warm)! Our appliances, range and dryer along with an on demand water heater, will all be LP gas. What size and brand should I be considering? I’ve always liked the Honda engine for ease of starting and quite running but know nothing more about the subject. Any input here?

Royall

What goes around comes around!

[pslamont]

The Honda is pricey but sweet so if you can afford it, go for it. Other friends of mine have a small generator and backup batteries (Marine type like you woulduse with solar) at a much lower cost. Considering you won't probably use them much, it may be the way to go.

By the way Hey Royal.... Long time no see!!!!

Pam

Just another day in P A R A D I S E !!

[Royall]

Hi Pam,

I’m just plugging away at the house….you know the rue teen! Sanford and I went to the site to get a half a day in but got rained out just as we started. Oh well, Monday is just around the corner! Stop by anytime you’re in the neighborhood!


Royall

What goes around comes around!

[Jared I]

What about a Changfa diesel genset? Plus you can run a diesel gen on bio-diesel. Sure it is a little more work to assemble a diesel engine and a gen head, but think you will be the coolest kid on the block and diesels run forever (24x7 if you need). Petrol gens are mind numbingly loud when spinning and use alot of gas compared to a diesel gen.

http://www.utterpower.com/changfa.htm

Jared

[David M]

Royall

Interesting topic and one I've spent a bit of time on recently for a couple of reasons - 1 - we are off grid, started with a smallish PV system whose battery bank got off to a poor start in life due to some well-meaning, but inaccurate advice. 2 - the generator we do have decided not to start one day and this was during this recent rainy, nonsunny period.

What I've learned: Contrary to what I thought, buying a generator is not as straight forward or easy as one might think on this island. We bought our Generac 7550EXL at Kona HD 2 years ago and $50 cheaper than I could in Atlanta. But things change...

One day on the Konaside, Costco had a Coleman 5500 watt, HD had nothing, Lowes had 2, a 4000 and 6500 I think. All were manual start, we need an electric (Sophie can't start the recoil type)

Back in Hilo, HPM sells one, but has to be ordered, Checkers Auto advertised one, but sold out 1st day, HD had a 5500 floor display, awaiting new stock. Again all were manual start. Honda can be bought from White Cap, but have to be ordered.

In getting ours repaired, I learned: you can get the engine fixed, but if it's the generator portion it is probably not economical to repair as the 2 usual culprit cost $300-$500 plus labor. The 2 listed Generac authorized service guys no longer repair even warranty work. Both told me that any big box type generator is a throwaway. They also recommended buying the Honda.

We did rent the small Honda (EB3000 I believe) at HD and found it to be a nice, quiet machine. It got us thru until ours was repaired. No food spoiled and the beer stayed drinkably refreshing.

You need to determine your wattage requirements (electric refer?), there are a number of websites with charts to help. What other requirements do you have? Is this a permanent installation or might you use it for some portable tasks? If strictly an emergency backup type are you willing to use it perhaps a few times and then replace if it fails? What is your noise level tolerance? Neighbors?
If you are going the diesel genset route, I can't offer much advice other than $5K seems to be a common figure for a decent one and the Chinese ones have quite a poor record according to some websites.

We have opted to get the Honda EU3000i. Power is adequate for our purpose. It is supposed to be both quiet and economical. It is an electric start, but remote start is available. I was able to find a new one on Ebay and even with shipping (DHX) cheaper than local purchase.

Hope this helps a little.

David

Ninole Resident

[G. Leis]

I spent 3 months researching/shopping/soliciting opinions on this very subject before buying a Honda EU2000i 2KW inverter genset, & mella and I love it.

Our main considerations were quality, reliability, portability, size, QUIETNESS, and to a lesser degree price. Noise level is a big issue with me, so that pretty much excluded most 'contractor grade' generators. Our unit will be used primarily to recharge the batteries on the temp housing travel trailer we're parking on our Eden Roc lot (right next to you, AkoniV ), and to run a few power tools during the house construction
project. Loud generators are a PITA and I don't need the aggravation of annoyed neighbors. The general consensus among the people I talked to was that you can't go wrong with Honda, Yamaha, or Robin-Subaru brands.

