Posted on 11/19/2022 1:40:05 PM PST by gop4lyf
Why don’t you just hire an electrician first.
That probably won’t power your whole house—too small a genset. You should call an electrician.
Put it in your share bedroom and tune it on!
Gotta see if it works.
Come back in a hour and check on it!
No, just kidding.
You need to buy a transfer switch. Your electrician can guide you from there. Is your heat electric or fossil fuel? How many BTUs? If electric, it will draw much more from the generator. Hire an electrician who has installed generators many times. What’s your fuel source for the generator?
The election will want to get what he needs.
This will power what you need.
You'll need a transfer switch next to your circuit breaker box to switch power source to generator, and designating which circuits you want to keep open
for 12500 watts, I don't know what size home you have, but IMHO that's pretty big and you should be able to run nearly everything in your home.
12,500 is pretty hefty. Is it loud? I think it’s gonna be loud.
When dealing with that much juice, you should talk to someone who plays with electricity for a living.
An electrician is your friend here. You need to do it right or you could be flirting with big trouble. Always remember to shut off your main breaker before starting your generator. Otherwise you risk hurting or killing a utility worker down the line.
I was advised to get everything that I need first otherwise the electrician might either A) over charge me if they have to procure the parts, or B) have to make multiple trips to my house due to not having on hand what he needs to complete the job.
Just hire an electrician. They will get everything you need based upon how many circuits you want tied into the generator or if you want your entire box tied in.
Consult with/hire an electrician. Also let them buy the transfer switch. They’ll need to do some wiring and isolate circuits you want to run. That may require another breaker box.
Spend a few extra bucks and get an Automatic Transfer Switch.
Get a couple of “load shed modules.” They determine which loads need to be disconnected for the generator to start and keep running.
Have a concrete pad poured for it.
A year ago, we installed a 26 kW Briggs & Stratton backup generator fueled by natural gas with the ATS and the load shed modules on the Air Conditioner and electric oven. We had ordered a 20 kW unit, but by the time our order got to the top of the queue, they had stopped making that unit and started building the 26 kW. We went with the bigger unit so we would not run out of capacity. It’s doubtful we’ll really need those load shed modules, but we have that peace of mind.
We have friends who have a portable generator and need to plug it in. I don’t want that hassle — I just want the unit to turn on by itself. I figured that this is a one time purchase and we should do it right. It gives me extra peace of mind when we are away in the winter. We live in an area with lots of tall trees and we get fierce winds out of Montana and from the prairie to the west of us. Day-long outages are common and week-long outages happen every five to ten years.
These new units run very short exercise cycles to avoid heat-up / cool-down condensation. It starts for only 15-20 seconds every week in the summer and every two weeks in the winter. It does a longer 20 minute “burn out” exercise run in April and September to heat it up and drive off any condensation that might have occurred. Our neighbors have older units that run for 20 minutes every week.
My house is all electric at about 1750sqft. This is a dual fuel generator. Propane/gasoline.
You’ll need an out building to house it, and underground armored and insulated line to run the power line. Plus the permits for both, if applicable.
However & personally I’d send the hobby generator back and get a real continuous generator from Generac - cost a bit more, but it saves a lot of headaches after purchase.
A big propane tank. I’d try to never run it on gasoline. Capacity goes down to 8500 Running Watts, 11200 Peak Watts. That’s OK, an acceptable tradeoff.
An Interlokit for your existing main panel.
https://interlockkit.com/
Hopefully your main panel will accept one of their kits.
An infeed box to put on an outside wall with a 14-50P.
An appropriately sized piece of SO cord with a 14-50P to go in the big generator outlet, and a 14-50R to connect to the infeed box.
That’s off the top of my head, for starters.
I think you got it back-asswards.
I forgot to tell you that we hired a really good local electrical company to install it. The electrical company brought in the plumber to run the natural gas line and they pulled the permit for the electrical and plumbing and arranged the inspections. They bought it from a local generator company. The generator company did the actual commissioning of the unit and they are responsible for maintenance and oil changes.
You’re going to have to move up to 17kw to run your whole house and AC.
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