Zac, I would recommend the LPG due to the problems with diesel fuel when it gets really cold.

I'm going to guy a portable dual fuel unit, 9000 to 11000W. RayBob has what I thought a great solution for MY situation. I have a 220 50A receptacle in the garage that I planned to use if I ever took up welding. It is connected to a double 50A breaker in the panel which I usually have switched off. I will make a suicide plug cable from the Portable generator to that receptacle when I need Generator power. Then when the stupid arse ERCOT turn off my power, Flip the MAIN breaker OFF, Flip the 50A breaker on, connect up the Gen to the receptacle and fire it up. Only power the fridge, a freezer, and the blower fan for the Gas heat and some lights. That would make an easy setup emergency power system. I always have the boat in the garage. Usually 30 gallons of gas in it and know how to siphon if gas becomes a problem. Disclaimer: One size does not fit all, your situation may differ.

oilfield should have some of these available cheap.

Getting a small generator and continue my drive to get thorium fueled molten salt nuclear reactors......thousands of them.

We will probably go get a small gasoline generator if for nothing else but for my Wife's CPAP. The past few nights with rolling blackouts has been hell on her sleep. We will also be able to run a fridge or two or whatever we decide is really needed. .


On another note, we have friends that are in the middle of building a new house. This made them decided to add a household size generator, I advised propane.

It would be funny to have one put in the front yard, just to see what the City Code enforcement folks would say!

That should be suitable for my needs

you should have an electrician do the hook up for insurance purposes if nothing else.

Our issue is we have about zero storage space our 2 car garage houses my wifes RAV4 and my little Skeeter boat. I just don’t have any place to keep one and we are on the zero lot line yards so not even room in the back for a proper Tuff Shed or I would have one like at our old Cedar Hill house. I do have one of those small Rubbermaid plastic shed deals I store the lawn mower in but it won’t hold much more than that. We have been in this house since 2004 I think this is the only real power issue we have had and even thru this the longest our power was off was 3 hours in the rolling blackouts. Rest of the time it was closer to 45 on / 45 off give or take. House never got below around 55 at the worst point and normally much closer to 68 we have a fairly new very efficent HVAC. If I lived rural dang right I would do the whole house generator but for our situation I think will just stay the course and hope for the best.

I just need a more convenient way to hook power supply to my house. I have a 1500 watt gas that I salvaged from my cousin's barn this summer and got it running. Just need a way to get that power from the generator. My old cord I'd used with my 7000 watt just doesn't carry enough juice. I went to the lumber yard and upgraded to a 6/3 romex and a 50amp RV plug which plugs to the generator but I have to push that wire through a small conduit in my washroom and hook directly to the breaker box via a 50amp breaker. I can have power if everything is set up in 5 minutes but it's kind of a case of Cajun engineering right now.

If I don't buy a stand alone whole house and a 500 gallon propane tank (my wish) then I'll put the present 15000 watt on a small enclosed trailer that I can move around with the 4-wheeler to put it in place and have an outside box with an outside covered plug. In a best case scenario (which most have been) you will have some advanced warning and bee already set up so it's a matter of starting the generator, turning off the main breaker and plugging into the inlet plug with a 4/4 cord. Still stewing on this. I want more juice into the house now that I have the generator that'll do that.

I haven't even addressed my water well that is 300 feet from the house but I have other generators that'll run that. Since this summer I've come into 4 generators ... the 15,00 watt, a 12,000 watt Northstar (I sold it), a 7000 watt Northstar with a GX390 Honda engine, and my neighbor gave us a froze up 8,000 watt Titan (?) which is now unfrozen but not running yet (it will though). I added this all to the two I had. But one of those is a Coleman Powermate with a Tecumseh engine which is a huge POS. Need to take that motor off and put a Harbor freight motor on it.

Just a note here. My original 7000 watt came from Sam's Club. It's a Black Max with a Honda engine and it's been bullet proof since 2005.

To me the most important issue is avoiding extension cords running through the house and a solid hookup to the house wiring once you acquire a portable generator. I've slowly graduated to better systems as the years have progressed.

For summertime outages acquiring a couple of the el-cheapo 5000BTU window units for the bedrooms has been a smart move for us. I have 3 but they will tax a 7000watt generator. I have a 5 ton central unit so unless I had a 20KW-22KW capacity I don't think I'd have enough even with a hard to start capacitor.

I'm amazed I what I see people running off smaller generators on here.

Alrighty then. You know more about this than I do. Some of the units I'm reading about are able to operate on natural gas (Atmos supply) or switch to a tank of LPG. That would probably be more reliable if Chickenman decided to shut the gas off.

I would strongly suggest anyone wanting a backup genset hire an electrician to do the hookup system, insurance for one, personal safety for the other.
no matter small or large the bad side could be really bad.
better safe than sorry in this instance. I do a lot of electric and would not attempt it on my own, our electrician is gonna come out next week and see how we could do a stand alone. we have 2 200 amp breaker panels that are full so it is a little different than a normal home.

We had no natural gas here so that was not an option for me. Be happy to show you what we have anytime you want to come down.

Agree with Hop on this, mine was installed by certified electrician

you can pair 2 of the honda companions together to get 4000 watts

I am not going to do anything except keep an adequate supply of wood for the fireplace. House is very well insulated. If need be, I will get the fireplace going and sit my tail right in front of it for several days.