We settled on the EU2000i primarily because it's not much larger than small suitcase and weighs less than 50#. Honda also sells a parallel kit that allows 2 of these little guys to be connected together to produce twice the power - 4KW @ under 100 lbs . . . not bad. Also, as an inverter generator it produces a much cleaner sine wave. This is important if you are planning to run sensitive electronic equipment such as your
computer or printer - you don't get the power surges inherent in non inverters.

MSRP is right at $1000 but we paid $935 at the Honda shop here.

Here are a few links to some of the more well regarded online generator dealers. There's an outside chance that free shipping to Hawaii may be included with some of them, but even if a person has to cough up $2-300 in freight on the bigger units it will still probably be competitive with the locals.

http://www.yamahagenerators.com/
http://www.mayberrys.com/index.html
http://www.wisesales.com/index.html

aloha,
Gene

[Lee G]

Royall,
Your food will stay good for 24 hours if you keep your freezer door closed. I doubt you will have power out for longer than a few hours, Helco's response time is very good. Your beer can go in an ice chest and for $2 you can buy 10 pounds of ice. Another option is buy a LPG fridge. If you must buy a Genset the only way to go is diesel and at least 3000 KW and make sure it has a 220 volt receptecle for your water pump(mine is 220 V) Another thing to consider is that a generator has to be run and load tested on a regular basis at least every 3 months, If not when needed the most it probably won't start.
Lee(Ex Power Production)

[Royall]

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and suggestions. I know I’ll always get a lot of good information on the Puna web. My main concern is power for the water pump. Ours is a 1hp model on 110v. I thought about the 220v pump (same price) but felt I could get by with a smaller genset. I’m thinking of a generator just because we “may” get hit with a storm that leaves us with out power for a couple of days. With a genset, on demand gas water heater, and appliances, we should get buy with out any problems.

Royall

What goes around comes around!

[kaptkimo]

A lot of great information in this string.
No bad information that I see. As you regular readers know I am an Electrician at the Ronald Reagan Missle Defense Test site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
That said let me add my two cents worth to the discussion:
About reliability. Get a Honda if you only need a couple of KW's for emergency or field use. They are what we use here and also what I have bought for personal use. They are: QUIET, EASY STARTING, PURE SINEWAVE OUTPUT, and DEPENDABLE. We use them on boats, remote atolls and other non wired places. They seem to stand up to the saltwater environment well. The only problem we have had with the four we currently use is a failure of the twelve volt dc battery charging feature on one unit (110vac still works).
FOR LARGER OUTPUTS AND LONG RUNNING TIMES GET A WATER COOLED DIESEL UNIT. PERIOD!
As stated by a poster above diesels run forever. They are the most economical. The quietest engines are water cooled. I won't go into the proof, but we have personally used several small diesels; Yanmar (Japanese), Volvo (Swedish), Jimna(chinese).
OUR PLAN: We have bought a 25hp compact NORTRAC, Northern Tool, tractor with a Power Take Off (PTO) and a front loader. This will help us develop our home site. We also have a PTO three point hook-up cement mixer. IF NEEDED we will buy their 7 KW ($769) or 13 KW PTO generator ($1149) for our portable AC power. We will end up with all this equipment for about $13K.
PS - A TRANSFER SWITCH is required for circuits that are hooked to the commercial grid. GET ONE! The electrician's life you save may be mine.

Moving to Puna (Nanawale) from Kwajalien, R.M.I. Will be constructing an owner-built house. Looking forward to arriving there in May 2006.

Edited by - kaptkimo on 04/16/2006 17:56:49

[HADave]

Here is a site to compare yamaha to honda that I found kind of interesting... The yamaha ships to all 50 states very reasonably and there were several sizes here was one comparison.

http:/www.yamahagenerators.com/ef1000iS_compare.htm?cart=1145301925275588

HADave